OCR Text |
Show 502 Appendix. REAL 'WEAKNESS OF TilE SOUTH. On a former occasion, we demonstrated to our readers that a separate confederacy of the outhcrn States could embrace no member of the present Union north of South Caroliua and Alabama, and that, whcncn.'r formed, it would be utterly powerless for the accomplishment of Southern objects. This, however, would be equally true of any such Union, were it even to include all the States south of Maryland and Missouri, scYcral of which can nc,·cr, under any circumstances, venture to separate themselves from the North. Power grows with the increase of wealth. The honest, industrious, and prudent man, who respects the rights of others, finds himself from year to year more able to claim and to enforce respect for his own. The spe 11 dthrift, the drunkard, and the gambler, holding in small r espect the rights of ~thcrs, _loRe by degrees all power to direct thcmschcs, and end their days 111 hospitals or almshouses. The farm er who obtains good prices for his grain is enabled from day to clay to add to his fa cilities for production and transportatio!!, to improve the condition of his family, and to increase his contributions for the improyement of schools for his children; and with every step in this direction th ere is increase of power; whereas, he who is forced t? accept low p~·iccs finds himself declining in power from day to d~y, unttl at length h1s farm pasRcs into the hands of the sheri ff, and he himself becomes a wanderer and a day laborer. So it is with communities . those that arc enabled to command high prices find themselves becolllin~ more po1~erful fr~m y~ar .t~ year, whereas, those which, like Portugal, Turkey,. Mexico, Ind1a, ~I~·guua, and Carolina, are from year to year obliged to g1ve more commod1t1es for less money, become weaker with every succeeding period. The policy of the Slrwe States tends in one or the other of these directions. And as the question of power is only a question of wealth. we may here advant~gcously c:aminc what has been the effect of their past course upon the pnccs of .their staples. If they have tended upward, then may the S~uth :arm. for 1tsclf a. powerful Union, but if they hayc tended in the opposite du·ectwn, then must that Union, wherever and howe 1 ·er formed sbheo aw w: eak and insignificant one. \Vhat arc the facts, we propose now t; Twenty years ago, say in the period from 1832 to 1838, the average yield of cotton was about 1,350,000 bales, and the avcrngc price, as stated by 1\fr. \Valker some ye~rs since, was thirteen and a half cents per pound. Since then, the populatwn of the cotton-growing States has almost doubled, and the crop has somewhat more than doubled, having thus but little more than .kept pace with the increase of numbers. The crop of the present ycar.Is .~ow cst~mated at little more than 2,800,000 bales, and ytt the price of n11ddung, which gives the average of the whole, is at this moment quoted at N cw Orleans at Pight cents, "with a declining tendency." Fortunately for the planter the crop is very short. Had it proved to be as was expected, 3,300,000 bales, it may well be doubted if it would now command Appendix. even one lwlf of the average price of the period to which we first referred. Here is a great reduction, and to what is it due? To any increase in the value of money ? Certainly not; for in the time that has since elapsed the great gold field of California and Au tralia have been discovered. To any general diminution of prices? Certainly not; for wheat, corn, rye, hay, butchers' meat, and all the raw products of the earth, exNpt those in the 1·aisin.q of which Carolina, J.Iississippi, and Louisiana are concemecl, haYe largely adYan ced in price. Copper, tin, lead, and iron have also advanced. House rents arc higher than were ever known; the freights of ships arc enormous. And thus all things arc high except cotton and sugar, the two commodities upon the price of which depends the power of our Southern neighbors. In this prriod our crop of sugar has risen from about nothing to 330,000 hhds., or 3.50 millions of pounds; anu that of molasses to 21 millions of gallons, and the chief part of this increase is due to the protection afforded by the tariff of '42. Dut for that portion of Northern policy, nearly the whole force employed in raising sugar would be now at work in the cottonfir Ids, aiving probably another half million of bales, with a price less by one thi~d than that at which it now is sold. To the diversification of employment thus given to the South is therefore clue the fact that the price has, even thus far, been maintained. It is the North, as we have already said, that has stood betwcrn the South and ruin. The outh had three cen ts a pound on sugar, but jealousy of the North prompted it to inflict upon the people of the Union the tariff of 18·16, with its ad valorem . ystcm, and what has been the consequence ? The duty has fallen to one cent per pound; the import has risen to 500 millions of pounds, and the price has fallen in this market to fou~ c?nts, one .half of which is swallowed up by casks, freights, and comn11s wn, lcavmg the planter two ccntR, or only twice the amount of the duty o~ .foreign sugar .. 'V c sec thus that two of the most important coinmothttcs produced m the world arc steadily settling down in price at a time when all the raw produce of the world, that of tha ti'Opica: co1tntries exreptacl, is as steadily rising; a state of things tending to the mcrcase of the power of .th? co.m mnnties that have to buy cotton, coffee, and sugar, anc: .to the dumnu.tiO.n of the power of those that have to sell those commodities. \Vhy th1s ~s so is, that the people of the South have ncYer ye~ bee~ abl.c to open their eyes to the truth of General Jackson's views, as gti'Cn m }us letter to Dr. Coleman, that the true way to increase the power of the peopl ~ ":h~ h ~Ye raw commodities to sell, is to adopt the mrasmes required for dunuuslung the number of producers and increasing the number of consumers. All their projects look to in creasing the mtmb.ci.' of produc.ers of cottt-n ai'l.u sugar, and of course increasing t.hc competitiOn for the1r sal~. A.ll thor ideas of the true commercial policy of the South arc borrowed f1 om the books of English writer., who seck to have cheap cotton and cheap sug~r, and those idens arc carried into practice by the men of Alabama and .Mt.s- sissipp1., who desi· re that cotton an d sugai· 1n a• y be dear·, and wh.o· persist. m" carrying out the English policy in face of the fact that, not\nthstandmo |