I maintain--and I believe my opinion will be supported by all those men
who are most conversant with American affairs--that, with slavery
abolished, with freedom firmly established in the South, you would find
in ten years to come a rapid increase in the growth of cotton; and not
only would its growth be rapid, but its permanent increase would be
secured.
I said that I was interested in this great question of cotton. I come
from the midst of the great cotton industry of Lancashire; much the
largest portion of anything I have in the world depends upon it; not a
little of it is now utterly valueless, during the continuance of this
war. My neighbours, by thousands and scores of thousands, are suffering,
more or less, as I am suffering; and many of them, as you know--more
than a quarter of a million of them--have been driven from a subsistence
gained by their honourable labour to the extremest poverty, and to a
dependence upon the charity of their fellow-countrymen. My interest is
the interest of all the population.
My interest is against a mere enthusiasm, a mere sentiment, a mere
visionary fancy of freedom as against slavery. I am speaking now as a
matter of business.
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