Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Part 7

CHAPTER XI.

Results of the contest on Protection and Free Trade--More or less favorable to all--Increased consumption of Cotton at home--Capital invested in Cotton and Woolen factories--Markets thus afforded to the Farmer--South successful in securing the monopoly of the Cotton markets--Failure of Cotton cultivation in other countries--Diminished prices destroyed Household Manufacturing--Increasing demand for Cotton--Strange Providences--First efforts to extend Slavery--Indian lands acquired--No danger of over-production--Abolition movements served to unite the South--Annexation of territory thought essential to its security--Increase of Provisions necessary to its success--Temperance cause favorable to this result--The West ready to supply the Planters--It is greatly stimulated to effort by Southern markets--_Tripart.i.te Alliance_ of Western Farmers, Southern Planters, and English Manufacturers--The East competing--The West has a choice of markets--Slavery extension necessary to Western progress--Increased price of Provisions--More grain growing needed--Nebraska and Kansas needed to raise food--The Planters stimulated by increasing demand for Cotton--Aspect of the Provision question--California gold changed the expected results of legislation--Reciprocity Treaty favorable to Planters--Extended cultivation of Provisions in the Far West essential to Planters--Present aspect of the Cotton question favorable to Planters--London Economist's statistics and remarks--Our Planters must extend the culture of Cotton to prevent its increased growth elsewhere.

THE results of the contest, in relation to Protection and Free Trade, have been more or less favorable to all parties. This has been an effect, in part, of the changeable character of our legislation; and, in part, of the occurrence of events in Europe, over which our legislators had no control. The manufaturing States, while protection lasted, succeeded in placing their establishments upon a comparatively permanent basis; and, by engaging largely in the manufacture of cottons, as well as woolens, have rendered home manufactures, practically, very advantageous to the South. Our cotton factories, in 1850, consumed as much cotton as those of Great Britain did in 1831; thus affording indications, that, by proper encouragement, they might, possibly, be multiplied so as to consume the whole crop of the country. The cotton and woolen factories, in 1850, employed over 130,000 work hands, and had $102,619,581 of capital invested in them. They thus afford an important market to the farmer, and, at the same time, have become an equally important auxiliary to the planter. They may yet afford him the only market for his cotton.

The cotton planting States, toward the close of the contest, found themselves rapidly acc.u.mulating strength, and approximating the accomplishment of the grand object at which they aimed--the monopoly of the cotton markets of the world. This success was due, not so much to any triumph over the North--to any prostration of our manufacturing interests--as to the general policy of other nations. All rivalry to the American planters from those of the West Indies, was removed by emanc.i.p.ation; as, under freedom, the cultivation of cotton was nearly abandoned. Mehemet Ali had become imbecile, and the indolent Egyptians neglected its culture. The South Americans, after achieving their independence, were more readily enlisted in military forays, than in the art of agriculture, and they produced little cotton for export. The emanc.i.p.ation of their slaves, instead of increasing the agricultural products of the Republics, only supplied, in ample abundance, the elements of promoting political revolutions, and keeping their soil drenched with human blood. Such are the uses to which degraded men may be applied by the ambitious demagogue. Brazil and India both supplied to Europe considerably less in 1838 than they had done in 1820; and the latter country made no material increase afterward, except when her chief customer, China, was at war, or prices were above the average rates in Europe. While the cultivation of cotton was thus stationary or retrograding, everywhere outside of the United States, England and the Continent were rapidly increasing their consumption of the article, which they nearly doubled from 1835 to 1845; so that the demand for the raw material called loudly for its increased production. Our planters gathered a rich harvest of profits by these events.

But this is not all that is worthy of note, in this strange chapter of Providences. No prominent event occurred, but conspired to advance the prosperity of the cotton trade, and the value of American slavery. Even the very depression suffered by the manufacturers and cultivators of cotton, from 1825 to 1829, served to place the manufacturing interests upon the broad and firm basis they now occupy. It forced the planters into the production of their cotton at lower rates; and led the manufacturers to improve their machinery, and reduce the price of their fabrics low enough to sweep away all household manufacturing, and secure to themselves the monopoly of clothing the civilized world. This was the object at which the British manufacturers had aimed, and in which they had been eminently successful. The growing manufactures of the United States, and of the Continent of Europe, had not yet sensibly affected their operations.

