But it was far otherwise with the operatives of Lancashire.  Whatever the causes of short-time operation in the mills or of total cessation of work the situation was such that from October, 1861, more and more operatives were thrown out of employment.  As their little savings disappeared they were put upon public poor relief or upon private charity for subsistence.  The governmental statistics do not cover, accurately, the relief offered by private charity, but those of public aid well indicate the loss of wage-earning opportunity.  In the so-called “Distressed Districts” of Lancashire and the adjoining counties it appears that poor relief was given to 48,000 persons in normal times, out of a total population of 2,300,000.  In the first week of November, 1861, it was 61,207, and for the first week of December, 71,593; thereafter mounting steadily until March, 1862, when a temporary peak of 113,000 was reached.  From March until the first week in June there was a slight decrease; but from the second week of June poor relief resumed an upward trend, increasing rapidly until December, 1862, when it reached its highest point of 284,418.  In this same first week of December private relief, now thoroughly organized in a great national effort, was extended to 236,000 people, making a grand total at high tide of distress of over 550,000 persons, if private relief was not extended to those receiving public funds.  But of this differentiation there is no surety—­indeed there are evidences of much duplication of effort in certain districts.  In general, however, these statistics do exhibit the great lack of employment in a one-industry district heretofore enjoying unusual prosperity[680].

The manufacturing operative population of the district was estimated at between 500,000 and 600,000.  At the time of greatest distress some 412,000 of these were receiving either public or private aid, though many were working part-time in the mills or were engaged on public enterprises set on foot to ease the crisis.  But there was no starvation and it is absurd to compare the crisis to the Irish famine of the ’forties.  This was a cotton famine in the shortage of that commodity, but it was not a human famine.  The country, wrote John Bright, was passing through a terrible crisis, but “our people will be kept alive by the contributions of the country[681].”  Nevertheless a rapid change from a condition of adequate wage-earning to one of dependence on charity—­a change ultimately felt by the great bulk of those either directly or indirectly dependent upon the cotton industry—­might have been expected to arouse popular demonstrations to force governmental action directed to securing cotton that trade might revive.  That no such popular effect was made demands careful analysis—­to be offered in a later chapter—­but here the fact is alone important, and the fact was that the operatives sympathized with the North and put no pressure on the Cabinet.  Thus at no time during the war was there any attempt from Lancashire, whether of manufacturers or operatives, to force a change of governmental policy[682].