Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1861-04-27
From the New York World.
a STATE OF WAR NOT NECESSARILY
RUIN0US,

AtoNaoN1 HtInuDHt III ulOn
men, though broad awake, imagine they see them
selves lying dend at a small distance from them
Our trade and industry, for the last three or four
months, have bad something Of the Same ailment.
Since the first sign that war might come, they
have seen nothing in reserve but ITO lie in cold OBJ
security, and rot". The prospect has fairly be-
wildered and p~aralyzed them. But it is all a de-
fusion. They are no. going to die. They will
suffer to some extent, doubtless, but nothing to
what they have already suffered in the apprehen-
sion. Civil war may, and in all probability will
come; but trade and industry, in these Northern
States, will sill live.
The prosperity of our great section rests upon
too broad q foundation to be fatally affected by any
such struggle as secession threatens. The field Of
hostilities will, in no event, be upon our own soil
the number Of men actually engaged will DO ill.,
significant in comparison with the great body at
home; the expenditures inconsiderable in proper
ton to tho vastness of our resources in money and
credit; and the commercial disturbance of no ma.
terial account in the worlds sweep of our naviga-
ton. Its a vast mistske to suppose that a state
Of war is necessarily inc %mpatible with thrift and
progress. What was the experience Of England
in the mighty conflict she waged with little inter
mission from 1892 to 1916? During the latter
years of that war England had over a million of
men in military and naval pay. Her expendi-
lures before its close had reached the enormous
amount Of more than one hundred million pounds
sterling annually exclusive of the large loans she
was obliged to furnish to her impoverished allies
on the continent. And yet she made greater ad-
vances in population, aud 10 wealth, during these
same twenty-three years, than during any previ-
Gus period of the same length in her entire histo-
ry. Her population increased one-fOurth her ex-
ports more than doubled her shipping increased
from one million of tons to two and b half her
agricultural products trebled in value, and her
manufactures, in spite Of temporary reverses, pro-
crossed in q ratio never before paralleled, her cot
ton manufactures alone increasing from q value of
go, $50, 900 in 1877 to Gl7,65 600 in 1914. Her
annual revenues, received by taxation, increased
from nineteen millions of pounds sterling in 1892
to Serenty-two millions in 1915. England, notwith-
standing vast burdens Of taxation, such as no ma
ton had ever before borne, was immeasurably the
richest and most prosperous country in the world,
at the close of the war; and even in 1914, before
the great crisis, her government was able to bor-
row money at a better rate than at the beginning
of the struggle, more than twenty years before
one actually uu OOIrOW IoO,OOOJOOO AZ % bLuO
over four and a half per cent. 1t is On extraGrdi-
nary fact that this remarkable prosperity in all de-
~partments of British industry continued up to the
very close Of the war, and was Immediately follow
ed by one Of the severest periods OF distress Eng
land has ever experienced. That distress was a.
tributed to several causes, which it is not neces-
sary to mention now the truth remains the same
that prosperity was the eoncomitans Of war, and
adversely the first attendant of peace. Now who
will mt say, &c tho worst oomas to the worat, tbet
the free States, with their twenty milllions, are not
in as good o condition to maintain q strife with the
entire South, possessed Of not one-third Of that
number of white n en-, as was Great Britain, with
its twelve or fifteen millions, to fight twice that
number of Frenchmen And who will think of
comparing The scale Of operations which it would
be- necessary for us to undertake with that required
to meet and battle such On antagonist as Napoleon!
There is no good reason why northern MINER
should be injured in the least by the impending
conflict. The rebel States have no navy to threat
en- it. They cannot engage in privateering, be-
cause the issue of letters of marquo, that can be
respected, is a national privilege only and there
is no likelihood that these States will get admit
lance into the family Of nations. Privateering,
unaccredited by national sanction, is simple pira'
cy, and would not for a day be tolerated. In fact
northern sommerce would rather be the gamer BY
the change in the order of things. Every south.
ern port of any consequence would be blockaded
aud all direct trade with Europe thereby stopped
The operation of this would be that all foreign
goods for southern consumption would come in By
; the ports Of the North. Our own domestic man
ufactures would be to some extent injured by tht
partial loss Of southern custom. Bot the grea
bulk of our manufactured goods finds q msrkeI
elsewhere than south Of Mason & Dixon's and
withal, they are, to q large extent, of such charac
ter as virtually to be necessaries of life, which tht
South could not dispense with even if it would
Our agricultural industry will be even less affect
cd. No southern war can at all lessen the de
;: mand Of Europe for our breadstufs, or improv
=, the present ineapacity Of the South to furnish it
self with adequate supplies.
PROFESSIONALLY civil war, with the South TO
its theater, would much divert and disturb man,
Is channels of business. But the economic effect, oil
the whole, would be rather to slacken the Swif
\, progress we have been making than to send u
A backward, or even to bring US to a stand-still.-
Business once relieved Of the suspense which ha
!. been weighing upon it like an incubus, and know
ing Tha. to calculate upon, would soon adapt itsel
to the new condition OF things. American indus
- try of oil sorts has an irrepressible energy an,
versatility which will not permit it to be lonI
kept down. There is abundant capital in tn
North, a sound currency, little foreign debt, mex
!, haustable natural resources, a great and dali
I augmenting population, and a power to cOmmuni
cate, in the utmost freedom, with all quarters o
\, the globe. Ia spite Of this mad rebellion Of tia
South, il we are only trCe to ourselves we canno
= help prospecting. The war, il it comes, will b
deplOrable. II lie horrid that brother should NEE
20 brother in bloody strife; aud not for the wori
h, would we say anything that should mitigate tn
sense Of that. In it's social bearings it is a terri
81 bic misfortune. We simply deny that in its ecc
: nOmic relations it 10 to work, or come anywher