reason to complain of; and I am very sorry to have to mention it,
because it blames our present Foreign Minister, against whom I am not
anxious to say a word, and, recollecting his speech in the House of
Commons, I should be slow to conclude that he had any feeling hostile to
the United States Government. You recollect that during the session--it
was on the 14th of May--a Proclamation came out which acknowledged the
South as a belligerent power, and proclaimed the neutrality of England.
A little time before that, I forget how many days, Mr. Dallas, the late
Minister from the United States, had left London for Liverpool and
America. He did not wish to undertake any affairs for his Government, by
which he was not appointed,--I mean that of President Lincoln,--and he
left what had to be done to his successor, who was on his way, and whose
arrival was daily expected. Mr. Adams, the present Minister from the
United States, is a man whom, if he lived in England, you would speak of
as belonging to one of the noblest families of the country. His father
and his grandfather were Presidents of the United States. His
grandfather was one of the great men who achieved the independence of
the United States. There is no family in that country having more claims
upon what I should call the veneration and the affection of the people
than the family of Mr. Adams.
Mr. Adams came to this country. He arrived in London on the night of the
13th of May. On the 14th, that Proclamation was issued. It was known
that he was coming; but he was not consulted; the Proclamation was not
delayed for a day, although there was nothing pressing, no reason why
the Proclamation should not have been notified to him. If communications
of a friendly nature had taken place with him and with the American
Government, they could have found no fault with this step, because it
was perhaps inevitable, before the struggle had proceeded far, that this
Proclamation would be issued. But I have the best reasons for knowing
that there is no single thing that has happened during the course of
these events which has created more surprise, more irritation, and more
distrust in the United States, with respect to this country, than the
fact that that Proclamation was not delayed one single day, until the
Minister from America could come here, and until it could be done, if
not with his consent, or his concurrence, yet in that friendly manner
that would probably have avoided all the unpleasantness which has
occurred.
Now I am obliged to say--and I say it with the utmost pain--that if we
have not done things that are plainly hostile to the North, and if we
have not expressed affection for slavery, and, outwardly and openly,
hatred for the Union,--I say that there has not been that friendly and
cordial neutrality which, if I had been a citizen of the United States,
I should have expected; and I say further, that, if there has existed
considerable irritation at that, it must be taken as a measure of the
high appreciation which the people of those States place upon the
opinion of the people of England. If I had been addressing this audience
ten days ago, so far as I know, I should have said just what I have said
now; and although, by an untoward event, circumstances are somewhat,
even considerably, altered, yet I have thought it desirable to make this
statement, with a view, so far as I am able to do it, to improve the
opinion of England, and to assuage feelings of irritation in America, if
there be any, so that no further difficulties may arise in the progress
of this unhappy strife.
But there has occurred an event which was announced to us only a week
ago, which is one of great importance, and it may be one of some peril.
It is asserted that what is called 'international law' has been broken
by the seizure of the Southern Commissioners on board an English trading
steamer by a steamer of war of the United States. Now, what is
international law? You have heard that the opinions of the law officers
of the Crown are in favour of this view of the case--that the law has
been broken. I am not at all going to say that it has not. It would be
imprudent in me to set my opinion on a legal question which I have only
partially examined, against their opinion on the same question, which I
presume they have carefully examined. But this I say, that international
law is not to be found in an Act of Parliament--it is not in so many
clauses. You know that it is difficult to find the law. I can ask the
Mayor, or any magistrate around me, whether it is not very difficult to
find the law, even when you have found the Act of Parliament, and found
the clause. But when you have no Act of Parliament, and no clause, you
may imagine that the case is still more difficult.
Now, maritime law, or international law, consists of opinions and
precedents for the most part, and it is very unsettled. The opinions are
the opinions of men of different countries, given at different times;
and the precedents are not always like each other. The law is very
unsettled, and, for the most part, I believe it to be exceedingly bad.
