No other portions of the globe have contributed a sufficient supply in either quality or quantity, nor is there any likelihood that in the absence of the requisite conditions of labour or climate they will be formidable competitors in the future. India, particularly, has had the advantage of British capital, credit, and enterprise, and yet failed to fulfil the sanguine expectations of those who have looked to her to supply all deficiencies, while the South by her own unaided energies has advanced with rapid strides, although the North in the capacity of a useless 'middle man,' through the means of high tariffs, has reduced her profits and drained her of millions of dollars annually. While estimating highly the invention of Eli Whitey, a native of Connecticut, but citizen of Georgia, the Cotton-gin, which went into operation in 1793, and to which the prosperity of the South is so frequently attributed, it may be remarked that other nations have also had the opportunity of its use, but failed to turn it to such good account. It has been used in India and elsewhere, but no other part of the world has successfully competed with the Southern States, who still retain their so-called 'monopoly' of cotton. In all the discussions that have taken place in reference to the cotton question, no allusion has been made to the fact that the British Tariff Act of 1787* placed a duty on the importations of that staple from the American States of 98. 4d. per cwt., while that which was grown in the British possessions was admitted free of any charge. The tariff of 1819 raised the tax on foreign cotton to 98. 74d. per cwt., and on colonial produce to 78. per cwt. The Act of 1834 fixed the rate on the former at 28. 11d. per cwt., and on the latter of 4d. per cwt. Notwithstanding these differential duties against the Southern States, and with Great Britain too as their principal customer, they have steadily advanced in the cultivation of cotton. It has, therefore, been a great error to attribute the increase of the American cotton crops to the repeal of the British tariff in 1845; and it is absurd to say that it was the competition of the States that caused the decline in the production in the West Indies. The falling off in the importations from thence from 10,000,000 lbs.

* Prior to 1787, the year that Mr. Pitt's Consolidation Act was passed, the tariff was always composed of numerous charges and percentages, added from time to time to some ancient first duty.

in 1822 down to 300,000 or 400,000 lbs. should be ascribed to the true reason-the emancipation of the negro slaves. The subjoined extract from The Times' furnishes an excellent commentary upon the mistaken enthusiasm of the emancipationists for negro liberty.

That journal, after twenty-five years' experience, in 1859, makes some graphic remarks upon the subject. In fact, it is a 'confession' from the chief labourer in the cause of emancipation. The Abolitionists cannot accuse the Thunderer of having had southern proclivities' at the time the article appeared.

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There is no blinking the truth. Years of bitter experience; 'years of hope deferred; of self-devotion unrequited; of poverty; of humiliation; of prayers unanswered; of sufferings derided; of insults unresented; of contumely patiently 'endured; have convinced us of the truth. It must be spoken ' out loudly and energetically, despite the wild mockings of "howling cant!" The freed West India slave will not till the 'soil for wages; the freed son of the ex-slave is as obstinate as 'his sire. He will not cultivate lands which he has not bought 'for his own. Yams, mangoes, and plantains-those satisfy his 'wants; he cares not for yours. Cotton, sugar, coffee, and tobacco, he cares but little for. And what matters it to him that the Englishman has sunk his thousands and tens of 'thousands on mills, machinery, and plants, which now totter on 'the languishing estate that for years has only returned beggary ' and debt? He eats his yams, and sniggers at “Buckra.”

'We know not why this should be so, but it is so. The negro has been bought with a price - the price of English taxation and English toil. He has been redeemed from bondage by the sweat and travail of some millions of hard-working Eng'lishmen. Twenty millions of pounds sterling - one hundred millions of dollars - have been distilled from the brains and 'muscles of the free English labourer, of every degree, to fashion 'the West India negro into a "free, independent labourer." 'Free and independent enough he has become, God knows, but labourer he is not, and, so far as we can see, never will 'be. He will sing hymns and quote texts, but honest steady industry he not only detests, but despises. We wish to 'Heaven that some people in England neither Government

