ENGLISH MONETARY AND COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 42, 3 April 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

ENGLISH MONETARY AND COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.

(From the Argus' London correspondent.)

The prospects of the cotton manufacture are by no means cheerful. All hopes of a speed}' and general revival of the trade are dying dut of the minds of our most thoughtful and far-seeing people. The history of the calamity has been marked by a succession of violent alternations of opinion and feeling. During the earlier approaches of the distress a large amount of incredulity and apathy prevailed. There was a blind, vague trust that the threatening evil would be escaped — that only its dark, chilling shadow would pass across our land. But when it was found that the awful ppectre itself had come in terrible earnest, and that the industry by which .'niilior.s were fed was paralised, then the nation awoke with a sudden cry of anguish, and a shout for help that resounded through the world. Horrible forebodings of hundreds starving in a land of plenty, and of virulent diseases, the progeny of want, feeding like vultures upon our sons of toil, seized upon all classes of the community. The press teemed with harrowing pictures and irresistible appeals, and t lie response was such as perhaps the world has never before witnessed. Then a partial reaction set in. Some well-meaningmen and public writers thought we were overdoing the thing — that we were pamperi ing the poor starvelings on 2s per week ! — and said that the alleged privations | of the Lancashire operatives over which our eyes grew moist and our pursestrings relaxed, were the normal and invariable condition of the agricultural poor in the south and west of England. These calumnies were short-lived, and the river of benevolence, after a temporary check, flowed on broader and deeper than ever. Next towards the close of last year an arrest was laid upon the gigantic strides of pauperism. The foodless multitude ceased to multiply so rapidly as heretofore. The tide of want encroached less and less. It stood still one week ; the next week it had turned ; and ever since it has been slowly receding. The famine statistics are very gradually shrinking in amount ; still they have shrunk, and the first impulse was one of joy and sanguine hope. Everybody greeted his neighbor at the opening of the new year with the cheering assurance that the worst was past, and that we should soon see better times. It begins now to be feared thit these congratulations were premature. The mending will be a long, tedious, and heart-wearying process. Instead of months, years may elapse before the manufacturing activities of 1861 are restored. In_ the meantime, tens of thousands will have to be partially supported by charity, and multitudes will be drafted into other occupations. Those who entertain the extreme opposite of sunry views think that our manufacturing prosperity has received a shock from which it never will fuliy recover.

In the Economist of the J 7th inst. will be found a candid and temperate statement of the present position and probable future of the cottou trade. It puts the subject so clearly and forcibly that I cannot do better than quote a portion of it. *' There is unquestionably," says the writer, " a certain increase of employment and a diminution of numbers dependent on the relief funds and on rates. The process has now been gradual and steady for three or four weeks, and may now amount to about five per cent, of the whole. A few manufacturers, finding orders come in, have increased their work from two days a week to three. A few more, with a view of preventing their machinery from deteriorating by disuse, may be starting it for a few days or a few hours a day as a temporary measure. Some others, perhaps, tempted by a certain lowering in the price of cotton, which has been observable ot late, are venturing to purchase and renew operations on a limited scale, in the hope that the loss in working may not now be much moreserious than that involved in keeping a large amount of fixed capital lying idle. There can be no doubt, moreover, that trade generally has experienced a very perceptible revival of demand for cotton goods, both at home and in some of the nearer foreign markets. Stocks have been run out nearly everywhere. Consumers are obliged to buy clothes, and some of these clothes must be cotton. Drapers and retail dealers, therefore, have to supply themselves in order to meet their customers' wants ; and the large wholesale wharehousemen from whom they purchase have, in consequence, been forced to go to the manufacturers and ask them to increase, or recommence, production. Prices, as a necessary result, have risen for certain articles, and to a limited extent, but not yet to a degree to make manufacturing remunerative. There is, therefore no immediate or early probability of anything like a general resumption of factory work. In the first place, some mill-owners have been ruined, and will never start again. In the second place, very few will start till an actual profit can be made — of which, with an inadequate supply of raw material, we see little probability for along time to come In the third place, we have no idea of how much cotton goods — what proportion, thatis,of the ordinary production of Lancashire and Cheshire — the markets of the world can take off at the prices which must rule if production (with our present supply of cotton) is to be remunerative enough to induce spinners and manufacturers to resume it. We know pretty accurately from past experience how much yarn, how much calico, how many million yards of shirtings, the world will want and will use when cotton is at 6d. per lb., and when piece-goods are at 3d. per yard ; but we have absolutely no data to guide us Jn conjecturing how. much will be consumed when cotton is at Is. 6d.,and when goods are at proportionate price. It is the very low price at which cotton fabrics could be supplied that has

enabled them to force- their way in such enormous quantities to the remotest parts of the earth, and has caused them to so great an extent to supersede linen and woollen goods. A year or two of persistent high prices may undo much of this; but how far and how soon we can as yet only faintly guess. Till experience has enlightened us on this head, there will be great reluctance on the part both of dealers and consumers to pay such prices as will be necessary to induce Manchester manufacturers to re-open their mills largely, or enable them to pay what Liverpool merchants are asking for their cotton."

Admitting that we secure during the present year half our usual supply of cotton, and that our mills are kept going half time, or half our mills whole time, this comparatively favorable state of things will still leave half a million of operatives and their dependants to be supported by public charity. A dismal prospect truly. Under these circumstances there will be enough for the hand of benvolence to do. The Central Committee hi s still a large balance in the Bank, which, with collateral aids, will amply suffice for the winttr months. Owing to the diversion of the ordinary streams of charity, through the overwhelming pressure of the Lancashire calamity, there is a great deal of severe suffering and distress in London and other localities, much of which goes unrelieved. Typhus fever, happily, has not spread in the famine-stricken

There is an appalling amount of wretchedness in France, among the

otton operatives. They have pined and languished in neglect. The press has been shamefully negligent of their harrowing condition ; and even when one or two papers ventured to state their pitiable case and plead for help, the result was utterly contemptible. There was no noble outburst of generosity as in England ; the Government has been compelled to come to their relief, or thousands must have absolutely starved. We are told by the French official statistics that there are 515,000 operatives employed in the cotton manufacture throughout France, 250, 000 men and 260,000 women. Many of these starving people are invited to take work on the new railways atid great docks in course of construction.