The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-16 00:00:00

THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF

AMERICA.

We have been favoured with a copy of the New
Orleans Price Current of the 12th of October, and
as very little trustworthy information with regard
to the state of affairs in the blockaded States has
recently reached this country, we think that a few
particulars of the condition of New Orleans, as
shown in this publication, may not be without in•
terest for our readers.

The great question now at issue with regard to
the Confederate States seems to be this—Can those
States, without utter ruin to their people, keep
back for an indefinite period their cotton and other
produce, which, to the value of about 45 millions
sterling, they have been in the habit of exchang-
ing with the rest of the world for food, clothing,
and a great variety of other necessaries and
comforts which they did not produce at home ? In
other words, can they dispense with all these neces-
saries and comforts for two years or more, and at
the same timefind the means of purchasing and pay-
ing for, in Europe or elsewhere, the vast amount of
arms, ammunition, military stores and clothing
which the carrying on a war on a most gigantic
scale will necessarily require? Can they do all
these things and still keep at home the cotton and
other produce which have hitherto supplied the
means of paying for foreign imposts, and which they
declare their intention to keep on the plantations
until the blockade of their ports has beea
raised ? It seems to us, on a general view
of that question, to be all but impossible that
they can succeed in any such attempt as that in
which they are engaged; and that i❑ some
way or other, they must abandon their
present policy of locking up their produce, and
must find some means of getting, at any rate, a
considerable portion of it to market. We turn to
the New Orleans Price Current for a few facts
which appear to us to cast a little light upon this
question.

In the first place, it is very well known that the
cotton-growing States have heretofore imported
from the western free States a very large propor-
tion of the food, both animal and vegetable, which
was consumed by their people. We therefore turn
to a table, which appears in the Price Current,
giving an account of the imports of various articles
of food from the interior into New Orleans, from
the Ist of September last to the date of the return,
compared with the imports during the same period
last year. The following appear to have been the
quantities in the two years of the different articles
enumerated :

1861,
Bacon, hogsheads, casks, 7
Hams, ditto
Butter, kegs and firkins 324
Beef, hogsheads, &c. 9
Indian corn, sack ani barrels
Flour, barrels
Lard, hogsheads and barrels 163
Lard, kegs • • . 1,232

1860.
5,261
3,678
4,269
871
74,823
116,391
2,278
9,628

Oats, barrels and sacks

76,146

Pork, hhds, tierces, and barrels 69 9,706
Wheat, barrels and sacks
It must be remarked that a large proportion of
the flour and Indian corn which reached New Or-
leans last year was, no doubt, intended for expor-
tation, so that the supplies during the present year
may, for anything that appears to the contrary, be
sufficient for home consumption ; but the other pro-
visions, especially the pork, were mastly consumed
by the negroes.

The stocks of these important, and perhaps in-
disp?nsable portions of consumption, appear to be
on quite as low a scale as might be expected from
the limited imports, as the following extracts from
the Price Current will show :
" Pork—There is very little left on sale, and mess con-
tinues to retail at 45 dol. per barrel. The stock on hand
at Mobile has been sold to the Government at 40 dole. The
stock at the Inspection Warehouses, on the Ist inst. was
1,773 barrels (all held for the army), against 8,890 last
month, and 11,161 on the Ist of Ootober last year.
" Beef—The supply is about exhausted. Quotations are
nominal.

" Lard—The supply in first and second hands is voty
light,"

We may add to the above, that the average
price of flour appears to have been 9 dols. per barrel,
and of Indian corn 85 to 90 cents. per bushel, with
an advancing market. Some other articles of prime
necessits6 also appear to command very high prices ;
English bar iron was 75 dols. to 80 dols, or rather
more than £l5 to £l6 per ton. Of English coal
there was none in the market, and the price of an-
thracite was twenty dollars per ton.
With these facts before him, well might the
writer of a letter accompanying the Price Current,
say that all the necessaries of life, with the excep•
tion of bread-stuffs, are at famine prices, and that
the privations of the people are many. He, how-
ever, appears to cling to the delusive hope that the
course adopted by the planters will compel the
great Powers of Europe to break what he calls the
" paper blockade of our ports." That at some
future time that blockade, if persisted in, may call
for the interference of European Powers we are
not prepared to dispute; but, in the meantime,
how will the people of New Orleans be clothed and
fed ?