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SOCIAL SCIENCE AND ITS CONGRESSES. has round when the Social
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keep pace with the immense demand of our increasing mantifactures . Unfortunately those who are most immediately concerned have not taken up the subject in the only practical way—T-that of devoting capital to its production ; and when a thousand circulars were recently issued inviting co-operation in the promotion of a Company to purchase Cotton in India , many who ought to have been foremost , appear to have stayed away . material
The supply of Cotton , or of some equivalent raw , has assumed an importance which few are aware of . Every one knows that within the space of a generation one of the most enormous trades which the world has ever seen has sprung up in Lancashire , giving employment to large "bodies of operatives , and making colossal fortunes for fortunate spinners ; but there are not many who will not be startled by the statistics which Mr . Bazley brings forward . He tell ? tis that our last year ' s consumption of Cotton was l , OO 0 , O 0 O , O 0 Olbs . of
an array of figures that almost bewilders our powers enumeration , and defies our efforts at definite comprehension . Of this prodigious mass of raw material , America furnishes 800 , 000 , 000 lbs ., while 120 , 000 , 000 lbs . come from other foreign sources , and only 80 , 000 , 000 lbs . from British Colonies . This last fact is by no means creditable to us , when it is remembered-that . 'the Cotton soils of India could produce more than the world ' s consumption ; when , portions of Australia are fitted for its growth ; and Natal might , with adequate encouragement , yield a very large supply .
Directly and indirectly our Cotton trade is believed to employ four or five millions of people—a number very much larger than the entire population of Switzerland , Portugal , or Egypt ; about equal to that of Belgium , arid nearly sufficient to fill two cities as big as London . In the various processes of this enormous trade seventy millions of capital are employed , and thus it will be seen tliat any material disturbance in the supply of the raw material must occasion commercial , social , and political convulsions -upon' a . gigantic scale ; and from such convulsions we cannot feel secure while eight-tenths of our consumption comes from a single source of supply . At any season we may find that the yield of the
Cotton farms of America is considerably reduced . A disease may attack the Cotton shrub like that which has devastated our potato fields , or ruined the vines , and any such action , even to a moderate extent , would involve large capitalists in ruin , and bring hundreds of thousands to the verge of starvation . We ought , also , not to forget the political causes that may interfere with the planters' operations . American Cotton grows under the curse of slavery ; and if the Southern States obstinately refuse to make any provision for the gradual transition towards free labour , we may rest assured that sooner or later a violent struggle will arise , and the slave system will peiishin a moral and political earthquake that must for a time interfere with industrial pursuits .
If wheat fails in Europe , America abounds with it . If the crops are short in the United States , Russia and the shores of the Danube have ample harvests . Thus mercantile exchanges can always neutralize partial disasters , because we are not dependent xipon any single locality . Not so , however , with Cotton ; if the American crops fail we are undone , for there is no other country or combination of countries that could supply the void . Those who have large capital embarked in Cotton nianu-Those who have large capital embarked in Cotton
manufactures are working , us it were , over a volcano ; bxit from the enormous number of persons directly or indirectly concerned , the question is national rather than local , and it ia not too much to say that the stability of our institutions depends upon the meteorological and other chances which the American planter may have to meet . It is certainly not wise to hang so much \ ipon ono ' hook , to trust so much in ono boat , or hazai'd such mighty stakes upon ix single throw .
Imagine , for a moment , that four or five millions of persona were in distress , and that the mill-ownera and the operatives , finding themselves involved in common disaster , took an angry survey of the political as well as of the economical circumstances that impeded their industry . In the first place our present amount of taxation could not be borne , and aristocratic government or mis-government is intimately connected with the profligate extravagance of our public expenditure . Mr . Bazlby
reminds us that the State extorts annually a sum equal to all the capital directly engaged in the Cotton trade j that is to soy , that our yearly taxation which treuda a barren round , amounts to a sum , which more rationally expended , is sufficient to employ , clothe , und feed four or five millions of people . With such facts before us , there can be no doubt of the political and social disturbance that would be occasioned by a failure of the Cotton supply .
