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to be worked into the spring of next year, at moderately full time; but afterwards, unless supplies be received from the United States, independent sources can only furnish the means of keeping the mills at work little more than one day in the week. With the growth of this industry 5,000,000 of our population have become, directly and indirectly, dependent upon it for their subsistence; and the productiveness of their capital and labor, including the raw material, was, for the last year, nearly eighty million pounds sterling. Of this large value twenty-five millions of cotton manufactures were absorbed in the consumption of the people of the United Kingdom, and there remained for exportation fifty-five

millions.

The estimated capital engaged in its fixed and floating investments is two hundred million pounds. Now, when we contemplate the vast interests involved in this surprising trade, seeing that the people employed and connected with it exceed the population of the kingdom of Belgium, of Holland and of Portugal; that the national treasury receives from it an amazing sum in aid of the expenses of the State; that a commercial marine of unparalleled magnitude derives support from it; that the comfort and happiness of the laborers employed in it are imperilled by any indications which threaten to disturb its existence and prosperity; and that its suspension, or serious curtailment, would even endanger the general weal; we may well inquire what efforts have been made to sustain the usefulness, prosperity and permanency of this source of national

riches.

That the cotton trade should have rested chiefly upon the one supply of the States of America for its very means of existence, every good and every wise man has deplored; but that to produce that supply the portion of the human family which is most defenceless should be held in the degradation of slavery is abhorrent to the feelings of the righteous, of the humane and of the benevolent. Most effectually to suppress slavery will be to supersede the necessity for the labor of the slave, and if the chiefs of Africa could be induced to cultivate sugar, cotton and tobacco upon their own soil, they need not expel and degrade their la

borers.

Of the commercial policy of the United States of America censures can scarcely be too severe. In the Northern States protection has prevailed, and the people of the South have been compelled to pay extravagant and monopolist prices for the manufactures produced by their own agricultural labor, and which, in the form of cotton, has been received in this country free from every tax. The North has robbed the South by unjust exactions, and the South has robbed the negro of life and liberty! Why the British manufacturer has tamely submitted to an import tax of 30 per cent. upon cotton goods entering the States of America, whilst the raw cotton, the growth of those States, has been received here free from tax or impost, without making an effort to procure supplies of his raw material from free labor, with the right to send free exports in exchange, can only be accounted for by the anxiety to possess an apparent immediate benefit at the cost of advantages more enduring, but which could only be regarded as of prospective or future possession.

Partial and unjust government has at length reaped the fruit of convulsion, and for which unjust policy had sown the seed. The North has taxed for its own protection and advantage the people of the South and

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their industry; and the South has held in degradation, oppression and slavery the laborers who have enriched their owners. Mutual wrongs have been committed, and hitherto no just object appears before the world as a cause of the lamentable struggle which is exhausting both of them. But slavery is doomed.

A protective system has been fostered in the North, founded very extensively upon the pirated inventions of this country, and by the agency of which our manufactures have been largely excluded from the markets of the States. Even their very literature has been abstracted from the intellectual faculties of those in their fatherland who have only their cultivated minds and soul-breathing thoughts for their inheritance.

In addition to these grave reasons, which mainly affect the morality of the States, this country has been paying a tribute of five million pounds sterling per annum to those States in excess of the price at which cotton could be remuneratively produced and sold. With the convulsion which exists in America, with the adverse commercial policy dominant there, and with the inhuman system of slavery which prevails in the cotton producing districts, what are the duties which devolve upon our governing and mercantile classes? If by the convulsion of the States we are taught our national as well as commercial duties, the lesson will be ultimately beneficial.

Whether it has been wise for our government to see continually increasing the dependence of this great trade upon the one chief supply of its raw material, and that source adverse in interest, and oppressive to its own labor, we can only answer in the negative. With the East and West Indies, with tracts in South, East and West Africa, and with land in Australia as extensive as Europe, capable of growing cotton from the lowest to the highest qualities, it is a national reproach to us that we have permitted our own fields to be uncultivated, and that our spinners and manufacturers have been driven by necessity to consume the produce of slavery.

Lacking the means of communication and of irrigation, the resources of the East Indies remain in much the same dormant condition in which they have been for two thousand years; but brighter prospects are opening in that great dependency; railways are being constructed, canals formed, river navigation improved and works of irrigation promoted. One great defect is, however, retained with perverse tenacity. The tenure of land is obstructive alike to the rights of individual ownership, and to its effective cultivation. Without doing the slightest wrong to the holders of any land, its equitable transfer might be sanctioned, and a landed proprietary as influential as in our own country might be established. Protection to life and the rights of property, with every other just adjunct of good government, will inevitably lead to prosperity.