There is still another point requiring a pa.s.sing notice, as it may serve to explain some portions of the history of slavery, not so well understood. It was not until events diminis.h.i.+ng the foreign growth of cotton, and enlarging the demand for its fabrics, had been extensively developed, that the older cotton-growing States became willing to allow slavery extension in the Southwest; and, even then, their a.s.sent was reluctantly given--the markets for cotton, doubtless, being considered sufficiently limited for the territory under cultivation. Up to 1824, the Indians held over thirty-two millions of acres of land in Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, and over twenty millions of acres in Florida, Missouri and Arkansas; which was mostly retained by them as late as 1836. Although the States interested had repeatedly urged the matter upon Congress, and some of them even resorted to forcible means to gain possession of these Indian lands, the Government did not fulfill its promise to remove the Indians until 1836; and even then, the measure met with such opposition, that it was saved but by one vote--Mr. Calhoun and six other Southern Senators voting against it.[32] In justice to Mr.

Calhoun, however, it must be stated that his opposition to the measure was based on the conviction that the treaty had been fraudulently obtained.

The older States, however, had found, by this time, that the foreign and home demand for cotton was so rapidly increasing that there was little danger of over-production; and that they had, in fact, secured to themselves the monopoly of the foreign markets. Beside this, the abolition movement at that moment, had a.s.sumed its most threatening aspect, and was demanding the destruction of slavery or the dissolution of the Union. Here was a double motive operating to produce harmony in the ranks of Southern politicians, and to awaken the fears of many, North and South, for the safety of the Government. Here, also, was the origin of the determination, in the South, to extend slavery, by the annexation of territory, so as to gain the political preponderance in the National Councils, and to protect its interests against the interference of the North.

It was not the increased demand for cotton, alone, that served as a protection to the older States. The extension of its cultivation, in the degree demanded by the wants of commerce, could only be effected by a corresponding increased supply of provisions. Without this, it could not increase, except by enhancing their price to the injury of the older States. This food did not fail to be in readiness, so soon as it was needed. Indeed, much of it had long been awaiting an outlet to a profitable market. Its surplus, too, had been somewhat increased by the Temperance movement in the North, which had materially checked the distillation of grain.

The West, which had long looked to the East for a market, had its attention now turned to the South, as the most certain and convenient mart for the sale of its products--the planters affording to the farmers the markets they had in vain sought from the manufacturers. In the meantime, steamboat navigation was acquiring perfection on the Western rivers--the great natural outlets for Western products--and became a means of communication between the Northwest and the Southwest, as well as with the trade and commerce of the Atlantic cities. This gave an impulse to industry and enterprise, west of the Alleghanies, unparalleled in the history of the country. While, then, the bounds of slave labor were extending from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, Westward, over Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas, the area of free labor was enlarging, with equal rapidity, in the Northwest, throughout Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. Thus, within these provision and cotton regions, were the forests cleared away, or the prairies broken up, simultaneously by those old antagonistic forces, opponents no longer, but harmonized by the fusion of their interests--the connecting link between them being the steamboat. Thus, also, was a _tripart.i.te alliance_ formed, by which the Western Farmer, the Southern Planter, and the English Manufacturer, became united in a common bond of interest: the whole giving their support to the doctrine of Free Trade.

This active commerce between the West and South, however, soon caused a rivalry in the East, that pushed forward improvements, by States or Corporations, to gain a share in the Western trade. These improvements, as completed, gave to the West a choice of markets, so that its Farmers could elect whether to feed the slave who grows the cotton, or the operatives who are engaged in its manufacture. But this rivalry did more. The compet.i.tion for Western products enhanced their price, and stimulated their more extended cultivation. This required an enlargement of the markets; and the extension of slavery became essential to Western prosperity.

We have not reached the end of the alliance between the Western Farmer and Southern Planter. The emigration which has been filling Iowa and Minnesota, and is now rolling like a flood into Kansas and Nebraska, is but a repet.i.tion of what has occurred in the other Western States and Territories. Agricultural pursuits are highly remunerative, and tens of thousands of men of moderate means, or of no means, are cheered along to where none forbids them land to till. For the last few years, public improvements have called for vastly more than the usual share of labor, and augmented the consumption of provisions. The foreign demand added to this, has increased their price beyond what the planter can afford to pay. For many years free labor and slave labor maintained an even race in their Western progress. Of late the freemen have begun to lag behind, while slavery has advanced by several degrees of longitude. Free labor must be made to keep pace with it. There is an urgent necessity for this. The demand for cotton is increasing in a ratio greater than can be supplied by the American planters, unless by a corresponding increased production. This increasing demand must be met, or its cultivation will be facilitated elsewhere, and the monopoly of the planter in the European markets be interrupted. This can only be effected by concentrating the greatest possible number of slaves upon the cotton plantations. Hence they must be supplied with provisions.

