114: EEMAEK8 ON THE GOVEKNMENT TAX. 
What, then, let us inquire, would be the consequence 
to another great interest of the country ? There are in- 
vested in the manufacture of cotton, chiefly in the North, 
several hundred millions of capital. Suppose the produc- 
tion of cotton to cease in this country, or to be so reduced 
as not to supply our mills, then our spinners would have 
to resort to foreign countries for their supply. Could they 
do this, and successfully compete with the manufacturers of 
Europe, when, even now, with the raw material furnished at 
home at much less expense than it would cost them from 
abroad, they are unable to compete with foreigners, with- 
out the protection of the government by a high tariff? 
Again : the machinery of this country, I apprehend, is 
not adapted to the manufacture of the short-stapled cotton 
of the East Indies, China, or Egypt, and, to engage in the 
manufacture of that cotton, would have to be materially 
changed or abandoned, and new machinery instituted. 
The increased expenditure necessary to effect either of 
these objects would be overwhelming ; which, added to the 
loss sustained by the lapse of time before the repairs of 
the old or the erection of the new machinery could be 
effected, would cause our manufacturers to abandon the 
business altogether. The vast capital invested would be 
partially if not wholly lost. Bankruptcy and ruin would 
overwhelm our " lords of the loom." Thousands and tens 
of thousands of operatives would be thrown out of employ- 
ment, and pauperism and crime would present their hag- 
gard forms throughout the land. 
Again : before the war, the cotton crop of the South 
was upward of 4,000,000 of bales of 400 lbs. each; say, 
4,000,000 bales, or 1,600,000,000 lbs. At thirty cents 
per pound, the value of this cotton would be $480,000,000 ; 
and even at the low price of ten cents, its value was 
