would seize the opportunity to give further currency to some remarks by the Times in reference to our cotton supply. The Times, alluding to our past commercial intercourse with India says:-
It was taken for granted that our exports to India would never balance our imports, and that the drain of gold and silver into this bottomless abyss would continue without any abatement. The experiment, however, was tried, and the result has been that ever since, many fine Indiamen, instead of going out in ballast, have been freighted with cotton goods, and have made handsome profits on the outward as well as on the homeward voyage. Still, there was no influx of raw cotton from Calcutta to Europe. A certain quantity of cottons indeed was registered among the exports of Bengal, but this consisted chiefly of piece goods received from England and re-exported to China. At length, the laws of supply and demand have vindicated themselves, and the inhabitants of Bahar and the Gangetic valley are beginning to grow cotton for the English market. The high price is beginning to influence the cultivators, and we may expect five times as much as the ordinary supply from Calcutta in the course of next year.
Surely our Lancashire mill-owners now have the remedy in their own hands. India comes to the rescue, and we trust that no barriers of prejudice - no commercial theories - no partial inferiority of Indian cotton to American, will be allowed to prevent this natural remedy for a political evil.
The Local Collections
It was hoped and believed that the articles and letters which appeared in the St Leonards Gazette and its Hastings contemporaries did good service in evoking practical sympathy with the distressed operatives in the cotton districts, which resulted in the getting together a sum of between two and three thousand pounds. As suggested, concerts lectures and sermons were made available for contributions to the handsome total of moneys in the locality, which, after the similarly large collection for the colliery catastrophe, must be considered to have supplied a record to the praiseworthy energy as well as to the munificence of the borough. The following is an account of the moneys that were separately contributed:- Three excellent sermons were preached at St. Mary's-in-the-Castle on Sunday, Sept. 21st by the Revs. T. Vores, J. G. Ryle and H. Geldhart. The three collections for the Lancashire fund amounted to a total of £174; truly a munificent sum. On the following Sunday, collections were made for the same object at the Wesleyan Chapels of the two towns, that at Hastings being £13 9s., and that at St. Leonards, £9 8s. The church of St. Mary Magdalen contributed to the fund a second time on Dec. 7th, a sum bordering on £80 being -
