Unfathomed Depths; Uncharted Mountains

This chapter investigates Britain’s cotton supply and usage during the war. It examines all the issues that have been misinterpreted or ignored: cotton imports, bale weights, cotton re-exports, wastage in spinning, raw cotton stocks, stocks of cotton goods, exports of cotton goods and investment in new mills. There was nothing abnormal about the cotton market in 1859–61. Without the war, there would have been no allegation of pre-war over-production, no assertion of the glutting of overseas markets. The chapter offers an alternative explanation of why short-term working, which led to the Lancashire cotton famine, began in October 1862 when there was not yet a scarcity of cotton. The international cotton trade needed a large pipeline of stock. The outbreak of war, followed by the Confederate embargo and the Union blockade, paralysed the world market and caused an abrupt fall in demand. The conclusion is that, for the three main years of the war, British yarn production was at 36 per cent of the market requirement, and that about 4.5 billion lb of raw cotton was denied to Britain in the seven years to the end of 1867.