Year: 1860

COTTON AND AMERICAN SLAVERY.
The Importation of cotton into this country has,
nce the import duty was abolished, increased six
oen f,d. Having been 6S, 900, 600 lbs, it is now
nnn 0OO, 900 lbs This is one of those giant facts
rbirb stand head and shoulders higher than the
crnwd-so high and so broad that we can neither
orrook if nor affect not to see it. 1t proves the
:,aace of thousand smaller facts that must stand
nler its shadow. 1t tells of sixteen times many
mills sixteen times as many English families living
t working those mills sixteen times as much profit
ccrved from sixteen times as much capital engaged
+ its manufacture. 1t carries after it sequences of
ncreased quality of freights and nsurances and ne
esities for sixteen times the amount of customers
to consume, to our profit, the immense amount of
nroiuce we are turning out. There are not many
ncb facts as these arising in the quiet routine of
nIustria history. 1t is so large and so steady that
r can steer our national policy by it it is so i'm
ortsnt to us that we should be reduced to embar-
EASEMENT if it were suddenly to disappear. 1t teaches
ne TO persevere in a policy which has produced so
wonderful result; its beneficent operation makes
h essential to US to deal carefully with it we
have rot it. Some years ago an island arose in the
Mediterranean, and we were all discussing it and
nuarrellng about il, and keeping up brisk fire of
fnonlatc notes over it, when one fine morning the
fSrused island suddenly went down again, and
& sent out to surrey it sailed the site it had
occupied We must not do anything to disgust this
bure lump of profitable work which has suddenly
arisen among u.s. We are inclined to look at it
with respectful and superstitious tenderness rath
er asa grmber does upon run of luck at cards,
bOpng it may last forever.


Lord Brougham and the veterans of the old Anti
Slavery Society do not we fear, share our delight at
this great increase in the employment of our home
popnlation Their minds are still scared by those
horrible stories which were burnt in upon them in
their youth, when England was not only slave
owning but even a save-tradng State. Their
mcrse is so great that the ghost of black man is
always before them. They are benevolent and ex-
cellent people, but if a black man happened to have
broken his shin and white man were IN danger of
browning we much fear that real Anti-Slavery
kealOt would bind up the black mans leg before he
would draw the white man out of the water. 1t is
not an inconsistency, therefore, that while we
nly cause of congratuation in this wonderful in
reaSc of trade Lord BrOugha sees in it the eXag-
geraon of an evil he never ceases to deplore. We,
md such as we who are content to look upon
cety as Providence allows it to exist-to mend 1t
when we can, but not to distress ourselves immod
erately for evils which are not of our creatiOn,-we
see only the free and intelligent English families
who thrive upon the wages which these cotton bales
produce. Lord Brougham sees only the black labor
rs whc on the other side of the Atlantic, pick the
cotton pods in slavery. Lord Brougham deplores
that in this tremendous importation of thousand





profit goes to the United States, and has been pro-
duced by slave labor Instead of twenty-three mil
IONS the United States now send US eight hundred
nd thirty millions, and this is call cultivated by
ayeS 1t is very sad that this should be so, but
Te do not see our way to remedy. There seems
% be rather chance of its becoming worse If
france, who is already moving onwards in a rest
less purblind state, should upon her eyes wide
Should give herself fair play by accepting our Goals
nm anHm nd tha cfi of n
EhOleSOme competition should take to manufactur-
ing upon large SCALE then these three millions will
pot be enough. France will be competing with us
the foreign cotton markets. stimulating still fur
her the produce of Georgia and South Carolina
he jump which the consumption of cotton in Eng
and has just made is but single leap which may
be repeated Indefinitely. There are thousand
billions of mankind upon the globe, all of whom
an be most comfortably clad in cotton. Every year
tribes and new nations are added to the category
cotton-wearers. There is every reason to believe
hat the supply of this universal necessity will for
many years yet to come fail to keep pace with the
emand and, in the interest of that large class of
r eOuntrymen to whom cotton is>bread we must
Onnue to hope that the United States will be able
supply US in years to come with twice as much
We bought of them in years past


Let US raise up another market" says the Anti
avery people. So say we ALL We know very well
a' the possibility of growing cotton is not confin-
10 the New World. The plains of Bengal grew
V'Cn before Columbus was born and we, with our
echancal advantages, actually afford to take
N bengal cotton from the growers and send it
aA % them IN yarns and pieces cheaper than they
I make 1t up. So, also, thousands of square miles
Cnlna are covered by the cotton plant; and some
we may perhaps repeat the same process there.
urea too, promises us cotton. DR.. Livingstone
una country in which the growth was indigen-
N ana where the chiefs were very anxious to be
rusht how to cultivate it for an European market.
T'e Is no lack of lands and climate where cotton
uu be produced 1t is said of gold that no sub
1lce IN nature is more widely diffused and more
m1present; but unfortunately, it is diffused under
S"lonS which make it seldom possible to win it


al a profit So it Is of cotton The conditions
rNr which it becomes available for markets
nOt often present in the wild cotton which our
Ngers discover; nor arc they to be Immediately
rpled Remember the efforts which the French


e made to produce cotton in Algeria, the enOrm-
prizes they offered, the prices at which they


.snt up all the produce, the care with which ia
Is S were prepared from these cotton at Rouen and
aroed at the Paris Exhibition, and then note the
roa.! eaoe result after so many years of artificial


@lon. 1t will come eventually as the cotton
InS OF the world press heavily and more heavily


nust come We shall have cotton from India,
qar. ~ Chlna, and from Africa; we would advocate
means within reasonable limits to quicken the
nv. SSpment We would not even ask whether to
h, uuFe cotton culture upon large scale into At
would be to secure that African cotton would
AM It raised by slave labor But even Lord Broug-
ror;nd "oud not ask us to believe that there is any
nm innate hope that the free cotton raised in Africa
mo y, %l'hn any reasonable time, drive out of cul-


NJ ng SlaVe-grown cotton Of America. If this be


That use can it be to make irritating speeches
EcS mouse Of Lords against state of things by
%IoNSe , we are content to profit? Lord Brougham


70 HTru trey are not men of such illogical minds


n.,S 9e incapable of understanding that 1t is the