There are not a few timid souls who imagine that England is falling into
decay. Our Cousin John is apt to complain. He has been accustomed to
enlarge upon his debts, his church-rates and poor-rates, his taxes on
air, light, motion, "everything, from the ribbons of the bride to the
brass nails of the coffin," upon the wages of his servants both on the
land and the water, upon his Irish famine and exodus, and his vast
expenses at home and abroad. And when we consider how small is his
homestead, a few islands in a high latitude inferior to those of Japan
in size and climate, and how many of his family have left him to better
their condition, one might easily conclude that he had passed his
meridian, and that his prospects were as cloudy as his atmosphere.
But our Cousin John, with a strong constitution, is in a green old age,
and still knows how to manage his property.
Within the last two years he has quietly extinguished sixty millions of
his debts in terminable annuities. He has improved his outlying lands
of Scotland and Ireland, ransacked the battle-fields of Europe for
bone-dust and the isles of the Pacific for guano, and imported enough to
fertilize four millions of acres, and, not content with the produce of
his home-farm, imports the present year more than four millions of tons
of grain and corn to feed nineteen millions of his people.
He has carried his annual exports up to six hundred and thirty millions
of dollars, and importing more than he exports still leaves the world
his debtor. He has a strong fancy for new possessions, and selects the
most productive spots for his plantations. When he desired muslin,
calico, and camel's-hair shawls for his family, he put his finger on
India; and when he called for those great staples of commerce, indigo,
saltpetre, jute, flax, and linseed, India sent them at his bidding. When
he required coffee, he found Ceylon a Spice Island, and at his demand
it furnished him with an annual supply of sixty millions of pounds. He
required more sugar for his coffee, and by shipping a few coolies from
Calcutta and Bombay to the Mauritius, once the Isle of France, it yields
him annually two hundred and forty million pounds of sugar, more than
St. Domingo ever yielded in the palmy days of slavery. He wanted wool,
and his flocks soon overspread the plains of Australia, tendering him
the finest fleeces, and his shepherds improved their leisure not in
playing like Tityrus on the reed, but in opening for him mines of copper
and gold. He had his eye on California, but Fremont was too quick for
him, and he now contents himself with pocketing a large proportion of
her gold, to say nothing of the silver of Mexico and Peru.
Wherever there is a canal to be excavated, a railway to be built, or a
line of steamers to be established, our Cousin John is ready with a full
purse to favor the enterprise. He turns even his sailors and soldiers to
good account: the other day he subdued one hundred and fifty millions of
rebels in the Indies, and then we find him dictating a treaty of
peace and a tribute to the Emperor of China from the ruins of his
summer-palace and the walls of Pekin. Although generally well disposed,
especially towards his kith and kin this side the water, he is choleric,
and if his best customers treat him ill, he does not hesitate to knock
them down. Although dependent on Russia for his hemp and naval
stores, and on China for his raw silk and teas, he suffers no such
considerations to deter him from fighting, and usually gets some
advantage when he comes to terms. He is belting the world with colonies,
and forming agencies for his children wherever he can send the
messengers of his commerce. At this very moment he is considering
whether he shall transport coolies from China to Australia, Natal, or
the Feegee Islands, to raise his cotton and help put down Secession and
export-duties, or whether he shall give a new stimulus to India cotton
by railways and irrigation. He seems to prosper in all his business;
for the "Edinburgh Review" reports him worth six thousand millions of
pounds, at least,--a very comfortable provision for his family.
The wealth and power of Great Britain are supposed to rest upon her
mines of iron and coal. These undoubtedly help to sustain the fabric.
With her iron and coal, she fashions and propels the winged Mercuries
of her commerce; with these and the clay that underlies her soil, she
erects her factories and workshops; these form the Briarean arms by
which she fabricates her tissues. But it is by more minute columns than
these, it is by the hollow tubes revealed by the microscope, the fibres
of silk, wool, and flax, hemp, jute, and cotton, that she sustains the
great structure of her wealth. These she spins, weaves, and prints into
draperies which exact a tribute from the world. During the year 1860
Great Britain imported or produced a million tons of such fibres, an
amount equal to five million bales of cotton, more than one-half of
which were in cotton alone. These fibres it is our purpose to examine.
