The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-29 00:00:00

852 THE PROMOTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. LORD BROUGHAM has consented to preside, and to deliver the inaugural address, at the formation of an association which is about to be established for the purpose of bringing together the supporters of the various efforts ;Cacti are now being made for social improvement, and to elucidate by discussion the connection between each, and the mutual assistance they may render to each other. The new movement will partake to some extent of the character of the educational conference recently held in LDndon, over which the Prince Consort presided, various branches of social science being referred to " sections " or "departments" conducted by gentlemen who have paid attention to the subjects. The inaugural meet ing will be held in the Town-hall, Birmingham, on Monday, October 12, when Lard Brougham will deliver the introduetery address. The meeting will then be divided into five departments, in each of which papers will be re ad and discussions token on the following subjects :-1. Jurisprudence and amendment of the law. 2. Education. 3. Punish ment and reformation. 4. Public health. 5. Social economy. On the mornings of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, the 13th, 14th, and 15th of October, the departments will meet at Queen's College, Bir• mingliam, for the reading of papers and discussion. On the evening of Tuesday a soiree will be held in the Town-hall. On Wednesday evening, the 14th, a public entertainment will be given to Lord Brougham and other members of the association, by the Mayor of Birmingham. On Thursday evening, the 15th, a public meeting will take place in the Town-hall, on the subject of the Refor natory movement. O❑ Friday morning, the 16th, the concluding meeting will be held, to receive a report from the general committee and on other business. There have already been promised a large number of papers by distinguished persons on the subjects for the dis cussion of which the new association is to be founded, and the meeting seems likely to be one of unusual interest and importance. THE GENERAL D'ORGONL who has lately arrived in Paris, it is said upon a special mission from the King of Ava, to protest against the British occupa- tion of is thus summed np by a correspondent of the Tintos this week : I met this person in BiirmAh in 1852.53. He was then considered a doub•ful character, and was to a certain ex• tent under surveillance; he was, however, an occasional guest at most of the messes of the regiments occupying Rangoon. He represented himself as a retired French officer, a somewhat violent Legitimist, and not a little opposed to the present Emperor. He was ultimately taken prisoner by a party cf Burmese and conveyed to Ava. It was generally thought the capture was pre arranged. 1 always understood his real name to be Du• gorier. TILE BRITISH ARCHIEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION have during the week rendezvoused at King's Lynn, and have made several interesting excursions in the immediate neighbourhood. A CORRESPONDENT of the Brussels Infipeniance states that there have been six successful ascents of M..mt Blanc this year. Chamouni is crowded with tourists. Mr. E. S. Kennedy, writing to the Times this week, gives an account of a successful ascent of tht Finster-Aar•Horn Our party (he writes) cons'ated of the Rev. J. F. Hardy, J. l•. W. Ellis, 13. St. John Mathews, William Mathews, an 1 E. S. Kennedy, Graduates of the University of Cain lit i and James Smith, a lad about sixteen, of the Grotto. On the morning of the 13th of Ailgust, being aided by a bright moon and encouraged by a cloubb-sa sky, we left our rottAh m.mntain quarter (on Aeggisch•Horn) at 2.30 a.m. ; t hard ice crunched beneath the tread of gnicklymoving f. et, so that we were enabled to hail the rising sun from the crest of the Grun•Hora-Lucke at 4.53, and, surrounded by the lofty peaks of the Ob.-rland, all beautifully tinted by the early rays of dawn, rapidly to cross the upper portion of the Viesch glacier and reach the ba-e of the Finster- A Q.-Horn at 5.25. Our route now led us np a narrow and steep ridge of rock, and across slopes of snow, to a point 0.1 the sadd'e which commands the Strahleck Pass and Finster-Air glacier, and is situated imtnediately at the base of the final peak, about 1,200 feet below the summit. Here one of ()or guide., who hid vainly endeavoured to keep himself up to the mark by the aid of brandy, gave in ; and here also it was thought advisable that the lad should remain behind. Our course was now up an arrete formed of rugged rock, with occasional patches of snow inclined at a considerable angle; towards the south it runs rapidly down to the glacier of Viesch, while towards the north it is precipitous, and overhangs the Finster-Aar glacier. The an omit was gained about noon. We deposited our names in a bottle securely inserted in a cairn of stones ; we gave three sheet"' in honour of the glorious old mountain ; and, weather, enjoyed a view of the most 'resting character. After a pause of I ,ly rapid descent brought us rarely ion of our party slept again at the reached at S p.m., while two of us Jtsch glacier, and arrived at the hotel following morning. three cheeks in nonour b in fa mired by the ,wnilicent and inter? h dt• an hour a tolerild • down ; the nrj r porti, Faulberg, wh,eh they r pushed down the Met at one o'clock the folio PH E PRES S, AUGUST 29, 1857. Gorrtspoittante. FINANCIAL FALLACIES. