The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-12-14


The New York EUening Post, of Wednesday
last, in abiding to the refusal of a New Orleans
house to ship to the order of firm in New York
thousand bales of cotton, stgmatzes it as "a
sample OF the foolish tactics Of the disunionists"
We shall not stop to inquire whether the alleged
refusal might not have originated quite as much
in prudential motives as in sectional animosity.-
tairer understanding and iuster appreciation of
the laws that govern business transactions, might
possibly have given 10 the act this more charita-
BILE construction. But the Post is evidently bent
upon seeing the finger of Secession in what it
must know to be everyday occurrence in times
of profound financial and political perturbation It
isaso determined to make use of the anecdote which
it quotes as means of pointing a moral, which
should be consoatory to the cotton manufacturers
of the North. 'If'' says the Post, ss,he North
ern states are 10 be deprived of their accustomed
supplies from the South--an absurdty in itself
they Will only be compelled to look elsewhere for
'the article" But will they, by looking else
where, succeed in obtaining it? That is the ques-
ton. Of course they will, says the Post who is
not only disposed, like MARK TAPLEY, to be Jolly
under the most melancholy circumstances: but
also to base its reasons, for making merry, upon
the most airy and unsubstantia of foundations -
statements more at variance with the logic of &C.
tual and wel-known facts, we have rarely met
with, than in the article on which we have under
taken to comment. As an argumentn point, the
Post speaks of the serious decline of the Russian
trade with England in the articles of hemp and
tallow, which is thus stated:
when England, by her quarrel with Russia in 1854
suddenly deprived of her usual supplies of hemp and
taow, she turned her attention to the teeming soil of
India. Taught by the accumulated samples in the
Worlds Fair, she looked for ue and vegetable allow
the plains of Bengal the forests of Malabar and
found them. Russia has from the conse-
quence of sending her great customer to marketn
That the traffic in jute and vegetable tallow has
acquired, of late years, some degree of Importance
is true; but that since the close of the Crimean
war; there has been any serious reduction in the
amount of hemp and tallow exported from Rus
STA, we emphatcally deny, and we challenge the
Post to the proof But even if the assertion of our
contemporary were as correct as it is unaueston-
ably the reverse the illustration which it is in
tended SO artfuly TO enforce would not hold
good. There are many substitutes which might
be found for talloW, of which the whole amount
annually exported from Russia has never much
exceeded fifteen millions of dollars; and with re-
spect to Hemp, there is not a country in Europe
where it cannot be successfully grown, if crcum-
stances should render absolutely necessary at any
time, an increase of production. Cotton
can be grown in some parts of Europe, saws
the Post and "India, Australia and Africa,
are pointed out as possessing ",he re-
'quisite climate and soil for the culture of This
ol,ol 1o
grown in those countries, there can be no doubt
whatever; bat it is also true that, if our Northern
manufacturers suffer themselves to be buoved nm
with the hope Of deriving thence their future sup
plies of the raw material, they will inevitably be
doomed to disappointment. 1t is, of course, the OBJ
Ject OF the Post to alarm the South at this iuncture
by lmpresslng it with the belief that Cotton can be
raised with equal facility elsewhere. and can he
brought into successful competition with that
which is so extensively grown in the Gulf States,
ana upon which their material prosperity so es-
senualy depends 1t is also its obvious de-
sign to reassure the Northern manufacturers.
who are beginning to doubt whether the victory
OF the Republican party, to which they contrib
uted, is likely TO prove quite so much of a tri
umph as the anti-slavery orators so confidently
predicted it would be. But the facts which are
stated by the Post are not facts at ALL in the sense
Ill which that journal would have them understood
We freely admit that Cotton can be grown in
INDIA, Africa, Australia, and, we will add, in
many other places because proof has been piyen
of the fact; but we assert nevertheless that every
experiment which has been undertaken to grow it
it economically has resulted in complete failure
Wa al I'D ha 9TH l.,r- H.,
Bombay Chamber of Commerce, that England had
expended more than million and a half of dollars
on experimental plantations in India, and that all
further attempts to grow Cotton in that country
for export, under the auspices of the Government,
had been defnitivey abandoned Yet the Post
would make it appear that 'clean Cotton can
''still be bought there at prices ranging from
lone cent to three cents pound and that facil-
''ities are being afforded for its transport from
"the districts where it is grown to the seaboard.n
Railways and trunk roads, we are assured, are
now in progress of construction for this especiaI
purpose, and fast sailing ships are sent 10
Bombay to carry the cotton which is pressed by
machinery in that city, to foreign ports OF the
trunk roads we know nothing. Of the railways
1t is sufficient for us to state that it has been Off
cially decided to desist, except in few instances,
from their further construction, until the Indian
finances are in a condition to admit of their re-
sumption. That day has not yet come, and from
present appearances is very remote. AS the Bonn
bay Chamber of Commerce has also announced
that the cotton culture for export has measurablv
ceased, 'the fast sailing ships, of large burhen,"
spoken of by the Post, will have 10 be used for
other purposes. When, therefore, our contempt.
rary solemnly admonishes Southern planters,
"who would cast off their allegiance to the Union
land carry their produce to foreign markets to
'be warned in time - as India ''is bountiful and
"antagonistic," and Cotton ''is indigenous to AZ
erica, the advice thus given is valueless for the
true facts of the case contradict the assumptions,
and even if they did not the Argument of the Post
would still be worthless, for so long as the plant
ers do Garry their produce TO foreign markets."
competition will be necessarily kept down.