* * * * *
The thread of the silk-worm came early into use. The Chinese ascribe its
introduction to the wife of one of their emperors, to whom divine honors
were subsequently paid. Until the Christian era silk was little known in
Europe or Western Asia. It is mentioned but three times in the common
version of the Old Testament, and in each case the accuracy of the
translation is questioned by German critics. It is, however, distinctly
alluded to by St. John, by Aristotle, and by the poets who flourished at
the court of Augustus, Virgil, Horace, and Tibullus, and is referred to
by the writers of the first four centuries. Tertullian, in his homily on
Female Attire, tells the ladies,--"Clothe yourselves with the silk of
truth, with the fine linen of sanctity, and the purple of modesty." The
golden-mouthed St. Chrisostom writes in his Homilies,--"Does the rich
man wear silken shawls? His soul is in tatters." "Silken shawls are
beautiful, but they are the production of worms."
The silken thread was early introduced. Galen recommends it for tying
blood-vessels in surgical operations, and remarks that the rich ladies
in the cities of the Roman Empire generally possessed such thread; he
alludes also to shawls interwoven with gold, the material of which is
brought from a distance, and is called _Sericum_, or silk. Down to the
time of the Emperor Aurelian silk was of great value, and used only by
the rich. His biographer informs us that Aurelian neither had himself
in his wardrobe a garment composed wholly of silk, nor presented any to
others, and when his own wife begged him to allow her a single shawl
of purple silk, he replied,--"Far be it from me to permit thread to be
balanced with its weight in gold!"--for a pound of gold was then the
price of a pound of silk.
Silk is mentioned in some very ancient Arabic inscriptions; but down to
the reign of the Emperor Justinian was imported into Europe from the
country of the Seres, a people of Eastern Asia, supposed to be the
Chinese, from, whom it derived its name. During the reign of Justinian
two monks brought the eggs of the silkworm to Byzantium from Serinda in
India, and the manufacture of silk became a royal monopoly of the Roman
Empire.
From Greece the culture of silk was gradually carried into Italy and
Spain, and English abbots and bishops often returned from Rome with
vestments of silk and gold. Silken threads are attached to the covers of
ancient English manuscripts. Silk in the form of velvet may be seen on
some of the ancient armor in the Tower of London; and portions of silk
garments were found in 1827 in the Cathedral of Durham, on opening the
tomb of St. Cuthbert. The use of silk, however, was so rare in England
down to the time of the Tudors, that a pair of silk hose formed an
acceptable present to Queen Elizabeth.
The principal supply of raw silk is now derived from China, where silks
are much worn, and there Marco Polo several centuries since found silk
robes in very general use. Japan also abounds in silk, and the late
Japanese embassy and suite were arrayed in garments of that material.
The annual consumption of raw silk in Great Britain now averages seven
millions of pounds, and the value of the annual export of silk fabrics
is not far from ten millions of dollars.
The manufacture of silk was introduced into England by the French
Protestants who were driven into exile on the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes. Their descendants are still found in London and Coventry, where
the silk-trade has been long established, and is now going through the
ordeal to which it has been exposed by the new treaty with France.
The French undoubtedly take the lead in silk fabrics, for which they are
admirably qualified by exquisite taste and great artistic skill; but
the silk manufacture in England is now so interwoven, in many of its
branches, with the manufacture of wool and cotton, and aided by improved
machinery, that it may be considered as firmly established.
Our own climate is well adapted to the silk-worm, and we have had our
_Morus-multicaulis_ fever; but so light is the freight on silk compared
with its value, that we must defer our hope of any extended growth until
the price of labor in Europe approaches nearer to our own, or until the
excess of production in other branches shall divert genius into this
channel, in which it will eventually cheapen production by machinery as
it has done in other enterprises.
* * * * *
We read in the classics of the Colchian and Milesian fleeces, of the
soft wools of Italy, and of the transfer of sheep from Italy to Bastica,
in Spain. Italy and Spain were both adapted to sheep husbandry. Virgil
writes,--
"Hic gelidi fontes, hie mollia prata, Lycori";
while Spain, with her alternations of hill and dale and her varying
climate, was eminently fitted for the pasturage of sheep. Even in
ancient times Spain furnished wool of great fineness and of various
colors, and cloths like the modern plaids were woven there from wool of
different shades. Sometimes the Spanish sheep was immersed alive in the
Tyrian purple.
