The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-20 00:00:00

THE WESTERN STATES.

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
CINCINNATI, OHIO, Oct. 3.

The elec'tion which is to come on nine days from
this in the State of Ohio will show to what extent
these people are bent on the indefinite prolongation
of the civi .1 war. It is in the meanwhile important
to inquire into the balance between gain and loss
incurred by this western community in consequence
of this momentous event, in which many are still
unwilling to recognise a great national calamity.
At the time of the drawing up of the last census,
in, 1860, what member of the North American
Union could be said to vie in prosperity with the
happy State of Ohio ? With an area of 39,954
square miles, and a population of 2,339,500 inhabi-
ts. nts, Ohio enjoyed the first rank in the States for
th e production of wool and Indian corn; it was
ei zceeded by only one other State in wheat, barley,
cheese, and live stock; it occupied the third place
in the production of oats, potatoes, buckwheat,
grasses, hay, maple, sugar, butter, tobacco, hemp,
bilk, and wine. It boasted 3,231 miles of railways.
Its canals yielded from 1846 to 1861 a gross re-
venue of 8,521 dols.; and the net earnings were in
some years no less than 5,000,000 dols. The State
had a school-fund exceeding 2,796,241 dole., and
gave for educational purposes 3,694,527 dots., con-
secrating to this object a larger sum than was be-
stowed upon it by all the 14 Southern or slavehold-
ing States taken together.
In this marvellously thriving condition, we are
told, the war, far from bringing
any Perceptible
abatement, has caused a most satisfactory improve-
ment.reof
The " annual statement of the commerce
Cincinnati" for the commercial year ending August
31, 1863, gives the following value of imports and
exports for the last four years.:—
E
Imports. xports.
1850-60 .. 103,347,216 dots. .. 77,0, 3371,,118261 dots.
1860.61 .. 90,198.136 6
.. 7,2
76,449,862
103,292,893 • •
1861.62 ..
.. 102,397,171
144,139,213
1862-63 ..
The live stock, which in 1860 was 8,221,481, of
the value of 69,583,000 dots., rose in 1862 to
9,126,937, es tim
ated at 70,463,868 dols. The acres
of land sowal with every variety of breadstuffs were,
in 1860, 4.5,500,000, yielding 143,600,000 bushels;
1,538,562 acres of meadow lanr:. yielded, in the same
year,
2,0 27,000 tons of hay ; 96,254 acres produced
9,365,38 Z bushels of potatoes, &c. I have been as-
sured t hat, although the State of Ohio furnished a
contingent of 184,000 men to the national army,
o not one acre of land has fallen out of cultivation."
It is, however, nowhere asserted that one acre has
been. tilled out of the great mass of territory which
had not yet been rescued from the native forest, the
swamp, or the prairie. I learn, also, that from
July, 1860, to July, 1861, 11,233 aliens have been
naturalised; of these, 5,949 were Germans; 2,106
were Irish, and the rest Welsh, English, &c. Allow-
ing an equal number for the ensuing year, we should
have an increase of population accruing from foreign
immigration of 22,C00 persons at the utmost—
doubtless very far from filling up the gap occasioned
by the drain of the war.
The annual statement above referred to, while
congratulating the State on the great prosperity
enjoyed during the past year, does not conceal the
fact that it was mainly owing to " the vast sums of
money spent by the Government in the prosecution
of the war." The people who thereby made
rapid fortunes spent them freely and extrava-
gantly, so that trade flourished and wealth in-
creased with a rapidity and generality before un-
known. " Tb,ere has been a steady demand for the
luxuries as well as the necessaries of life, and this
has given constant employment to the workshops ;
labour has been scarce and in demand, and higher
wages obtained than ever before known." The
lowest wages for unskilled labour are from 1 dol.
25c. to 2 dels. per diem ; but the salaries of clerks,
foremen, head waiters, and others have not risen in
proportion, so that the real gain was only percep-
tible among those classes out of which the army
has been -more largely recruited. We know that
coal sells throughout the West twice and thrice
higher than in former years, owing to the difficulty
of finding men to work the mines; and Government
has been compelled to impress several hundred
negro slaves in Kentucky to hasten the completion
