ABSTRACT
THE consumption of cotton reached its highest point in 1860, when it was one billion eighty-three million six hundred thousand pounds, and cost £25,961,000. The raw material was then plentiful and cheap, discounts were reasonable (averaging about four and a quarter per cent), wages were high, and profits large. Every spindle and every loom were engaged, and new mills were rising in every direction. The progress in the consumption of cotton in the previous ten years had been nearly sixty per cent. About thirtythree million spindles were at work, and they were increasing at the rate of nearly twenty-one thousand per week. Of course, every effort was made to increase production, so long as it promised a profit; but apart from a fall in prices, consumption could not go on at the same rate as the production, and towards the end of the year stocks began rapidly to accumulate. If there had been no war in America, the large profits of 1859-60 would have been brought down to average by a heavy fall of prices on accumulated stocks in 1861; and these same accumulations served to prevent any serious rise in prices, either of cotton or manufactures, till after midsummer, 1861.
