The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1850-10-28

the advantages she now derives from the gratuit-
Gus and forced loan OF the Southern capital in the
foreign trade, and instead Of receiving the fertiliz
ing showers of the federal disbursements of the
taxes paid by the slave States, the whole expenses
i Of her Government would be thrown upon her
own people. Last year, her productions for ex-
portaiion were only 2,2l0, 900, and her cores
bonding share Of the imports, including specie,
not quite SO millions. How would it be possible
to raise, these imports, duties TO the amount Of
20 millions--her share Of the expenses of the
Federal Government, as estimated by Mr.. Mere
dith for the next fiscal year, An average duty OF
even so per cent. would raise only IL millions,
supposing the imports to remain the same, when,
in fact, they could not fail to decline under such
burden. Direct taxes, ruinous to her manufac-
lures, and still more dangerous for her social Or
ganization, would be the inevitable resort. Com
pare this with the federal taxes she has paid under
the present Union for the last nine years, averag
ing less than millions of dollars year. She
could not assist her finances by imposing duties on
her imports from the South, for they consist
chiefly Of unmanufactured produce, which is es-
sental to her people. How could she tax the
Virginia grain, which feeds New England, or the
cotton, on which her factories depend for their
very existence! There is reason to suppose that
her difficulties would be increased by an actual de-
cline in her foreign trade. The only increase in
her exports for many years has been in manufac-
lures and breadstufs. The former were rather
| over Ii millions of dollars in I849, chiefly cotton
goods. Of these the South furnishes the raw ma
terial, estimated by McCulloch, as well as by the
Secretary of the Treasury, at one-fourlh Of the
| whole value, to say nothing of the food for the
operatives, which has been calculated by Mr.
Webster and others at large sum, and for which
| the necessities of Northern industry would still
secure admttance into their ports free of duty.
But if the North, instead of receiving large
bonus through the Federal Government from the
South, had to pay the expenses of her own Union,
her manufactures could not stand English compe-
ton for a day. Even the South, il her people
| found it profitable to manufacture, would have a
great advantage in the lightness of taxation. The
North, for example, has hitherto conducted a
/ very lucrative trade with China, to whom she
sells about a million of dollars worth Of cotton
! goods, but when the price of her manufactures
was raised by TAXATION, and the return cargoes
subjected to the tax necessary to raise her required
revenue, what would become of this trader? Her
goods would no longer enter the Southern market,
not only free of duty, but with discriminating
duty of 80 to SO per cent. to protect them against
| foreign competition. On the contrary, they
would have to meet the manufactures of the world
OH terms of perfect equality, perhaps even with a
discrimination against them, unless she preserved
the comfy of nations as to our slave institutions.
i The Northern exports of manufactures, SO far
from increasing, would probably decline, If the
Union were dissolved. They can barely sustain
the competition of their rivals with all their pre-
crease their cost by taxation, and they must sink
beneath the burden. .
Nor is it possible that the free States, despite
the fables about the Northwest, can long have any
surplus of breadstuffs and provisions for exporta-
ton. We find that, according to the estimate Of
crops and population in the Patent Office Report
for 1913, and assuming, with the Commissioner,
the increase of neat cattle and swine since 1910 at
IS per cent. that the production of grain (wheat
and corn) at the South 45. 81 bushels for every
person, while at the North it was only "a 70.
The census Of 1910 gave 49, "a bushels per head at
the South, aud lS48 at the North, which is
t probably more reliable. In 1910 there were 104
neat cattle and 226 hogs for every 10O persons at
s the South, which were increased to lot cattle and
: 232 hogs in ls4s. At the North there were 7G
neat cattle in lS40 and only y in lS4s, for every
Y 100 persons; while Of swine, in the former year,
there l0l, and in the latter only 90 for the
t same number of persons
r These statistics show, not only what has been
pointed out by other inquiries, that the subsst-
ence OF the Northern laborer is much lower than
of the Southern, but that it is declining, especially
in animal food, which is always the first sign that
population begins to press upon the means Of sub
sstence. Other facts are equally conclusive, that
the bulk of the surplus breadstutfs and provisions
must be at the South, and that the North will soon
find it as much as she can do, to feed her own
, population well. The average crop Of wheat in
Virginia and Maryland is 10 bushels for every
person af their population; in Tennessee 8; and
in kentucky -. But in New York it is only 81
l bushels in Pennsylvania 6, and even in the new
, States, Indiana, with 81 bushels, does not equal
: Tennessee old Virginia; and Illinois produces
r under bushels for each person. Ohio reaches
10k bushels, but her Board of Agriculture says
f that she has attained her maximum, except at an
increased cost of production The future pros
poets for the wheat crop in the free States are still
worse. New England has actually declined in her
food crops Of all kinds.* We are told, on good
authority, that Western New York, once celebra-
ted for the crops on the Genessee, produces less
wheat than formerly i and Mr.. Scion Robinson,
| n nj I'M himself
man, says 4" wheat is the most preCarious crop in
the West, and altogether unsafe for the farmer to
J rely on. l consider Delaware, Maryland, and
Virginia the best wheat States in the Union. !
saw one thousand acres of wheat in Virginia last
season, better than any one thousand ever saw
in the West" This agrees with the results Of
chemical analysis, which shows that most Of the
Northwestern soils, when their virgin qualities are
exhausted, destitute of some of the most es-
sential elements of wheat.t
This gradual, but sure decline, in the returns of
agriculture in the free States is cause of the
increasing tendency of their population to desert
the country and concentrate in towns and factories.
In some of those States, the only Increase, accord
ing to the last census, was in the towns In New
York. the population of the fourteen largest towns
increased 64 per cent? in all the rest Of the States,
only 10 per cent In Ohio, the fifteen largest towns
increased 1873 per cent the State but sc per cent.
According to Prof. Tucker, at the last census. IS
per cent. of the whole New England population
| uVeu Ill "WHs. 1He pIopoTtioH perSouS ell
gagged in manufacturers had increased from 81 per
cent in 1920 to 80 per cent. in 1910; in the Mid
die States the increase had been from % to % per
cent; and even in the Northwest, from 10 to Is
per cent. 1t has been yet more rapid since. Mean
time the proportion engaged in agriculture had de-
clined the reverse was the same in the slavehold-
ing States 1t appears, therefore, that it is impos
sible for the North long to have any surplus Of
food for expectation, whether we regard the capaci-
ties Of her soil or the proportion of her people en-
gagged in ting it. The crops cannot keep pace
with the natural increase Of population, and much
| less with the still greater increase from European
emigration. There is yet another cause to pre-
vent Northern grain from being exported, while
Southern can be bought. The quality Of wheat,
and the quantity of bread it will make, depend
upon its dryness and'the proportion Of nutritive
matter or gluten contained in it. Its dryness is
all important in determining whether it will bear
). voyage. According to the analysis of Prof Beck,
Of Rutgers College, N. j., Gin the Patent Office
Report, ls49,) Southern wheat has several per
cent. less water than Northern, and as much more
of gluten. So great is the difference, that it is said
that Alabama wheat flour will make 90 per cent