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all they could drain from estates they seldom, | Government was retained in England, in the if ever, visited, and which were managed by hands of the absentee proprietors, their creda posse of attorneys, clerks, and overseers, itors and Parliamentary agents. Hardly a who, in their turn, put them through the dollar of the amount granted ever found its process of a second draining to fill their way to the plantations thus bled to death's pockets. A far better system of absenteeism door beyond the sea. Is there not a difference and proxy managing than this almost ruined here upon which a different result of emanIreland, involving a great portion of its cipation may be predicted in favor of our lands in such heavy indebtedness, that Gov-Southern States? But there is another difernment had at last to cut the meshes of in- ference in their favor of vast importance. cumbrance, and force the mortgaged estates into liquidation and sale. For many years prior to emancipation, the crops of most of the West Indian plantations were mortgaged at seed time, to capitalists or merchants in England, for advances made at Jewish rates of interest. In the hands of these sharpers, cotton and sugar were sold like forfeited goods in the pawnbroker's shop. If there had never been a slave in the West Indies, this system would have inevitably terminated in a smashing break-down. And that breakdown came. Even emancipation could not prevent it, nor could it expedite the issue.

In the plan already developed and presented to the public, it is proposed that the American planters shall receive $250 instead of $125, for the emancipation of their slaves. Now would it not be a preposterous apprehension on their part to fear a West India break-down as the result of emancipation, with this enormous sum in their hands?

Then there is another grand difference of position in favor of the Southern States. Under slavery or freedom, there could be comparatively no emigration of free laborers from Europe to the West Indies. Thus the enhancement of the price of lands in those islands must depend mostly upon the ability of the emancipated slaves to purchase and till them profitably. On the other hand, there is nothing but the existence of slavery in the Southern States that turns away from their borders the gulfstream of that immigration which would else overspread their territory and occupy and enrich their thinly settled and impoverished lands. Doubtless every acre in Virginia or Missouri would be trebled in value to-morrow, if it could be made certain today that slavery in those States would be abolished in the course of five years. Thus emancipation, according to the plan proposed, would put into the hands of the Southern States nearly $900,000,000 in ready money. Then it would at least double the value of their farms, estimated in 1850 at $1,119,000,000. Here are about $2.000,000,000, as the pecuniary result of emancipation to the Southern States, without counting other sources of income and prosperity which the measure would produce.

Now, would emancipation in the United States find the planters of the South in this condition? Have they pursued a system of absenteeism like that described? Have they for years been rolling and lolling in indolence and dissipation at watering-places, three thousand miles distant from their estates? Have they been in the habit of pawning their crops, ere sown, in the shaving shops of English cotton brokers or capitalists for advances at ruinous rates, perhaps to be spent at the dice-box or card table? Have they thus meshed their estates with mortgages beyond extrication? No; far from it, every candid mind must admit. There is hardly any economical analogy between the planters of the West Indies and those of the Southern States, considering their condition prior to emancipation. There would doubtless be far less parity of condition after the act of manumission; even if we assume that the compensation per slave were exactly equal in the two cases. The British Government paid $100,000,000 for the liberation of about 800,000 bond men, women and children, or about $125 per head. The United States We now come to notice briefly the comGovernment pays $875,000,000 for the mon argument or impression, that the manmanumission of 3,500,000. Every dollar of umitted slaves will not work for the stimuthis vast sum would go directly to the lus of wages; that they will sink down into Southern States, adding so much virtually drivelling indolence and barbarism, if reto their wealth; constituting so much money leased from the sting of the lash. The capital in the hands of the planters, where- West Indies experiment is brought forward with to commence the economy of free labor to sustain this conclusion. There the production: wherewith to recover their estates to more than original fertility, and to hire free sinews for their cultivation. Compare this condition with that of the West Indies. Nearly every pound sterling of the compensation allowed by the British

emancipated Africans cannot be hired to work; they will see the sugar plantations ruined for labor, before they will supply it with their own hands. We think it quite likely that this is true. We hope it is at least. We hope that the miserly pittance

