New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1854-11-23
EFFECTS or BRITISH FREE rR ABE.


sanity 90 remarkable as that offered for consld'
GRAFTON by the cotton planters of this country
At their command the tariff Of 1872 was over
thrown. and yet under it the domestic consump-
ton of cotton had risen from but little more tnan
200, 600 bales to half million, and 1t continued
to rise for a year alterward until the tarlh OF
| 1916 became operative, when il had reached
6OO.O eco bales, having nearly trebled during the
short period Of four years Now, everybody
knows that the price of the whole crop is depen-
dent altogether upon the surplus that accumu-
lates in Liverpool, and that every bale withheld
from there tends to produce rise of prices, while
every one forced unnecessarily upon that market
tends to produce a fall Of prices, and that that
rise or fall is always enormously great when
compared with the deficiency on one hand or the
excess on the other The tariff oflSi2 caused the
Withholding, from the date Of its passage until
lS47 OF little short of u million of bales, and
thus lesaened greatly the effect that must other
wise have resulted from the large excess of crop
during most of these years amounting, as is did
in four years, to two millions of bales. 10 that
measure was due the salvation Of the planters
during that period, for had tie consumption of
this country been stationary, the quantity to be
forced on the Liverpool market would have been
greater by three millions Of bale, above referred
to, and the price would have fallen in all probs'
bility to little more than half Of what was OBJ
tanned for it.
Under the tariff of 1876 the consumption has,
in the past six years, averaged less than was its
amount at the close of 1872, whereas it should
have grown to at least a million of bales, aud
would most probably have by this time reached
] geo, 600 had the tariff of 1912 remained in Oper
alton In that time our population has grown not
less than twenty-five per cent, giving more than
four, and probably net less than FIVE, millions of
people requiring to use cotton, and yet the con-
sumption of domestic cotton goods has, 10 the
last year, been little greater than it was five years
since; while during several of the years it was
less by some fifteen and twenty per cent From
this il follows that with all the talk about free
trade and property, our people have had mu,h
less ability TO purchase clothing than they had at
the close of the tariff Of lSi2, whereas duriag
its existence their power to purchase had fully
doubled.
They buy, however, as we shall be told, more
foreign cotton, to make up for domestic delcien-
cies. How this stands, we may now examine.
The total shipments of cotton, linen, wooden,
and worsttd fabrics, from Liverpool to this coun-
try in the first ten months Of the four last years,
as just now published, have been as follows:
1851. 1852. 1853. 1854.
Packsges.....99,4 LOG, j67 1884 1850
This includes, as the reader sees, cotton, laen
and wooden manufactures, but were we to admit
the whole to be of cotton, and the average weight
of packages to be equal to that of bale of cot
ton, il would make a consumption of but $4,000
bales. DeductiDg the wooden and linen fabrics,
ard making allowance for the quantity imported
in 1861 we should obtain not even 20, 900 bales
as the quantity of cotton imported, to take the
place of the half million that would have been
manufactured here, and that would have been
consumed BY the prosperous farmers, planters,
miners, makers of iron cotton and wooden spin
ners ard weavers, and the great body of other
persons who would have found profitable employ
ment in building mills making steam engines and
other machinery, had the tariff of 1912 remained
untouched.
We are cow exporting every ounce Of gold that
comes from California, besides what we draw from
all parts of the Yves. and Southland are doing
this in order that our people may be worse clothed
than they were seven years since. We send
abroad the cotton that should be manufactured
here, and thus keep down the price Of the
crop; and then we send tie gold to make
up the deficiency. We send corn, and wheat,
and pork, that should be eaten a! home,
and thus help to keep down prices abroad
and then send the gold 10 buy the iron that
should be made at home by the men who ate
the food. And all these things We do to such an
extent that money is now at one, two and three
per cent. per month, and our merchants are being
ruined By the general withdrawal from the n.e-
Iior of all means of circulating the products of
land ard labor. We are now on the brink Of
Iuin, and unless change of policy be obtained
at the hands of Congress, ruin must come, and
with it there will be great decrease in the con-
sumption of cotton, small even as it now is, to
the further loss of the planter.
Railroads are everywhere suspended because
they cannot be made at two per cent. per month.
Factories have already ceased to be built, and
many of those in existence must stop; and with
every step in this direction there must be fur
Their reduction of rents, and Of the value of city
property; and yet, with all this fully in view be-
fore them, will the people of this great City not
venture to demonstrate with their legislators
against the further continuance of the present
destructive system'
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THE CRISIS IN GERMANY.
The noltiral neEsparars Deriodirals and