The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-02 00:00:00

from your rernar‘lr's3:*: Wtheallkbfrneky''' A City,r Article
c Ee
0. Cf , Oct. Wednesday, 3l.
I "Sir —As solicitor of the ' Naiional Creditand Exchange
Company (limited),' I am instructed to call your attention
net profits of the company
to the following facts, as bearing upon the inference dedu-
cible
' the 30th inst.—viz., that a division of 20 per cent. of the
as a bonus among the depositors
would probably constitute them partners, &c. • The question has been duly considered by the directors
of the company, and it appears to them to have been set at
rest by the steps taken by the directors of the Unity Bank,
when that corporation was established in 185 G. Opinions
of eminent counsel upon this same psiut were taken. Mr.
(now Justice) Willes and Mr. W. Wellington Cooper of the
Chancery bar were first consulted; afterwards the then So-
licitor-General (the present Lord Chancellor) and Mr. W.
W. Cooper were consulted upon the same question; and all
advised that no liability as partners attached to the cus-
tomers of the Bank by the division among them of a por-
tion of the profits as proposed. -Soon afterwards, in order
to place the question beyond doubt, the ease was laid before
the then Attorney-General (now Lord Chief- Justice
Cockburn), the then Solicitor-General (the Lord Chan-
cellor), Mr. (Justice) Willes, Mr. (Baron) Bramwell, Mr.
W. W. Cooper, and Mr. J. Hurrell, who met in consulta-
tion, and all concurred in the opinion that the proposed di-
vision of profits would not constitute the customers of the
bank partners, or render them in any way liable for the
engagements of the bank.

" As it is important to the company that the impression
conveyed in your remarks should be removed, I shall feel
obliged by your doing me the favour of inserting this letter.
—I am, Sir, yours obediently,

" E. A. MARSDEN."

THE EFFECTS 01 EMIGRATION.

