Some days ago* the annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce
of Manchester took place. It represents Lancashire, the greatest
industrial district of the United Kingdom and the chief seat of
British cotton manufacture. The chairman of the meeting, Mr.
E. Potter, and the principal speakers at it, Messrs. Bazley and
Turner, represent Manchester and a part of Lancashire in the
Lower House. From the proceedings of the meeting, therefore, we
learn officially what attitude the great centre of the English cotton
industry will adopt in the “Senate of the nation” in face of the
American crisis.°

At the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce last year Mr.
Ashworth, one of England’s biggest cotton barons, had celebrated
with Pindaric extravagance the unexampled expansion of the
cotton industry during the last decade.‘ In particular he stressed
that even the commercial crises of 1847 and 1857 had produced
no falling off in the export of English cotton yarns and textile
fabrics. He explained the phenomenon by the wonder-working
powers of the free trade system introduced in 1846.° Even then it
sounded strange that this system, though unable to spare England
the crises of 1847 and 1857, should be able to withdraw a

b Below Marx makes use of the article “Indian Import Duties and the
American Question”, published in The Times, No. 24157, January 31, 1862.— Ed.

©‘ The meeting was held on January 30, 1860. A report on it appeared in The
Times, No. 23530, on January 31, 1860, under the title ‘Manchester Chamber of
Commerce” .— Ed.

d The system was introduced by “An Act to Amend the Laws Relating to the
Importation of Corn” .— Ed.

On the Cotton Crisis 16]

particular branch of English industry—the cotton industry —from
the influence of those crises. But what do we hear to-day? All the
speakers, Mr. Ashworth included, confess that since 1858 an
unprecedented glutting of the Asian markets has taken place and
that in consequence of steadily continuing overproduction on a mass
scale the present stagnation was bound to occur, even without the
American Civil War, the Morrill tariff!"° and the blockade.
Whether without these aggravating circumstances the falling off in
last year’s exports would have been as much as £6,000,000,
naturally remains an open question, but does not appear
improbable when we hear that the principal markets of Asia and
Australia are stocked with English cotton manufactures for twelve
months.

Thus, according to the admission of the Manchester Chamber of
Commerce, which in this matter speaks with authority, the crisis in
the English cotton industry has so far been the result not of the
American blockade, but of English overproduction. But what
would be the consequences of a continuation of the American Civil
War? To this question we again receive an unanimous answer:
Measureless suffering for the working class and ruin for the
smaller manufacturers.

’

“It is said in London,” observed Mr. Cheetham, “that we have still plenty of
cotton to go on with; but it is not a question of cotton, but a question of price, and
at present prices the capital of the millowners is being destroyed.”

The Chamber of Commerce, however, declares itself to be
decidedly against any intervention in the United States, although
most of its members are sufficiently swayed by The Times to
consider the dissolution of the Union to be unavoidable.

“The last thing,” says Mr. Potter, “that we could recommend is intervention.

The last place whence such a proposal could issue is Manchester. Nothing will
tempt us to suggest anything that is morally wrong.”

Mr. Bazley:

“Our attitude to the American quarrel must be one of strict non-intervention.
The people of that vast country must be allowed to settle their own affairs.”

Mr. Cheetham:

“The leading opinion in this district is wholly opposed to any intervention in
the American dispute. It is necessary to make this clear, because strong pressure
would be put by the other side upon the Government if there was any doubt of it.”

What, then, does the Chamber of Commerce recommend? The
English government ought to remove all the obstacles of an
administrative character that still impede cotton cultivation in
India. In particular, it ought to lift the import duty of 10 per cent

with which English cotton yarns and textile fabrics are burdened
in India. The régime of the East India Company!” had hardly
been done away with, East India had hardly been incorporated in
the British Empire, when Palmerston introduced this import duty
on English manufactures through Mr. Wilson, and that at the
same time as he sold Savoy and Nice for the Anglo-French
commercial treaty.'* Whilst the French market was opened to
English industry to a certain extent, the East Indian market was
closed to it to a greater extent.

With reference to the above, Mr. Bazley remarked that since the
introduction of this duty great quantities of English machinery
had been exported to Bombay and Calcutta and factories had
been erected there in the English style. These were preparing to
snatch the best Indian cotton from them. If 15 per cent for freight
are added to the 10 per cent import duty, the rivals artificially
called into being through the initiative of the English government
enjoy a protective duty of 25 per cent.

In general, bitter resentment was expressed at the meeting of
magnates of English industry at the protectionist tendency that
was developing more and more in the colonies, in Australia in
particular. The gentlemen forget that for a century and a half the
colonies protested in vain against the “colonial system” of the
mother country. At that time the colonies demanded free trade.
England insisted on prohibition. Now England preaches free
trade, and the colonies find protection against England better
suited to their interests.