The Express.
London, England, 1862-02-12 00:00:00

THE PROBABLE CONTINUANCE OF THE

AMERICAN WAR.

Messrs. Neill Brothers, of New York, have just
issued their chwnlar, dated Manchester, Feb. 11
(yesterday).... After a few preliminary remarks,

Nessus. Neill say :
We dwell upon these considerations because it is most
essential to the interests of the cotton trade, and indeed to
those of the entire population of this district, that correct
views should prevail. It is pleasant to take a hopeful view—
to believe that, by foreign intervention, by a relaxa-
tion of the blockade, by a great victory on one side or
the other, by financial pressure, or in some unforeseen
way, peace may be restored, and trade resume its former
conditions. It is agreeable for newspaper writers to talk
thus, and to descant upon the uncertainty of the American
character, and the probability of a grand collapse. Bat
what are the consequences of all this talk? They are

'imply a rapid acceleration of the ruin of the country's
greatest manufacturing interest, and a prolongation of the
sufferings of the operatives. Exporters, warehousemen,
dealers, and shopkeepers, unable to judge for themselves,
are deterred from purchasing cotton goods, even at the
small advance of id. per yard upon the prices of last year.
Manufacturers, having to pay nearly 100 per cent. advance
for the raw material, are ground between the upper and
nether millstones, and bankers, always easily frightened,
are deterred from aiding them to bold their goods for the
advance which must shortly come. In America this phase
was passed through many months ago, and manufacturers
who were then necessitated to sell the goods at

20c. per lb. have since seen the market advanced
to a price which has enabled them to pay 40c.
per lb. for the raw material, and work it up to a profit.
They were then deceived by their own press, and their own
minim hopes of an immediate subjugation of the South,
just as English manufacturers, merchants, sad capitalist'
are deceived now. Their calculation was that the South
could not go on without money, just as the English now
calculate with regard to the North. And while these un-
certainties last, enterprise in new fields of growth is
checked, and merchants have hardly the courage to risk •
voyage from India upon cotton which can be imported at
6d. per lb., though the value in Liverpool is already &I.
It is to be feared that Gd. per lb. free on board, with
freight from Bombay, will not give that stimulus to produc-
tion which the circumstances of the ease require.
As to the duration of the war, knowing so intimately as
we do the character of the American people, both North
and South, we have never had but one opinion—viz., that
in the absence of foreign intervention (which could only be
brought about by gross stupidity on the part of she Northern
government), the war would be a protracted one, and only
be concluded when one or other of the combatants should
be utterly exhausted. To determine when that point will
be reached is the sole problem. It is not necessary among
impartial men to dwell upon the difficulty of overrunning
• country like the South,with an area of • million of square
miles, and of subduing a bitter, determined, and scattered
population, not dependent, like France, upon one cen-
tral and centralised government, but rather like
Germany, embracing numerous distinct state organisations
each one of which must be subdued before it will 3 ield,
possessing all the advantages of railways for purposes of
defence, and the disadvantage to an invading force of the
shncet total abeam of other roads, when the railroads
are once destroyed by their retreating defenders. Granting
even • very ordinary degree of the spirit of independence
to the Southern population, the task must, to impartial
observers, appear an utter impossibility for such an army
as it will be within the power of the North to bring into
the field.
Upon the other hand, can it be supposed that such •
people as the twenty millions of Northerners will lightly
coshes themselves beaten by one-third of their number",
and consent to their magnificent country, the very extent of
which has been their greatest source of pride, being reduced
so that its breadth at one point will be under a hundred
mile' ?—allowing their hostile Southern neighbours almost
to shake hands with Canada across the very heart of their
territory!—allowing the Mississippi, which is naturally
the highway of the Great West as the Irish Channel is that
of lanceshire, to pass into hostile hand.!—allowing an
antagonistic, arrogant, and inevitably hostile nation to be
established on their borders, with a thousand miles of con-
tiguous territory, along the whole extent of which the krt.
pressible slavery question and discrepant tariffs, with the
constant temptation to smuggling, would be a never-ending
cause of warfare, not to speak of the boastful taunts which
would have to be endured for generations after their defeat,
by a people who have hitherto had all the boasting to them-
selves! And if peace were proposed, on what terms could
it be entertained? Both sides would claim Maryland (with
Washington), Western Virginia, Kentucky, and Miaowed.
Without these the North would have but • narrow strip of
territory between the Ohio and the lakes. But as they are
slave states, and • large proportion of their population is
favourable to the Confederates, the latter will certainly never
give them up till worn out in the contest. And while the
struggle in which the North is engaged is, or is at Last con.
aidered by themselves to be, of this life and death cha-
ncier, what are the sacrifices necessary to continue it! It
is admitted that, with a revenue of 40,000,0001. per annum,
the interest upon United States stack will be sufficiently
secure to enable the government to raise the menus at Dome
to carry on the war upon even its present enormous scale for
two years at least. But that revenue would only be equal
to a contribution of lid. per day from each individual in •
country where the average rate of wages cannot fall much
short of 4s. per day, where the people ere naturally lavish,
and where, owing to the drafts for the army, and the enor-
mous government expenditure, labour is fully employed.
If the required revenue be not raised, it will be through
want of ability or patriotism ea the part of the govern-
ment and Congress, and not through the inability of the
country to sustain the needful amount of taxation. It is this
conviction that explains the coolness with which the New
York press contemplate the financial difficulties of govern-
ment, and which has excited comment on this side.
And who can show us in history an instance of a vital
struggle being abandoned for want of mum, even
by the poorest countries ? Is such an example to be
furnished for the first time, and in the first year of war, by
a great section of the Anglo-Saxon raos—a people so
energetic and determined, so persevering and inventive,
so self-confident, and possessed of such never-failing hope-
fulness, so wealthy and so overflowing with the
means of creating wealth in their inexhaustible
soil, their labour-saving machinery, and their almost
boundless system of railway and internal steam
navigation, as the Americans ; and while their ports are
open to the commerce of the world, and an unlimited de-
mend exists for the surplus of their soil! All reason and
all history are opposed to the idea that such • people, so
situated, can be brought to make • dishonourable peace,
unless after years of exhausting disasters. And through
that ordeal we have feared from the beginning, and fear
still, the unfortunate American people will be compelled to
paw.
Philosophers will show, and show truly, that their down-
fall is the inevitable retribution due to their complicity with
slavery, with which the whole nation has been tainted, and
which has even into its vitals. What we have to do with
is simply the facts as they exist, and their bearing upon the
future of the cotton industry. In this aspect we think itis
difficultto take too serious a view ; and that notbiug but
au increase and protraction of our own sufferings can result
from • disposition to ignore the full measure of the danger.
As to the uncertainty of the American character we have
heard a great deal. It was always uncertain in what
direction the bubbles on the surface, of • stream may
blow, but it does not follow that the course of the river
itself is doubtful; and, perhaps, the uncertainty which
is attributed to the American character is due to the
shifting courses of the mere frothy surface of society. The
direction of the main stream has certainly been steady enough
—always sanguine, enterprising perseveriug, and true to the
national tradatioes and policy. The people who have made in
a few years 25.000 miles of railway, besides building innu-
merable great and populous cities, can neither be accrued of
want of constancy nor want of resources ; and, however
vain we may consider the task they have now ilegareaaan,
it is hardly reasonable to suppose that such a people, once
committed to a contest in which their national honour,
and, as they believe, their very existence is at sake, should
abandon it without a protracted struggle.