Resumen de The British Debate Concerning the Supply of Cotton During the American Civil War

Nigel Hill

• Some aspects of the development of the British cotton industry have been the subject of considerable scholarly attention from his- torians in recent decades, but the nature and development of the industry’s supply of its raw material has received much less exami- nation. In the early decades of the nineteenth century, the British cotton industry became heavily dependent for its raw material upon a single source: the United States. This led to a disastrous shortage of cotton during the American Civil War (1861-65). Yet some con- cerns over this near-exclusive reliance upon U.S. cotton had already been voiced in the years before the conflict. During the war, there was a lively national debate, involving leading newspapers, period- icals and Members of Parliament, over how the shortage of cotton could be overcome. Much of the debate centred on whether alais- sez faire approach relying upon the law of supply and demand would resolve the difficulty. There was a notable desire to obtain cotton from British overseas possessions – particularly India – but with only limited success