The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1868-01-04
WHAT THE SOUTH LOST By TREASON.
COTTON AND THE CoTToN TAx-REMARKs OF
Hon. VIM. d. KELLEY, OF PA.

| L
During the recent debate in the House of
Representatives, on the repeal of the cotton
tax, Mr.. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, in advoca-
ting the measure, said:
| desire to say to the gentleman from New
Hampshire, (Mr. Ela,) who begged US not to
| remove this tax until we first put a specific
one on something else to give US the amount
| it yields, that l learn from the President
message that we raised by excessive taxation
in the fiscal year 1S67-67 $144, 100000 more
than was necessary to pay the current OK
penses and the interest our debt and that
the repeal will be in so far mitigation of a
great evil that of unduly taxing the industry
OF the country while we are Frustrated by
the effects of the war.
l want again to congratulate the country
upon the announcement made by my dstin-
gulshed friend from Iowa, Mr. Allison,) a
member of the Committee of WAYS and
Means, that he is ready not only to repeal
this tax, but that he believes the interest
alike f the Government and of the people
demands the removal of all direct taxes ON
the productions of our industry save spirit
Gus and malt liquors and the production of
tobacco. When we go that far we shall have
taken great step in promoting the interests
of the country, agricultural and commercial
as we'll as manufacturing. Sir, we are be-
coming cotton importing country, and we
shall become much more so if we do not re-
peal this tax. One of the most intelligent
manufacturers os Philadelphia, who has just
returned from Europe writes me as follows
lin the great Exposition at Paris were
samples from seventy-two different localities,
four from the United States. Our sea island
was, of course, the finest and the longest In
the collected world of cotton, but between
our sea island staple there were from other
countries twenty samples superior to New
Orleans middllng.
They have planted the seed of our sea is
land long staple in India, Egypt, Asia Minor,
Algeria, Italy, Africa, and many other coun-
tries, and are getting grade OF cotton which
surpasses our middling Orleans.
'Growing cotton in these countries has
now got fully established as the best thing
those people ever have, or probably ever can
do. and they will continue to grow cotton
superior to most of ours, no matter what the
price The South has lost by her treason the
best thing she ever had-the control of the
cotton market, and l fear she will never get
it back until our price is down to five cents
for a year or two, and our people must pre-
pare to grow it tor that or to manufacture
all they cannot sell North for Europe can get
along without our cotton, / am sorry to saw"
This statement relates only to the increased
Improvement in the fiber of foreign cotton
The inventive genius of Great Britain and
the Continent has also been busy working
the overthrow of our monopoly. Improved
machinery now spins and weaves the short
est fiber of Surat, and instead of requiring
three pounds of American cotton to one of
Indian the proportion is said to have been
reversed so accurately that one pound of
American suffices to mix with three of In
dian.
In this new condition of things we have,
as I have said, become large importers of
cotton grown in other lands. We furnish
but one third of the supply for trans-At-
lantc looms and spindles, and import from
six to ten million pounds of foreign cotton
embodied in foreign fabrics for the wear of
of our cotton-growing and other citizens
Nor are our own spindles and looms strangers
to the foreign fiber. During the last four
years our imports of foreign raw cotton have
been as follows:
Pounds. Value.
1868. d, 274, S46 $674,312
1894 "a d7h QS7 6GS or