In modern times, the sheep of Spain have been introduced into France
and Germany, and from them have sprung the French merino and Saxony
varieties. These again have been exported to Natal and Australia.
Before the American Revolution, the sheep of this country furnished a
wool so coarse that English travellers reported that America could never
compete with England in broadcloth. But when the French armies overran
Spain, the vast flocks of merinos which annually traversed the country
in search of fresh pasturage were driven into Portugal, and by the
enterprise of Messrs. Jarvis, Derby, and Humphrey, large numbers of them
were imported into our Northern States. These have improved our wool,
until now it surpasses the English in fineness.
The fine-wool sheep thrive most in a dry climate and elevated country.
We learn from Strabo, Columella, and Martial, that the fine wool
of Italy was raised principally among the Apennines; and in Spain,
Estremadura, a part of the ancient Baetica, is still famous for its
wool. There the Spanish flocks winter, and thence in spring are sent to
pasture in the mountains of Leon and Asturias. Other flocks are led
in the same season from great distances to the heights of the Sierra
Morena, where the vegetation is remarkably favorable to improvement of
the wool.
In this country, the elevated lands of Texas and New Mexico are
admirably adapted to the fine-wool sheep; and upon the head-waters of
the Missouri and the Yellowstone is another district much resembling the
Spanish sheep-walks, where the mountain-sheep and the antelope still
predominate.
When Caesar invaded England he found there great numbers of flocks, and
for many centuries wool was the great staple of English exports; but
during the reign of Queen Elizabeth numerous artisans were driven from
Brabant and Flanders by the Duke of Alva, and the manufacture of wool,
which had enriched the Low Countries, was permanently established in
England.
With the progress of agriculture, the turnip-culture enabled Great
Britain to increase the number of her sheep; but they were raised more
for the market than for their fleeces, which were rarely fine, and the
demand for wool soon exceeded the supply. England then opened her ports
to the free importation of wool from every region, and now annually
manufactures two hundred millions of pounds, twice the amount
manufactured in this country, of which two-thirds are drawn from distant
lands, and her export of woollens for 1860 exceeded one hundred millions
of dollars.
The same policy which has built up this vast manufacture, namely, the
free importation of the raw material and of every article used in its
manufacture, with a moderate duty on foreign cloths, will enable us to
compete with England. Our farmers' wives prefer the sheep-husbandry to
the care of the dairy; much of our land furnishes cheap pasturage, and
the prices of mutton are remunerative; but many of the low grades of
wool come from abroad, and the mill-owner will not embark largely in
the manufacture, unless he can purchase his materials as cheaply as his
foreign competitor.
* * * * *
Cotton is mentioned by Herodotus five centuries before the Christian
era. He alludes to the cotton-trees of India, and describes a cuirass
sent from Egypt to the King of Sparta embellished with gold and with
fleeces from trees. Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, notices
the growth of cotton both in India and Arabia, and observes that the
cotton-plants of India have a leaf like the black mulberry, and are set
on the plains in rows, resembling vines in the distance. On the Persian
Gulf he noticed that they bore no fruit, but a capsule about the size of
a quince, which, when ripe, expanded so as to set free the wool, which
was woven into cloth of various kinds, both very cheap and of great
value.
The cotton-plant was observed by the Greeks who accompanied Alexander
in his march to India: and his officers have left a description of the
cotton dress and turban which formed the costume of the natives at that
remote period.
Cotton early found its way into Egypt, then the seat of arts and of
commerce; for Pliny in his "Natural History" informs us that "in Upper
Egypt, towards Arabia, there grows a shrub which some call _Gossypion_
and others _Xylon_. It is small, and bears a fruit resembling the
filbert, within which is a downy wool that is spun into thread. There
is nothing to be preferred to these stuffs for whiteness or softness.
Beautiful garments are made from them for the priests of Egypt."
The troops of Anthony wore cotton when he visited Cleopatra, and she
was arrayed in vestments of fine muslin. It was soon after used for the
sails of vessels, and the Romans employed it for awnings in the Forum
and the Amphitheatres.
It was cultivated at an early period in the Levant, whence it was
gradually introduced into Sicily, France, and England.