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of a shilling a day, offered by the ci-devant | This question has been seriously discussed. slaveholders of Jamaica or Barbadoes, will The central fact of the proposition is this; never hire many freed men to labor for that the Chinese are to be substituted for their former masters, either in those islands the Africans, at least in a far higher condior in our Southern States. They never will tion of freedom than it is thought safe to do it, we are confident, after having been concede to the latter. Doubtless all the able to buy or rent two or three acres of Southern planters, who have considered this land. We believe that the charge of incor- suggestion, have concluded that these Chinese rigible indolence brought against the eman-laborers must not be literally bought, and cipados of the West Indies to be a libel on sold, and flogged as slaves; that they must the truth. It is the brutal verdict of the be paid after a certain rate for their toil; old dilapidated plantation. It is the item that they must be allowed a considerable wherewith the deficit is balanced in the in- scope and verge of liberty. Now, then, cui ventory of hogsheads of sugar. Again we bono? What earthly advantage could acexpress our hope that men freed from slav- crue to the Southern States from the change ery will not work for a shilling a day, of races on their soil? Draft a thousand of either in the West Indies or the United common field-hands from any dozen plantaStates. We do not believe that our South- tions, and set them front to front with the ern planters would have the face to ask even same number of these Asiatic pagans, and a slave to work for that price, and board see which would show the greatest aptitude himself. There are thousands and tens of and fitness for the culture of cotton, corn, thousands of slaves hired from their owners or sugar. In what one quality of disposiin the Southern States at the rate of from tion, or of physical constitution, would the $100 to $200 a year, to be fed, clothed and Chinese be preferable? Could they perform housed by the employer. On an average, more work per day? Would they be more $12 a month are paid for their labor, over tractable or faithful in-doors or out-doors? and above the expense of their food, cloth- Would the moral atmosphere of their life ing, &c. In hundreds of cases, their em- and habits be more congenial and agreeable? ployers give them a chance to earn some- Could they be taken safely into more intithing for themselves, as a special stimulus mate personal relations and intercourse with to their industry. They find this good pol- the planters and their families, as trusty icy, and are willing to pay 50 cents a day and affectionate servants? In complexion, to the owner of the slave, and 25 or 50 more to the slave himself for the work he may accomplish by extra exertion from sun to sun. It is the work he wants, and the extra half dollar he pays to the slave for it, is a proffitable investment. Thus, there is but little danger that the planters of the South would force their former slaves into West India idleness by offering them only a shilling a day for their labor. We would ear nestly commend this consideration to the attention of those who have honestly apprehended such a result.

features, and form, in voice and language, would they be less exposed to prejudice, and more easily amalgamated with the native white population, and more speedily Americanized and Christianized? These are a few of the questions involved in the proposition of changing races, in order to improve the labor of the Southern States. We believe the anticipation of any benefit from such a change is a complete and utter fallacy. If the Southern planters and farmers had the range of all the races and populations of the globe, they would not find one more suited Since the rapid and wonderful settlement to their sun and soil than the three millions of California, and the still more remarkable of African blood who now cultivate their movements of the population of Eastern fields, and serve them in every capacity of Asia, the Chinese have formed no inconsider- industry. The raw material of their labor able stream of that broad river of emigration is the best the world can furnish them. It which is now pouring nearly half a million is the natural, native, acclimated labor of of human beings yearly upon the Atlantic the South, fitted to bear the heat and burthen and Pacific shores of this continent. Con- of Southern sun and agriculture; to live sidering the vast population of China, and and thrive where white men would droop the sudden opening of the great empire; the and die. Search the earth over, and you condition of the people; their struggle for sustenance, and the miserly pittance of food on which they subsist, and the facility with which they might be imported into the United States, the question has been naturally suggested, whether or not these Asiatic myriads might not be profitably substituted for the African race in the Southern States.

will not find for the South labor more docile, or laborers, male and female, more capable of endurance, or more susceptible of warm and faithful attachment to their employers. Then why change them for an equal number of copper-colored pagans from China? There surely can be but one advantage anticipated from such a substitution, and that

must be predicated on the positive admission | land of their birth, in which they have as that Chinese labor would be more profitable, much right to dwell as any other portion of because it would be comparatively free; its population, and to which their labor is that, among other conditions, it would all indispensable and invaluable. Now, then, be hired labor, and hired of those alone why not at once put them at least in the whose own sinews were to perform the work; very condition in which it is proposed. by that consequently all the capital invested in some southern economists to introduce the the labor bestowed on one years' crop would Chinese? On what possible ground can you be the one years' wages of the men employed apprehend that it would be unsafe to give to to plant and gather it. Now, put that con- the men and women born on your plantasideration with another from which it can- tions, that degree of freedom which you not be disconnected, and see to what an would accord to those idolatrous foreigners issue we come. In order to effect this sub-from Asia? Would you prefer Chinese stitution, the slaves must be displaced and sent beyond the bounds of the Union, if not to Africa. On what conditions? There is not wealth enough outside of the Union, in the Western Hemisphere, to buy them, were there a disposition for it. Africa will not buy them back. The Northern States will never tax themselves to compensate the slaveholders for freeing and then banishing them, by expensive and cruel transportation. We hope our Southern brethren will believe this. The time may come, and soon, when the North, in its intense desire to extinguish forever the system of Slavery, and to lift from this great land the perilous incubus that weighs it down, may offer to share with the South the cost of emancipation; but it will be on the condition that the emancipated slaves shall not be exiled by force, as if freedom were a crime to possess, and as if they must be punished for the gift. No; if they are ever bought out of slavery, from the national treasury, they must remain in the

THE LOTTERY DIAMOND.-What is the story attached to this diamond? And in whose possession is it at present?