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'people, nor parsons, nor clergymen, but some just-minded, honest-hearted, and clear-sighted man-would go out to some ' of the islands (say Jamaica, Dominica, or Antigua)—not for a 'month, or three months, but for a year, would watch the pre'cious protégé of English philanthropy, the freed negro, in his daily habits; would watch him as he lazily plants his little squatting; would see him as he proudly rejects agricultural or domestic service, or accepts it, only at wages ludicrously disproportionate to the value of his work. We wish, too, they would watch him while, with a hide thicker than a hippopotamus, and a body to which fervid heat is a comfort rather than an annoyance, he droningly lounges over the prescribed 'task, over which the intrepid Englishman, uninured to the burning sun, consumes his impatient energy, and too often 'sacrifices his life. We wish they would go out and view the 6 negro in all the blazonry of his idleness, his pride, his ingrati'tude, contemptuously sneering at the industry of that race 'which made him free, and then come home and teach that ' memorable lesson of their experience to the fanatics who have 6 perverted him into what he is.'

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CHAPTER VI.

REMARKS ON THE SPEECHES OF MR. BRIGHT-FREE AND SLAVE LABOUR.

LORD BROUGHAM and the other eminent advocates of emancipation no longer appear at Exeter Hall, now that the councils of that establishment are monopolised by a violent and radical party, who, in their zeal for the negro, pay very little respect to justice, reason, or common sense; and, in order to enlist the sympathies of the public in their designs, do not scruple to resort to every species of misrepresentation.

Among these nobodies' are to be found two prominent names-Cobden and Bright-the apostles in former days of peace and free trade. It is strange, indeed, that they should now set aside their old doctrines to become the representatives of a war and high-tariff party in America. There seem, however, to be no bounds to their fanaticism, and they seek to impress the minds of the credulous with the idea that voluntary industry alone can develope the cotton culture in an adequate degree to meet the demands of manufacturers. The Times,'

in its issue of June 17, 1863, said

'Whatever may be the faults of the Southern social system, 'there can be no doubt that it has been wonderfully adapted to that end for which Mr. Bright says it is unfit-the growth of a 'particular staple. If it had not been for Southern planters, it is quite certain that there would have been no cotton manufacture to speak of in England, no Stockports and Staleybridges, perhaps no Cobdens and Brights.'

Mr. Bright, in his speeches at the London Tavern on June 16, and in the House of Commons, June 30, 1863, stated that only one-fourth part of the slave labour of the Confederate States was engaged in the cultivation of cotton; that the remaining three-fourths were employed in raising rice, sugar, tobacco, and other agricultural staples; that the increase in the slaves was

two and a half per cent. (24%) per annum; that 60,000 square miles of land were suited for growing cotton; that in the absence of hands only 10,000 square miles were devoted to that purpose; and that the annual augmentation, therefore, could not materially exceed 150,000 bales. It is certain that only one-fourth part of the slave population of the entire South is directly engaged in the production of cotton; but Mr. Bright might have stated that fact more intelligibly. The total number of slaves in all the American States and territories, according to the census of 1860, was 3,953,760. The ten cotton-growing States, however, contained but 3,030,245; of these about one-third, the best male hands, were cultivators of that staple, and the other two-thirds, less the men and women who were too old and the children who were too young, were employed in other kinds of agriculture, in mechanical pursuits and as house servants. The growth of cotton averages about four bales to each negro solely occupied in raising it, and the product is about 350 lbs. to the acre. Mr. Bright is correct in saying that a comparatively limited extent of soil is under cotton cultivation, but his figures are not accurate. The area of the ten cotton-growing States, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, is 666,196 square miles, or 426,365,440 acres. The crop of 1859, the largest ever made, did not occupy over 7,000,000 acres. Of course all the land in the States named is not suited for growing cotton; each year, however, as the clearings are opened, adds to the number of cotton fields. Mr. Bright is entirely in error in intimating that the wants of the world are equivalent to an extension of double the quantity produced, and that there was not labour enough in the Southern States' to supply the demand.

By considering a series of years it is very easy to ascertain what are the requirements of mankind. The American crops averaged as follows:

The census of 1860 thus records the growth of cotton for the year

previous in bales of 400 lbs. :