of the important railway from Lexington, in Ken-
tucky, to Knoxville, Tennessee—vitally important
in a strategic point of view—in the impossibility of
achieving that enterprise by free labour.
The main business of Cincinnati and Ohio pro-
vious to the war consisted in its trade with the South,
to which, besides a large part of its vast agricultu-
ral produce, was sent the main bulk of its extensive
manufactures. Besides being the great emporium
for the export of the fruits of the richest soil on
this cm ttinent, this statcly,well-built, and pleasantly
situate d town of Cincinnati employed a great num-
ber of operatives in its workshops, swelling thus the
masa of its population to 161,000 souls in 1860, with
an i acrease of 45,000 during the ten previous years.
The Southern trade came, of course, to an end with
the closing of the Mississippi river, bat the capture
of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, though it may lead
to a gradual resumption of trade with the people
On the borders of the Lower Mississippi, will not
revive it with the speed and alacrity which some
People anticipated. Indeed, as I have often said,
if the North is bent on the utter ruin and dis-
org Inisation of these Southern countries, the
Wet must to a great extent be involved in that
destruction, unless it finds elsewhere new channels
and new markets for its redundant commodities.
Prom the outbreak of the war to the present day
a vast market was supplied by the Government in
the furnishing of the all-consuming army, and the
eastern railways have answered the purpose of active
though expensive channels, instead of the water-
course, which was closed against the Western mer-
chants. The cities of Ohio are not so far from New
York, Philadelphia, and Washington as those of
Illinois and Missouri, and the railway
Cincinnati to those eastern marts, however freight from
wever heavy,
is not so utterly ruinous as it is from Chicago or St.
EOlliS. Hence, doubtless, this central region of
Ohio has been able to weather the storm with a
wonderful good fortune hitherto. sonce
the in-
crease in its imports and exports, remarkable
espe.
&ally in this last year, which, however, is
notso
much owing to the larger quantity of the merchan-
dise as to the great advance in price of nearly all
articles of both home and foreign produce. Take, for
instance, pork, which was formerly the main staple
commodity of this State, and which gave this city
its nickname of " Porkopolis." The pork crop was
this year an immense one, and the business done in
pork packing far exceeded that of any previous
season, Yet the trade did not prove profitable, as
s was too high, notwithstand-
the price paid for hog
log the depreciated currency. But while this in-
jured the dealer, it helped the farmer, " for while
the price compared with the specie standard was
low, it was, in fact, for all
practical purposes high,
as the currency not only paid debts, but, enabled him
to buy land at old prices (for
land did not advance),
and to stock his farm at a but slight advance over
previous rates." I quote this from official sources,
because it only confirms the statement ventured in
One of
my letters from Chicago, that the copious
flood of greenbacks all over the country was an
immense benefit to the rural population at large,
and bettered their condition, even though labour
was too scarce to enlarge to any extent their agri-
cultural operations.
One of the most bourtiful sources of well-being
for this city was to be found in the manufacture of
ready-made clothing, for Which the South afforded
a very probable market. Those engaged in it have
been since the outbreak of the war employed almost
exclusively in the service of the Government and in
the fitting out of the army. In 1860 this branch of
business employed in the whole State of Ohio 13,000
hands, and produced 16,000,000 dots, worth ofgoods.
The trade is said to have greatly increased of late,
but I can obtain no statistics of the business. All
I know is that Cincinnati alone boasts 51 Wholesale
houses engaged in this branch of in-
and 80 retail
dustry, and their lofty stores and warehouses are
most conspicuous buildings of this city.
No less than
among theB,ooo women and girls are said to fad
their sustenance in this slop work, which is generally
conducted by sharp speculators of German extrac-
tion er
and of the Jewish " psuasion."
Oe the other baud, the c'.;:, . tlllation splr:ts, which