KARL MARX
THE CRISIS IN ENGLAND
Today, as fifteen years ago, Eng land faces a catastrophe which threatens to undermine the
foundation of her entire economic system. Potatoes were the
staple food of the Irish and of a considerable part of the
English working  population when  the potato blight of 1845
and 1846  struck the Irish root  of life with rot. The results of
that big catastrophe are well known.  The Irish population
decreased by  two  million, some  of whom  starved, while
others fled across the Atlantic. At  the same time, this enormous  calamity promoted  the victory of the English Free-
Trade Party; the English landed aristocracy was compelled
to sacrifice one of its most  profitable monopolies,  and the
repeal of the Corn  Laws ensured a wider and sounder basis
for the reproduction and maintenance of the working
millions.
What the potato was to Irish agriculture, cotton is to the
dominant branch of Great Britain’s industry. On  its processing depends the subsistence of a mass of the population
which is greater than the whole  population of Scotland or
two-thirds of the present population of Ireland. According
to the 1861  census, the population of Scotland was 3,061,117,
and that of Ireland only  5,764,543, while more  than four
million people in England and Scotland depend directly or
indirectly on  the cotton industry for their livelihood. True,

the cotton plant has not  been hit by  any blight. Neither is
its production the monopoly  of a few areas of the world. On
the contrary, no  other plant providing material for clothing
thrives on  such extensive areas in America, Asia and Africa.
The cotton monopoly  of the slave-owning states of the Amer ican Union  is not  a natural phenomenon,  but  one that has
been historically shaped. It grew  up  and developed at the
same time as the monopoly  of the English cotton industry
on  the world market. In 1793, shortly after the beginning
of the industrial revolution in England, Ely Whitney,  a
Quaker in Connecticut, invented the cotton-gin that separates cotton fibre from cotton seed. Before this invention a
Negro  working  at his very hardest for a whole day could
barely separate a pound  of cotton fibre from the seed. After
the invention of the cotton-gin, however,  an old Negro
woman  could easily clean 50 pounds  of cotton fibre a day,
and gradual improvements  have since doubled the productivity of the machine. This meant that the fetters on  the
cultivation of cotton had now  been smashed in the United
States. Hand in hand with  the English cotton industry, it grew
quickly into a big commercial power. In the course of this
development England seemed now  and then to take fright at
the American cotton monopoly  which she saw as a menacing apparition. Such a moment  set in, for example, when
the emancipation of the Negroes  in the English colonies was
achieved at the cost of 20,000,000 pounds  sterling. It was
considered suspect that the industry in Lancashire and Yorkshire rested on  the sovereignty of the slave whip  in Georgia
and Alabama, while the English nation made such great
sacrifices to abolish slavery in its own  colonies. But  philanthropy  does not  make history, commercial history least of all.
Similar misgivings  emerged whenever there happened to
be a bad harvest in the United States, and when  such a
natural calamity was moreover  exploited by  the slave-owners
in order artificially to raise the price of cotton still higher
by  manipulation. The English cotton spinners and weavers
then threatened to rebel against “King  Cotton ” . Manifold
projects for importing  supplies of cotton from Asian and
African sources appeared. This happened, for example, in
1850. Meanwhile the subsequent  good  harvests in the United

States victoriously suppressed such hankering after emancipation. Indeed, the American cotton monopoly  has in recent
years assumed a previously almost inconceivable range,
partly because of the free trade legislation, which lifted the
former differential customs  duty on  cotton cultivated by
slaves, and partly because of the gigantic progress  made by
both  the English cotton industry and American cottongrowing  during the past decade. In 1857 cotton consumption
in England had already reached almost 1,500 million
pounds.
Suddenly the American Civil War threatens this mainstay
of English industry. While the Union  blockades the ports  of
the Southern  States to prevent the export  of this year’s cotton
harvest and thereby cuts off the Secessionists’ main source
of income, it is the Confederation which first imparts com pulsive force to this blockade merely by  its decision not  to
export  a single bale of cotton voluntarily and, moreover,  to
force England to come and fetch cotton herself from the
southern  ports. England is to be driven to break through  the
blockade by  force, to declare war on  the Union,  and thus to
throw  her sword  on  the scales in favour of the slave-owning
states.
Since the beginning  of the American Civil War the price
of cotton has been constantly rising in England, for a long
time, however,  in a smaller proportion  than was to have
been expected. On  the whole, the English business  world
seemed to regard the American crisis with great apathy. The
reason for this calm view  of things was obvious.  The whole
of last year’s American harvest had been brought  to Europe
long  ago. A  new  crop is never shipped before the end of
November,  and these shipments  rarely acquire significant
volume  before the end of December. Until then it, therefore,
did not  make much  difference whether the cotton bales were
kept at the plantations or delivered immediately after packing to the southern  ports. If the blockade should stop  some
time before the end of the year, England could expect with
certainty that she would  receive her usual cotton supply  in
March or April, just as if there had never been a blockade.
The English business  world, for the most  part deceived by
the English press, fell prey to the delusion that even a show

of war lasting for about six months  would  end in recognition of the Confederation by  the U.S.A. By  the end of
August,  however,  the North  Americans appeared on  the
Liverpool market in order to purchase cotton there, partly
for speculation in Europe, partly for reshipment to North
America. This unheard-of event opened the eyes of the Eng lish. They began to understand the seriousness of the situation. Since then the Liverpool cotton market has been gripped
by  feverish excitement; cotton prices were soon  pushed up
to 100 per cent above average, speculation in cotton assumed
the same wild proportions  that had marked speculation in
railways in 1845. The spinning  and weaving mills in Lancashire and other centres of the British cotton industry cut
down  their working  time to three days a week, some  of
them stopped their machines altogether; calamitous repercussions in other branches of industry did soon  set in, and at
the moment  the whole of England is shaking with fear in
expectation of the greatest economic catastrophe that has
ever threatened her.
The consumption  of Indian cotton is naturally growing  and
rising prices will secure a still greater acceleration of imports
from the ancient home  of cotton. Meanwhile, it continues to
be impossible, at only  a few months ’ notice, as it were, radically to change the production conditions and the course of
trade. England is now  really paying for her long  mismanagement  of India. Her  present convulsive attempts to replace
American by  Indian cotton run  up  against two  major obstacles: the lack of means of communications and transport in
India and the bitter plight of the Indian peasant, which
does not  enable him to make use of the present favourable
circumstances. But  apart from this, and apart from the fact
that Indian cotton still has to go  through  a process of refinement  before it can take the place of American supplies,
years will be needed, even under the most  favourable circumstances, before India is able to produce the required
quantity of cotton for export. Within four months, how ever, and this has been established statistically, the cotton
reserves in Liverpool will have been used up. They will last
that long  only  if the restriction of working  time to three days
a week and the complete stoppage of part of the ma
chinery are carried out  by  the British cotton spinners and
weavers on  a larger scale than heretofore. Such procedure
subjects the factory districts to the greatest social sufferings.
But  if the American blockade should go  on  after January,
what then?!
about November  1, 1861
Published in Die Presse
No.  305, November  6, 1861
Translated from the German