New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-08-26
KING (GTTON.

Cotton is King they say. We know that 1t has
often been Presdent-almost always President
maker, at any rate. 1t is 8 new power Parreaa
monarch son of earth. But So for the matter OF
that lie Bonsparte; and nobody can deny that he is
Power on Earth, howsoever be became So Cot
ton is as mighty potentate and Influences the
destn es of millions of human beings for good or
for evil 1t should be all for good Its natural and
beneficent object is to clothe the naked, and to
minister TO the comforts and harmless Injuries of
all kinds of people. Cruelty is not necessary to
woo il from the SOIL nor arc ignorance and squalor
threads that must needs be mingled with the warp
and wool of its latter destiny. And it viii not be
always so.
We see a great crop is expected this year.
Four millions Of bales and more, the Money Articles
tell US AS by the policy of the country. forced
upon it mainly by the Cotton Interest itself In past
times, the chief of this will cross the ocean to
be turned to shape the news is full as good for
England, our principal customer, as for us. twill
check to some degree the phlebotomic drainage of
the yellow current that WHITES the veins of our
commerce, and to that extent delay or modify any
mOrbifc crisis likely to be induced by the febrile
sy stem of stimulation now predominant. But it is
of even more consequence to England that the food
of her spinning ;ienDes is not like to be at famine
prices tits year. than il is to For, in coDnnc-
ton with the abundance of their own harSests, it
promises a year of great prosperity.
For this year, then, the question so vital to
England" where is the Cotton to come from
is satisfactorily answered 1t may well appall the
stOu.est heart Of statesman or economist, to be
brought face to face with a short supply of the
staple out of which the main prosperity OF England
is spun. 1t is political question, too as well as
potico-economcsl one, as every question must be,
in so over peopled country that touches the daily
bread of millions of daily workers. Goblet used
10 say that you can't make fellow with a full
II belly rebe;" but the OBJ verse Of the epigram is
10 the full as sharp-cut and expressive. fellow
with al empty belly, and with hungry wife and
children at his back, may be readily made into
rebel of the most dangerous kind. For the dis
turbance of the Cotton manufacture would react on
all other interests, commercial as well as manua;-
turing, and even shake at las. the Steadfast land
itself, which is after sll the firm foundation on
which the greatness of England rests. Should any
of those vast constructors of inventive industry
which load that soil, come topping down from any
reason they could not fail to cause even that firm
set foundation to quake.
IL is curious to consider what an influence the
Cotton plant has had on human affairs, and how re-
cent its sway has been, as well. II is the extern
sion of the Cotton culture, made possible BY the
Gin of Whitney, that has given to Slavery the
new world it sighed to conquer. BY making
it possible to extort living profit out OF the
coarse ard clumsy processes of labor, OF
which only slaves are capable, 1t has post
poned the fulflment of John Randoph's pre-
dcton that the time would come when the masters
would run away from the slaves, instead OF the
slaves from the masters. 1t delayed, by convert
irg them into breeding farms, the starvation OF
Slavery in the farming States, which had
already begun to gnaw at their yitals,
and postponed the evil day of inanition,
yet little while 1t created market for men,
and metamorphosed articles of live stock, which
were eating off their heads ST home, into wares prof.
table for exportatoD 1t has also made itself neces
sary in so many thousand ways to Northern pros
perity, and is the ornerstone OF SO many splendid
warehouses and psatial residences, that has made
Northern hearts but too ready to submit to al the
encroacbments which Cotton, and Slavery which
sits enthroned upon it, have demanded for their
common protection.
And in England, too, Cotton has changed the
whole political and Industrial face of affairs within
the last half century A new element has entered
into the politics of the nation, which was almost
unknown when the Battle Of Wsterloo was fought
II WAS Cotton that changed the long established
and chernhed policy of England-the protection
Of the rents Of tie lardords BY the protection Of