The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-09 00:00:00

THE SUN.

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOV. 9, 1861.

A circular has been forwarded to us, issued to
their friends by the well-known house of NEILL
Brothers, dated New York, Oct. 27, on the probable
future supplies of cotton from America. One of
the brothers, it is stated, recently went to New
York to make special inquiry on the subject, and
the letter contains the result of his investigations.
His conviction is, after conversing with all the
classes of persons most likely to represent correctly
American opinion, that the war is likely to be
fought out, and with bitterness, to the end. He
thus shews how he views the subject as a man of
business, desirous for trade purposes to come to a
sound conclusion. "In inquiring," he says, "into
the probable duration of the war, the main ques-
tions to be considered are, firstly, the
nature of the issued or issues between North
and South. Are they slight and superfi-
.cial, or essential and profound ? It is not neces-
sary to go into any lengthened argument to establish
the position that they are the deepest and most
irreconcileable which can divide two peoples. One
section has gone to war for separate independence
and the maintenance of a system of slavery, with
the right to its extension, and at the same time to
establish free trade and unrestricted commerce
with all the world. The other party has gone to
war to preserve the unity and integrity of a great
country, willing enough (except a small portion) to
tolerate slavery, but determined not to let it con-
tinue supreme in the government as it has been of
late, and not to let it aid the wealth and pros-
perity of the South alone. And while they assume
this ground, and expect in it the sympathy of the
anti-slavery and commercial nations of Europe, they
adept a narrow, prohibitive, commercial system,
altogether ignoring the world's commercial education
for the past twenty years. It is manifest that
upon the union with the South the power
of the North and its commercial prosperity mainly
depend. The cotton, rice, tobacco, and sugar crops
of the South are five-sixths of the whole exports of
the country, sad constitute the chief payment to
Europe for the foreign imports of the whole country,
and are consequently the source, not only of trade
and commerce, but also of revenue, as the sole
revenue is derived from duties on imports. The cut-
ting of the North from this trade, While destroying
domestic prosperity, would force the
Governmentalways
to direct taxation, at a time when thepeople,
averse to it, would be more than ever so. There-
fore the North cannot give up the conflict till con-
vinced of its utter hopelessness. Every new loan is
a further pledge that the war must continue till
success or destruction result. The South is of course
impelled by similar motives, and if conquered, all
they have spent is lost; and moreover they would
be saddled with an enormous debt incurred for
their own subjugation."
His account of the views and objects of the North
is not the most flattering ; it is, however, identical
with that which we have reluctantly been obliged
ourselves to present. The sum is that the North tole-
rates slavery, and hunts negroes for the slave States;
that the South holds slaves, but does not hate them
more than it does its horses and dogs. That the
'North imposes a narrow, selfish obsolete commercial