The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1852-03-10

domestic and foreign, being at this time not
greater than 1t was in 1916, although we have
since added more than four millions to our
population.
The Increased demand in 'oher places"
than England having thus tended to raise the
price OF cotton in the English market, we would
now ask our cotton-growing readers to reflect
whether the diminished demand among our
selves has not contrary tendency; and whe-
Their the present low price Of the great staple of
the South is not due entirely to the fact that,
consuming less at home, we are compelled to
send more abroad; and TO do this in the name
of British free trade? Had we consumed
no more last year than we did three years since,
we should have sent to the British slaughter
house for farmers and planters at least one hun
dred and fifty thousand bales less than we did
send; and the effect would now be seen in
at less than two cents pound, or nine dollars
bale; equal on the whole crop to t,centy-fr
millions Of dollars. Had we permitted the do
nestle consumption to grow, as it did grow I'M
til it was killed by the tariff of 1916, we should
have sent 100000 bales less and this, Joined
to the growing demand for the protected coun-
tries of Europe, would have fred the price
at a point not less than four cents a pound
higher than it now is, giving to the plant
ers at least fifty millions Of dollars more for
the present crop than they will now realize
for it. 1t is time that they should lay aside
prejudices and study facts. Increased compe-
titlon for the purchase Of cotton tends to raise
prices; and the object OF the tariff of 1912 was
that of making competition at home with the
purchaser abroad-as German protection has
produced competition abroad, and as Rus
sian and Belgian protection has produced
competition. The Manchester manufacturer
deprecates competition with himself in the
purchase of cotton, because ii raises the price
Of the ra,c material; he deprecates compe-
tltion with himself in the sale of cloth, because
it lowers the price Of cloth; and he cries out for
British free trade, that he may secure to him
self a monopoly of the purchase of the first
told him long since that nothing but protection
could enable any other person to compete with
him, and that if he could stave off protection
he could maintain the mastery already esiab-
lished over the planters of the world 1t was
to him entirely reasonable to conclude that
such new beginners, having to Withstand the
competition of those who have already arrived
at very high degree of perfection in the art,
must be Immediately driven out of every mar
ket equally accessible to both parties, and that
nothing but the aid derived from restrictive
regulations ,could be etsctual TO prevent total
destruction Of their establishments"
The truth of this is now being proved most
conclusively among our southern friends IN
der the influence of the tariff of 1912 they es-
tablished mills; but the tariff Of SAG 50 far lin
tied the field of operation for northern manu-
features, that they have from that day to this
been compelled to confne themselves to the
manufacture of the same coarse goods that
were being made at the South, while the home
demand for cloth was in a steady course of
diminuton; and the result is now seen in the
gradual closing Of southern mills-the effect of
which is that ofincreasing the control of the
Manchester manufacturer, just as the protective
system Of Germany and Russia was threatening
its destruction 1t is really time that they should
reflect whether or not two, three, four, or five
purchasers are better than one. If they desire
to have only one, and to make him the master of
their fortunes, let them continue their advocacy
Of British free trade. II, on the contrary, they
think three or five better than one, let them
lend their aid to the re -establishment among
ourselves of the same system under which the
consumption of cotton increased, as it now does
in all the protected countries Of Elpope--those
" other places" whose demand now stiffens
prices in England