Assuming, however, the actual quantity of cotton consumed by the Export Trade to have been equal to that consumed last year up to this period, and allowing for 40,000 bales, alleged by spinners to have been drawn from their own stocks instead of the Liverpool market, _there will remain a deficiency, as compared with last year, of 5000 bales per week, or 70,000 bales, in the consumption of the raw material manufactured into goods for the Home market_. When it is considered that these goods consist of the finer fabrics, in which the greatest amount of labour is employed, and upon which the largest percentage of profit is realised, whilst those consumed in the foreign markets are sold at the lowest margin of profit, and when exported frequently result in heavy losses to the shipper, the extent of the sacrifice made by the manufacturing community, in their mad adoption of a policy which has destroyed the Home market, may readily be seen. The correctness of these calculations has been borne out by the general character of the Home Trade during the past four months, in which stagnation, and difficulty in accomplishing sales to consumers and retailers throughout the country, early manifested themselves. In the month of January, strong hopes were entertained, by the majority of the houses engaged in this branch of the business, that the worst of the embarrassment which had so long hung over the cotton manufacturing districts had passed over; and that a wholesome and active trade was before them. The circulars of the month of February, and the reports given week by week in the local journals published in the manufacturing districts, resumed their gloomy statements; and the home demand, it became clear, had returned to its previous lethargic state. From communications entered into with some of the country houses, I have derived intelligence respecting the result of their operations, almost precisely similar to those sent home by the representatives of produce houses as given above. The country buyers who come to the market display an entire want of their accustomed spirit, and buy sparingly an inferior class of goods to those which they have been, in former years, in the habit of consuming. The universal complaint of these parties, and of commercial travellers engaged in the Home Trade, is of declining consumption and ill-paid accounts, especially throughout the purely agricultural districts. One circumstance has tended in some measure to prevent the trade becoming absolutely ruinous—viz., the fact that cotton fabrics are now resorted to by many classes from motives of economy. The farmer’s and the tradesman’s wife and daughters make a fashion of necessity, and substitute printed cotton dresses for more expensive articles. A cotton shirt supplies moderately well the place of a linen one. Articles of elegance and luxury, however, even of this material, are complained of as most difficult of sale. In some of the large towns,