ceives no compensation, and the product of labor does not seem to know how to find its way to market."

Mr. Robert Baird, A. M., (quoted by professor Bledsoe,) is an Englishman, and, like Bigelow, a strong approver of the previous emancipation of the slaves in the English colonies; and, like Bigelow, while he arrays numerous strong facts to show the ruinous results of that act, he ascribes the evil, not to the act itself, but to the want of some further supposed measures of reform. He says:

"Let any one who thinks that the extent and clamor of the complaint [of the former planters and proprietors] exceeds the magnitude of the distress which has called it forth, go to the West Indies and judge for himself. Let him see, with his own eyes, the neglected and abandoned estates, the uncultivated fields, fast hurrying back into a state of nature-the dismantled and silent machinery, the crumbling walls, and deserted mansions, which are familiar sights in most of the West Indian colonies. Let him, then, transport himself to the Spanish Islands of Porto Rico and Cuba, and witness the life and activity which in these slave colonies prevail. Let him observe for himself the activity of the slaves, the improvements daily making in the cultivation of the fields, and the processes carried on at the sugar mills, and the general indescribable air of thriving and prosperity which surrounds the whole," &c.

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The degradation of British Guiana since, and because of emancipation, as shown in the Parliamentary and other official reports, is still worse. But I will quote no more, except a passage of general comment from the British historian, Alison: The negroes," says he, "who, in a state of slavery, were comfortable and prosperous beyond any peasantry in the world, and rapidly approaching the condition of the most opulent serfs of Europe, have been, by an act of emancipation, irretrievably consigned to a state of barbarism." Yet, even with this admission, I presume that Alison, like every other Englishman of distinction, and of high reputation as an author or statesman, (excepting Carlyle only,) is an enemy of negro slavery, and a denouncer of the iniquity of slaveholding. With all this present unanimity of opposition to, and violent denunciation of, African slavery, the prediction may be ventured that a change of opinion is about to take place. Reason and truth will not much longer be kept out of sight by prejudiced and ignorant fanaticism, even in England and the Northern American States.

But with such proofs of entire failure of the emancipation scheme in the British colonies, and with thousands of like

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facts that can be adduced from statistical and official reports, or testified by unimpeachable and intelligent witnesses, so besotted and blind is fanaticism, and so strongly does it cling to its first errors, and reject all light and truth, that a few men have dared to testify and to publish that the experiment has been eminently successful-that the lands had increased in price and in production-the negroes were industriouseven their former proprietors were benefitted and content, and that everything had been improved. J. J. Gurney, of England, first published an elaborate report of such false state. ments, to be on his personal examination; and his pamphlet was largely circulated, by anti-slavery advocates in the United States. Even within the last few months, the same general assertions were made by a speaker, without contradiction, in a public meeting in one of the Northern cities. This statement was matched by, if not copied from, the following, which was republished in the " African Repository," the organ of the Colonization Society in this country, without comment, or expression of even a doubt:

"THE BRITISH WEST INDIES.-At a meeting in London to take measures to present an appropriate testimonial to Dr. Livingstone, the African traveler, Mr. Montgomery Martin made the following statement: 'He had recently visited the West Indies to ascertain if the emancipation of the slaves had produced ruin there. He found there a free, happy, and prosperous population, [hear, hear;] and speaking commercially, the West Indies now yield more rum, sugar, and other produce, than they had ever done during the existence of slavery, [hear, hear.] Since the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, not a drop of blood was shed, not a single crime was committed-nor was there destruction of property throughout the whole of the West Indies." [Cheers.]-Ñ. Y. Col.

Jour.

Robespierre, in the French Convention, when urging the emancipation of the slaves in St. Domingo, and in answer to predictions of opponents of the ruin that would follow, uttered the memorable sentiment, "Perish the colonies, rather than sacrifice one iota of our principles !" The Northern Abolitionists, our fellow-citizens and political "brethren," continue to reassert in effect, Robespierre's atrocious declaration, after they now well know, what their great exemplar, the bloody Robespierre, did not know, the wide-spread ruin and destruction that would follow the practical establishment of their dogma and purpose of negro emancipation. Their procedure says, louder than words could do, "Perish the wealth and all production of the Southern States, with all that refines, improves, and dignifies

mankind within their bounds; perish there, the white race, men, women, and babes, by massacre, so that the negro slaves shall be freed! Perish even Northern manufactures, commerce, and wealth, if dependent on the products of Southern slavery and perish the industry, the comforts, the civilization, the morals, religion of the slaves, and even the slaves themselves, if to be necessarily caused by their receiving the gift of freedom!"

J.L. Crocherano, Ala.

ART. III.-SOME CONSIDERATIONS RELATING TO SOUTHERN PROGRESS, CURRENCY, EXCHANGES, BANKS.

THE following manuscript was prepared by one of the Dallas county (Ala.) delegation to the late Southern Convention, and though referred to the Business Committee was not acted upon by them, but remained in the hands of the editor of this Review, who regards it well entitled to publication.

