The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-06-10

: be strong enough to confront and override
that engrossing, imperious Interest which now
/ dominates the South. Whenever it shall come
/ to pass that none but the very rich own slaves,
Slavery will stand upon narrow and an inse
cure pedestal
In any event, the West India Islands, whether
slaveholding or Free and the slave States of this
country must be retarded in their growth, by the
want OF labor. Europe is great hive of work
ingmen, free, civilized, intelligent and enter
prising. . Set before them an object, open to
them fresh field for enterprise, and they will
emigrate. The New World beckons them to
Its shores, and they come-not to the tropics, to
die; not to the slaveholding regions, to be de-
graded, and to be crushed by the competition
OF unpaid labor-but 70 the free States and Ter
ritories OF the American Union, where they can
work with vigor, calculate upon certain remu.
neration, and be assured of equal rights and
consideration. The free States of this CONT
nent and the Canadas need no schemes of Gov.
eminent emigration or compulsory colonization
to supply the demand for Labor Bot, whence
shall be drawn the supplies of labor for the slave
regions of the New World, and for such free por-
tons of it as are devoted to tropical productionf
Jamaica and Martinique throw open their ports,
and invite immigration, but where is voluntary
immigration to come from Africa knows moth
ing, hears nothing. Were her thronging mil
| lions civilized, addicted to commerce, intelli.
gent, thousands of them would pour into the free
West Indies, and carry production to the high.
1
est FONT. But Africa is not civilized, and hence
the interposition of the English and French
Governments to furnish supplies Of labor by
artificial methods. The attempt will fail. The
plan is costly, troublesome, insufficient; it is
liable to enormous abuses must tend, like the
slave trade itself, to provoke wars in Africa, and
perpetuate the savage condition of its tribes !;
cannot fail, in many cases, to revive the horrors
, OF the middle passage must retard civilization
IN the colonies, and reduce society there tc
barbarous form.
Ut course, there will be little voluntary i'm.
| migration of free laborers to the slave regions
OF the New World-none to engage in tropical
production. Cuba must draw its supplies from
the African slave trade, or finally give up Sla-
very. The cotton and sugar growing States of
TINS Union, as We have seen, cut off alike from
free immigration, and from slave importation,
must depend alone upon such meagre supplies
as they can obtain from Virginia, Maryland,
North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee,
which themselves have little labor to spare, as
free immigration is apt to turn aside from them,
Notwithstanding their fine climate, great water.
power and unsurpassed agricultural capsbili.
ties.
What, then, is to be done? Population steadily
increasee-the demand for cotton and tropical bro.
ductions must augment Neutrality-suspicious. shall
the supplies come from? The cotton. growing
states OF the Union need more labor, not land,
How are they to get it +? If it be right to hold
slaves-if slave labor alone be adapted to the
growth of cotton and tropical productions they
are right in demanding the reopening of the for.
eign slave trade-right in denouncing the act
prohibiting it, as upjustly discriminating against
them, securing advantages to the free States and
to the farming slave States, subjecting them to
great disadvantages. But as we have said, in
the Union, that act will never be repealed, and
out of it they will never CO.
The great question for the world then arises
if the French and British free colonies, and the
slave regions of the new world, cannot supply
the demands of civilization for tropical produc.
tons, what shall be done ? CIvILIzE AFRICA.
Put an end to the slave trade. Stop all your
free emigrant schemes. Cease to foster domestic
wars among its tribes-to tempt them to prey
upon each other, to kidnap and sell one anoth-
er. Trade with them. Establish factories
where 1t can be done, to take their cotton and
coffee (of which they can produce unlimited
| quantities) in exchange for fabrics which they
need but cannot make. In Liberia, for in.
stance, cotton is a perennial plant, and the
| crops increase from year to year. 1t is now
established that there is an immense cotton.
growing region in Africa. Thomas Clagg, a
large cotton manufacturer in Manchester,
writes to the London Daily Ne,cs concerning
certain operations north and south of the mouth
of the river Niger, as follows:
Sup to the lst of this month, March, 1858. \
| | had sent out l57 cotton gins, costing from
| f3 lis. cd. to Gl0 los. each.
II have entered into correspondence with
| upwards OF seventy six native and other Afri
can traders, Il or % of them being chiefs
many of whom have begun to consign their
| cotton, as well as other produce, to me. In
| conducting this affair, have to venture. and
have now outstanding about ia 693, every shil
ling OF which expect to receive back indeed.
l have bills of lsding and advices of great
| quantities of cotton and other produce being
on Its way to me now, both on consipnmen
and in liquidation of what is owing to me.
| ~ have had one transaction with one of
these traders, from which he received So 500,
aud 1t Is both satisfactory and pleasing to know
that every trader almost invariably takes back
haFo ware, earthenware, cotton goods, or other
merchandise, for the whole amount of cotton
or other produce sent here.
The people of Abbeokuta cannot he made
to believe that England can purchase all the
cotton that they can produce, az vet Abbeo.
kuta Is but just on the border-at one corner.
l may say-of the great cotton field of w esterp
Africa, extending from Abbeokuta TO the Nj
ger, and away into the interior.
| Couphng my experience on this coast, the
belief OF the Abbeokutans, and the recent dis
patch OF DR.. Baikie from the Niger to our
Government, where he states that the Rev. Mr..
Clarke had seen at lila, near Ilorin. IN the Yoru.
ba country, fifteen or sixteen packages of clean
cotton offered for sale, weighing IS lbs. TO IS
lbs each, and had been assured by the natives
that on market days (every fourth) from one
to two thousand such bags were offered for sale,
and this for their own country manufacture
only l say, coupling these statements with my
operation, what know of Tunis and Natal, and
what Dr. Livingstone tells us of the East, / can
clearly see prospect of the slave trade being
entirely starved out the tractsble, docile, and
i a fri