This is the present aspect of the Provision question, as it regards slavery extension. Prices are approximating the maximum point, beyond which our provisions can not be fed to slaves, unless there is a corresponding increase in the price of cotton. Such a result was not antic.i.p.ated by Southern statesmen, when they had succeeded in overthrowing the protective policy, destroying the United States Bank, and establis.h.i.+ng the Sub-Treasury system. And why has this occurred? The mines of California prevented both the Free-Trade Tariff,[33] and the Sub-Treasury scheme from exhausting the country of the precious metals, extinguis.h.i.+ng the circulation of Bank Notes, and reducing the prices of agricultural products to the specie value. At the date of the pa.s.sage of the Nebraska Bill, the multiplication of provisions, by their more extended cultivation, was the only measure left that could produce a reduction of prices, and meet the wants of the planters. The Canadian Reciprocity Treaty, since secured, will bring the products of the British North American colonies, free of duty, into compet.i.tion with those of the United States, when prices, with us, rule high, and tend to diminish their cost; but in the event of scarcity in Europe, or of foreign wars, the opposite results may occur, as our products, in such times, will pa.s.s, free of duty, through these colonies, into the foreign market. It is apparent, then, that nothing short of extended free labor cultivation, far distant from the seaboard, where the products will bear transportation to none but Southern markets, can fully secure the cotton interests from the contingencies that so often threaten them with ruinous embarra.s.sments. In fact, such a depression of our cotton interests has only been averted by the advanced prices which cotton has commanded, for the last few years, in consequence of the increased European demand, and its diminished cultivation abroad.

On this subject, the _London Economist_, of June 9, 1855, in remarking on the aspects of the cotton question, at that moment says:

"Another somewhat remarkable circ.u.mstance, considering we are at war, and considering the predictions of some persons, is the present high price and consumption of cotton. The crop in the United States is short, being only 1,120,000,000 or 1,160,000,000 lbs., but not so short as to have a very great effect on the markets had consumption not increased.

Our mercantile readers will be well aware of this fact, but let us state here that the total consumption between January 1st and the last week in May was:

=CONSUMPTION OF COTTON.= =1853.= =1854.= =1855.=

Pounds, 331,708,000 295,716,000 415,648,000 Less than 1855, 83,940,000 119,932,000 Average consumption of lbs. per week, 15,600,000 14,000,000 19,600,000

"Though the crop in the United States is short up to this time, Great Britain has received 12,400,000 lbs. more of the crop of 1854 than she received to the same period of the crop of 1853. Thus, in spite of the war, and in spite of a short crop of cotton, in spite of dear corn and failing trade to Australia and the United States, the consumption of cotton has been one-fourth in excess of the flouris.h.i.+ng year of 1853, and more than a third in excess of 1854. These facts are worth consideration.

"It is reasonably expected that the present high prices will bring cotton forward rapidly; but as yet this effect has not ensued. . . . .

Thus, it will be seen that, notwithstanding the short crop in the States, (at present, they have sent us more in 1855 than in 1854, but not so much as in 1853,) the supply from other sources, except Egypt, has been smaller in 1855 than in either of the preceding years, and the supply from Egypt, though greater than in 1854, is less than in 1853."

[From India, the princ.i.p.al hope of increased supplies, the imports for 1855, in the first four months of the year, were less by 47,960,000 lbs.

than in 1854, and less by 64,000,000 lbs. than in 1853.[34]] "We may infer, therefore, that the rise in price hitherto, has not been sufficient to bring increased supplies from India and other places; but these will, no doubt, come when it is seen that the rise will probably be permanent in consequence of the enlarged consumption, and the comparative deficiency in the crop of the United States."

After noticing the increasing exports of raw cotton from both England and the United States to France and the other countries of the Continent, from which it is inferred that the consumption is increasing in Europe, generally, as well as in Great Britain, the _Economist_ proceeds to remark:

"A rapidly increasing consumption of cotton in Europe has not been met by an equally rapidly increasing supply, and the present relative condition of the supply to the demand seems to justify an advance of price, unless a greatly diminished consumption can be brought about.