The chief object mentioned in the committee's address for assembling the Convention, is to endeavor to ascertain the cause of the decline of the foreign commerce of the Southern States, and to devise a plan to preserve to the use of the South the benefit of its earnings; which, by some process unknown to the committee, chiefly inures to Northern and foreign States, who, unaware themselves of the source of their unearned prosperity, and through an exhibition of costless benevolence to negroes, with a view of a further gain of supposed Providential favor, aim "to kill the goose that lays for them the golden eggs."

The president of the convention of 1856, in his inaugural, informed the delegations assembled, that so far as had been disclosed by members of the previous conventions, the cause of the evils, and the proper remedies to be applied to remove them, remained a problem yet to be solved.

The committee for 1858 regrets to have occasion to announce to the public that thus far its hopes (in the efficacy of conventions) have not been realized; while the predictions of ill success by opponents, who deemed, perhaps, the proceedings of previous conventions to be inapplicable to the case, have, to some extent, been verified.

The president of the last convention invites delegates to the ensuing one to come prepared to discuss and to report upon six divisions of topics submitted by him. As to the second division, it is sufficient to pass by it with the understanding that it is the duty of a Southern convention to endeavor to preserve to the South the value of its property and productions; also to act with a view of enabling the South to obtain as high rates of value for what it sells, as the rates-by some

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artifice always making them still higher-for what the South needs to buy.

As well might delegates of the fraternity of lawyers and newspaper publishers, propose to import from Europe, for their benefit, such a number of lawyers and publishers, of equal or superior capacity, to divide with them the emoluments of their existing business, and render it worthless to both parties, as for the same professional or non-producing class, in legislatures and conventions, to propose to benefit the producing classes of the South by importing laborers from Africa, who can add nothing to sectional strength or power-as from an acquisition of white emigrants or citizensbut who can become rivals in production to the extent of impoverishing both the rivals and the rivaled, and operate, at the expense of the South, only to promote the welfare of Northern and foreign manufacturers, speculators, and consumers, by supplying them with indispensable commodities, much below the then no less continued high cost of production. The non-producing class in Congress, legislatures, and elsewhere can effect a great deal for themselves at the expense of the producing class, by their usual course of circumvention; but they cannot change the course of nature, nor prevent an increased quantity of one or more commodities to be given in exchange for one or more of other commodities not so increased, nor compelled to be so exchanged, from having the effect to reduce the value of the former to a manifold greater degree than the excess of its quantity. Therefore it is manifest, that success in such projects would be adding fuel to the flame, without relieving the South from a single one of existing causes of exhaustion.

The topics mentioned in the third division are the only ones applicable, when judicially managed, to effect the alleged objects of the convention. The writer not expecting to meet others in council, but being desirous to be useful to the delegation to which he was appointed a member, he submits to its consideration some matters relating to the said third division, in the hope of aiding it in the solution of the before-mentioned problem.

The annual transactions in buying and selling in the United States amounts, by a late estimate, to $2,000,000,000. To exemplify by contrast, it may be mentioned that the portion of sales pertaining to agriculturists in the Northern States, is generally distributed throughout the year, which causes more stability in value than otherwise. This stability naturally proceeds from the farmers' habits there of making their business or fiscal year to begin in the spring, (on the 1st of May in many States;) at which time annual running accounts,

contracts for the purchase of property, negotiation and return of loans, &c., become payable. By simply adapting their pecuniary and some other affairs to what unchangeable nature makes most convenient and advantageous to them that of cultivating in the summer, gathering in the fall, preparing the bulk of their products for sale in the winter, and making payments when the realization of their means is most available-producers there have most of the year under control, by which to supply their products direct to the regular consumptive demand without having occasion to make premature sales to meet matured engagements. By this arrangement of their pecuniary affairs they vest themselves with power of millions of dollars value to them: that of withholding their products from sale, when emergencies require it, till speculators or consumers find it to their interest to comply with terms more remunerating, than at the reduced rates of an overstocked market.

The portion of sales pertaining to agriculture in the Southern States is mostly compressed within the space of a few months, and the value of them is subject to numerous and violent fluctuations, effected mostly at the will of foreign millionary operators, acting under State chartered privileges; without which, their power, of ever changing relative values to the South's loss and to their private gain, would cease in a ninetenth degree. The producers power of defense or counteraction is made void by their adopting as their own, the business year of speculators in raw materials, which begins with the gathering of the crops; and which was originally, and continues to be enforced on numerous producers, who place themselves in a position of requiring advances or loans, which only can be obtained from the millionary agencies, on condition of their being refunded at the regular organized time, that crops are sacrificed for the purpose. The forcing in the market of consumption, a sale of a third of the crop at the early portion of its gathering, for the purpose of discharging nearly all the obligations incurred during the preceeding twelve months, when only a sixth portion of the crop is needed for consumption within the two months of the third or more being sold, has the natural effect of reducing the value one-third, not only of the third to be sold, but also of the remaining two-thirds of the crop; for the reason that when two quantities of commodities of equal labor value must be disposed of to obtain another equal labor value, which is all that is applicable to be exchanged at the time, the latter appreciates in relative value to what it lacks in quantity, unless extraneous speculations intervene to cause the relative proportions to vary. Hence, in some years cotton is worth twelve