The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1861-08-29

average amount for it diminished after the
election from the same cause which has almost
wholly stopped its export in the present year.
In the year 1859, up to the corresponding date of
last week, the export of specie was $45,7O2,2l0
II is very easy, therefore, to sec how our bank
ers have fifty millions of specie on hand, and
how the people have SO much gold and silver in
their purses and hid away in stockings The
balance Of trade has been altogether in our
favor, and that is what makes commercial
nations prosperous. The short crops in conti-
mental Europe and the surplus crops in Anne
RIGA have enabled US to export vastly
more than we did last year, nowithstand-
ing the blockade since April prohibiting
the export of cotton, sugar, tobacco, rice
and other articles of Southern produce. On
the other i, we have imported fewer luxu-
ries, and those who have dealt in such articles
have suffered, though not the mass of the COM
m:nity.
Instead of employing our surplus capital in
importing foreign merchandise, we are now
using it in home trade. A million day, of
which the fifty millions Of specie are the basis,
40 hV" cSh6 oPSA1 IA WIG VOuubIy vi Sul1Ouo
branches Of trade quickened into activity by
the war; Business is, therefore, reviving in a
new form and to an unprecedented extent; and
it will soon be made apparent that the North
can prosper without Southern cotton. 1t will
not need to import 80 much dry goods and SO
many Injuries, because hitherto large pro-
portion of these things went to the South to pay
for its cotton and other articles of export. The
increased internal trade of the Northern States
with each other will more than compensate for
the loss of Southern cotton.
1t is very clear, therefore, that cotton is not
now king over the North, and never more
will be- A commercial revolution has
taken place which dethrones him. Nor will
his reign lie Of long continuance over the South;
for the same revolutionary process is going on
in the commerce of England that has been ac-
complished among ourselves. She can dispense
with American cotton, at least till we can get
her all she wants. and it is not necessary for her
therefore, to interfere with our coast guard.
supply of cotton can be obtained from
other countries till the war is over, or
grant of money can be obtained from
Parliament to relieve the distress of the
factory population till the rebellion is
crushed in the South, and that would be much
cheaper mode Of meeting the temporary diff
Guilty, and far safer besides, than plungug into
war with the United States by meddling in its
internal affairs. Even upon economical and
financial grounds, therefore, it would ae bet
ter for England to wait till we get cotton
for her than to take it now by force herself.
Nor have we any doubt now that she will
wait. From the extract we have already pub
lished from Lord Palmerston's organ this seems
evident enough But the following, to the same
effect, may here be added, from the organ of
Lord Derby, the administration and opposition
thus coneurring in their views-'Nor need the
Southern States imagine that they hold the keys
of all the cotton reserves in the world.
Englishmen should desire Of all things that this
really fruitless war should cease, and that cot
ton should still come to them from their kins-
men. But Englishmen repudicte, ON the other
hand, having fastened upon them pro-slauery IN
terest and pro-slavery sympathy by the enuacia-
ton Of the uyounded notion that, If they cannot
get cotton through Slavery, they must go s0itaous"
This is sufficiently plain. American cotton Is
not necessary to England. She can get the sta
pie elsewhere, and if she could not, still she
could do without it altogether.
No great commercial nation can ever be left
dependant on single branch of trade If one
branch fails, or is cut of, another springs up in
its place. Instead of cotton, some other fabric
will be manufactured and the South will soon
learn that England can do without her
cotton till doomsday. The South, too,
will find out that she can prosper without sell
ing pound of cotton to England, and North
and South and England will discover that they
are all three more Independent of each other
than their political economists appear to
imagine.
Certain it il the result of the war will show
that the North can do without the Southern
trade, as England can do without American
cotton. And the cotton emperor will learn that
he has made the same mistake that the elder
Napoleon made in his war with England. The
destroy England by the destruction of certain
branches Of her commerce. But instead of that,
the war gave an extraordinary impetus to her
internal trade, and the vast sums of money bor-
rowed by the government, and spent in conse-
quence among her population, circulated
through every artery and vein of the body poll
tic, and gave new life to trade. OF course these
loans must be repaid by posterity, but only
their good effects were felt by that generation.
1t is even so in the present war. The
stimulus to our internal trade and the circula-
ton of so much money cannot fail to benefit the
whole community, and though we are deprived
Of the Southern trade, we have more than its
equivalent The cotton lords of the South, in
their pride and conceit, imagined they could
ruin the North by cutting of their trade with
us. They have only ruined themselves, while