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most unquestionably in favour of the latter in the comfort and standing of the black. Whether supposing for a moment our English view of making them free labourers, under certain restrictions and compulsion, were carried out, the American white man would tolerate their presence and communion in any manner conducive to their comfort and selfrespect, is rendered very doubtful by the laws passed by Indiana, Illinois, Oregon, Minnesota, Missouri, and other Northern States, prohibiting their immigration, and the patent disgust and seclusion with which they are invariably and universally treated in the North. Thus we find in Philadelphia 20,000 free negroes, of whom 5000 are paupers, and the rest but little credit to any civilised community; few of them pursuing any recognised occupation or creditable means of earning a livelihood. The same state of things I have witnessed in Boston and New York. In Thompson Street the property is rendered almost valueless by being occupied by free negroes, who beg the coldest days of an almost arctic winter barefooted, and in the most abject state of misery. In the Northern States the fact is indisputable that the negro is not cared for, and has no estate or provision recognised by law or in society, but forced into degradation and want without chance or hope of escape.

On the other hand, throughout the Southern States, apart from the question of slavery, the negro has a recognised and comfortable position in society. He is provided and cared for by law, and is confessedly the happiest and merriest of mortals in any subordinate capacity. Were it worth while or without danger of exciting prejudices likely to interfere with the temperate and calm argument which befits the consideration of such a momentous subject as we have taken up, I might enlarge to almost any extent on the affectionate and child-like nature of the negro, which peculiarly fits him for the situation he holds towards a master who treats him with kindness and consideration; but I forbear, from the knowledge I have that the very mention of the relation brings with it the whole source of the bitterness that has brought communities living under one law and one government, rejoicing in a common name and common lineage, and that one of the proudest and noblest on the surface of the globe, to such a state of suicidal war, as to threaten not only the disruption of the community, for that is inevitable, but the social and commercial ruin of each, and not improbable, the almost total destruction of both, unless the merciful hand of God interfere to prevent so dire a catastrophe.

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CHAP. III.

COTTON.

THE question of cotton is one that vitally interests the whole commercial world, and I propose shortly to review from the most authentic details some of its leading features and statistics.

The cotton growers of the Southern States do not regard with the slightest anxiety or jealousy the efforts that are being made to produce cotton in Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America. If success attends the movements of the Cotton Supply Association of Manchester, the result will be simply to enable the people of those countries to consume a quantity of manufactured goods in proportion to the quality of cotton produced and exported. It is a perfectly well-ascertained fact, that the cotton States of the Southern Confederacy contain the only cotton-growing region in the world, where more cotton is produced than is consumed in manu

* For almost the whole details of this subject I am indebted to the kindness of J. P. Kettell, Esq., author of "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits."

factured goods.

The hand labour of India and China cannot compete with the skilled industry of the manufacturing countries of Europe. India now receives from England almost twice the number of pounds of manufactured goods that she sends of raw cotton to England. In 1858 England received from India 132,722,575 lbs. of raw cotton, and sent to India 223,000,000 lbs. of yarns and manufactured cotton goods. As the trade of China is now thrown open, the fabrics of her hand-looms must give place to the machine goods of western Europe. If her consumption of cotton shall equal that of France, it will be 1,440,000,000 lbs., equal to 2,880,000 bales, of 500 lbs. each, per annum.

As much science is required and employed in the cotton culture as in any branch of agriculture in the world. But it is said cotton grows on trees in the tropics! So do grapes; but does it follow that the people of India and Africa can rival those. of France in the cultivation of the vine? With improved implements and machinery, and the employment of horses, mules, and oxen, the quantity of cotton produced to the hand or labourer, has been more than doubled within the last twentyfive years. The quality has been improved by the selection of seed, and the improvement of the soil, by fertilisers and scientific culture.

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Such has been the improvement in the cotton culture since 1852, that the number of acres which each labourer can cultivate, and the produce per acre, has been largely increased, and the quality of the staple or fibre very much improved. The cotton which was produced thirty years ago would not now be marketable. Under the improved system a labourer will now cultivate twenty acres of cotton with as much ease as he formerly cultivated ten. Immense tracts of country that, ten years ago, were not considered sufficiently fertile for the profitable production of cotton, are being cultivated with perfect success. The area of land now regarded as valuable for cotton is more than five times larger than that stated in the census returns of 1850.

Cotton cannot be successfully produced further south than where there is sufficient frost to destroy the insects, which are so destructive to the plant in the tropics, and which, many years ago, caused its cultivation in the West Indies to be almost discontinued. The northern limit to which the culture may be carried is near the thirty-fourth degree of north latitude. That, however, depends on the elevation of the surface above the level of the sea-the mountain range being too cold. The southern limit of safe and profitable culture is from

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