As the lack of employment developed in Lancashire public discussion and consideration were inevitably aroused.  But there was little talk of governmental interference and such as did appear was promptly met with opposition by the leading trade journals.  July 13, 1861, the Economist viewed the cotton shortage as “a temporary and an immediate one....  We have—­on our hypothesis—­to provide against the stoppage of our supply for one year, and that the very next year.”  Would it pay, asked Bright, to break the blockade?  “I don’t think myself it would be cheap ... at the cost of a war with the United States[683].”  This was also the notion of the London Shipping Gazette which, while acknowledging that the mill-owners of England and France were about to be greatly embarrassed, continued:  “But we are not going to add to the difficulty by involving ourselves in a naval war with the Northern States[684]....”  The Times commented in substance in several issues in September, 1861, on the “wise policy of working short-time as a precaution against the contingencies of the cotton supply, and of the glutted state of distant markets for manufactured goods[685].”  October 12, the Economist acknowledged that the impatience of some mill-owners was quite understandable as was talk of a European compulsion on America to stop an “objectless and hopeless” quarrel, but then entered upon an elaborate discussion of the principles involved and demonstrated why England ought not to intervene.  In November Bright could write:  “The notion of getting cotton by interfering with the blockade is abandoned apparently by the simpletons who once entertained it, and it is accepted now as a fixed policy that we are to take no part in your difficulties[686].”  Throughout the fall of 1861 the Economist was doing its best to quiet apprehensions, urging that due to the “glut” of manufactured goods short-time must have ensued anyway, pointing out that now an advanced price was possible, and arguing that here was a situation likely to result in the development of other sources of supply with an escape from the former dependence on America.  In view of the actual conditions of the trade, already recounted, these were appealing arguments to the larger manufacturers, but the small mills, running on short order supplies and with few stocks of goods on hand were less easily convinced.  They were, however, without parliamentary influence and hence negligible as affecting public policy.  At the opening of the new year, 1862, Bright declared that “with the spinners and manufacturers and merchants, I think generally there is no wish for any immediate change[687].”