Cotton famine

“ The effect of Cotton's works in preventing or in mitigating famines is unquestionable. In the great famine of 1877 four million persons are supposed to have perished in the more or less unprotected districts of the Madras presidency. In the districts protected by the great irrigation works, viz. Godávery, Krishna, and Tanjore, there were no deaths from famine, and it is estimated that the surplus food exported from these districts was sufficient to save the lives of three million persons. ”

“ The process of accumulation, elastic and spasmodic as it is, requires inevitably free access to ever new areas of raw materials in case of need, both when imports from old sources fail or when social demand suddenly increases. When the War of Secession interfered with the import of American cotton, causing the notorious ‘cotton famine’ in the Lancashire district, new and immense cotton plantations sprang up in Egypt almost at once, as if by magic. Here it was Oriental despotism, combined with an ancient system of bondage, which had created a sphere of activity for European capital. ”

“ But irrespective of the extremes to which Southern confidence in cotton extended the actual hardships of England were in all truth serious enough to cause grave anxiety and to supply an argument to Southern sympathizers. The facts of the "Lancashire Cotton Famine" have frequently been treated by historians at much length [666] and need here but a general review. ”

“ But where the people are as stupid as some people in England, who would not have Factory laws, there is nothing for it but to make them have them. We see what the Famine has done in making the people take the Water under the Toombudra, compelling the people to benefit themselves. Why should we wait for a Famine to do this? It is estimated that the lands in Orissa have actually increased in value three or four fold since the Irrigation Works, without the Water being used: the Zemindars thus receiving the whole of the benefit of the Works while the Government have had the whole of the expense. ”

“ We see this unmistakably when a cotton-famine, first paralyzing certain manufacturing districts and then affecting the doings of wholesale and retail distributors throughout the kingdom, as well as the people they supply, goes on to affect the makers and distributors, as well as the wearers, of other fabrics—woolen, linen, etc. Or we see it when a rise in the price of coal, besides influencing domestic life everywhere, hinders the greater part of our industries, raises the prices of the commodities produced, alters the consumption of them, and changes the habits of consumers. ”

“ Even in our most thickly-peopled manufacturing districts, to which the staple articles of food are brought from far-distant regions, assistance from abroad, to sustain the poor, has never been asked; nor do I believe the poor have ever been reduced, for weeks together, to a diet of corn. But this famine at the South occurred in a region where most productive land can be purchased for from three to seven dollars an acre; where maize and wheat [Pg 250] grow kindly; where cattle, sheep, and hogs, may be pastured over thousands of acres, at no rent ”

“ The cotton of the United States affords employment to upwards of three millions of people in England, and a famine of cotton would be far worse than a famine of bread; the deficiency of the latter could be supplied; but the destruction of the cotton crop in America would be an evil of unparalleled magnitude, and against which we have no present pro [Pg 381] tection.... ”

“ When the Government are obliged to feed one Million and a half of our fellow subjects—when these have been perishing in spite of us, at the rate of 930 per thousand in the Relief Camps—when nearly half the Population of Villages have died of Famine Cholera—when men were not put on the Relief Works till they were too far reduced by starvation to do any real work—when their bullocks were all dead, so that their very means for raising the next crop were all gone—we are fain to ask what has Irrigation done for the Madras Presidency? ”

“ Surely the question is not one to be trifled with, while the lives of many Millions are at stake, not only in the present Famine but in all future ones. Under these circumstances can there be a more reasonable demand than that a Famine Commission, composed of well known names, in whom the Public have confidence, should be the very first step in the movement that is now making to relieve this vast population under the most awful calamity that could befall them? ”

“ There is not the slightest difficulty in sending any quantity, and the cost is nothing. If they extended through India there would not be the smallest question about Carriage. Have these things no bearing upon the Famine? In these 4 districts, 2 Million Acres are Irrigated, producing 1,200,000 tons of food, sufficient to feed 5 Millions of people for a year. What would be the state of things if the whole of this food were wanting? The concealment of these facts totally falsifies the whole case. In Kurnool alone under the Madras Companies Works 84 Million lbs. ”

“ The consequence is almost the whole of the money expended on the works is lost. Whereas a Famine is in fact the opportunity of executing in a single season, important works to raise India out of its present poverty for ever. Hitherto without exception, not a finger has been moved till the people were actually dying, and then it was too late to organize works effectually. What might not the millions that the last 2 Famines have cost have done to make Famines impossible. ”

“ In the case of the Inflexible and the Navy this has been seen and acknowledged, and a Commission, independent of the Officials and free from the bias that their peculiar position brings them under as essential to the effectual investigation of the subject, has been granted, and the case of the Indian Famine is exactly the same. The India Office are so committed against Irrigation and cheap transit that it is perfectly hopeless to attempt a solution of the question by leaving the matter in their hands. ”

“ No quantity of rain will prevent a Famine, if it is not tolerably distributed. The fact is, water from Irrigation is required in almost every part of India even to prevent Famine. But further, there is never a season when at some time or other, additional water would not improve the crop. ”

“ If it is said, But our present question is what must be done to save the people’s lives now, I answer, We are spending Millions! How are we to spend them? We are employing a Million of people! How should we employ them? If in consideration of this question we are to exclude the word Water, if this is a sine qua non in the matter, we must lose all the money and leave the Country in the same state of exposure to the horrors of another Famine. The main point of all is this, that we have the most indisputable proof that the Country must not leave the Famine in the hands of the India Office. ”

“ But the farmers do it over and over again, without challenge or reprisal, and the only thing that keeps them from reducing us, at intervals, to actual famine is their own imbecile knavery. They are all willing and eager to pillage us by starving us, but they can’t do it because they can’t resist attempts to swindle each other. Recall, for example, the case of the cotton-growers in the South. ”

