The Press.
London, England, 1857-05-09 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

of the late Sir Samuel Bomilly, who bad proposed
that the law of bend tary control should not hold
good against the legal debts of the late possessor.
The commercial members complained of marriage
settlements interfering with the recovery of claims
against the estates of debtors, adding that the trading
community would not for the future give support to
members who were not favourable to the liability of
property for the satisfaction of bankruptcy and in-
solvency debts. The peerage was not to be barred
from the operation of the proposed Act, although all
concurred in opinion that sooner or latter it would
have the effect of undermining the Upper H tuse.
This is fair ant open at any rate. Thee members
are supporters of L trd Palmerston's Government.
I inclose my card to prevent mistake.

ISSIiEL.

SLAVE AND FREE LABOUR.
TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS."

Sir,—Your having thought my observations on
Mr. Olmsted's book, " Our Slave States," worthy
insertion, has induced me to again trouble you with
a few remarks on his "Journey Through Texas," in
which there appears a want of consistency also in his
argument that free labour is more economical than
slave labour within the tropics.
He tells us, at p. 414-15, that—

The cultivatable area of the State is estimate,' at over
100,000,000 acres, about 20,000.000 of which is called good
cotton land, capable or prcolucing nine million bales: and
that the growth of wealth is in almost nothing else than stares,
and each crop must go on to be capitalised in more labour;
anti that the sugar lands in Texas are estimated at
7.100,003 acres, and capable of prockcing three times the
amount now consumed in the United States, and should
the ilaport duty be maintained, and Cuba with its irre•
sistible tropical advantages remain under foreign dominion,
and steady development of produce will go on.
In looking attentively through his vrark, I find the
average of the statements he gives of the production
of cotton per acre, in the various localities men-
tioned, to be about 1 bales of 400 lbs. the bale ;
consequently Trait; is capaple of producing some
30,000,000 bales of cotton ; and as the yield of sugar
per acre in Louisiana, where the land is not so good
as that in Texas, is stated to lan about 1,000 lbs. to
the acre, these 7,000,000 acres in Texas would pro-
duce 3,100,000 tons of sugar.
The United States an I Canada are estimated to
consume annually 800,000 tons, and the imports of
sugar into the Unittal States to amount to 250,000
or 300,000 tons; and, with such immense resources
to be yet developed in Vexes by simply capitalising
the profits in more labour, it certainly does appear
not a little greedy in our Yankee competitors to be
coveting Cuba also, particularly as we are told, at
page 423, " that within the limits of Brazoria and
3latagordes are some of the finest ,oils in the world,"
and a field near Lexington was pointed out to Mr.
Olmsted "that had been cultivated in corn for sixty
year, without manure, and that its produce was
still forty bushels to the acre with meagre care."
At page 51 an old negro informs Mr. o:mstad
that—

They had ten or eleven hands, tine% as they taw, and
that his master could sell sixty to seventy bags of cotton ;
besides which they made all the corn and pork they
wanted, and something over, and raised some cattle.. . .
Sixty bales of cotton were w )rth 3,0J0 dots.; and that last
ye ir the crop w to lar.zer still and when asked what
people Itvinl in such a rough style did with so mitch
money, replied, " They buy mare negroes, and enlarge
their plantations."

The average of the production of cotton per hand, as
I collect from seven statements, six of which give
from 7 to 10 bales of 400 lbs. each, and one 4 bales,
through bad luck, may therefore be safAly taken at
7 bales to the lb.; and at page 20.3 Mr. Olmsted
gives a statement of the cost of production and profit
on cotton cultivation on a large scale—to wit :

Dolars .
Land, 1.000 'errs. bot.ons, at 611 17,l
000
W prime able held hands at %WO d015...50.000
50 ditto halt hands at COI dole.. —.30 000
SO ditto quarter hands at 900 dole. 15.000

- 95,600
Houses and furniture 4,000
Quarters and overseer's house l.OOO
Mules and tools

Capital outlay

120,0(10

Annual production at 4 bales to the hand of
450:bs ea.:ll = 15.Q.4001b5.. at 8 cents.
Increase of Blares at 5 per cent., or 05,000 dole 4,75U

17,423

Deduct annnal expenses 1 OM dole.
Interest on 120,00 J dole. at 8 per ct. 9,600 "
10.600

Profit
Now, I make 150 hands, at 4 bales to the hand of
450 lbs. each, amount to 270,000 lbs., which at 8
cents would realise 21,800 dols., and with the in-
crease of slaves 28,350 dots, and d'ducting interest
and expenses, leave a profit of 15,750 dols., instead
of 8,822 dols.; but, as it is stated in various parts of
the book that the average produce is 7 bales of 400
lbs. each to the hand, and that they often plant more

455

than they can pick, and which in the " K to Uncle
Tom's Cabin " is stated to be about L5Ol is per hand
per day on the average, I think we may fairly take
the 7 bales of 400 lbs. each as the truth. In this
case, then, the net profit would be 23,0a0 dots., or
more than three times the amount given in the state.
ment. This, moreover, would be independent of the
corn, cattle, pork, and something over, as mentioned
at page 51 ; and even putting the calculation at only
100 working hands at 7 bales each, the profit would
Iss 13.800 dols., or double the amoluit set down by
Mr. Olmsted. I am therefore inclined to think that
in this representation he has stretched the point
a;ainst the labour of the slave.