What supplies may yet be obtained from India, the Brazils, Egypt, etc., we know not; but, judging from the imports of the three last years, they are not likely to supply the great deficiency in the stocks just noticed. A decrease in consumption, which is recommended, can only be accomplished by the state of the market, not by the will of individual spinners; for if some lessen their consumption of the raw material while the demand of the market is for more cloth, it will be supplied by others, either here or abroad; and the only real solution of the difficulty or means of lowering the price, is an increased supply. This points to other exertions than those which have been latterly directed to the production of fibrous materials to be converted directly into paper. Exertions ought rather to be directed to the production of fibrous materials which shall be used for textile fabrics, and so much larger supplies of rags--the cheapest and best material for making paper will be obtained. But theoretical production, and the schemers who propose it, not guided by the market demands, are generally erroneous, and what we now require is more and cheaper material for clothing as the means of getting more rags to make paper.

"Another important deduction may be made from the state of the cotton market. It has not been affected, at least the production of cotton with the importation into Europe has not been disturbed by the war, and yet it seems not to have kept pace with the consumption. From this we infer that legislative restrictions on traffic, permanently affecting the habits of the people submissive to them, and of all their customers, have a much more pernicious effect on production and trade than national outpourings in war of indignation and anger--which, if terrible in their effects, are of short duration. These are in the order of nature, except as they are slowly corrected and improved by knowledge; while the restrictions--the offspring of ignorance and misplaced ambition--are at all times opposed to her beneficent ordinances."

The _Economist_ of June 30, in its Trade Tables, sums up the imports for the 5th month of the year 1855; from which it appears, that instead of any increase of the imports of cotton having occurred, they had fallen off to the extent of 43,772,176 lbs. below the quant.i.ty imported in the corresponding month of 1854.

The _Economist_ of September 1, 1855, in continuing its notices of the cotton markets, and stating that there is still a falling off in its supplies, says:

"The decline in the quant.i.ty of cotton imported is notoriously the consequence of the smallness of last year's crops in the United States. . . . . It is remarkable that the additional supply which has made up partly for the shortness of the American crop comes from the Brazils, Egypt, and other parts. From British India the supply is relatively shorter than from the United States. It fails us more than that of the States, and the fact is rather unfavorable to the speculations of those who wish to make us independent of the States, and dependent chiefly on our own possessions. The high freights that have prevailed, and are likely to prevail with a profitable trade, would obviously make it extremely dangerous for our manufacturers to increase their dependence on India for a supply of cotton. In 1855, when we have a short supply from other quarters, India has sent us one-third less than in 1853."

The _Economist_ of February 23, 1856, contains the Annual Statement of Imports for 1855, ending December 31, from which it appears that the supplies of cotton from India, for the whole year, were only 145,218,976 lbs., or 35,212,520 lbs. less than the imports for 1853. Of these imports 66,210,704 lbs. were re-exported; thus leaving the British manufacturers but 79,008,272 lbs. of the free labor cotton of India, upon which to employ their looms.[35]

This increasing demand for cotton beyond the present supplies, if not met by the cotton growers of the United States, must encourage its cultivation in countries which now send but little to market. To prevent such a result, and to retain in their own hands the monopoly of the cotton market, will require the utmost vigilance on the part of our planters. That vigilance will not be wanting.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] Benton's Thirty Year's View.

[33] The Tariff of 1846, under which our imports are now made, approximates the Free Trade principles very closely.

[34] These figures are taken from a part of the _Economist's_ article not copied. For the difference between the imports from India, in the whole of the years 1850 to 1855, see Table I.

[35] The commercial year is five days shorter for 1855 than in former years.

CHAPTER XII.

Consideration of foreign cultivation of Cotton further considered--Facts and opinions slated by the London Economist--Consumption of Cotton tending to exceed the production--India affords the only field of compet.i.tion with the United States--Its vast inferiority--Imports from India dependent upon price--Free Labor and Slave Labor cannot be united on the same field--Supply of the United States therefore limited by natural increase of slaves--Limited supply of labor tends to renewal of slave trade--Cotton production in India the only obstacle which Great Britain can interpose against American Planters--Africa, too, to be made subservient to this object--Parliamentary proceedings on this subject--Successful Cotton culture in Africa--Slavery to be permanently established by this policy--Opinions of the _American Missionary_--Remarks showing the position of the Cotton question in its relations to slavery--Great Britain building up slavery in Africa to break it down in America.

