avery now existing there may be strengthened and increased by the
rapid rise in the value of labor, and thus become so firmly rooted that
the toil of ages may be necessary for it removal. All this might have
been prevented if the spirit of Christian enterprise had gone ahead of
that of commerce, and thus prepared the way for putting commerce, under
the influence of Christianity. For years Africa has been open to the
missionary of the cross, to go everywhere preaching love to God and man,
with nothing to hinder except the sickliness of the climate. This evil,
and the dangers arising from it, business men are willing to risk, and
within the next ten years there will be thousands, and tens of
thousands, looking to Africa for the means of increasing their riches."
From all this it appears, that the question of slavery is becoming more
intimately blended with cotton culture than at any former period; and
that the urgent demand for its increased production must establish the
system permanently, under the control of Great Britain, in Africa
itself. Look at the facts, and especially at the position of Great
Britain. The supply of cotton is inadequate to the demands of the
manufacturing nations. Great Britain stands far in advance of all others
in the quantity consumed. The ratio of increased production in the
United States cannot be advanced except by a renewal of the slave trade,
or a resort to the scheme of immigration on the plan of England and
France. It is thought by English writers, that the renewal of the slave
trade by the United States is inevitable, as a consequence of the
present high prices of cotton and slaves, unless the slave traders can
be shut out from the slave markets of Africa. They assume it as a
settled principle, that the immigration system is impracticable wherever
slavery exists; and that the American planter can only succeed in
securing additional labor by means of the slave trade. Then, according
to this theory, to prevent an increased production of cotton in the
United States, it is only necessary to make it impracticable for us to
renew that traffic.
The supply of cotton from India is not on the increase, nor can be,
except when prices rule high in England, or until rail roads shall be
constructed into the interior, a work requiring much time and money. The
renewal of the slave trade by the United States, on a large scale,
would, of course, cheapen cotton in the proportion of the amount of
labor
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