Year: 1879

LondCn Correspondence New York Herald.


You have heard that a committee
is at work istributing bread and
meat, and also making a searching
inquiry into tie causes of the dis


tress. Many reasons are assigned
the main reason, the prosperity
of the United States. Nothing
seems clearer than. this, that Eng
land is falling back simply because
America is advancing. Peace, it is
written, hath her victories no less
renowned than war. How wise it
was IN those wno governed America
to be content with a peaceful con-
troversy with England. l am not
writing in any spirit of exultation,
because never have seen cause for
rejoicing IN any war, peaceful or
otherwise, and L believe if the rela-
tiOns between the family of nations
were adjusted on a sound basis, you
would not see what pains one so
much-the suffering of nations like
Germany and England, and the
prosperity of nations like France
and America. One can not help
feeling that, having had our day of
sorrow, it is sweet once more to see
the sun. But, sooner or later, this
distress here must affect the most
prosperous OF nations. If you look
for the causes of this trouble what
do you find? There is the distress
in the iron trade. Well, in ten
years America has added twelvefold
to her iron production. Every ton
Of ore produced is so much taken
from England. We can make iron
even in Tennessee and Alabama
cheaper than it can be made in Eng


land, and as a consequence, the ex-
port trade OF English iron, once the
largest item of our imports, is con
fined to the Atlantic coast. Very
soon it will be driven out, and we
shall be sending our manufactured
iron to this market. This makes
an immense chasm in the profits of
English labor. There is much dis


tress in the cotton trade. Not long
since England had a virtual monop


oily of cotton manufacture. She
purchased our raw cotton and sent
it back to US in cloth, and industry
assumed prOdigious proportions.
She had a market in India and Chi
ma. l am afraid even to hazard a
guess as to the amount of money
England has made in the last half
century out of her cotton goods
with India, China and the United
States. What do you see now?
The United States makes her own
cotton into cloth and begins to sup
ply England. In China our cloths
are so much better than the English
that we are taking the market. l
hear of some English mills Imita-
ting our American trade marks so
as to secure a Chinese market. l
read warning articles in the news


papers telling cotton manufacturers
that unless they stop cheating the
Chinese by putting too much sizing
in their cotton cloths they will lose
their whole trade, the Chinaman
being a thoughtful, prudent person,
and not caring to buy his sizing by
the yard. In India, where England
has a monopoly of the cotton trade,
and where local regulations would
forbid any serious competition on
our part, the people are building
cotton mills and making their own
cloth. Labor Is so cheap in India,
and cotton grows there in such pro-
fusion that this competition must
he effective. So you see that three
great markets in which England has
heretofore been supreme are taken
from her and the cotton trade dies,
ana the men who work in cotton
must go to the relief associations
and crave bread and meat.