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].
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.