THE remark which closes the preceding chapter was made in 1856. An opportunity is now offered for recording the results of the movements of Great Britain to promote cotton culture in her own possessions between that and 1859. The results will be startling. Few anti-slavery men in the United States expected that Great Britain would so soon be engaged zealously in establis.h.i.+ng slave labor in Africa, or that Lord Palmerston should publicly commend the measure. The question is one of so much importance as to demand a full examination. The extracts are taken, mainly, from the _London Economist_, a periodical having the highest reputation for candor and fair dealing. On Feb. 12, 1859, the _Economist_ said:

"We are not surprised that the future supply of cotton should have engaged the attention of Parliament on an early night of the Session. It is a question the importance of which can not well be overrated, if we refer only to the commercial interests which it involves, or to the social comfort or happiness of the millions who are now dependent upon it for their support. But it has an aspect far loftier and even more important. At its root lies the ultimate success of a policy for which England has made great struggles and great sacrifices--the maintaining of existing treaties, and perhaps the peace of the world. Every year as it pa.s.ses, proves more and more that the question of slavery, and even of the slave trade, is destined to be materially affected, if not ultimately governed, by considerations arising out of the cultivation of this plant. It is impossible to observe the tendency of public opinion throughout America, not even excepting the Free States, with relation to the slave trade, without feeling conscious that it is drifting into indifference, and even laxity. In every light, then, in which this great subject can be viewed, it is one which well deserves the careful attention equally of the philanthropist and the statesman.

"It has been said, that in the case of cotton we have found an exception to the great commercial principle of supply and demand. Is this so? We doubt it. We doubt if, on the contrary, we shall not find, upon investigation, that it presents one of the strongest examples of the struggle of that principle to maintain its conclusions. No doubt the conditions of its production have made that struggle a severe one; but, nevertheless, it has not been altogether unsuccessful. Eighteen years ago, (in 1840) the total supply of cotton imported into this country was 592,488,000 lbs.: with temporary fluctuations, it had steadily grown until it had reached, in the last three years, upwards of 900,000,000 lbs., showing an increase of more than fifty per cent. Nevertheless, the demand had been constantly pressing upon the supply, the consumption has always shown a tendency to exceed the production, and the consequent result of a high price has, during a majority of those years, acted as a powerful stimulant to cultivation. But, practically speaking, we possess but two sources of supply, and both present such powerful obstacles to extended cultivation, that we are not surprised at the habitual uneasiness of those whose interests demand a continually increasing quant.i.ty. Those two sources are the United States and British India. It is true that Brazil, Egypt, the West Indies, and some other countries, furnish small quant.i.ties of cotton; but when we state that of the 931,847,000 lbs., imported into the United Kingdom in 1858, the proportion furnished by America and India was 870,656,000 lbs., leaving for all other places put together, a supply of only 61,191,000 lbs., notwithstanding the many laudable efforts, both on the part of Government, and of the mercantile community, to encourage its growth in new countries, it will be admitted that, as an _immediate_ and practical question, it is confined to those two sources. They are not only the sources from whence the largest supplies are received, but they are also those where the chief increase has taken place.

"In 1840 the supply received from the United States was 487,856,000 lbs.

Since that time, with some considerable fluctuations, it has steadily increased, until in 1858 it rose to 732,403,000 lbs.--the maximum quant.i.ty having reached in 1856, 780,040,000 lbs. Yet, great as this increase has been, it appears that it has not been equal to the increased demand, if we may judge from the price, at the two periods.[36] The large supplies of the last three years have commanded prices at least _sixteen per cent._ higher than the smaller supplies from 1840 to 1842. Every encouragement, therefore, which high and remunerative prices could give to increased cultivation has been liberally afforded to the cotton-growing States of America.