[This is called the Pigot diamond, weight 47 1-2 carats, for the disposal of which a lottery was permitted Jan. 2, 1801; it was afterwards sold at Christie's auction for 9500 guineas, May 10, 1802, and knocked down to Messrs. Parker & Birketts, pawnbrokers, of Princes Street. It is stated in The Times of May 12, 1802, that Mr. Christie gave a very ingenious history of this celebrated jewel. Has this notice been printed? His poetic recommendation of this gem is thus reported in the Annual Register of 1802, p. 401: "Its owners were unfortunate in its being brought to a market where its worth might not be sufficiently valued, where the charms of the fair needed not such ornaments, and whose sparkling eyes outshone all the diamonds of Golconda. In any other country, the Pigot diamond would be sought as a distinction, where superior beauty

labor because it would be free, and easily obtained on hire? Then free the human sinews you have bought, and which you hold as property, and you will have the best, most natural, faithful and trusty laborers the world can yield you. You have seen, by many and various experiments, how the slave will work, when you bring him partially under the influence of hope and reward; when you allow him a chance to purchase, by an extra effort, a few hours daily, in which he may work for wages. Give him all, the hours of the day, and bring to bear upon him all the aims and impulses that stimulate freemen, and prove what he will do in that condition. It is the only one that can raise the labor of the South to the standard of that which enriches and elevates the free States. Whenever our Southern brethren are ready for this step, they will find a large and generous co-operation on the part of the North.

was more rarely to be found." The last notice of this diamond that occurs to us is the statement in the Gent. Mag. for Nov. 1804, p. 1061, where it is said "that the Pigot diamond has been purchased to form a part of Madame Bonaparte's necklace." Mawe, however, in his Treatise on Diamonds, edit. 1824, p. 43, has given the following particulars of this diamond: "The Pigot diamond is a brilliant of great surface both in table and girdle, but is considered not of sufficient depth. Its weight is 49 carats. This gem is valued at £40,000; and was, about twenty years ago, made the subject of a public lottery. It became the property of a young man, who sold it at a low price. It was again disposed of, and afterwards passed into the possession of a jeweller in the city [London?], and is said to have been lately sold to the Pacha of Egypt for £30,000. It may justly be called a diamond af the first water, and rank among the finest in Europe."]-Notes and Queries.

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From The Spectator.

profit entirely from the simple act of exTHE NEW POWER IN EUROPE. change, and he does so equally whether the THE present state of affairs on the Contin- original holders are profiting in the transacent suggests the existence of some influence tion or not. He may be the broker between which is not generally recognized though its two communities who are ruining each other, power must be overruling and its operation and build his fortune upon their downfall. universal. It is not seen, yet it reverses the And the individual trader in this merchancouncils of Governments which appear to be dise will be instigated principally by the supreme; it disregards equally public opinion desire to grasp large and prompt profits. He and the interests of the states in which it is not a safe councillor for those who have has its agents. The monetary condition of in charge the permanent interests of states. France and of Northern Europe draws at- For the welfare of a community, immensely tention once more to the irregular and dang- accumulated wealth, hoards of gold, are not erous speculation which the most powerful so essential as well-diffused supplies of the man in Europe tries in vain to curb: it would necessaries of life and its enjoyments. But seem that there is some power greater than the same movement which gave an impulse he, irresponsible, and absolute; and when to the commercial spirit in France made the we turn to ascertain the fact, we are not largest opening that the world has ever seen long in discovering at least enough to create for a forward movement of great capitalists; uneasiness and to demand scrutiny. We and they have snatched it. Alarmed at the perceive some corroborative proof that such vast proportions which these joint-stock coman influence does exist, that its power is be- binations have attained in France, the Emcoming supreme, that it is now doing mis- peror and his political Ministers have issued chief, and that it may become dangerous their protest against excessess in that direcalike to the material condition, the political tion; they have followed up protests with independence, and the domestic order of restrictive imposts; but still the movement states. Nor are we speaking of any imagin- goes on. ary or mere "moral" influence; we speak of a powerful combination more than political, more personal than a congress of diplomatists or princes.