In past times, as you know from the histories you read, this country has
been a fighting country; we have been belligerents, and, as
belligerents, we have carried maritime law, by our own powerful hand, to
a pitch that has been very oppressive to foreign, and especially so to
neutral nations. Well, now, for the first time, unhappily,--almost for
the first time in our history for the last two hundred years,--we are
not belligerents, but neutrals; and we are disposed to take, perhaps,
rather a different view of maritime and international law.
Now, the act which has been committed by the American steamer, in my
opinion, whether it was legal or not, was both impolitic and bad. That
is my opinion. I think it may turn out, almost certainly, that, so far
as the taking of those men from that ship was concerned, it was an act
wholly unknown to, and unauthorized by, the American Government. And if
the American Government believe, on the opinion of their law officers,
that the act is illegal, I have no doubt they will make fitting
reparation; for there is no Government in the world that has so
strenuously insisted upon modifications of international law, and been
so anxious to be guided always by the most moderate and merciful
interpretation of that law.
Now, our great advisers of the _Times_ newspaper have been
persuading people that this is merely one of a series of acts which
denote the determination of the Washington Government to pick a quarrel
with the people of England. Did you ever know anybody who was not very
nearly dead drunk, who, having as much upon his hands as he could
manage, would offer to fight everybody about him? Do you believe that
the United States Government, presided over by President Lincoln, so
constitutional in all his acts, so moderate as he has been--representing
at this moment that great party in the United States, happily now in the
ascendancy, which has always been especially in favour of peace, and
especially friendly to England--do you believe that such a Government,
having now upon its hands an insurrection of the most formidable
character in the South, would invite the armies and the fleets of
England to combine with that insurrection, and, it might be, to render
it impossible that the Union should ever again be restored? I say, that
single statement, whether it came from a public writer or a public
speaker, is enough to stamp him for ever with the character of being an
insidious enemy of both countries.
Well, now, what have we seen during the last week? People have not been,
I am told--I have not seen much of it--quite as calm as sensible men
should be. Here is a question of law. I will undertake to say, that when
you have from the United States Government--if they think the act legal--
a statement of their view of the case, they will show you that, fifty
or sixty years ago, during the wars of that time, there were scores of
cases that were at least as bad as this, and some infinitely worse. And
if it were not so late to-night--and I am not anxious now to go into the
question further--I could easily place before you cases of extreme
outrage committed by us when we were at war, and for many of which, I am
afraid, little or no reparation was offered. But let us bear this in
mind, that during this struggle incidents and accidents will happen.
Bear in mind the advice of Lord Stanley, so opportune and so judicious.
Do not let your newspapers, or your public speakers, or any man, take
you off your guard, and bring you into that frame of mind under which
your Government, if it desires war, may be driven to engage in it; for
one may be almost as fatal and as evil as the other.
What can be more monstrous than that we, as we call ourselves, to some
extent, an educated, a moral, and a Christian nation--at a moment when
an accident of this kind occurs, before we have made a representation to
the American Government, before we have heard a word from it in reply--
should be all up in arms, every sword leaping from its scabbard, and
every man looking about for his pistols and his blunderbusses? I think
the conduct pursued--and I have no doubt just the same is pursued by a
certain class in America--is much more the conduct of savages than of
Christian and civilized men. No, let us be calm. You recollect how we
were dragged into the Russian war--how we 'drifted' into it. You know
that I, at least, have not upon my head any of the guilt of that fearful
war. You know that it cost one hundred millions of money to this
country; that it cost at least the lives of forty thousand Englishmen;
that it disturbed your trade; that it nearly doubled the armies of
Europe; that it placed the relations of Europe on a much less peaceful
footing than before; and that it did not effect one single thing of all
those that it was promised to effect.
