The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-07-21
COLUMBIA
Sunday morning, Ja.S al. 1887.
Cotton and the Cotton Tax.

A late Liverpool circular estimates
that the stock of American cotton on
hand, at seq, and to arrive by De-
cember 81, at 6S0,0OO bales, which
would be equal to 10000 bales per
week; while the stock of East India
cotton on hand, and expected to ar
rive by the Same date, is estimated at
925,00O bales, equal to o weekly sup
ply of $4,000 bales. i. slsFHs
The increase Of the production of
foreign cotton is going on slowly,
but surely; and the last Liverpool
advices show that, although the mar
ket had assumed a degree Of activity,
yet quotations had declined, from the
1st instant, over 16d. With an esti-
mated crop of $500, 900 or 5000, 600
bales, it is not likely that there will
be any considerable or permanent
advance in prices Indeed, decline
may be looked for.
Under these circumstances, with
the efforts now being successfully
made to extend the cultivation of
cotton to countries where expert
ments are being made for the first
time, the tax on Southern cotton, i'm
posed by the Congress of the United
States, is not only unwise and injudi-
cious, but may eventually prove fatal
to its production on the finest cotton
lands in the world. There is also
strange inconsistency in this legisla-
tion; for whiie all the Acts of Con-
gross profess and are designed to ia
vor the freedmen-the cotton growers
of the Southern States-yet that body
imposes this heavy tax on their labor,
thus not only crippling the energies
of the landowners, and driving them
to the cultivation OF other produce,
but makes the poor labo8sr pay SO
or S12 per bale for every BALE of cot
ton he raises.
We could wish. but do not hope,
that Congress will, at its present ses-
sion, repeal this tax. A resolution,
however, looking to such movement
was objected to, some days ago, and
therefore could not be introduced.
The secret of its continuance is only
to be found in the persistent efforts,
in moro ways than one, of the East
ern manufacturers, who are benefited
i'll the purchase of their supplies to
the extent of that tax. 1t is for this
that the white producer is deprived
Of his natural profit ON the produc-
tion of the great staple, and for this
that the freedman is uujustly shorn
of portion of the fruits of his labor
and industry. But this policy, if con-
tinued, must, in the long run, prove
disastrous to tho Northern manufac-
turers, for the production of the
Southern staple will cease, or become
so greatly diminished, that they will
have to look for their supplies abroad,
and come into competition with Man
chester, which would have all the ad-
vantages over the spindles and looms
of the East, both ia the cost of trans
portation and of manufacture, in
which the former competitor excels.
The Southern farmer can raise other
products, and live; manufactures
can be built up; and the people, no
longer seduced by large profits on the
production of their favorite staple,
will seek other departments of in
dustry, end attend more closely to
the development of their vast and
various resources. On the whole,
therefore, we do not know but that
the short-sighted policy of taxing the
leading product of the soil of the
South may, in the end, prove benefi-
cial to her people.
4 letter from BuonOs Ayres saws.