Part 7 (1/2)
Prices--duty free.
Havana Brown... 17 to 24s. 20 to 27s. 16 to 22s. 19 to 26s.
Brazil Brown... 16 to 20s. 18 to 22s. 12 to 17s. 16 to 20s.
The stocks of 1849 and 1852 were, as we see, nearly alike, and the prices did not greatly differ. Taking them, therefore, as the standard, we see that a _diminution_ of supply so small as to cause a diminution of stock to the extent of about 400,000 cwts., or only _about three per cent. of the import_, added about _fifteen per cent._ to the prices of the whole crop in 1850; whereas a similar _excess_ of supply in 1851 caused a reduction of prices almost as great. The actual quant.i.ty received in Europe in the first ten months of the last year had been 509,000 cwts. less than in the corresponding months of the previous one. The average monthly receipts are about a million of cwts. per month, and if we take the prices of those two years as a standard, the following will be the result:--
1851...... 12,000,000 cwts. Average 16s. 9d.... 10,050,000 1852...... 11,500,000 ” ” 20s. 3d.... 11,643,750 ---------- Gain on short crop ............................. 1,593,750 If now we compare 1850 with 1851, the following is the result:-- 1851 as above .................................. 10,050,000 1850...... 11,000,000 cwts. Average 21s. 9d.... 11,971,250 ---------- 1,921,250 Now if this reduction of export had been a consequence of increased domestic consumption, we should have to add the value of that million to the product, and this would give............................. 1,187,500 ---------- 3,108,750 ==========
We have here a difference of thirty per cent., resulting from a diminution of export to the amount of one-twelfth of the export to Europe, and not more than a twenty-fourth of the whole crop. Admitting the crop to have been 24,000,000 of cwts., and it must have been more, the total difference produced by this abstraction of four per cent.
from the markets of Europe would be more than six millions of pounds, or thirty millions of dollars. Such being the result of a difference of four per cent., if the people of Cuba, Brazil, India, and other countries were to turn some of their labour to the production of cloth, iron, and other commodities for which they are now wholly dependent on Europe, and thus diminish their necessity for export to the further extent of two per cent., is it not quite certain that the effect would be almost to double the value of the sugar crop of the world, to the great advantage of the free cultivator of Jamaica, who would realize more for his sugar, while obtaining his cloth and his iron cheaper? If he could do this would he not become a freer man? Is not this, however, directly the reverse of what is sought by those who believe the prosperity of England to be connected with cheap sugar, and who therefore desire that compet.i.tion for the sale of sugar should be _unlimited_, while compet.i.tion, for the sale of cloth is to be _limited_?
”Unlimited compet.i.tion” looks to compet.i.tion for the sale of raw produce in the markets of England, and to the destruction of any compet.i.tion with England for the sale of manufactured goods; and it is under this system that the poor labourer of Jamaica is being destroyed. He is now more a slave than ever, because his labour yields him less of the necessaries and comforts of life than when a master was bound to provide for him.
Such is a brief history of West India slavery, from its commencement to the present day, and from it the reader will be enabled to form an estimate of the judgment which dictated immediate and unconditional emanc.i.p.ation, and of the humanity that subsequently dictated unlimited freedom of compet.i.tion for the sale of sugar. That of those who advocated emanc.i.p.ation vast numbers were actuated by the most praise worthy motives, there can be no doubt; but unenlightened enthusiasm has often before led almost to crime, and it remains to be seen if the impartial historian, will not, at a future day, say that such has been here the case. As regards the course which has been since pursued toward these impoverished, ignorant, and, defenceless people, he will perhaps have less difficulty; and it is possible that in recording it, the motives which led to it, and the results, he may find himself forced to place it among crimes of the deepest dye.
CHAPTER X.
HOW SLAVERY GREW AND IS MAINTAINED IN THE UNITED STATES.
The first attempt at manufacturing any species of cloth in the North American provinces produced a resolution on the part of the House of Commons, [1710,] that ”the erecting of manufactories in the colonies had a tendency to lessen their dependence on Great Britain.” Soon afterward complaints were made to Parliament that the colonists were establis.h.i.+ng manufactories for themselves, and the House of Commons ordered the Board of Trade to report on the subject, which was done at great length. In 1732, the exportation of hats from province to province was prohibited, and the number of apprentices to be taken by hatters was limited. In 1750 the erection of any mill or other engine for splitting or rolling iron was prohibited; but pig iron was allowed to be imported into England duty free, that it might there be manufactured and sent back again. At a later period, Lord Chatham declared that he would not permit the colonists to make even a hobnail for themselves--and his views were then and subsequently carried into effect by the absolute prohibition in 1765 of the export of artisans, in 1781 of woollen machinery, in 1782 of cotton machinery and artificers in cotton, in 1785 of iron and steel-making machinery and workmen in those departments of trade, and in 1799 by the prohibition of the export of colliers, lest other countries should acquire the art of mining coal.
