TOBACCO AND COTTON CULTIVATION. 65 
per cent if levied upon the same articles when delivered 
for home consumption, and sometimes to considerably 
more, when it is liable to diminution in quantity and 
weight during the voyage. In the United States of 
America no duty is paid upon the export of any articles 
of native growth, and the continuance of the import des- 
cribed in our colonies will almost amount to a prohibition 
of their produétions in the British market, and decidedly 
interfere with any considerable extersion of the cultiva- 
tion of cotton, or of any other article in which an aétive 
and industrious population, exempt from that burden, 
can enter into competition with us. The removal of 
this colonial duty would place us so far on a footing, and 
enable us fairly to contend with any competitors starting 
from the same point of departure. But unfortunately this 
is not our a€tual position. The planters of the United 
States have long furnished the chief supply of cotton and 
tobacco for the European markets, and have acquired, 
by time and praétice, so much skill in their cultivation, 
and dexterity in the best modes of preparing them for 
consumption, that a mere equality of duty will not now 
enable us to enter into successful competition. In faét, 
we are altogether ignorant of the cultivation and curing 
of tobacco for exportation in our West India colonies ; 
and although a constantly diminishing quantity of cotton 
is still exported, the mode of cultivation and cleansing of 
the wool from the seed remain in the same unimproved 
state in which they existed twenty-five years ago ; anda 
new system and new machinery must now be introduced 
at considerable trouble and expense before we can hope to 
compete with foreign growers. After much consideration, 
and with the strongest reluétance to come to such a con- 
I 