Arabian travellers who reached China in the ninth century did not
observe the cotton-plant in that country, but found the natives clad in
silk.
The cotton-plant, although indigenous in India, has also been found
growing spontaneously in many parts of Africa. It was discovered by
Columbus in Hispaniola, and among the presents sent by Cortés to Charles
V. were cotton mantles, vests, and carpets of various figures, and in
the conquest of Mexico the Indian allies wore armor of quilted cotton,
impervious to arrows.
The plant of India resembles that of America in most particulars. It
is there often placed in alternate rows with rice, and after the
rice-harvest is over puts forth a beautiful yellow flower with a crimson
eye in each petal; this is succeeded by a green pod filled with a white
pulp, which as it ripens turns brown, and then separates into several
divisions containing the cotton. A luxuriant field, says Forbes in his
"Oriental Memoirs," "exhibits at the same time the expanding blossom,
the bursting capsule, and the snowy fleeces of pure cotton, and is one
of the most beautiful objects in the agriculture of Hindostan."
The manufacture of cotton in India, with very simple machinery, was
early brought to high perfection. Travellers in the ninth century
describe muslins in India which were of such fineness that they might be
drawn through a ring of moderate size; and Tavernier speaks of turbans,
composed of thirty-five ells of the cloth, which would weigh but four
ounces. Muslin has been sold in India for five hundred rupees the piece,
so fine, that, when laid upon the grass after the dew had fallen, it
was no longer visible. The patience, the nice sense of touch, and the
flexible fingers of the Hindoos have with the simplest means achieved
results in this branch of manufacture which have not been surpassed by
any people.
But this manufacture is now breathing its last; the cotton-gin, the
spinning-frame, the mule with its countless spindles, and the power-loom
are fearful competitors; and although British India still produces quite
as much cotton as our Southern States, and while she exports at least
eight hundred thousand bales annually to England and China, continues at
the same time to make the larger part of her own clothing, flourishing
cities, like Dacca and Delhi, once the seat of manufactures, are going
to decay, and a large proportion of her people, willing to toil at six
cents per day in occupations that have been transmitted for centuries
in the same families, are either driven to the culture of the fields or
compelled to spin and weave for a pittance the jute which is converted
into gunny-cloth.
When India muslins and calicoes were first imported into England, they
met with a formidable opposition. They had suddenly become fashionable,
and threatened to supersede the long-established woollens; and the
nation, in its wisdom, first prohibited the importation of these
fabrics, and then subjected them to a duty of sixpence per yard. In
France, Amiens, Rouen, and Paris protested against cotton as ruinous
to the country. But it has surmounted all these obstacles, is firmly
established in both nations, and now its manufacture gives support to
one-seventh part of the population of Great Britain, employs there
thirty-four millions of spindles, consumes annually two and a half
million bales of the raw material, and sends abroad, in addition to
thread and yarn, twenty-eight hundred million yards of fabrics, of the
aggregate value of two hundred and thirty millions of dollars.
In 1856, Great Britain derived her supply of cotton from the following
countries, namely:--
From the United States 71 per cent.
" the East Indies 19 " "
" Brazil 5 " "
" Egypt 4-1/2 " "
" the West Indies 1/2 " "
But while her supply from India in the twelve years from 1845 to 1857
increased nearly two hundred per cent, namely, from two hundred thousand
to six hundred thousand bales, she has increased her exports of cotton
fabrics to that country to such an extent, that, for every pound she
imports, she returns a pound of thread and cloth enhanced at least
fourfold in value, while she returns to the United States in cotton
fabrics less than three per cent, of the cotton she receives from them.
And since 1857 such improvements have been made in the cotton-mills of
New England, that we now consume more than a million of bales annually,
and our production and export are rapidly increasing.
Some curious alternations have attended the growth and manufacture of
cotton. As machinery has improved and the cost of goods diminished, the
price of cotton has advanced and a strong stimulus been given to its
production.