The tendency of the system has thus uniformly been--
I. To prevent the application of labour elsewhere than in England to any pursuit but that of agriculture, and thus to deprive the weaker portion of society--the women and children--of any employment but in the field.
II. To compel whole populations to produce the same commodities, and thus to deprive them of the power to make exchanges among themselves.
III. To compel them, therefore, to export to England all their produce in its rudest forms, at great cost of transportation.
IV. To deprive them of all power of returning to the land the manure yielded by its products, and thus to compel them to exhaust their land.
V. To deprive them of the power of a.s.sociating together for the building of towns, the establishment of schools, the making of roads, or the defence of their rights.
VI. To compel them, with every step in the process of exhausting the land, to increase their distances from each other and from market.
VII. To compel the waste of all labour that could not be employed in the field.
VIII. To compel the waste of all the vast variety of things almost valueless in themselves, but which acquire value as men are enabled to work in combination with each other.[44]
IX. To prevent increase in the value of land and in the demand for the labour of man; and,
X. To prevent advance toward civilization and freedom.
That such were the tendencies of the system was seen by the people of the colonies. ”It is well known and understood,” said Franklin, in 1771, ”that whenever a manufacture is established which employs a number of hands, it raises the value of lands in the neighbouring country all around it, partly by the greater demand near at hand for the produce of the land, and partly from the plenty of money drawn by the manufactures to that part of the country. It seems, therefore,” he continued, ”the interest of all our farmers and owners of lands, to encourage our young manufactures in preference to foreign ones imported among us from distant countries.” Such was the almost universal feeling of the country, and to the restriction on the power to apply labour was due, in a great degree, the Revolution.
The power to compel the colonists to make all their exchanges abroad gave to the merchants of England, and to the government, the same power of taxation that we see to have been so freely exercised in regard to sugar. In a paper published in 1750, in the London General Advertiser, it was stated that Virginia then exported 50,000 hhds. of tobacco, producing 550,000, of which the s.h.i.+p-owner, the underwriter, the commission merchant, and the government took 450,000, leaving to be divided between the land-owner and labourer only 100,000, or about eighteen per cent., which is less even than the proportion stated by _Gee_, in his work of that date. Under such circ.u.mstances the planter could acc.u.mulate little capital to aid him in the improvement of his cultivation.
The Revolution came, and thenceforward there existed no legal impediments to the establishment of home markets by aid of which the farmer might be enabled to lessen the cost of transporting his produce to market, and his manure from market, thus giving to his land some of those advantages of situation which elsewhere add so largely to its value. The prohibitory laws had, however, had the effect of preventing the gradual growth of the mechanic arts, and Virginia had no towns of any note, while to the same circ.u.mstances was due the fact that England was prepared to put down all attempts at compet.i.tion with her in the manufacture of cloth, or of iron. The territory of the former embraced forty millions of acres, and her widely scattered population amounted to little more than 600,000. At the North, some descriptions of manufacture had grown slowly up, and the mechanics were much more numerous, and towns had gradually grown to be very small cities; the consequence of which was that the farmer there, backed by the artisan, always his ally, was more able to protect himself against the trader, who represented the foreign manufacturer. Everywhere, however, the growth of manufactures was slow, and everywhere, consequently, the farmer was seen exhausting his land in growing wheat, tobacco, and other commodities, to be sent to distant markets, from which no manure could be returned. With the exhaustion of the land its owners became, of course, impoverished, and there arose a necessity for the removal of the people who cultivated it, to new lands, to be in turn exhausted. In the North, the labourer thus circ.u.mstanced, _removed himself_. In the South, he had _to be removed_. Sometimes the planter abandoned his land and travelled forth with all his people, but more frequently he found himself compelled to part with some of his slaves to others; and thus has the domestic slave trade grown by aid of the exhaustive process to which the land and its owner have been subjected.
The reader may obtain some idea of the extent of the exhaustion that has taken place, by a perusal of the following extracts from an address to the Agricultural Society of Albemarle County, Virginia, by one of the best authorities of the State, the Hon. Andrew Stevenson, late Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Minister to England.