Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-01-25 00:00:00

AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT,

:ONGRESS : THE SLAVE TRADE ; THE PENSION
BILL; ITS CHARACTER AS A JOB; PURCHASE OF
CUBA. MIGRATION AND EMIGRATION ; CON-
TINUED DECREASE. CRIME STILL INCREASING
SEVERE SENTENCES ON CRIMINALS ; BANE; 0,
INFLUENCE OF THE BAD EXAMPLES IN gIFCIAL
QUARTERS. EXERTIONS TO COMP=LETE THE
LINE OF RAILROAD TO NEW OP LEANS. COM-
PARATIVE STRENGTH OF THE :dEN OF AMERICA
AND EUROPE.

Congress, having had its fortnight's Christmas
recreation, has re-assembled for business, which 'it
has already set about in good earnest. The first
prominent discussion has been on a bill brought in
or appropriating five millions of dollars (about a
million pounds sterling) in the liquidation of claims
for French spoliatiorts, Then a very delicate ques-
tion was introduCedthat of the slave trade, with
reference to which the recent correspondence
Minister
the British Government and the American
mister in London was, by a resolution, requested
to be produced—a correspondence which, it is said,
will develop° some facts and circumstances not
verl creditable to the American flag.
The Pension Bill, which has already got
through one of the two Houses of the Congress,
has excited -a great- deal of dissatisfaction among
eepectable: and. disinterested people, as being a job
°l' What is called " the lobby,"-that is those, as' the
2‘,7-• Y. Herald calls them, " vultures that infest
the halls of Congress." It is they who,.according
° this authority, have got up a measure which,
if consummated, will enrich them beyond any-
thing they could have conceived possible; and will
saddle the national treasury with an increased
annual expenditure Of from ten to twenty millions
of dollars," a scheme " covered up in the guise of a
hill granting pensions to the surviving officers and
Soldiers of the war of 1812, and their widows, -and
to those who served in the Indian wars during or
'Preceding that period." And it is further declared
of it that, "notwithstanding it is a plundering
scheme, concocted between the lobby and such
Members of the House as fall into their plans, the
thing has been gravely represented as an act. of

,tustice to the survivors of our-last warwith Great

Britain, and any amount of balderdash was goi off
by orators of the hifalutin order, in depicting the
sorrows and sufferings of the war-worn veterans
' designed to be beneficiaries under the act." Such
being the case, it is not inaptly described as " a
grand swoop of the lobby' upon the national
treasury." And the same influential and popular
journal does not hesitate still more indignantly to
say of it—" we have no doubt that the bulk of
those whose interests are ostensibly promoted by
the bill, will join with the people of the country
at large, in denouncing it as wrong in principle,
injurious in practice, and, to a certain extent,
humiliating to the patriots of 1812 ;" and to pro-
ceed to stigmatize it as "a dodge for robbing the
treasury which has not even the semblance of con-
sistency or fair play about it ; for while it provides
for the soldiers and marines who had little or no
fighting to do, it makes no provision for the gal-
lant sailors who had fighting to do, and who did
it well." Altogether, then, it is not a measure
that is by any means free from the taint of jobbery;
and yet it appears that it actually secured a vote
of two-thirds of the members of the House (122 to
61), from an idea, it is said, that prevailed among
them, that if they voted according to their con-
sciences in the matter, they would incur a certain
be
emoit unt of unpopularity in their districts It was,
remembered, in the people's own House that
this occurred. The opinion of all impartial 'per-
-8"s is, that these popularity-loving patriots, after
all' have made a great mistake.
b he question of the annexation of Cuba has
positions
,sereon brought before Congress in a practical shape.
»zillion ni.'7 have been made to appropriate thirty
quiteBlBa r,ollars or f the purpose of purchasing
ind from Spain. These propositions are
n accordance with the recommendations
NCO,entained in the President's message; but it is
thrY uncertain that ther will be adopted. And if
'37 were' what would be the use of it ? Spain
11Itsreaalrtienagdyirteiterated her indignation at the idea
as an insult ; and the Cubans
themselves are indignant at the thought of being
asnoldd, like the stock of a deer park, to a stranger
,a a foreigner-strange and foreign in race, in
Iguage, in religion, and in laws.
.r The last year's account of the immigration to and
is not quite satisfactory to the American,
nawrnsattever it may be to the European mind. In the
place, it is ascertained, on calculating the
umber of passengers conveyed by steam-ships be-
,lveen the European and American ports, that
whilst the arrivals here have diminished about
eight thousand, as compared with 1857, the depar-
Pres have increased about three. This, of itself,
significant. It is stated, I see, that it is a fact
hiCh " would go to show that whilst the depres-
len resulting from the panic has to a certain
patent discouraged immigration to this country, it
had a precisely contrary effect on outward
travel. Many of the Irish and German operatives
'who had succeeded in laying by a little money no
deu,bt availed themselves of the forced leisure
whteh the stagnation of business afforded them
visit their relatives and friends abroad.
'4le same may be said of the wealthier class of
business men, who, finding that their presence
here could be productive of no advantage, took
the opportunity of spending a few months in
Europe. These are the probable causes of the
increase in the number of steamer passengers from
our ports, at a time when the general dulness of
trade and the scarcity of money led people to
anticipate a different result." But there is no
very conclusive reasoning in this. There is no
doubt, I believe, that the increase in the depar-
tures from the States is occasioned by Europeans
going home under an impression that they can do
better there. And the decrease in arrivals may
also be attributed to a similar cause.
As respects the decrease of the general immi-
gration of the masses which has taken place, it is
found to have amounted in the last year to
103,656, as compared with the year 1857. Some
of the knowing ones are attributing it also to the
late panic. But lam inclined to agree in part
with another exponent of the case, who says :

" continued drain of population cannot occur in any
country without a sudden check being at times
opposed to it. If the supply of labour be
diminished, the prices paid for it will materially
increase, and this will in itself stop the efflux of
population. Ireland, from whence so lair a
proportion of our emigrants are drawn, has, as it is
well known, arrived at a point where her labourers
can scarcely suffice to the wants of her own agri-
culture. With the high premiums offered by the
English farmers during the harvest time to
Irish reapers, there are periods when the Irish
agriculturist finds extreme difficulty in getting
hands to save his crops. The effect of all this has
been to force wages up to a standard nearly as
high as our own, and consequently to remove the
main inducement to emigration. The same influ-
ences are, we believe, at work in Germany, though
of course not to so great an extent. Labour all
over the Continent, as well as in Great Britain,
finds at present a higher rate of remuneration
than at any period within the last quarter of a
century." Besides all this, there is not that
chance of immediate success in the American
fields of labour that there used to be ; the fact of
Pauperism being on the increase is an element of
the case riot to be overlooked.
There is one thing, however, that does not
decrease—that is crime. The New York papers
state that the New Year's festival in this city was
legs than
by an unusual degree of violence. No
teBB than three murders were committed, together
with a number of stabbing cases. Then there is
the
criminal record which the term of the Court
General Sessions, just closed, has furnished,
ahich one of the daily journals but too truly calls
th heavy array of crimes of a grievous character,
the frectu.eney for
of which argues badly
condition of the city." But the same
Journ ah •
st thinks there is h in the fact of the
ho
Offenders I • severely
laving been justly, and theretuTe
v'k With on this occasionb the J dge wilt; tried
theme,
• the severity of the sentences passed 011