The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-08 00:00:00

The Cotton Question.

In view of the vast importance of the interests involved,
we need offer no apology to our readers for again pressing
upon their attention the industrial problem of the South
now awaiting solution. Wo call it the problem of the
South ; but, in truth, it is hardly less that of the North.
The whole nation is concerned in it, and if it could only
be placed definitely and distinctly before the public mind,
the deepest solicitude would on all sides be manifested in
reference to it. We quoted, a day or two since, the opinion
of the American Consul at Liverpool, coincided in by the
Secretary of the Treasury, to the effect that the amount
of cotton now on hand in tho United States, inclusive of
the crop of the present year, does not probably exceed
seven hundred and fifty thousand bales. This statement
would not be so significant 'if there were a fair prospect
that the next crop would be an average one. But who
believes that the product of the coming year will be four
or five millions of bales ? Who can safely reckon, as ap-
pearances at present indicate, that it will be one million of
bales ? The time for planting is close at hand. What is
done at all for the crop of 1866 must be done within a few
weeks, and yet the industry of the cotton States is all in
confusion ; capital has almost disappeared ; tools and im-
plements are wanting ; the laboring population is dis-
trustful ; the planters are discouraged ; the old order of
things has passed away, the new has not been established;
the relations of master and slave have ceased to exist ;
those of employer and employe have not been announced
or defined.

We cannot but wish that this question of labor might
take precedence in Congress for the time being over the
other details of reconstruction. We wish this for the sake
of the colored man; for existence comes before suffrage,
and his status as a man capable of labor and needing broad
is of more urgency to him than his recognition as a citi-
zen ; in fact he must be kept alive in order that he may
vote. While we are calmly discussing political philosophy
he is hastening to his grave ; he implores food, we pro-
mise him the ballot; he claims our hearty and brotherly
sympathy, and we are dealing with him as an abstraction
to be reasoned upon and quarrelled about. We desire no
less for the sake of the white man of the South that the
Government would earnestly give itself to the immediate
consideration of the industrial question rather than the
political. A judicious intervention between him and his
former slave would contribute much toward creating con-
fidence on both sides, stimulating the one to enterprise,
protecting the other in his industry, illustrating the de-
pendence of each upon the other, and the necessity of each
to the other. Hitherto capital in the South has owned
labor ; henceforward ,capital and labor are to be united to
each other by the bonds of mutual interest, and by the
prospect of gains in which each shall equitably share. How
can this be illustrated so speedily and so easily as by the
leasing of plantations and the establishment of industrial
colonies ; where it can be demonstrated that the negro
will work for wages, and that the white man will pay ,
what he has promised ? With the wheels of industry
again set in motion in communities now desolated and
discontented, a better heart would soon prevail, restless-
ness would give way to activity, the people would cease to
brood over their recent humiliation, and their present mor-
bid feelings toward the Government would gradually give
way to a healthful loyalty. With this accomplished, they
would ere long soon be qualified to resume their functions
in public affairs, and they would prove an acquisition
rather than a hindrance, as now, to the national prospe-
rity. But the longer we remain unconscious of and indif-
ferent to the existing emergency, the more unsettled do
they become, the more divided will be public sentiment at
the North in reference to them, and the mere embarrassed
will be the general Government in dealing with them.
The agency whereby all that we have thus imperfectly
sketched may be attempted is already to be found in the
Freedmen's Bureau. Nearly all are agreed that this must
remain in force for some time to come. If so, why
not give it new vitality, increased efficiency, and practical
utility? By an enlargement of its powers it might be
made to serve a most valuable purpose, setting an example
which would be imitated in each Southern State, and sup- ,
plying each a nucleus around which skill and vigor would
rapidly gather.

