for this great county. We have been accustomed for years to look
with pride and complacency upon the enormous growth of that
manufacture which has conferred wealth upon so many thousands, and
which has so largely increased the manufacturing population and
industry of this country. We have seen within the last twelve or
fourteen years the consumption of cotton in Europe increase from
fifty thousand to ninety thousand bales a week; we have seen the
weight of cotton goods exported from this country in the shape of
yarn and manufactured goods amount to no less than nine hundred and
eighty-three million pounds in a single year. We have seen, in spite
of all opposing circumstances, this trade constantly and rapidly
extending; we have seen colossal fortunes made; and we have as a
county, perhaps, been accustomed to look down on those less
fortunate districts whose wealth and fortunes were built upon a less
secure foundation; we have reckoned upon this great manufacture as
the pride of our country, and as the best security against the
possibility of war, in consequence of the mutual interest between us
and the cotton-producing districts.

We have held that in the cotton manufacture was the pride, the
strength, and the certainty of our future national prosperity and
peace. I am afraid we have looked upon this trade too much in the
spirit of the Assyrian monarch of old. We have said to ourselves:--
'Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of my
kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?'
But in the hour in which the monarch used these words the word came
forth, 'Thy kingdom is departed from thee!' That which was his pride
became his humiliation; that which was our pride has become our
humiliation and our punishment. That which was the source of our
wealth--the sure foundation on which we built--has become itself the