The Return which the Registrar-General has
just issued reveals a phenomenon of singular im-
portance, not only to England, but to far distant
regions ; not only to the living generation, but to
ages yet unborn. The population of this country
is affected not only by births and deaths, and the
ratio borne by the latter to the former, but by in-
fluences peculiar to our national position. Large
numbers of our people emigrate to other lands, and
to such an extent has this movement been carried,
that in some periods the natural addition arising
from births has been all but neutralized by the de-
durations to be made for emigration. Those deduc-
t;Lons, however, are now almost stopped, and, what
Is of still greater significance, the stream of emigra-
tion, in so far as it flows at all, has been diverted to
fresh channels.
This remarkable fact represents one more of the
momentous consequences entailed by the great Civil
War in the United States. The temptations offered
by America to emigrants were in former days so
powerful as to outweigh even the solid advantages
extended by our own colonies. Dazzled by the
genuine prospect of cheap land, and the enticing
visions of political equality, the settler rejected
even the goldfields of Australia, and the rich terri-
tories of Canada for the embryo States of the Union.
Emigration, while it occasioned an extraordinary
abatement from our own increase, gave an equally
extraordinary impulse to the increase of America.
We lost by emigration while we gained by births,
whereas the Americans gained by births and emi-
gration too. That was the secret of the miraculous
rise. When we learnt, a short time ago, that the
three States of Michigan, Winconsin, and lowa had
increased from an aggregate population of some
800,000 in 1850 to one of some 2,250,000 in 1860,
we saw how large were the contributions made to
the American census by immigrants from foreign
lands ; and these are the contributions which the
Civil War has now effectually intercepted. A few
lines of statistics will show to what an extent this
unexpected influence has already operated.
Ten years ago the number of persons who emi-
grated during the summer quarter from this coun-
try to the United States was 68,931. Even as early
as this time last year there was a great falling ,off
in these figures, due in some part, no doubt, to too
attractions of British Columbia and Australia, as
well as to the gatherings in the American sky.
But now the contrast is quite astounding. Instead
of nearly 70,000, we see less than 7,000. The exact
number is 6,348, so that our contribution to Ame-
rica has fallen off ninety per cent. Instead of get-
ting 60,000 useful citizens from us, the Americans
now get 6,000, and even this supply, we may well
conclude, will soon be still further curtailed. The
truth is that the advantages hitherto offered by the
Union have now vanished, and in their place the
intending settler sees nothing but prospective
burdens. Not only are all the alarms of war and the
contingencies of military set vice to be encountered,
but the inevitable creations of a standing army and
a national debt bode ill for the pockets of the emi-
grant. Henceforth America will be very like one
of the old countries, and we are told, indeed, that
disappointment and terror have already driven
many settlers to cross the British border, or even to
traverse the Atlantic once more.
This, however, is not the only result of the great
political schism. What America loses other coun-
tries gain. Many persons who would otherwise
have emigrated remain at home in these islands,
but there is still some outflow, and the stream runs
towards Canada or Australia. For the first time
probably in the history of emigration, the Austra-
lian Colonies have received more emigrants than
the United States, and our North American Colo-
nies almost as many. While 6,348 still resolved,
as we have statcd, to cast their lot in with the
citizens of the States, no fewer than 7,100 sailed
for Australia, and as many as 4,930 to British
North America. Our own colonies, therefore, will
become peopled at the expense of America, and this
strange Civil War, besides subverting the destinies
of a great Republic, will quicken the growth of a
mighty State in the South.
It is hard, indeed, to calculate the various conse-
quences of the American war. Already we can ills-
tinguish the probable displacement of an enormous
trade, and the enrichment of the East at the cost
of the West; the stoppaget of one current ofspecu-
lation, and the increased volume of another; the re-
distribution of a continent, and the formation, per-
haps, of a system of States, with characters and
functions yet unknown. The more attentively the
crisis is contemplated, the more inevitable do these
results appear. Telegrams follow telegrams without
bringing the least prospect of either decisive con-
quest or effectual compromise, while even if the
war, contrary to all expectations, should be speedily
terminated, its effects will long survive, just as the
billows continue to roll on the shore for days after
the tempest has ceased. The view taken by the
Federal Government itself of the prospect before it
is sufficiently shown by the projected establishment
of permanent barracks at Washington for 60,000
soldiers—a garrison which would suffice for St.
Petersburg or Vienna. It would be years before
emigrants would believe in the pacification of the
Union even if peace were proclaimed to-morrow;
while, as to the cotton trade of the South, that
seems to be in a fair way to ruin. If the Confede-
rates could not only repulse the invaders, but com-
pel them to remain at peace in their own territories
without interfering with Southern institutions:toLver-
cot-
ton might once more come from Charleston
Liver-
pool, but of all results this seems the likely.
The Northerners are bent upon
for the restoration of the Union. fightinglf they to the death
win, it ap-
pears more and more probable that the Abolitionists
will succeed to a greater or less extent in enforcing
their principles, and in that event the days of cot-
ton cultivation, for a long time at any rate, will be
past and gone. If the Northern troops, though
still keeping the field, are unable to conquer their
opponents, the result will simply be a perretnation
of the difficulties which we witness now, with the
addition, indeed, of a prostrate industry to a mori-
time blockade.
In this review of the impending changes and dis-
placements of population we have taken no account
of the direct effects of the war upon the belli-
gerents themselves ; yet, unless the cam-
paigns in America differ strangely from all
other campaigns, these effects ought L to: be very
notable. Never before, we presume, in civilised
States did so large a proportion of the community
take up arms. The State of Massachusetts had less
than a million inhabitants in 1850; it has since in-
creased by some 200,000 or 300,000; but even this
development is perfectly insufficient to explain its
extraordinary levies. It has actually raised 25 regi.
ments of infantry, five batteries of artillery,
to
en a
one regiment of cavalry, amounting
together
some 30,000 men, and it has given a quota
sailors to the Federal fleet. In otherwos thatrds,of
this
State, with a population not half as largegin the field a
of 10,000
a
our own metropolis, is a
force as great as England n maintaining
g
araino despn, from a popula-
tatch on her
greatest wars. Rhode Island, s
Lion returned in 147,000, raises four bat-
talions of infantry,of
o regiments of cavalry, and
eight batteriesl 850 as
artillery—thetwo
total contributions
of the New England States alone being recs toko doncd
at 100,000 men• however, campaigning
i
usual work on these prodigious levies, what
itswill
become of the population of the Union ? What will
be the tale told by the census of 1870, when immi-
gration has ceased, and war has produced its natu-
ral effects ? The various revolutions thus dimly
visible may well excite our astonishment, and induce
us to be thankful that England has been spared to
run its old course of prosperity without menace of
depopulation or daugor.—Times.