We have questioned above whether the cotton crop of
1866 will reach a million of bales. We believe that the
plan of the Boston Board of Trade, as now alluded to by
us, would insure twiee that amount. The difference of a
million of bales, with the price of cotton at from thirty to
forty cents a pound, would be from one hundred and twenty
to one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, being so much
practically added to our specie reserves, and saved to the
national wealth. In a financial, as well as in a political
point of view, therefore, is not this subject worthy of
careful attention ? And if the plan proposed is not a good
one, who will suggest a better? The humanitarian view
must not be overlooked. The life or death of thousands
upon thousands will bo determined by the issue. This, we
are confident, weighs with the President of the United
States, in his anxious thoughts on this subject, and makes
him doubly desirous to meet it quickly and wisely. Let the
Executive be assured that the people of the North enter
into these occasions for solicitude with him, and that they
will heartily sustain him in his endeavours to remove them,
and to secure the blessings of freedom and peace for the
now disorganised and demoralised South ! We hope, also,
that Congress will speedily give the legislation neces-
sary for the temporary leasing, for the purposes now set
forth, of lands, to take the place of the confiscated and
abandoned plantations which, by the policy of the Govern-
ment, are no longer available.—Boston Journal.

AMERICAN LADIES.—The American correspon-
dent of the Spectator, writing of American ladies, says:—
"They shrink from appearing in full dress, however
moderate its so-called fulness, in a stall, or in the open
boxes of a theatre, or at the dinner table of a hotel, which
is open to the public, and where they may be in close
proximity to entire strangers of whom they know only
that they can afford to pay for their seats or their dinners.
The distinction male in this respect is very marked at the
opera, to which ladies do go in full dress, and from the
opera to parties. But they never go in full dress unless
they ,have a private box. In the stalls, the parquet, on
the first tier of boxes, where single seats are sold, they
appear in elegant demi-toilette, often wearing bonnets of
incomprehensible structure and wonderful to behold. And
this is not a matter of "set" or fashion. The same woman
will be at the opera on one evening in full dress in a pri-
vate box, and if she does not own a box at the next per-
formance in the stalls or the parquet, with arms, shoulders,
and head all covered. A lady whom I knew had rather
an unpleasant experience in an:attempt some years ago to'
disregard this tacit understanding among the sex in re-
gard to dinner dress at hotels. She belonged to an ultra-
fashionable set, and having married a South Carolina
planter soon adopted what we call " plantation manners,"
and affected no little scorn of simple-mannered, reserved,
New England folk. She was at Newport, our great sea-
side watering-place, and having just returned from Europe
took great airs upon herself. One evening at the tea-table
a gentleman sat down near her, and the butter plate before
him happening to have no butter knife by it at the
moment, he, instead of calling the waiter and waiting for
one to be brought, used his own perfectly bright knife to
take a bit of butter. Ho was a man of culture and social
standing, but a Yankee, and one whose social pretensions
she wished to flout. She seized the opportunity, and,
calling a waiter, said in an elaborately subdued but de-
cided tone, ' Take away that butter. That gentleman
has had his knife in it.' He took no notice of the remark,
which drew all eyes upon him and the lady, but by and
by she stretched out her hand, and took from the plate
some chipped dried beef which stood between her and
her victim. This was well enough, of course; but ho
turned at once, and calling a waiter, said, only as if he
were asking for more tea, Take away that dried beef,
this lady has had her fingers in it.' In this encounter,
such as it was, he was thought to have had the best of it,
and she did not forgive or forget. So a few days after-
wards (I should hare mentioned that there was the
slightest possible acquaintance between them), they being
at dinner, she, censpicuous in the full dress she had
adopted since her tour to Europe, and which was so very
full that it would have attracted attention under any cir-
cumstances, took one from a dish of fresh figs before her,
and, putting it on a plate, handed it to him with an expres-
sion of complaisance, but saying in a tone of unmistake-
able significance, which could bo heard all around her, A
fig for you, sir.' He accepted it graciously, and taking
in his turn a leaf from the garniture of the dish, offered it
to her, with 'A fig-leaf for you, madam.' Sho fled the
table, and kept her room until her intended victim left the
hotel,"