Small supplies of cotton, as good as that obtained from New-Orleans, are now received from India, and the cotton of this vast dependency is certainly improving; but whilst, from a combination of circumstances and causes, the ryot of India is only paid 12s. per acre for his crop of cotton, and the American cultivator can obtain £12, the energy and capability of the former cannot be developed. Supposing efforts to be made commensurate with indicated difficulties, all the common cottons, or 75 per cent. of the consumption of Great Britain, might be obtained from India in a couple of years. From Egypt the supply of cotton may

increase, but there the withering influence of the despot retards its extended cultivation, though the spirited, energetic and successful enterprise of MEHEMET ALI is an example deserving the imitation of better men. He introduced that agricultural industry into his vice-royalty, and founded a fountain of wealth whence flow millions of annual income to the advantage of Egypt.

For all the finer, higher and better classes of cotton, from New-Orleans, Brazil and Egypt, to the most beautiful Sea Island, Queensland, in Australia, might quickly afford all requisite supplies. That territory alone, besides sustaining the population of Europe, could easily be made to produce all the cotton now consumed in the world; but so sweeping a change and enlarged production need not be deliberated upon, the facts being only referred to as illustrating the powers of that colony. In seeking from the government the development of the resources of the colonies, the two-fold advantage would arise of which that power would financially be greatly benefited, alike at home and in the colonies. Government must set its colonial house in order. Land grants for beneficial purposes should be free, facilities afforded for emigration, public works promoted, and prosperity will follow in the train. Capitalists, merchants and manufacturers, whose investments are largely embarked in the cotton trade, have duties devolving upon them.

These bodies are known to have large investments in foreign railways, in the cultivation of sugar and other products, and in many dubious securities; but in the cultivation of the staple raw material of their own pursuits they have not ventured to embark. Last year the cotton trade contributed to capital and labor fifty million pounds sterling, and in the last fifty years the aggregate reward has been one thousand millions. Surely from these treasures might be spared some pittance of capital to free the negro, and to insure still greater prosperity to industry.

Supposing the government of our country to be willing to make all the preliminary arrangements which will contribute to the security and profit of capital invested in cotton growing, the clear duty of the class referred to will be to enter upon investments with no niggard hand; and, for their encouragement, it may be mentioned that very recently an extensive Louisiana cotton planter has asserted that he could grow cotton at 3d. per lb. which is now worth 9d. per lb. in Liverpool, and of course he has had to buy his laborers, and afterwards to sustain them. The confessed profit is 200 per cent., but, in all sobriety of judgment, cotton growing would afford 100 per cent, of recompense.

Here, then, the governing, the capitalist, the mercantile and the manufacturing classes have duties in common to perform, and from which none of them should withhold their willing help. Upon this subject the warning voice has been long and often heard, and the present embarrassment in cotton supplies has been anticipated. Having, therefore, been forewarned, may this great and world-benefiting industry be forearmed.

ANNUAL REPORT ON BREADSTUFFS.

THE export of breadstuffs, domestic as well as foreign, is one of the first importance to this country; it is especially so to the city and State of New-York in the present condition of the financial and commercial affairs of the nation. From the port of New-York alone were exported to foreign countries, in the single month of August, 1861, (being the close of the cereal year,) no less than 297,000 barrels of flour, 2,389,000 bushels of wheat and 2,338,000 bushels of Indian corn, valued at over six millions of dollars. In order to present this subject to our readers in its full breadth, we copy from the annual circular of Mr. EDWARD BILL the following tabular statement of the export of breadstuffs, from this and other ports, to Great Britain and Ireland, for the past year, compared with fourteen former years, viz., 1846-1860:

EXPORT OF BReadstuffs to GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, FROM SEPTEMBER 1, 1860, TO SEPTEMBER 1, 1861.

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Total for fifteen years,. . . . . .18,831,914.. 1,108,988.. 74,176,428.. 85,897,434 TO THE CONTINENT, FROM NEW-YORK AND OTHER PORTS.

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Total for seven years,... .1,785,375 9,569,504. 1,296,971 .. 2,587,267
FROM CANADA TO GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, via ST. LAWRENCE,

Barrels Bushels Bushels Bushels Bushels Barrels
Flour. Wheat. Corn.
Peas. Oats. Oatm'l.

Jan. 1 to Aug. 22, 1861,....369,648 3,221,277 134,196 1,236,218 289,273 17,929

In order to show the breadstuffs trade of this port alone, as indicated by its foreign exports, we extract from the New-York Shipping List the following elaborate monthly table of exports of breadstuffs to all foreign ports from New-York city, from Sept. 1 to Aug. 81, for the following years:

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1857-58.

1856-57.

1855-56.

1854-55.

1858-54.

1852-58.

1851-52.

1850-51.

1849-50.

Export of WHEAT-Bushels-from New-York.

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MONTHS.

1860-61.

1859-60.

1858-59.

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