“ The fact is that it is nothing in the world but unaccountable mismanagement that prevents the water being used. There was one other case of this, but the Famine has swept away all obstacles there, and now the Water is in high demand, and no wonder, when they are actually selling the produce for 140-ru. an acre, where the water-rate is 6-ru. an acre, so that in a Famine year one crop will pay 24 years’ water-rate. ”

“ When the Country is called upon to contribute funds from private sources, what can be more legitimate than that they should have a voice in the application of it, and that it should not be left still in the hands of those who, whatever other things are questionable, have certainly failed to preserve India from all the horrors of Famine. ”

“ So the question in England about the deaths from Railways, is not how many are killed, but how many are saved from death by this mode of moving in comparison with the use of horses. Nothing can be more certain than that for one death caused by fever from Irrigation, a hundred are prevented by all the sanitary effects of regulated water. And what shall we say to the deaths caused by Famine? Do they not exceed all those that have ever been imagined to proceed from Irrigation ? ”

“ Had two millions that this will cost been spent on Irrigation and Navigation, the whole of these provinces would have been secured for ever from Famine, and from ten to twenty millions added to the income of the people. Further, had the necessary preparations been made when the Famine had become certain, the Link of the Canal might have been cut from Cuddapah to Nelloor, and the districts of Bellary, Kurnool and Cuddapah, have been put in direct communication with Madras and with Godavery and Kistnah. ”

“ Wherever, in India, agriculture is entirely dependent on the sky for its supply of Water, any very sensible failure of the periodical rain is inevitably followed by a corresponding failure of the crops, and the Government, besides having to make large remissions of Land Revenue, has to incur a large and often immense expenditure in order to prevent the defaulting Cultivators from dying of starvation. In such cases, if Irrigation has been provided, the value of such Works becomes strikingly evident. ”

“ Had one quarter of this money been spent on the Works that were the first required for India’s peculiar needs, not only would there be entire security of food for the people themselves, but India would at this moment have been feeding England, for it is nothing but the want of cheap carriage from the great Wheat districts of India that prevents 20 millions worth of our own staple food coming from that Dependency. ”

“ Alarmists point to the sparks in the cotton fields of America, while thoughtful men reflect that the commercial [Pg 372] prosperity of this great country hangs upon a thread of cotton, which a blight of the plant, an insurrection among the slaves, an untimely frost, or an increased demand in the Northern States of the Union, might destroy; bringing to Lancashire first, and then to the whole kingdom, a return of the Irish famine of 1847, which reduced the population of that portion of the kingdom from eight to six millions. ”

“ Let me say with all reverence that it is a subject for deep national humiliation, and, above all, for deep humiliation for this great county. We have been accustomed for years to look with pride and complacency upon the enormous growth of that manufacture which has conferred wealth upon so many thousands, and which has so largely increased the manufacturing population and industry of this country. We have seen within the last twelve or fourteen years the consumption of cotton in Europe increase from fifty thousand to ninety thousand bales a week ”

“ We have seen, in spite of all opposing circumstances, this trade constantly and rapidly extending; we have seen colossal fortunes made; and we have as a county, perhaps, been accustomed to look down on those less fortunate districts whose wealth and fortunes were built upon a less secure foundation; we have reckoned upon this great manufacture as the pride of our country, and as the best security against the possibility of war, in consequence of the mutual interest between us and the cotton-producing districts. ”

“ It would entirely revolutionize four districts. It would give a new value to everything they produce, and turn into gold, or rather food, the millions of tons of water which are now so criminally allowed to run to waste from the Southern Rivers. This is one of the grand main lines that India requires.
I will only give one more case of a work that ought to be now undertaken. There is on the river Toombudra, some hundred miles above the present works, a wonderful site for a tank which, if constructed would produce enormous results. ”

“ Only unite the Ravee, the Sirhind, the Ganges, the Lower Ganges, the Sone, the Orissa, the Godavery, the Kistnah, the Toombudra, and other Canals together, and supplement them with those that are necessary to complete the network of cheap carriage throughout India; and the increase of wealth that would accrue, is far beyond all estimate. We cannot be mistaken about this, when we have the one item of a wheat supply for England depending upon this question of relieving it from the cost of internal carriage. ”

“ XIII 115 " " XIV 123 " " XV 132 Among the Wigan Operatives XVI 139 " " XVII 147 " " XVIII 155 " " XIX 163 " " XX 171 " " XXI 179 " " XXII 189 An Incident by the Wayside XXIII 197 Wandering Minstrels; or, Wails of the Workless Poor LETTERS AND SPEECHES UPON THE COTTON FAMINE 209 Letters of a Lancashire Lad 217 Mr Cobden's Speech 227 Speech of the Earl of Derby 253 Songs of Distress chiefly written during the Cotton Famine
PREFACE
The following chapters are reprinted from the columns of the Manchester Examiner and Times, to which Paper they were contributed by the Author during the year 1862. ”

“ It takes little additional weight to sink those whose chins are only just above water; and these untoward circumstances oiled the way of this struggling family to the ground, before the mills stopped. ”

“ As the inevitable loss of the cattle from want of grass or straw is the worst feature of the Famine, that which we save below the Canal will be a very great boon to the country. It is probable that the ryots under the Canal will save most of their cattle, and thus be able to resume work on the first appearance of rain; elsewhere in the district it is probable that much land will lie idle, as nearly all the cattle will be dead.” Again; “there is little doubt that the Canal water affects the health of the people considerably. ”