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The Lancashire Cotton Famine, also known as the Cotton Famine or the Cotton Panic (1861–65), was a depression in the textile industry of North West England, brought about by overproduction in a time of contracting world markets. It coincided with the interruption of baled cotton imports caused by the American Civil War, and speculators buying up new stock, for storage in the shipping warehouses at the ports of entry. The boom years of 1859 and 1860 had produced more woven cotton than could be sold and a cutback in production was needed. The situation was exacerbated by an overabundance of raw cotton held in the warehouses and dockyards of the ports and the market was flooded with finished goods, causing the price to collapse, while at the same time the demand for raw cotton fell. The price for raw cotton increased by several hundred percent due to blockade and lack of imports. The inaccessibility of raw cotton and the difficult trading conditions caused a change in the social circumstances of the Lancashire regions's extensive cotton mill workforce. Factory owners no longer bought large quantities of raw cotton to process and large parts of Lancashire and the surrounding areas' workers became unemployed, and went from being the most prosperous workers in Britain to the most impoverished. Local relief committees were set up. They appealed for money locally and nationally. There were two major funds, the Manchester Central Committee and the Mansion House Committee of the Lord Mayor of London. The poorest applied for relief under the Poor Laws, through the Poor Law Unions. Local relief committees experimented with soup kitchens and direct aid. In 1862, sewing classes and industrial classes were organised by local churches, and attendance triggered a Poor Law payment. After the Public Works (Manufacturing Districts) Act 1864 was passed local authorities were empowered to borrow money for approved public works. They commissioned the rebuilding of sewerage systems, cleaning rivers, landscaping parks, and surfacing roads. In 1864, cotton imports were restored, the mills were put back into production but some towns had diversified and many thousands of operatives had emigrated. == Background == The 1850s had been a period of unprecedented growth for the cotton industry in Lancashire, the High Peak of Derbyshire, and north east parts of Cheshire. The region had swamped the American market with printed cottons, and was speculatively exporting to India. The populations of some mill towns in the Lancashire and the surrounding region had almost doubled, the profit to capital ratio was running at more than 30%, and a recession was looming. When the slave-owning Southern States of America demanded secession from the United States of America and declared war in 1861, the cotton supply was interrupted at first by a Southern imposed boycott and then a Union blockade. The South's thinking was that it could force British support through an economic boycott. In 1860, there were 2,650 cotton mills in the region, employing 440,000 people who were paid in total £11,500,000 per annum. 90% were adults and 56% female. The mills used of which 18,500 was generated by waterpower. The mills had 30,387,467 spindles and 350,000 power looms. The industry imported of raw cotton a year. It exported 2,776,218,427 yards of cotton cloth and of twist and yarn. The total value of its exports was £32,012,380. Of the 1,390,938,752 lb of raw cotton 1,115,890,608 lb came from America.(80 %) At the end of 1860, there remained 250,428,610 lb in storage in the United Kingdom.〔 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lancashire Cotton Famine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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