364 SLAVE-LABOUR IN THE FACTORIES. 



now annually imported from Spanish and Brazilian 

 ports, we shall be able to form an idea of the very great 

 development of which this branch of culture, in the 

 southern States, is still susceptible. 



In the great increase of slaves employed in the sugar 

 culture in this one State of Louisiana from 63,000 to 

 126,000 in five years we seethe direction taken by the 

 slaves from the more eastern States, and we understand 

 more clearly the meaning of Mr Meade, when he said, 

 that &quot; Virginia had a slave population of half a million, 

 whose value was chiefly dependent upon southern 

 demand.&quot; Were the slaves of this and other States 

 sold bodily, so to speak, to the south, there would be a 

 hope of clearing State after State of the severe inflic 

 tion ; but when only the increase is sold, Virginia is to 

 Louisiana and Texas what Africa is to Cuba and Brazil ; 

 and the more the African traffic is put down by Eng 

 land, the more profitable will the internal slave-trade 

 become to southern America!* 



There is another aspect of this question which awakens 

 gloomy apprehensions as to the future of the American 

 slave. The introduction of the cotton manufacture into 

 the slave States Virginia, Kentucky, North and South 

 Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi in which 

 there are some hundreds of factories, consuming already 

 from 300,000 to 400,000 bales of cotton a-year has 

 brought a new use of his slaves within the reach of the 

 southern planter. The same power which compels them to 

 toil in gangs under a burning sun, will constrain them to 

 waste life in the factories, if it can be done profitably to 

 the master. The great difficulty of the manufacturers in 

 the New England States, is the question of labour the 

 scarcity of work-people, the high wages they demand, 



* In the whole Union, during the last ten years, the slaves have 

 increased by 808,000, or 80,000 a-year. In 1860 they will number 

 about 4,500,000. 