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE rrtr. is." Sir,—The fallacy enunciated by Lord Palmerston in his speech of Thursday the 20th, as reported by the Times the following day, and generally trumpeted forth to the world by the Whig organs and sup porters of Government—namely, that the unpa triotic conduct of the Tories in crying out for reduc tions at the beginning of this session—is quickly refuted by the following figures. The revenue made up to the 31st of March last was over 70,000,0001.; :he revenue made up to the 30th of June was above 72,000,0001.; the war income-tax produced 16,000,0002—it now produces 7,000,0001.; the na tional debt requires 30,000,0001., including the re payment of Gladstone's 2,000,0001. Exchequer Bonds due in May ; the forces, including the vote for the Persian war, required nearly 21,000,000/.;—together 51,000,0001. Then come the civil estimates, which under twenty-five years of Whig reform retrench ment have been increased from 3,500,0001. to 8,000,0001., leaving a surplus of upwards of 10,000,0001. according to the proportion of revenue collected up to Juno last. Does Lord Palmerston mean to assert that 10,000,0001. were necessary to retain the perfect soldiers dismissed last spring by Government under the false plea of economy, or to call out for thirty days' training the militia, one-third of whom will never rejoin their colours, retain the skilled artificers turned away from Woolwich and the docks, whom they can inever recall ? A vote of 1,000,0001. would have sufficed to have kept faith with the dismissed artisan, retained the soldier now to be replaced by recruit, and kept up the militia as a corps de reserve for the army and home defences. The country's expenses are 62,000,0001., including the cost of col lection ; the country pays 72,000,0'10/. in taxation. What becomes of the remaining 10,000,0001., accord ing to the last quarter's revenue? H. D. August 27. FREE AND SLAVE LABOUR. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—The rapidly growing institution of slavery, its cotton monopoly, with the deficiency of the raw material for our manufacturers, and the general high price of tropical produce, are questions of grave import to Great Britain after having paid 20,000,000/. to emancipate its negro serfs, under the representa tion of our rulers of that time that their labour as free men would speedily take precedence of that of the slave. Any information, therefore, relative to this momentous question may not be unacceptable ►o your readers ; and from a work published in Jane last, entitled " Russell's North America, its Agricul ture and Climate, with Observations on Cuba," I have culled the following extracts, which bear on the subject of slave and free labour, as the result, apparently, of the author's unbiassed observations and opinions during his tour. At page 293 he says:-- Until the institution of slavery be weakened, as it was in Europe, by the redundancy of the predial population, I have as little hope of slavery relaxing its grasp in the United States for many years to come as of people deny ing themselves the luxuries of cotton, sugar, and tobacco. I have failed to discover a single element in active opera• tion %liich points to a different conclusion. At a moderate estimate, the slaves in the United States are wind], at the present moment, 450.900,0001. No scheme for emancipa- tion has been proposed which would not he attended with a sacrifice of property it is in vain for us to expect to be made. Thus slavery, I fear, will not loosen her grasp till labour, which is at present obtained by coercion, can be otherwise commanded thrJugh the force of circumstances. The 20,000,009/. paid for emancipation is but a drop in the bucket as compared with the present value of the Yankee's slaves. At page 130 Mr. Russell remarks that— The nominal hire of a slave engaged in agricultural operations is, therefore, rather less than that of a free labourer. The cost of maintaining the slave is less than that of boarding the free man—a difference that will so tar assist in compensating the planter fur the inferior work of the slave. These facts tend to show that slave labour cannot be materially dearer than free, even in those States where the two admit of being fairly compared For had slave labour been so much inferior to free, as it is generally supposed, it should have lessened the value of property in the slave States. Hut it is generally believed the chief profits of the Kentucky and Maryland slave owners arises from breeding slaves and selling them to the cotton and sugar planters in the Southern States, which still have so much