July 16, 2004
THE COTTON FAMINE
After World War II we started using the term ”global war”, and we often overlooked the fact that sometimes we fail to realize how a conflict within any nation affects the course of world history. Here in the United States many citizens are still fighting a “local war” albeit it, most of the time in re-enactments, which took place from in 1861 to 1865. It was our “Civil War” - about as local as a war could be – and we have often failed to mark the suffering which that war cause in other parts of the world.
No war is a “local” war. You realize that anew when you study the events called “The Cotton Famine” - 1861-1865 in England.
It happened in Lancashire where England's cotton manufacturing industry was then concentrated. At that time, until 1861, eighty-five percent of the cotton used in the manufacture of finished goods in those mills came from the southern portion of the United States of America. With the start of the American Civil War that supply was cut abruptly.
The years of 1859 and 1860 had been years of tremendous prosperity for the English cotton trade. They imported tremendous stocks of raw cotton and the inventories of manufactured goods were unusually high - yard goods and fine fabrics. Economists viewing their years of success with the benefit of hindsight pointed out that the cotton market was due for a sudden drop off anyway - a logical period of market depression resulting from over production.
Because of this exceptionally wide stock the Federal blockade of the Southern ports - underway effectively in July 1861, caused no particular hardship right away. It was effective when it was started in July 1861 but it was not until the early days of 1862 that the pinch was really felt in Lancashire. The cotton trade suffered for a while from lack of demand, but wartime changes, caused such demands to quicken and stocks were rapidly depleted. The need for new supplies became pressing and there were no raw materials available to keep the Lancaster mills going.
Mammoth relief schemes came into being. Various relief committees distributed ever one million 750- thousand Pounds (roughly three to four million dollars by monetary values at the time). Company systems poured an additional 112 thousand Pounds into the fund that year and around two million Pounds a year after that crisis time. The total loss – estimated, of course, reflecting loss of wages, profits and other elements of economy ...has been set at around thirty million Pounds – well over thirty million Dollars.
That came about all because of a “local” war taking place far off across the Atlantic Ocean in America. One other reason for the severity of the Cotton Famine in England was due to the business practice of trans-shipment of English raw material stocks to the United States where there was also a strong demand for bales from the Southern States. Suppositions have been made which suggest that British financial interests felt the war would be short-lived and sold some stocks while prices were to their marked advantage. Then too, India had become a cotton-growing country once again as had Australia, Brazil, and Turkey and, in particular, Egypt - but the total amount from all those sources – much of very poor quality with the exception of that from Egypt - never was enough to keep the mills of Lancashire running on even a half-time basis.
During that period the price of cotton ranged from 7-pence in the early months to 32-pence 1864. Fast blockade runners were built but never available in sufficient number to make any real difference. Even with return of peace in America it was a long time before the devastated lands of the south could raise enough cotton to meet their own needs much less those of foreign markets.
Perhaps we would be wise, today, when we use the term ”global” in relation to wars, rumors thereof, and Terrorist attacks we, we should reflect on “The Cotton Famine” as one instance – and history has scores of them - in which thousands of people thousands of people,;living thousnds of miles away suffered great loss and deprivation because of a ”local” war.
Conflict today is of global concern. The textile workers of Lancashire, England could have told us all something about such loss.
Now, more than ever before, we are never alone.
A.L.M. July 13, 2004 [c745wds]
