We have lately received a curious pamphlet from the writer, a personal friend and correspondent, who himself accompanied us to Cuba, and visited the cotton districts, last year, to ascertain for himself what was the prospect of a future supply. He was most kindly received by the planters, and was more than once told he was almost the first great cotton spinner who had visited the source of England's great commercial prosperity - the place where nearly all the cotton they use is grown.

Henry Ashworth, Esq., of Bolton, a philanthropic mill owner, and a far-sighted political economist, is convinced that the capacity of our cotton lands is, to a certain extent limited; and he is alarmed, or his countrymen are, about the supply for the increased and constantly increasing number of spindles; he also asks what is to become of England should the cotton plant of the south be attacked by any disease, as the potato and the vine have • been. It is a serious question which the English are endeavoring to solve by introducing a new system of land ownership in India, by looking to Africa for cultivatable land, and other expedients. No fear need exist that this competition will affect our cotton districts, at present at least; but the pamphlet contains some curious matter, prepared so cleverly, that we make use of a little space for its insertion, quite confident that it possesses interest for readers in every section of this extended land. The gigantic strides in the progress of cotton consumption is given in a table which may be thus reduced: beginning with the year 1701, and proceeding to 1764, the date of the first improvement in spinning, we find an annual English import of cotton of from one to two millions of pounds, which was, to a large extent, consumed as candlewicks.

Proceeding from the first germ of invention, 1764, to the year 1856, which was the last year of full employment, we find nine hundred and twenty millions consumed.

The number of persons employed in the cotton factories of the United Kingdom in 1856, was 379,213, each one considered to represent three new workers. The above are those actually employed in the factories, who are only a small proportion of those working in all the other branches of the cotton manufacture, which are not subjected to factory inspection. The population of Lancashire was in 1750, 297,400; in 1851, 2,031,236; this great increase being mainly attributable to cotton. In 1760 Liverpool contained 25,787 inhabitants; in 1851, 258,346, or if the adjoining precincts are included, 37.6,000, besides about 12,000 seamen.

The improved value of property most remarkable, is Chorlton-upon-Med-lock, adjoining Manchester. In 1590 it was sold for £320; in 1644 for £300; in 1794 for £42,914; and in 1853 the annual value for the county assessment was £143,151, or, according to the value of the fee simple, the increase is upwards of 50,000 per cent in little more than two centuries, contiguous estates scarcely improving at all.

It is believed, on good authority, that in the neighborhood of Belfast the sewed muslin embroidery trade furnishes employment for about 200,000 women and girls, and the richness and beauty of this work may be estimated from the fact, that a handkerchief, the ground of which cost 3s. may be rendered worth £8, about $40. The price of a pair of cotton stockings may range as high as two dollars and a half, or may descend as low as a few cents; thus affording, at an easy expense, stockings to the feet of millions of people who never before have enjoyed that comfort. Going through similar results of the lace trade, we come to the worsted manufacture. Amongst the recent and most important of the advantages derived from cotton, has been its admixture with wool, mohair, alpaca, linen, and silk.

This manufacture of worsted stuffs was sewed for female garments especially for winter, and the damask for household drapery, but the wool of which it was composed did not admit of being wrought into light fabrics, such as the progress of taste required. Hence, only about 25 years ago, the prospects of this trade were gloomy indeed; the demand for lighter fabrics in wool, aroused the energies of trade, and the difficulty was overcome by the opportune discovery of a mode of admixture of a warp of cotton with a weft of worsted, and eventually with mohair, alpaca, or other substances, but principally with worsted; and the successful issue of this union has imparted new life by the creation of a new branch of industry in the worsted manufacture, and without inflicting entire extinction upon that previously in existence. A warp of cotton is made to form the length of the piece to be woven, and the cotton threads, being much finer and stronger than threads of wool, receive within their meshes the weft of worsted shot across, and which, in many of the cloths, imbed themselves so deeply into the substance of the wool that the cotton portion of the web becomes completely hidden, and thus a fabric is constructed of little more than half the thickness and bulk that would have been presented to the eye if the length as well as the breadth of the piece had been of wool alone.

Contrary to custom, instead of an increase of price, increased cheapness by the introduction of cotton has kept pace by the growing demands of taste and refinement. But in the first instance, the completeness of this success was seriously impeded by the difficulty of dying the goods. The usual chemical process for the dying of wool did not answer when applied to a piece of cloth composed of two fibrous substances so dissimilar in their nature, one being animal, and the other vegetable. After a series of chemical operations, more or less intricate, and after great outlays by the dyers, this difficulty was overcome; and in the wide field of raw materials thus opened out, there has been accomplished a most wonderful addition to the extent and variety of modern manufactures.

Cotton, as a raw material, admits of being wrought into garments for the poor at the low sum of twelve cents per pound weight; whilst a single pound of long staple cotton worth eighty-five cents, can be made to furnish employment and wages to the extent of one thousand dollars in articles of decoration for the rich. The material for a full dress of outer garments, if composed of wool, would cost not less than eight dollars, whilst the same quantity of material for cotton, and of more durable quality, would be two dollars to two dollars and a half. The laborer's wife may purchase a neat and good cotton for eight cents per yard, making a dress for fifty-six cents.

The cheapness and utility of cotton have commanded for it a preference which is almost universal, not only for decorations and clothing, but for bookbinding, as a substitute for leather, and for other purposes. The waste cotton made during the processes of manufacture, is wrought into coarse sheets and bed covers, which are sold at from twelve to eighteen cents the pound. The residue of the waste is used for the manufacture of paper, the cleaner portion being for writing paper, and the sweepings from the floors of factories supply a large proportion of the paper mills of Lancashire with the raw material of the paper which is used for printing books and newspapers.

The animus of the pamphlet is to prove that while all the elements of continued prosperity are in the possession of Great Britain except the command of a regular and adequate supply of raw cotton, this constitutes the feet of clay of their otherwise gigantic power; they are dependent upon the United States for seven-ninths of their supply, and in view of a possible epidemic, they are convinced that their supplies should be drawn, not from one source alone, but from a variety of sources, as a regularity is needed, and a provision also against the inconvenience arising from scarcity and dearness. An advance of one English penny in the price of cotton amounts to twenty millions of dollars a year. The present stock in Liverpool is only equal to the consumption of three weeks. That from Africa last year- would run the entire English mills just one hour ! The entire failure of a cotton crop would entirely destroy, and perhaps forever, all the manufacturing prosperity England possesses; a reduction of the crop from three to one million of bales, would reduce the manufacturing and trading classes to irretrievable ruin; millions would be deprived of food, and as a consequence Great Britain would be involved in a series of calamities, politically, socially, and commercially, such as cannot be contemplated without dismay.

In view of this state of things the manufacturers have formed themselves into a Cotton supply Association, for the purpose of diffusing information • on any new project for the culture of cotton. But they have already ascertained that obstacles exist, local or political which would render it inexpedient to raise the necessary capital for an investment; they are looking eagerly, anxiously, to Africa and India; in the former there can be no hopes for immediate results. The remodification of the government of India may possibly produce a change, and great efforts will now be made to do something practical in the way of European settlers, tenure of land, improved modes of transit and bounties for encouragement.

This is the great problem of the day, and as it concerns us all, but especially a numerous class of the readers of this journal, we have occupied the space necessary for giving the views of those interested abroad; to the solution of the great question, time must put its seal.