The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-02
FISCAL MISMANAGEMENT OF THE RES
PUBLICAN PARITY.
From The Y. Y. World.

From the ". Y. World
The striking and instructive speech delivered
by General Alcom in the recent Commercial
Convention at Memphis furnishes a fresh occa-
sion for inculcating a lesson which cannot be
too deeply impressed upon the public mind. The
fact that General Acorn is a radical in politics.
that he is q Republican Senator-elect from the
State of Mississippi that he is no specializing
theorist, but an enterprising business man, that
he is the largest or next to the largest cotton
planter in the South, ought to command for his
statements degree of attention from the party
in power which they would hesitate to accord
TO the representations OF political opponents,
or TO mere theorists or alormists. The facts
so impressiVely marshalled by General
Alcorn are supported by such an array and
such variety of overwhelming evidence as to
render it impossible to dispute their authority.
His statements accord with. and are borne out by,
all the information on the same subject which
we gather from other sources. The last number
of the London Economist, for example says that
the cultivation of cotton in other parts of the
world has not only held its own, but has been
steadily extended, in the face of American COM
petition since the close of our civil war. This is
a pregnant and alarming fact, the importance of
whose consequences TO our fiscal prosperity can
hardly be Overrated.
We need not adopt the peculiar coloring which
General Alcorn puts upon his view as TO proper
counteractive measures He insists, with much
acrid emphasis that the extension of cotton
culture in other regions of the globe is the result
of a concerted and formidable conspiracy" by
foreigners hostile TO our interests His free use
of this odious epithet does not strengthen hi
case 1t ought TO have been foreseen, from the
beginning, that foreigners would be thoroughly
alive TO their own interests this great subject
The heavy calamities which they suffered by the
stoppage of the cotton supply during our civil
war, made il a reasonable measure of self-protec-
tion to guard, if possible, against the recurrence
of so great an evil. We ought to have known,
without waiting for experience to teach
us that they would not again, if they
! could help IT, be dependent upon a single
source of supply for the raw material of
so important an industry. IL is ridiculous for
us to wake up, at this late day, and suddenly
discover that we are the victims of u foreign
! conspiracy We are the victims of our own
stupid blindness OF our own want of forecast, OF
! the sectional hatred and revengeful passions
! which made 1t seem OF more consequence To
! humiliate and cripple the conquered South than
! TO re-establish its prostrated industry. Nothing
| has occurred which men of cool judgment might
not have predicted, and after allowing the thing
! TO go on so long without the tantest attempt at
| prevention, we degrade ourselves by setting up
whine about a foreign conspiracy The
truth ts, that foreigners have had the sagacity to
see, ana the Yigor TO prosecute, their interests,
| while ours have been neglected by the preoccu-
! pallon OF our Government with a mischieyOus
| agitation.
1t is now at length dircovered, at the begin
| nlng OF the NTH year OF peace, that the chances
| of recovering our old supremacy as cotton-grow-
ers are all but desperate but no Republcan. moi
even General Alcorn seems yet aware of the
! pOrtentous consequences which must result from
so great a loss When the war closed there were
| three capital objects which required immediate
| attention as means ofrehabtating our financial
condition. Three OF the most important founda
tions of our national prosperity had been struck
by the war and shattered-our currency, oul
production sof cotton, and our shipping. TIL,
restoration of the currency to soundness ough
TO have been the chief object of governmental
solictude the currency being the hinge on whicl
the business of the country turns. But the eur
rency question could not with any chance o
success. be treated apart. The re
storation of specie payments depended
upon the balance Of foreign trade. Until ou
stable and ordinary exports shall equal our ordi
nary imports, there will be no possibility o