GDG- Re: CS supply

[Biggsk at aol.com]

Margaret writes:

>>>>(5) a belief, amounting to an article of faith, that  the power of King 
Cotton was so great that foreign governments, especially the  United Kingdom, 
would disregard their positions against slavery and provide  assistance to the 
Confederacy in order to protect the supply of cotton to  their factories.>>>>
 
Your points are all on-target and I would add that when secession began  the 
Southern papers chimes a "buy Southern" program for the citizens which  
certainly encouraged them to start doing so based on the industrialization that  had 
been happening over the previous decade.  And yet there was still a lot  of 
still that was simply not made in the South for a number of reasons but cost  
of manufacture being one of the top ones.  Why make it at a higher per unit  
price than paying for it at a lower price from the North or  elsewhere?

 
As to Point 5 above - Frank Owsley in his excellent "King Cotton Diplomacy"  
brings it all down to this - "King Corn beat King Cotton," in that from 1860 
on,  Britain for the first time in its history became a net food importer 
meaning  that they could no longer grow enough locally to feed the population - and 
so  turned to the USA for corn, etc.
 
The South failed to understand this and also failed in its view of cotton  to 
Britain on another level - its actual supply.  The late 1850's saw huge  
bumper crops of cotton arrive in Britain, some of which was still not processed  
even by 1861, so that when the Confederates pulled yet another of their huge  
strategic blunders (perhaps even exceeding that of putting their capitol in  
Richmond) by laying on a cotton embargo, which crippled from the start their  
ability to pay for war supplies, that bumper crop and increasing supplies of  
cotton from the British Empire (Egypt and India) certainly stepped up to help  
the mill demands.  While Southern cotton was superior in quality to that  from 
Egypt and India, this was not enough of a factor to close all the mills  when 
the shortages did hit causing some worker layoffs.
 
Those worker layoffs were mitigated by increased hiring in the arms  
industries since Britain was making gobs of cash selling to both sides - which  is, I 
believe, the real reason they were not going to come down in favor of one  
side or the other in the war.  It would be simple business suicide to do  so!  If 
you think that British moral outrage against slavery was that  strong, look 
at it this way - if it really was, then they would not have sold  ANY arms to 
the Confederacy!  It had far more to do with making money than  moral outrage 
and in this respect, the Confederate feelings were correct in  Point 5 above.
 
Greg Biggs



************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.