During the discussion of that Bill, I made a speech on Indian affairs, which I believe goes to the root of the matter. I protested then as now against the notion of governing one hundred and fifty millions of people—twenty different nations, with twenty different languages—from a little coterie of rulers in the city of Calcutta. I proposed that the country should be divided into five or six separate, and, as regards each other, independent Presidencies of equal rank, with a governor and council in each, and each government corresponding with, and dependent upon, and responsible to, a Secretary of State in this country. I am of opinion that if such a Government were established, one in each Presidency, and if there was a first-class engineer, with an efficient staff, whose business should be to determine what public works should be carried on, some by the Government and some by private companies—I believe that ten years of such judicious labours would work an entire revolution in the condition of India; and if it had been done when I first began to move in this question, I have not the smallest doubt we might have had at this moment any quantity of cotton whatever that the mills of Lancashire require.

Well, after this, I am afraid some of my friends may feel, and my opponents will say, that it is very egotistical in me to have entered into these details. But I think, after this recapitulation, I am at liberty to say I am guiltless of that calamity which has fallen upon us. And I may mention that some friends of mine—Mr. John Dickinson, now Chairman of the Indian Reform Association, Mr. Bazley, one of the members for Manchester, Mr. Ashworth, the President of the Chamber of Commerce of Manchester, and Mr. John Benjamin Smith, the Member for Stockport—present themselves at this moment to my eyes as those who have been largely instrumental in calling the attention of Parliament and of the country to this great question of the reform of our Government in India.

But I have been asked twenty, fifty times during the last twelve months, 'Why do you not come out and say something? Why can you not tell us something in this time of our great need?' Well, I reply, 'I told you something when speaking was of use; all I can say now is this, or nearly all, that a hundred years of crime against the negro in America, and a hundred years of crime against the docile natives of our Indian empire, are not to be washed away by the penitence and the suffering of an hour.'

But what is our position? for you who are subscribing your money here have a right to know. I believe the quantity of cotton in the United States is at this moment much less than many people here believe, and that it is in no condition to be forwarded and exported. And I suspect that it is far more probable than otherwise, notwithstanding some of the strange theories of my honourable Colleague, that there never will again be in America a crop of cotton grown by slave labour. You will understand—I hope so, at least—that I am not undertaking the office of prophet, I am not predicting; I know that everything which is not absolutely impossible may happen, and therefore things may happen wholly different to the course which appears to me to be likely. But I say, taking the facts as they are before us—with that most limited vision which is given to mortals—the high probability is that there will never be another considerable crop, or one available for our manufactories, from slave labour in the United States.

We read the American papers, or the quotations from them in our own papers, but I believe we can form no adequate conception of the disorganization and chaos that now prevail throughout a great portion of the Southern States. It is natural to a state of war under the circumstances of society in that region. But then we may be asked, What are our sources of supply, putting aside India? There is the colony of Queensland, where enthusiastic persons tell you cotton can be grown worth 3_s_. a pound. True enough; but when labour is probably worth 10_s_. a-day, I am not sure you are likely to get any large supply of that material we so much want, at a rate so cheap that we shall be likely to use it. Africa is pointed to by a very zealous friend of mine; but Africa is a land of savages, and with its climate so much against European constitutions, I should not entertain the hope that any great relief at any early period can be had from that continent. Egypt will send us 30,000 or 40,000 bales more than last year; in all probability Syria and Brazil, with these high prices, will increase their production to some considerable extent; but I believe there is no country at present from which you can derive any very large supply, except you can get it from your own dependencies in India. Now if there be no more cotton to be grown for two, or three, or four years in America, for our supply, we shall require, considering the smallness of the bales and the loss in working up the cotton—we shall require nearly 6,000,000 of additional bales to be supplied from some source.

I want to put to you one question. It has taken the United States twenty years, from 1840 up to 1860, to increase their growth of cotton from 2,000,000 bales to 4,000,000. How long will it take any other country, with comparatively little capital, with a thousand disadvantages which America did not suffer from—how long will it take any other country, or all other countries, to give us 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 additional bales of cotton? There is one stimulus—the only one that I know of; and although I have not recommended it to the Government, and I know not precisely what sacrifice it would entail, yet I shall mention it, and I do it on the authority of a gentleman to whom I have before referred, who is thoroughly acquainted with Indian agriculture, and whose family have been landowners and cultivators in India for sixty years. He says there is only one mode by which you can rapidly stimulate the growth of cotton in India, except that stimulus coming from the high prices for the time being,—he says that, if the Government would make a public declaration that for five years they would exempt from land-tax all land which during that time shall grow cotton, there would be the most extraordinary increase in the growth of that article which has ever been seen in regard to any branch of agriculture in the world.

I do not know how far that would act, but I believe the stimulus would be enormous,—the loss to the Government in revenue would be something, but the deliverance to the industry of Lancashire, if it succeeded, as my friend thinks, would of course be speedy, and perhaps complete. Short of this, I look upon the restoration of the prosperity of Lancashire as distant. I believe this misfortune may entail ruin upon the whole working population, and that it may gradually engulf the smaller traders and those possessing the least capital. I do not say it will, because, as I have said, what is not impossible may happen,—but it may for years make the whole factory property of Lancashire almost entirely worthless. Well, this is a very dismal look-out for a great many persons in this country; but it comes, as I have said,—it comes from that utter neglect of their opportunities and their duties which has distinguished the Government of India.

Now, Sir, before I sit down I shall ask you to listen to me for a few moments on the other branch of this great question, which refers to that sad tragedy which is passing before our eyes in the United States of America. I shall not, in consequence of anything you have heard from my hon. Friend, conceal from you any of the opinions which I hold, and which I proposed to lay before you if he had not spoken. Having given to him, notwithstanding some diversity of opinion, a fair and candid hearing, I presume that I shall receive the same favour from those who may differ from me. If I had known that my hon. Friend was going to make an elaborate speech on this occasion, one of two things I should have done: I should either have prepared myself entirely to answer him, or I should have decided not to attend a meeting where there could by any possibility of chance have been anything like discord between so many— his friends and my friends—in this room.

Since I have been Member for Birmingham, Mr. Scholefield has treated me with the kindness of a brother. Nothing could possibly be more generous and more disinterested in every way than his conduct towards me during these several years, and therefore I would much rather—far rather—that I lost any opportunity like this of speaking on this question, than I would have come here and appeared to be at variance with him. But I am happy to say that this great question does not depend upon the opinion of any man in Birmingham, or in England, or anywhere else. And therefore I could—anxious always, unless imperative duty requires, to avoid even a semblance of difference—I could with a clear conscience have abstained from coming to and speaking at this meeting.

But I observe that my hon. Friend endeavoured to avoid committing himself to what is called sympathy with the South. He takes a political view of this great question,—is disposed to deal with the matter as he would have dealt with the case of a colony of Spain or Portugal revolting in South America, or of Greece revolting from Turkey. I should like to state here what I once said to an eminent American. He asked me if I could give him an idea of the course of public opinion in this country from the moment we heard of the secession of the Cotton States; and I endeavoured to trace it in this way,—and I ask you to say whether it is a fair and full description.