AUSTRALIAN COTTON.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVII, Issue 1803, 11 December 1862, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN COTTON.

Mr. James Smith has obligingly permitted us to make the following extract from a letter received by the last mail, from Mr. T. M. Mackay, of the well known Liverpool firm of James Baines & Co. Australia keeps quite but steady. Queensland is much resorted to on account of its cotton growing capabilities, and next year, we hope'to see 2000 bales come home. The 200 they sent this year will fetch £10,000, and as a man's children can pick as well as an adul*-, it is pecularly adapted for cottage husbandry. This is better than gold in the long run." This extract recalls to us the observation made by the Bishop of Wellington at tbe Lancashire meeting the other evening— " Man's " needs were not unfrequently God's opportuni- j " ty, and he wondered that Australia did not "take advantage ofthe path which Providence I " was now pointing out, and by the importation " of operatives and the growth of cotton, lay the ! " foundation for becoming a manufacturing I <; country ." Tf young Australia will only do as her mother did before her, and take advauiage of the distress of operatives to introduce them and their handicrafts, the result will probably be the same to her as they were to England. Nearly three centures since, the sacking of Antwerp drove her merchants and operatives to I seek shelter in England, where they introduced the manufacture of silk ; and a century latter the revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove some 50,C00 protestant families from the shores of France to those of England and Ireland. Amongst them were someof the most skilled artizans in many trades hitherto wholly or but feebly canied on in Britain, in addition to the large number of silk weavers who located themselves at Spitalfields* arid did such good service to the mauuturing industry of their adopted country. What has resulted in England from receiving open armed the distressed of IToland and France, will as surely result in Australia, if she is wise enough not to haggle about its money costs, and to use her best efforts to firm'y scat the growth and manufacture of cotton.