The Emperor Napoleon has long been engaged in the endeavor to draw out the enterprise of his subjects; and the effect throughout France is great. Any traveller in the most outlying provinces perceives a remarkable change in the aspect, action, and condition of the people. The trading classes, as well as the industrial classes, are animated by a spirit of energy hitherto unknown to the Celtic population. They have learned not only to employ their time with more vigor but to employ their savings-to venture that which they once hoarded! In that economical sense France was almost a virgin soil, and the effect is described by the traveller as marvellous. Thus far a blessed change. But look beyond The very capitalists who fostered if they did not implant the idea in the Imperial mind have seized the same opportunity to project movements for the further development of capital, its power and productivity. The great speculator in this sense differs in some degree from the ordinary trader. The money-merchant obtains his

The commercial activity directed to the development of real trade would with as much steadiness as rapidity increase the available means of the French people; would make them more independent of the casualties of the seasons; would make them more comfortable, more orderly, more capable of supporting their ruler, more obedient to his decrees. It is easily to be understood why the Emperor Napoleon desires to add that element of English order to the military capabilities and energy of the French. He has in great part succeeded. But the excess of speculation invoked by those who have stood ready to take advantage of the impulse has, again in the present moment as it did in the autumn of last year, threatened to defeat the improvement by over-doing it and we in England are under the same commercial pressure which visited us in the autumn. At the same time, there appears to be no suspense in developing, extending, and multiplying the immense joint-stock combinations which the French Emperor has endeavored to restrain; though at such a time such operations ought to be entirely suspended. We see on the stocks the new International Society of Commercial Credit, whose founders

are connected with the great money corpora- | Emperor of the French is at present engaged tions in every capital of Europe-the banks in attempting to restrain the use of fictitious of France, England, Amsterdam, &c. titles-counties, viscounties, and baroriesThe list of the Council of Administration baubles at which the aristocracy of wealth of the grand Company lies before us. Of may laugh. The power of that order, the great Russian Railway Company half of which is the more powerful because its the members short of one are Russians, and members are comparatively limited, proceeds the greater number in that half are Coun- in its action independently of these ordinary cillors of State and officers in the service of political movements, and shows itself pursuthe Emperor Alexander. In that Russian ing its course uninterrupted, undiverted, half, however, we see the name of "Thomas whatever may be the state of the commercial Baring, banker in London.” The other world, whatever may be the mood of the half consists of men whose names are well Imperial mind, whatever may be the action known in every capital: S. Gwyer, Member of ordinary statesmen.

of the Council of Commerce; Earnest We are not considering the diversion of Sillem, a partner in the house of Hope capital, the dangers that may arise from and Co. at Amsterdam; Guillaume Borski, over-speculation, the ruin that may visit banker in Amsterdan; Francis Baring, shareholders in these huge joint-stock combanker in London; Henri Hottinguer, panies, from which the directors always banker in Paris; Isaac Pereire, Adminis- withdraw before the crash. We are not contrator of the Paris and Lyons Railway; sidering the commercial disturbance, created Baron Seillère, banker in Paris; M. Auguste by the necessity which is forced upon Europe Thurneyssen, Administrator of the West of just at present, of undergoing a high rate of France Railway; and M. Louis Fould, interest for ordinary commercial accommobrother of the well-known state financier. dation, while millions are lavished upon the Some of these are the names we so constantly fancies or the schemes of those millionaire encounter in that comparatively small list of statesmen. We are simply considering the men who are administering the greatest magnitude and the independence of that financial operations in Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, and London. The object of this company is to take forty-five millions of capital,- -a sum which could easily be raised for a reproductive purpose, but which they intend to sink in railways through the Russian deserts; while the actual state of the whole world-of Europe, England, America, and the far East-proves that we cannot spare that forty-five millions, nor even the first instalment of it. Yet these few gentlemen, who rule the world at present, have determined that it shall be taken, despite the Emperor of the French, the Bank of England, or the commercial public of this country.

power of combined millions. It is a new administration in the world. The names most conspicuous in it are remarkable for certain characteristics. Read them again,

Rothschild, Baring, Stieglitz, Pereire, Hottinguer, and Fould; with a second order, comprising the Weguelins, the Hopes, and the Seillères. They form a grand council of small numbers, that could all be assembled in a dining-room. They are remarkable for being closely connected with the Governments of all the principal states in the world, while at the same time they are not closely connected with the states under those Governments. You would not accept a Baring as being peculiarly representative of England; It is said that the position of M. de Morny you must choose many other names before is not satisfactory either to the Emperor of it-the Russells, the Stanleys, the Salts, the All the Russias or to the Emperor of the Crawshays, Cobdens, and Tyrells. France French but M. de Morny is fulfilling a would certainly not be represented by career which has become independent of Pereire, no country by a Rothschild; a emperors. He has attached himself to the Steiglitz is by no means exclusively Russian, Grand Council of the International Finance: any more than Fould is French. The class and it is that Grand Council at present is alien to any particular country, and yet which arranges the affairs of the world by is deeply rooted in the administration of the power of the purse, let Potentates and each country. It can command not only a Parliaments think what they may. The mass of capital enough to determine the

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