New States have consequently been opened to its culture, and the
alluvial lands of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas
have been devoted to the plant. Slaves have thus been attracted from the
Middle States and diverted from the less profitable culture of wheat and
tobacco to the cotton-fields. Half a century since, the Middle States
contained two-thirds of the negroes of the Union; but under the census
of 1860 two millions and a half of slaves are now found south of North
Carolina, and but a million and a half north of the Cotton States. In
the Cotton States the negroes nearly equal the white population; in the
Border States the whites are at least four to one. In the Cotton States
the slaves and the culture of cotton are increasing at the rate of at
least five per cent.; in the Border States the slave population is
either stationary or retrograde, and the future of those States is
clearly indicated. Down to a recent period the march of the planter and
his forces across the Cotton States has been like that of an invading
army. Vast forests of heavy timber have been felled, land rapidly
exhausted and abandoned, and new fields opened and soon deserted for a
virgin soil.
But with the increased demand of the last seven years for cotton, and
with the enhanced price of the slave, which rises at least one hundred
dollars with each advance of a cent per pound on cotton, more permanent
improvements have been made, railways have been opened, and at least
fifty thousand tons of guano and cotton-seed have been annually applied
to the exhausted cotton-fields of the Carolinas and Georgia. Under
these appliances the crops of the United States have kept pace with
the manufacture, and in 1859 rose to the amount of twenty-one hundred
millions of pounds, thus replenishing the markets that had been recently
exhausted, and actually exceeding the entire consumption for the same
year of both Europe and America.
But the crops fluctuate from year to year, and a less favorable season
for 1860, accompanied by an increase of at least ten per cent. in
spindles, leaves the supply barely equal to the demand, while the
diminished crop, and the cry of Secession at the South, with the
introduction of an export-duty, have alarmed the spinners of England and
led them to consider the effects of a deficiency and to seek new sources
of supply.
With the progress of trade the price of the middling cotton of America
for the last fifteen years has varied at Liverpool from fourpence to
ninepence per pound, and now stands at seven and a halfpence by the last
quotations. As the stock accumulates or the sale of goods is checked,
the price naturally declines, and a check is given to production. As
the stock declines or goods advance, an impetus is given to prices, the
culture is extended, and cotton flows in from Egypt and India. When the
cotton of Bombay commands more than fivepence per pound at Liverpool,
it flows in a strong current from India to Manchester. Should the
export-duty be levied in the Cotton States, it may well be presumed
that the burden will fall principally upon the planter, and give an
additional stimulus to the growth of India, and a new incentive to the
British Government to start the culture in other colonies.
The gentlemen of the South sometimes imagine that Old England, as well
as New England, is entirely dependent upon cotton, and that society
there would be disintegrated, if the crop in the Cotton States should
be withheld for a single year. But the Northern mills have usually six
months' supply; and Great Britain holds upon an average enough for three
months in her ports, for two months at her mills, and as much more
upon the ocean. The English spinner, too, can not only reduce his time
one-fourth without stopping, but can reduce his consumption another
fourth by raising his numbers and increasing the fineness of his cloth;
and as he draws one-fourth of his supply from other countries, it is
obvious that he might hold out for nearly two years without a bale from
America.
Could the cotton-planter hold out any longer? Let it not be forgotten
that the Embargo was voted to bring England to terms by withholding
rice, cotton, wheat, and naval stores, but proved a signal failure. We
reaped from it no harvests, and were put back by it at least six years
in our national progress; while England enjoyed the carrying-trade of
the world, which we had abandoned, and drew her supplies from Russia and
India while our crops perished in our own warehouses.
The vast export of cotton goods from Great Britain to India has now
liberated at least half a million bales of cotton for the supply of
England in addition to what India previously furnished; and as the
export of goods to India and China continues to increase, the surplus of
cotton must rise with it. But India is able to treble her production. It
is true that the staple of her cotton suffers from the dry summers, that
her land is but half tilled by ploughs consisting of a simple beam of
wood with two prongs and a single handle, that she has been destitute
of roads and facilities for transportation, that her lands are held at
oppressive rents, that American planters there have failed to make good
cotton, and that the annual yield of her soil is as small as that of the
exhausted fields of South Carolina. But still she produces at least four
million bales of cotton, and great changes are now in progress: railways
are pervading the country; canals are being dug for irrigating, and
irrigation quadruples the crop, while it improves the staple; and the
diversion of a few districts from the ordinary crops, with improved
tillage, will increase the production to an indefinite extent.
The latest intelligence from India apprises us that in one large cotton
district the American planters have at length succeeded, and American
cotton is now growing there on one hundred and forty-six thousand acres.