Our financial and political security demand that we shoul d place ourselves with regard to Cotton , in as good a position as we are with respect to corn , so that , whether temporary deficiences occur in the East or in the West , our supplies may not fail . But there are other reflections -which are worth the consideration of great manufacturers , like Mr . Bazleit , who can take a statesmanlike view of industrial affairs . We suggest the consideration of tlie propriety of makingefforts to utilize the scores of fibres -which in India and other countries are now completely wasted . There is no necessity that Cotton should be exclusively employed for a great variety of articles now composed of it " . It will probably remain the cheapest raw material of which certain kinds of clothing can
be made , but other fibres are capable of producing textile fabrics , that might in many cases advantageously take the place of cotton goods . Mr . Bazley will agree with us that a thickly-peopled country like England cannot have too many or too great a variety of industrial pursuits , and it would be better , instead of having another million of persons employed in the Cotton trade , to see them engaged in working-up some of the fibres to which we have alluded . The plaintain , aloe , and cactus tribes are scarcely used at present for textile purposes , nor the numerous grasses of Asia and Africa . We cordially approve of the efforts to extend the growth of Cotton , as Mr . * Bazley desires , but we should also like to see funds collected and appropriated for experiments in the utilization of other fibres .
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T HE season as ^ am come < Jongress' ionists " . will be adding another deposit to the mass of undigested materials they have been collecting : for the last three years . Referring to the article " Reform , political and social , " in No . 546 of this journal , we proceed to make some remarks on this most important of all subjects . # Soeiblogv- is the science which teaches what laws , institutions , customs , conventialisms , are best adapted to insure " human wellbeing . " But institutions , usag-es , conventionalisms , and laws , are the products and outgrowths of public opinion and public feeling , of the beliefs and desires existent in the inirid of the community . True it is that the former are generally always behind the latter , and tliat for the very reason that they stand , the one to the other , in the relation of cause and effect . Moreover , there is in general a
strong 1 tendency in masses , as in individuals , to remain in the state in which they happen to be at any given time . Being up , people are loth to go to bed ; being a-bed , they find it irksome to get up ; having been accustomed to a particular sort of dress or diet , they can hardlv be got to change it , even for the better , and when health requires ; ' having contracted a habit , by long use , they are reluctant to discontinue it , however it may prejudice them . And so with nations : we all know how long it is ere reforms that have been enounced in theorv are reduced to practice . Thus , we see the tenconviction
dency to continue in the beaten track , counteracts the that there is a better road , and the desire to travel in the most comfortable way . But though the effect , of course , follows the cause , and follows it , as indeed we sometimes see in the physical world , but slowly , there is no question of the regular sequence ; and this is the reason of tlie established axiom that all changes in the social organism are invariably preceded by a corresponding change in the convictions and sentiments of the people . Hence it rigorously follows that sociology , denned as above , cannot bo constructed until moraiogy has assumed the form of im exact science . We must be able to
distinguish that voluntary conduct which of its very essence necessarily tends to human well-being , from that which is only indirectly harmful in consequence of absurd beliefs and prejudices against it ; and from that which is intrinsically and unalterably pernicious , any foolish superstition in its - favour to the contrary notwithstanding j we nvust be a to do this before wo can say w hat laws , institutions , and customs are adapted by their spontaneous workings to evolve happiness-producing conduct on the part of the community , anul avert that which is of an opposite character . Honco the question arises , in what does happiness consists Those who undorstnml anything of scientific procedures will seo ait once that a question
of this sort may bo answered in two ways . Ono is by an cmpim-ni onunieration of tho particulars in which happiness consists , or , at least , is supposed to consist , by tho respondent ; an enumeration which , oven supposing it possible to make it complete at uny given time , must always bo imperfect , because it ia merely provisional . and does not take into account prospective changes of sentiment and opinion , but ignoros the now dosiren and beliefs thut niuy arise in the future . The other answer assumes tho form ot a general demonstration . Disregarding this or thut detail , uh a liintnematical formula takes no cognizance of tho particular ciwch law nic
in vulgar arithmetic , comprised within the universal w » u enouru . 'os , it speciflos thp conditions upon which alone * w * " " " /? . is realizable whorover sentient , creature * exist , whother in . Huh atomic corner of tho universe , or in the globoH that revolve about tho sttvrs too distant for recognition by our strongest to escape * . To determine what is practically expedient in an >; transient , untt provisional phase of society is withinjtovon tho capacity o an idiot , whoso mind is not an utter blank . That it is oxpodiont when . at Rome to do as Rome does , or at least not to do what Rom © doonn t approve , with the Inquisition and its rocks und stakes and duuj ? cou »
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812 The Saturday Analyst and Leader . [ Sept . 22 , 1860
Social Science And Its Congresses. Has Round When The Social
has round when the social SOCIAL SCIENCE AND ITS CONGRESSES . . ' ¦ ¦ 1 ¦ 1 A 1 _ £ ¦ £ C 1 _ _ * _ 1 f \
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 22, 1860, page 812, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2366/page/4/
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