At page 14& I find a report of the wages given for
hired labour, viz.:—

A lot of nogroes engaged as labourers on the Capitol
(Austin), only one of them a poor mechanic, were lately
hired for the year at 280 dole. each, the hirer to feed, clothe,
dco . &a. . . . A negro cook, the poorest noesible, I was
told was hired at 60 dole. per month = 723 doh. a year, at
the hotel. Another I heard of hired at 810 dole. a year.
A fir-4-rue white journeyman meohani commanded
d„ is a month, I found.
At page 433 :
The ordinary Texan wages for an able field hand ara
200 dole. The German labourer hires for 150 dole., and
clothes and insures himself.

There are of these cheap Germans in Texas 31,000,
according to Mr. Olmsted; and with one wire extract
from his book I will take my leave of him. At page
32 3 he says :
Near the course of the Cumherland are several furnaces
and iron mines. . . . One of these entahlishrnents employs
a capital of 700,000 dola., and owns 700 slaves For
common labour negr.es are almost exchisively used,
because white men do•l't like the work. and won't do it
artless they are compelled to. You can't drive thess like you
can a nigger.

In conclusion, I will q•tnte from Mackay's
" Western India." This gentleman was sent to
India in 1851, by Manchester, to look into the cotton
districts thtre, and report on their capabilities. At
page 334 he says :
I have before shown that in °Thum", Yesrs a huspth of
land in Broach, which is equal to afinnt half an acre, will
produce about 150 lbs. of see I cotton. from which about
50 the, of clean cotton will be produced. h in at the rate
of 300 lbs. of seed cotton, and newly 100 lbs of c'eitn
cotton, per acre. . . . But whilst the yield of clean cotton
in Broach is nearly one.t bird, that of cotton in the southern
Maltratta country seldom exceeds oneelourth.
And be further adds :

No matter to how low a point American prices might
drop, they seemed to have in reserve a lower attainaule
point sull.

I have myself never planted cotton, and am there-
fore practically unacquainted with the actual yield of
clean, or saleable, cotton per acre; but I am under
the impression, from the statements in Mr. Olmsted's
book, that 11) bale 4, or some 800 lbs., is about the
average quantity of saleable cotton produced on the
cotton lands of the Unite I States. Therefore, look-
ing at the East 'Pala rate of production per acre, as
compared with the American produce, coupled with
10,000 miles of extra transit to our markets, I think
our political economic dogma of equalising► the duty
on slave produce, in order to make the free-grcwers
work harder for less money, is likely to recoil upon
ourselves, and not likely to produce any Heti-factory
results, so long as the United States are able to keep
their slave population in abject subjection.
That the Yankees will be able to do so very much
longer is hardly possible; and when a revolt 'sakes
place, as it must, sooner or later (and fearful and
bloody will be the struggle, as in St. Domingo), will
England then be able to place her hand upon her
heart, and say, with a clear conscience, I never
fostered slavery ; I never encouraged this savage and
debasing syt•m by equalising the duties on its
produce? Retribution will come heavy on us then in
more ways than one.—Yours, •ir, most obediently,
April, 1857. MI OLD JAMAICA PLANTS!:

FROM THE LONDON GAZE frE.
Tweacinv, May 5.
BANKRUPTS.—Tnowts HARRISON, HArrietsham and Maid-
stow% coal merchant—THow s WARD, Bow t:hurcityard. City,

stock manufseturer—TFlOUts FRED. TREED, Wineheater•atreet,
Waterloo-town, surgeon HENRY BATESON, liailden-place,
Waterloo-road, apothecary- Jons Ficio. Farnham. Surrey, bon-
Meker—LUCY OAKLEY, Walsall. Staffordshire. draper —Witt.' %31
SHELDON WITHERS, Mansfield. Notts. miller -- W. P. any,
Newport, Monmouthabire, brewer—DAY ID METRICS, Cardiff,
Glatnorganahire. bontmaker—KITCRINOM%N GRkVIL, Halifax,
grocer —EBESEZER BROOKS, Sheffield. spring knife manufac-
turer—Wm. SWINTON LAURIE, Liverpool. merchant—WN JONES,
Porimadoe, Carnarvonshire. shipbuilder GEORGE
Preston, cabinetmaker -James WattwoßlC.Choriey, Lancashire,
cotton spinner—.1,4 ninsox STOKER (lOC Anderscn Stokoe, u
stated on the 17th ult.), Purhiun, grocer.

Friday, May 8.
BANKRUPTS.—Wrw Am STEPHENS, Gloneest er, cattle
sale=man—HEFßY WHEELER. Derby. painter— THOMAS DAII"Itl,
Neath, Glamorganshire, contractor—Taox As BRADLEY, Kidder-
minster apothecary- -WILLIAM OGILVIE CA MERON. Camomile•
au eel, City, expo] t oilman—J...llEs CArr - High-street. South-
wark, brewer—dAmss Swirr, Milton-road, Gravesend. statuary
ma.on--TROMAS STUTELY. Sheerness, builder—Jtmcs SCII -
mess. Hatton-garden. wholesale jeweller—WlLLlAM GEORG E
Bnoww, High-street, Dart`ord. Kent. clothier—R ,DCRT JAM E S
Nonroy, Fleet-street. outfitter—Tnomts RILEY EBYWORTII ,
Wapping-wall, ale and beer merchant.