I recollect speaking on this subject, within the last two years, to a
man whose name I have already mentioned, Sir James Graham, in the House
of Commons. He was a Minister at the time of that war. He was reminding
me of a severe onslaught which I had made upon him and Lord Palmerston
for attending a dinner at the Reform Club when Sir Charles Napier was
appointed to the command of the Baltic fleet; and he remarked, 'What a
severe thrashing' I had given them in the House of Commons! I said, 'Sir
James, tell me candidly, did you not deserve it?' He said, 'Well, you
were entirely right about that war; we were entirely wrong, and we never
should have gone into it.' And this is exactly what everybody will say,
if you go into a war about this business, when it is over. When your
sailors and soldiers, so many of them as may be slaughtered, are gone to
their last account; when your taxes are increased, your business
permanently--it may be--injured; and when embittered feelings for
generations have been created between America and England--then your
statesmen will tell you that f we ought not to have gone into the war.'
But they will very likely say, as many of them tell me, 'What could we
do in the frenzy of the public mind?' Let them not add to the frenzy,
and let us be careful that nobody drives us into that frenzy.
Remembering the past, remembering at this moment the perils of a
friendly people, and seeing the difficulties by which they are
surrounded, let us, I entreat of you, see if there be any real
moderation in the people of England, and if magnanimity, so often to be
found amongst individuals, is absolutely wanting in a great nation.
Now, Government may discuss this matter--they may arrange it--they may
arbitrate it. I have received here, since I came into the room, a
despatch from a friend of mine in London, referring to this matter. I
believe some portion of it is in the papers this evening, but I have not
seen them. He states that General Scott, whom you know by name, who has
come over from America to France, being in a bad state of health--the
General lately of the American army, and a man whose reputation in that
country is hardly second to that which the Duke of Wellington held
during his lifetime in this country--General Scott has written a letter
on the American difficulty. He denies that the Cabinet of Washington had
ordered the seizure of the Southern Commissioners, if found under a
neutral flag. The question of legal right involved in the seizure, the
General thinks a very narrow ground on which to force a quarrel with the
United States. As to Messrs. Slidell and Mason being or not being
contraband, the General answers for it, that, if Mr. Seward cannot
convince Earl Russell that they bore that character, Earl Russell will
be able to convince Mr. Seward that they did not. He pledges himself
that, if this Government cordially agreed with that of the United States
in establishing the immunity of neutrals from the oppressive right of
search and seizure on suspicion, the Cabinet of Washington will not
hesitate to purchase so great a boon to peaceful trading-vessels.
Now, then, before I sit down, let me ask you what is this people, about
which so many men in England at this moment are writing, and speaking,
and thinking, with harshness, I think with injustice, if not with great
bitterness? Two centuries ago, multitudes of the people of this country
found a refuge on the North American continent, escaping from the
tyranny of the Stuarts and from the bigotry of Laud. Many noble spirits
from our country made great experiments in favour of human freedom on
that continent. Bancroft, the great historian of his own country, has
said, in his own graphic and emphatic language, 'The history of the
colonization of America is the history of the crimes of Europe.' From
that time down to our own period, America has admitted the wanderers
from every clime. Since 1815, a time which many here remember, and which
is within my lifetime, more than three millions of persons have
emigrated from the United Kingdom to the United States. During the
fifteen years from 1845 or 1846 to 1859 or 1860--a period so recent that
we all remember the most trivial circumstances that have happened in
that time--during those fifteen years more than two million three
hundred and twenty thousand persons left the shores of the United
Kingdom as emigrants for the States of North America.
At this very moment, then, there are millions in the United States who
personally, or whose immediate parents, have at one time been citizens
of this country. They found a home in the Far West; they subdued the
wilderness; they met with plenty there, which was not afforded them in
their native country; and they have become a great people. There may be
persons in England who are jealous of those States. There may be men who
dislike democracy, and who hate a republic; there may be even those
whose sympathies warm towards the slave oligarchy of the South. But of
this I am certain, that only misrepresentation the most gross or calumny
the most wicked can sever the tie which unites the great mass of the
people of this country with their friends and brethren beyond the
Atlantic.
