Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1855-06-19
l45,45s ll7,54i

What is toe effect upon the cotton-planteT! The
average annual consumption OF cotton in ireland,
whence so large proportion of the emigrants
come, is less than one pound per head; that of the
British islands, for the last ten years, has been
about four and one-third pounds to each individual
while in The United States the average of the
whole country, including slaves has been over
thirteen pounds to each person.
When we consider that the majority OF the en-
igrants are adults, and that they fud employment
in that portion of the Union where the climate re-
quires the of the largest quantity of the mate
rails of clothing, it will appear to be very mode
rate estimate, if we compute the difference between
the cotton annually used by each of them after
arriving in the United States and that which they
were able to purchase in their native land at len
pounds. Those who arrived in the :irst six months
of l849 furnished market for q. much more 10
weight of cotton goods than they would have
done had they remained on the other side
of the ocean, as suifices to supply all the spin
dies which were that year running i'll the
States of Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and South
Carolina, during twelve months. By the returns
made to the Secretary of the Treasury thirty thou
sand bales was the amount manufactured by the
mills Of those States. If the importation of men
is kept mp, there will be an increased demand for
cotton requiring the annual addition, in the cotton
growing States, of number of spindIes equal TO
the market of the Northern manufacturers in the
least, or impairing their demand for the raw mate
rial. Now that the planters have begun to sppre-
ciate the advantages they derive from the growth
OF the manufacture, in the cottou-helds, can they
be insensbe to their interest in the continuance of
influx of population from abroad which is equiv
sent, in extending the demand for their great sta
Pile to the annual duplication of che spindles in the
South, and which costs them 40 outlay of capitaR
Can they see q decline of twenty per cent in the
number of emigrsnts with indiferencef Can they
fail to see that it is protection to American labor
which invites the aborers of Europe to our shores,
and that it is its withdrawal which repels them?-
Can they overlook the fact, that far they are
concerned, the obtaining absolute and perfect free
trade with the three hundred THOUSAND people who
last year added to the population of tie Union
from foreign States is equivalent to obtaining free
trade with three millions who remain separated
from US by the ocean, and consume but one tenth
as much cotton2 Is there any method so rapid Of
achieving free trade, as by bringing men within
that circle of States in which it is guaranteed by
the Constitution, and where one who brings him
self st his own cost counterbalances in bis consump-
ton ten of those that he leaves behind? This pro-
portion is much less than that which exists between
the people of the United States and the rest of
mankind as an aggregate, in respect to their con-
sumption of cotton. Yet there are thousands who
would enlarge expenditure by the Government, as
well warranted, for the sake of establishing COM
mercial relations with the savages of newly dis
covered island freshly explored coast, half mil
lion of whom would buy less cloth and calico than
the twenty eight thousand enigr8nts, whom we
have lost in the last six months, and would not on
" have cost nothing but have furnished the richest
freight for our shipping and for our inland vehicles