unoccupied land. Hence, at the present time, the institution of slavery exhibits no symp toms of docay in the richest corn•grcwind lands of the Northern States. Page I 40 : The dread lest abolition would onTj be a transferring the slave from the Northern to the Southern States serves as a check to the zeal of those who wish to have the system uprooted Slavery possesses great advantages over free labour in the cultivation of tobacco, for, among other reasons, shiveowners can always command the quality and quantity of the labour required to raise this crop economically . . . . On good land a free man or a slave can cultivate twenty acres of Indian corn, and as many of wheat. Whilst the slave can only manage, the author says, two acres of tobacco, from tha constant attention it requires. Page 142: In estimating the comparative productiveness of free and slave labour, one fact must be kept in view —women do not assist. in field work in any of the free States, or in Canada. On the other hand, negro women are all em ployed on the plantations, and at some operations Rs effectively as the men. Hence in the United States a given number of slave population engaged in agriculture is really more productive than the same number of free. . . . . Even a rich district, cultivated by slaves, may compare very favourably with one cultivated by free men with regard to the amount of produce they severally raise The best land along the rivers will soon be occupied by slaveowners, while the inferior and more inaccessible will be slowly taken up by free setttlers Page 152 : The allowance for an ablebodied slave is four pounds of bacon and twenty pounds of Indian corn meal a week, besides buttermilk. Page 155 : If a planter's son obtains eight or ten slaves, and emi grates with them to the rich lands of the Mississippi, and cultivate cotton, he will with ordinary attention and industry soon accumulate a fortune So long. there , fore, as there is abundance of new land in the United States to carry off the surplus labour, slavery remains as profitable as ever it was. . . . As an example of the large internal traffic in slaves, it may be mentioned that one of the engineers on the North Carolina railroad stated that on one occasion he had taken 601 slaves south in one train. Virginia is stated to export 20,000 annually to the South ; these, at only 1501. each, amount to 3,000,0001. Guano, he tells us also— Has been applied to a considerable extent in raising cotton. Page 180: The cost of providing the negroes. young and old, with food and clothing is from thirty to forty dots. per head. An average of thirty-five dots. gives not quite a day for 3( 5 days, and we are told by Mr. Baring that in Demerara the planters give 2s. 6d. and 3s. a day, and Lord Brougham says if the Jamaica planters would give Is. 6d. per day, they would get as much labour as they require, and that at that rate of wages the negroes would leave their little farms to work on the large estates. Time will prove if this assertion be correct. My own opinion, from having lived among them, is, that they will not leave their little farms to work on the large estates now that the price of their farm produce—cotton, sugar, coffee, ginger, arrowroot, pimento, and vegetables of all kinds—is good, and will well remunerate the little farmer for his labour at home, and possibly enable him to compete for labour with the large estates. At page 281 Mr. Russell says : This German settler confessed that nearly all of his countrymon who emigrated with him were now slave owners. They were poor on their arrival in the country, but no sooner did they realise a little money than they in vested it in slaves. . . To obtain the first was the prime difficulty, for the possession of one seem to afford security for obtaining another on credit. Page 286 : The natural increase of slaves is from two to six per cent., and goes far to pay the interest of money invested in them. And at page 242 h 9 tells us that— It is undeniable that the enianciption in onr colonies has given a great impulse to slavery in other parts of the world. And he might safely have added, which the equali sation of duty on slave produce by Great Britain in 1M46 has powerfully increased.—Yours, most obedi ently, _ _ Ax OLD JAMAICA PLANTER. July, 1857. Obituarg. THE LATE LTEUT.-GENERAL SIR Hsu WILLIAM BARNARD, K.C.8., was son of the Rev. William Bar nard, LL.B., of Water Stratford, Bucks, and was born in 1799, and married, in 1828, Miss Craufurd, daughter of the late Brigadier James C. Craufurd. After receiving his early education at Westminster School, lie removed to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, having adopted the army as his profession, like his uncle the late General Sir A. Barnard, Lieut.- Gavernor of Chelsea College. Alter completing his military studies at Sandhurst. he entered the Ist ( enadier ) Foot Guards in June, 1811. He was for some time attached to the staff of General Sir Andrew Barnard, when commandant of Paris in 1815, and subsequently that gallant general's aide-de•can3p when Sir Andrew commanded the northern district.