Now, whether the Union will be restored or not, or the South achieve an
unhonoured independence or not, I know not, and I predict not. But this
I think I know--that in a few years, a very few years, the twenty
millions of freemen in the North will be thirty millions, or even fifty
millions--a population equal to or exceeding that of this kingdom. When
that time comes, I pray that it may not be said amongst them, that, in
the darkest hour of their country's trials, England, the land of their
fathers, looked on with icy coldness and saw unmoved the perils and
calamities of their children. As for me, I have but this to say: I am
but one in this audience, and but one in the citizenship of this
country; but if all other tongues are silent mine shall speak for that
policy which gives hope to the bondsmen of the South, and which tends to
generous thoughts, and generous words, and generous deeds, between the
two great nations who speak the English language, and from their origin
are alike entitled to the English name.
* * * * *
AMERICA.
II.
THE WAR AND THE SUPPLY OF COTTON.
BIRMINGHAM, DECEMBER 18, 1862.
I am afraid there was a little excitement during a part of my honourable
Colleague's speech, which was hardly favourable to that impartial
consideration to which he appealed. He began by referring to a question--
or, I might say, to two questions, for it was one great question in two
parts,--which at this moment occupies the mind, and, I think, must
afflict the heart of every thoughtful man in this country--the calamity
which has fallen upon the county from which I come, and the strife which
is astonishing the world on the other side of the Atlantic.
I shall not enter into details with regard to that calamity, because you
have had already, I believe, meetings in this town, many details have
been published, contributions of a generous character have been made,
and you are doing--and especially, if I am rightly informed, are your
artisans doing--their duty with regard to the unfortunate condition of
the population amongst which I live. But this I may state in a sentence,
that the greatest, probably the most prosperous, manufacturing industry
that this country or the world has ever seen, has been suddenly and
unexpectedly stricken down, but by a blow which had not been unforeseen
or unforetold. Nearly five hundred thousand persons--men, women, and
children--at this moment are saved from the utmost extremes of famine,
not a few of them from death, by the contributions which they are
receiving from all parts of the country. I will not attempt here an
elaborate eulogy of the generosity of the givers, nor will I endeavour
to paint the patience and the gratitude of those who suffer and receive;
but I believe the conduct of the country, with regard to this great
misfortune, is an honour to all classes and to every section of this
people.
Some have remarked that there is perfect order where there has been so
much anxiety and suffering. I believe there is scarcely a thoughtful man
in Lancashire who will not admit that one great cause of the patience
and good conduct of the people, besides the fact that they know so much
is being done for them, is to be found in the extensive information they
possess, and which of late years, and now more than ever, has been
communicated to them through the instrumentality of an untaxed press.
Noble Lords who have recently spoken, official men, and public men, have
taken upon them to tell the people of Lancashire that nobody has done
wrong, and that, in point of fact, if it had not been for a family
quarrel in that dreadful Republic, everything would have gone on
smoothly, and that nobody can be blamed for our present sufferings.
Now, if you will allow me, I should like to examine for a few minutes
whether this be true. If you read the papers with regard to this
question, you will find that, barring whatever chance there may be of
our again soon receiving a supply of cotton from America, the hopes of
the whole country are directed to India. Our Government of India is not
one of to-day. It is a Government that has lasted as long as the
Government of the United States, and it has had far more insurrections
and secessions, not one of which, I suppose some in this meeting must
regret, has been tolerated by our Government or recognised by France.
Our Government in India has existed for a hundred years in some portion
of the country where cotton is a staple produce of the land. But we have
had under the name of a Government what I have always described as a
piratical joint-stock company, beginning with Lord Clive, and ending, as
I now hope it has ended, with Lord Dalhousie. And under that Government
I will undertake to say that it was not in nature that you could have
such improvement as should ever give you a fair supply of cotton.