"But whatever the price, there is a condition which places an absolute limit upon the growth. Land in every way suited for the purpose, is abundant and cheap. Means of transport is of the cheapest and best kind, and is without limit. The limit lies in the necessary ingredient of labor. If cotton had been the produce of free labor, no doubt the principle of supply and demand would have solved the difficulty. The surplus of the Old World would have steadily maintained the balance between the two in the New World. Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, the Southern parts of France, and Portugal, would have sent their surplus labor to the best market. As it is, the two kinds of labor--that of the freeman and that of the slave--can not be united in the same cultivation. The slave States of America are, therefore, dependent for any increase of labor only upon themselves. The consuming States can draw supplies only from the breeding States. It is, therefore, exactly in proportion as the slave population increases that the cotton crop becomes larger. Taking the average of three or four years at any period of the history of the United States for the last forty years, it will be found that the growth of cotton is equal to one bale for each person of the slave population. The calculation is well known. When the slave population was two millions, the average produce of cotton was two millions of bales:--as the one rose the other increased. The slave population is now about three millions and a half; the cotton crop of the present year is computed at from 3,500,000 to 3,700,000 bales. The high price of cotton, and the great profit attached to its cultivation, have no doubt furnished the greatest stimulant to an increase of that part of the population. In the compet.i.tion for more labor, the price of slaves was enormously increased. Some years ago the price of a slave was about 100; now they are worth from 200 to 400. But what must be the tendency of this fearful compet.i.tion for a limited supply of human labor--limited as long as the slave trade is prohibited--unlimited as soon as the slave trade is legalized? What is the actual condition of the Southern States at this moment? There is on the ground and being secured, according to computation, the largest cotton crop ever known.

The last estimates vary from 3,550,000 bales to 3,700,000 bales. A very few years ago it was calculated that cotton at any thing above _four cents_ the pound for "middling quality" on the spot was a profitable crop. Now, the price for the same quality on the spot is fully _ten cents_ the pound;--and it has been about the same or higher for a long time. What is the consequence? A correspondent writing by the last mail says: 'The people of this section of the country feel _made of gold_, and every thing here is, of course, going at full cry--_every planter wants to open more land and buy more negroes_.' What do these facts suggest? Do they furnish no explanation of the strong desire in the Southern States to possess Cuba? Do they furnish no explanation of the exaggerated irritation got up last year in respect to the West India squadron, and the demand of the American Government, we fear too successfully made, that the right of search in the mitigated form in which it existed should be altogether abandoned? A people familiarized not only with slavery, but also with the slave trade as between one cla.s.s of States and another, can hardly be expected to entertain a very strong repugnance to a slave trade from beyond the seas. That cargoes of imported slaves have recently been landed in the United States is not denied:--that vessels fitted out as slavers have recently been seized in American ports, we know upon official authority. The same correspondent whom we have already quoted, says there are two great questions which occupy the Southern States at this moment. The one is the acquisition of Cuba. 'The other,' he says, 'is one which has been presented to me forcibly during my sojourn in the South, and that is the increase of slave population. You must have noticed an illicit importation of negroes from Africa landed in Georgia. This has undoubtedly been done, and I doubt not also that other negroes have been landed. It is of course the desire of every honest man that the whole force of the government should be used to put down such a trade, and punish the offenders; but I fear the profits of the trade are so enormous that it will be carried on in the face of all opposition. Negroes are now worth here from 1,000 to 2,000 dollars a-piece. The subject of their being introduced is being openly discussed, and the propriety of the trade being again legalized. It is plain this discussion will by and by take shape. Will not the government be obliged to listen to it, and what will be the result? When labor is so profitable it will be obtained. How? I confess to looking upon this subject with great anxiety. The feeling with regard to slavery both in the North and South has undergone a material change in the last four years. It is now looked upon with far less abhorrence.' Is it possible to separate the danger which is here presented so forcibly from the question of the high price of cotton? We know by experience the influence which the Southern States can exercise upon the election of a President. . . . . . . If the free States are indifferent, we know that, at whatever risk, the slave States will have their own way; and with them it is plain that much must depend upon the price of cotton and the motives which it furnishes to '_open more land and buy more negroes_.'

