The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1851-11-06

Increase. 1921 ,ll5 80
''The value Of the cotton taken by United States
manufacturers in 1914 Sl2,6 500 1888. Thus the
in the value of less quantity exported is 40 per
cent more than the whole home consumption in 1874
If the quantity sold at home had been thrown into
the sea, the planters could have afforded to lose it
nnder such q foreign trade.
We have italiclsed the sentence to which we
particularly desire attention 1t is here desired
to connect large quantity and high prices with
the tariff of 1876, as Mr.. WALKER and the
manufacturers of his tables desired to connect
small quantity and low prices with the tariff Of
1912; and the fraud attempted in the present
case is precisely similar to that perpetrated at
the time this question of the tariff was before
Congress. The only manner in which our
commercial policy can affect the price of cotton
is by increasing or diminishing the quantity for
which we must seek market abroad-by in
creasing or diminishing the quantity consumed
at home. That quantity diminshes under the
tariff of 1916, as is evident from the fact that
while we convert into cloth less cotton, by l60,-
600 bales, than we did three years since, the
power to consume cloth has diminished so much
more rapidly, that we are forced to export domes-
tic cloth to an extent so far exceeding the export
of SAC and lS47, as not only to counterbalance
but to exceed the increased import and
thus is established the extraordinary fact that
under British free trade we consume in 1851,
with population of twenty four millions, very
far less than was consumed in 1916, under finer
lean free trade, with population of twenty mil
lions; and the further fact, that whereas there
was at that time a daily tendency to increase in
the consumption, there is now daily tendency
to diminution in the quantity consumed
The Union informs US that the way to raise
the price Of cotton is to provide for ian extern
sion of trade and an increase Of consumption,
founded upon the greater ability to buy and to
pay" and here we fully agree with him. The
object of his article is, however, that of prov
ing that with the extension of the home trade,
and the increase in the home consumption,
founded upon "a greater ability to buy and to
pay" among our own people, the price of cot
ton has diminished; and that with the diminu-
ton of the home trade and the diminution of
the home consumption, founded upon dimin
ished ability among our own people "to buy
and therefore that domestic prosperity, as man
ifested by an increase Of demand for cotton and
cotton cloth, is totally inconsistent with adj
vance in the price of cotton, and that the true
way to enrich the planter would be at once to
close every mill in the Union, and TO follow the
fashion Of free trade Ireland in clothing our
selves in rags, or .free-trade India, in substi-
tuting a piece of cloth around the lons for a
shirt Such is the teaching of the learned
Thebans of the American school of Manchester
Political Economy.
II is obvious that, with every step in the
direction indicated by the Union, there must
be increased dependence on the ships and looms
Of England; and the object Of the fraudulent
tables published by that journal is to prove
that the more dependent we make ourselves
the better prices we obtain; and that the way
to diminish prices is TO make ourselves indie
pendent. The object of the friends of Amer-
can free trade-of those who look TO protection
as a means of freeing themselves and the world
from the monopoly power of Great Britain--is
that of showing that by diversifying employ
ments we diminish the necessity for applying