Up to the year 1814, the whole trade of India was a monopoly of the East
India Company. They took everything there that went there; they brought
everything back that came here; they did whatsoever they pleased in the
territories under their rule. I have here an extract from a report of a
Member of Council in India, Mr. Richards, published in the year 1813. He
reports to the Court of Directors, that the whole cotton produce of the
district was taken, without leaving any portion of the avowed share of
the Ryots, that is, the cultivators, at their own free disposal; and he
says that they are not suffered to know what they shall get for it until
after it has been far removed from their reach and from the country by
exportation coastwise to Bombay; and he says further, that the Company's
servants fixed the prices from ten to thirty per cent, under the general
market rate in the districts that were not under the Company's rule.
During the three years before the Company's monopoly was abolished, in
1814, the whole cotton that we received from India (I quote from the
brokers' returns from Liverpool), was only 17,000 bales; in the three
years afterwards, owing, no doubt, partly to the great increase in
price, we received 551,000 bales, during which same three years the
United States only sent us 611,000. Thus you see that in 1817, 1818, and
1819, more than forty years ago, the quantity we received from India was
close upon, and in the year 1818 it actually exceeded, that which we
received from the United States.
Well, now I come down to the year 1832, and I have then the report of
another Member of Council, and beg every working man here, every man who
is told that there is nobody to blame, to listen to one or two extracts
from the report. Mr. Warden, Member of the Council, gave evidence in
1832 that the money-tax levied on Surat cotton was 56 rupees per candy,
leaving the grower only 24 rupees, or rather less than 3/4_d_. per
pound. In 1846 there was so great a decay of the cotton-trade of Western
India, that a committee was appointed in Bombay, partly of Members of
the Chamber of Commerce and partly of servants of the Government, and
they made a report in which they stated that from every candy of cotton--
a candy is 7 cwt. or 784 lbs.--costing 80 rupees, which is 160
shillings in Bombay, the Government had taken 48 rupees as land-tax and
sea-duty, leaving only 32 rupees, or less than 3/4_d_. per pound,
to be divided among all parties, from the Bombay seller to the Surat
grower.
In 1847 I was in the House of Commons, and I brought forward a
proposition for a select committee to inquire into this whole question;
for in that year Lancashire was on the verge of the calamity that has
now overtaken it; cotton was very scarce, for hundreds of the mills were
working short time, and many were closed altogether. That committee
reported that, in all the districts of Bombay and Madras where cotton
was cultivated, and generally over those agricultural regions, the
people were in a condition of the most abject and degraded pauperism;
and I will ask you whether it is possible for a people in that condition
to produce anything great, or anything good, or anything constant, which
the world requires?
It is not to be wondered at that the quality of the cotton should be
bad--so bad that it is illustrated by an anecdote which a very excellent
man of the Methodist body told me the other day. He said that at a
prayer-meeting, not more than a dozen miles from where I live, one of
the ministers was earnest in supplication to the Supreme; he detailed,
no doubt, a great many things which he thought they were in want of, and
amongst the rest, a supply of cotton for the famishing people in that
district. When he prayed for cotton, some man with a keen sense of what
he had suffered, in response exclaimed, 'O Lord! but not Surat.'
Now, my argument is this, and my assertion is this, that the growth of
cotton in India,--the growth of an article which was native and common
in India before America was discovered by Europeans,--that the growth of
that article has been systematically injured, strangled, and destroyed
by the stupid and wicked policy of the Indian Government.
I saw, the other day, a letter from a gentleman as well acquainted with
Indian affairs, perhaps, as any man in India,--a letter written to a
member of the Madras Government,--in which he stated his firm opinion
that, if it had not been for the Bombay Committee in 1846, and for my
Committee in 1848, there would not have been any cotton sent from India
at this moment to be worked up in Lancashire. Now, in 1846, the quantity
of cotton coming from India had fallen to 94,000 bales. How has it
increased since then? In 1859 it had reached 509,000 bales; in 1860,
562,000 bales; and last year, owing to the extraordinarily high price,
it had reached 986,000 bales, and I suppose this year will be about the
same as last year.