"But with what an enormous interest does this view of the case invest the cultivation of cotton in India. It is the only real obstacle that we can interpose to the growing feeling in favor of slavery, to the diminis.h.i.+ng abhorrence of the slave trade in the United States. It is the only field, compet.i.tion with which can, for many years to come, redress the undue stimulant which high prices are giving to slave labor in America. Nor do the facts as regard the past discourage the hope that it may be successfully used for that purpose. In 1840 the supply of cotton from India was 77,011,000 lbs.;--in 1858 it had risen to 138,253,000 lbs.: having been in the immediately preceding year no less than 250,338,000 lbs. The average importation for four years from 1840 to 1843 amounted to 83,300,000 lbs.:--the average importation for the last four years has been 178,000,000 lbs. or somewhat more than double that of the former period. In some important respects the conditions of supply from India differ very much from those which attach to and determine the supply from America. In India there is no limit to the quant.i.ty of labor. There may be said to be little or none to the quant.i.ty of land. The obstacle is of another kind; it lies almost exclusively in the want of cheap transit. Our supplies of India cotton are not even determined by the quant.i.ty produced, but by that which, when produced, can profitably be forwarded to England. It is, therefore, a question of price whether we obtain more or less. A rise in the price of _one penny_ the pound in 1857, suddenly increased the supply from 180,000,000 lbs. in 1856 to 250,000,000 lbs. in 1857. A fall in the price in 1858 again suddenly reduced it to 138,000,000 lbs. It was not that the production of cotton varied in these proportions in those years, but that at given prices it was possible to incur more cost in the transit than at others. The same high price, therefore, which at present renders a large supply possible from India, creates an unusual demand for slaves in the United States. But would not the same corrective consequence be produced if we could diminish the cost of transit in India? Every farthing a pound saved in carriage is equivalent to so much added to the price of cotton. Four-pence the pound in the Liverpool market for good India cotton, with a cost of two-pence from the spot of production, would command just as great a supply as a price of five-pence the pound if the intermediate cost were three-pence. The whole question resolves itself into one of good roads and cheap conveyance. Labor in India is infinitely more abundant than in the United States, and much cheaper; land is at least as cheap; the climate is as good;--but the bullock trains on the miserable roads of Hindostan cannot compete with the steamers and other craft on the Mississippi. No doubt we have new hopes in the district of Scinde, and in the aid of the Indus. We have new hopes in the railways which are being constructed,--not only in cheapening transit, but even more in improving the condition in which native produce will be brought to market.

Whatever, therefore, be the financial sacrifice which in the first place must be made for the purpose of opening the interior of India, it should be cheerfully made, as the only means by which we can hope permanently to improve the revenues of India, to increase and cheapen the supply of the most important raw material of our own industry, and to bring in the abundant labor of the millions of our fellow-subjects in India, to redress the deficiency in the slave States of America, and thus to give the best practical check to the growing attractions of slavery and the slave trade."

On March 5, 1859, the editor resumes the subject, and discusses the bearing which the movements making in Africa are likely to have upon these interests.

"We pointed out in a recent number the very close connection between the traditional policy of England in resisting the slave trade, and the efforts which are now making to find other sources of cotton supply besides the United States. We showed that a cry is now arising in the United States, for the renewal of the slave trade--a cry stimulated princ.i.p.ally by the high price of cotton. We showed that for every slave in the Southern States there is on the average a bale of cotton produced annually, and that as the demand for cotton, and consequently the price of cotton rises, the demand for slaves and the price of slaves rises with it. In the words of a correspondent whom we then quoted, 'every planter wants to open more land and buy more negroes.' Hence the demand in the South for the recently successful attempt to smuggle slave-cargoes into Georgia. If, then, either in India or any other quarter of the world, it be possible either to cheapen the carriage or facilitate the growth of cotton, so as to bring it into the English markets at a price that can compete successfully with the American cotton, we are conferring a double benefit on mankind--we are increasing the supply of one of the most necessary, and, relatively to the demand, one of the least abundant, articles of commerce, on the steady supply of which the livelihood of millions, and the comfort of almost every civilized nation on the face of the earth, depends, and by means of the increased compet.i.tion we are diminis.h.i.+ng the force of the motive which is now threatening the United States with a renewal of the slave trade.

We cannot, therefore, well conceive of stronger considerations than those which are now urging Englishmen to do what may be in their power for the promotion of an increased supply from cotton-growing countries other than the States of America.

"Besides these reasons which apply to the promotion of the cotton-supply in India, or in our own West Indian islands, there is one peculiar to the case of Africa which makes it important that no opportunities of encouraging the cotton-growth of that continent should be neglected. The African supply, if ever it become large, will not only check the rise in the price of cotton, and therefore of slaves in America,--but it will diminish the profits of slave exportation on the coast of Africa.