The Slave Trade, Domestic And Foreign Part 23

To terminate the African slave trade, we need, then, only to raise the value of man _in Africa_. To terminate the forced export of men, women, and children from Ireland, we need only to raise the value of men _in Ireland_; and to put an end to our own domestic slave trade, nothing is needed except that we raise the value of man _in Virginia_.

To bring the trade in slaves, of all colours and in all countries, at once and permanently to a close, we need to raise the value of man _at home_, let that home be where it may. How can this be done? By precisely the same course of action that terminated the export of slaves from England to Ireland. In the days of the Plantagenets, men were so much more valuable in the latter country than in the former one, that the market of Ireland was "glutted with English slaves;" but as, by degrees, the artisan took his place by the side of the English ploughman, the trade pa.s.sed away, because towns arose and men became strong to defend their rights as they were more and more enabled to a.s.sociate with each other. Since then, the artisan has disappeared from Ireland, and the towns have decayed, and men have become weak because they have lost the power to a.s.sociate, and, therefore, it is that the market of England has been so glutted with Irish slaves that man has been declared to be "a drug, and population a nuisance."

Such precisely has been the course of things in Africa. For two centuries it had been deemed desirable to have from that country the same "inexhaustible supply of cheap labour" that Ireland has supplied to England; and, therefore, no effort was spared to prevent the negroes from making any improvement in their modes of cultivation. "It was," says Macpherson, "the European policy" to prevent the Africans from arriving at perfection in any of their pursuits, "from a fear of interfering with established branches of trade elsewhere." More properly, it was the English policy. "The truth is," said Mr. Pitt, in 1791--

"There is no nation in Europe which has plunged so deeply into this guilt as Britain. _We_ stopped the natural progress of civilization in Africa. _We_ cut her off from the opportunity of improvement. _We_ kept her down in a state of darkness, bondage, ignorance, and bloodshed. We have there subverted the whole order of nature; we have aggravated every natural barbarity, and furnished to every man motives for committing, under the name of trade, acts of perpetual hostility and perfidy against his neighbour. Thus had the perversion of British commerce carried misery instead of happiness to one whole quarter of the globe. False to the very principles of trade, unmindful of our duty, what almost irreparable mischief had we done to that continent! We had obtained as yet only so much knowledge of its productions as to show that there was a capacity for trade which we checked."

How was all this done? By preventing the poor Africans from obtaining machinery to enable them to prepare their sugar for market, or for producing cotton and indigo and combining them into cloth--precisely the same course of operation that was pursued in Jamaica with such extraordinary loss of life. Guns and gunpowder aided in providing cheap labour, and how they were supplied, even so recently as in 1807, will be seen on a perusal of the following pa.s.sage, from an eminent English authority, almost of our own day:--

"A regular branch of trade here, at Birmingham, is the manufacture of guns for the African market. They are made for about a dollar and a half: the barrel is filled with water, and if the water does not come through, it is thought proof sufficient. Of course, they burst when fired, and mangle the wretched negro, who has purchased them upon the credit of English faith, and received them, most probably, as the price of human flesh! No secret is made of this abominable trade, yet the government never interferes, and the persons concerned in it are not marked and shunned as infamous."--_Southey's "Espriella's Letters"_.

It is deemed now desirable to have cheap labour applied to the collection of gold-dust and hides, palm-leaves and ivory, and the description of commodities at present exported to that country will be seen by the following cargo-list of the brig Lily, which sailed from Liverpool a few weeks since for the African coast, but blew up and was destroyed in the neighbourhood of the Isle of Man, to wit:--

50 tons gunpowder, 20 puncheons rum, A quant.i.ty of firearms, and Some bale-goods.

Such are not the commodities required for raising the value of man in Africa, and until it can be raised to a level with his value in Cuba, the export of men will be continued from the African coast as certainly as the export from Ireland will be continued so long as men are cheaper there than elsewhere; and as certainly as the trade described in the following letter will be continued, so long as the people India shall be allowed to do nothing but raise sugar and cotton for a distant market, and shall thus be compelled to forego all the advantages so long enjoyed by them under the native governments, when the history of the cotton manufacture was the history of almost every family in India:--

"_Havana_, Feb. 11, 1853.

"On the morning of the 7th, arrived from Amoa, Singapore, and Jamaica, the British ship Panama, Fisher, 522 tons, 131 days'

pa.s.sage, with 261 Asiatics (Coolies) on board, to be introduced to the labour of the island, _purchased_ for a service of four years.

The loss on the pa.s.sage was a considerable percentage, being 90 thrown overboard. The speculators in this material are Messrs.

Viloldo, Wardrop & Co., who have permission of the government to cover five thousand subjects. The cargo is yet held in quarantine.

"On the 8th inst., arrived from Amoa and St. Helena, the ship Blenheim, Molison, 808 tons, 104 days' pa.s.sage, bringing to the same consignees 412 Coolies. Died on the voyage, 38. Money will be realized by those who have the privilege of making the introduction, and English capital will find some play; but I doubt very much whether the purposes of English _philanthropy_ will be realized, for, reasoning from the past, at the expiration of the four years, nearly all have been sacrificed, while the condition of African labour will be unmitigated. A short term an cupidity strain the lash over the poor Coolie, and he dies; is secreted if he lives, and advantage taken of his ignorance for extended time when once merged in plantation-service, where investigation can be avoided."--_Correspondence of the New York Journal of _Commerce_.

This trade is sanctioned by the British government because it provides an outlet for Hindoo labour, _rendered surplus_ by the destruction of the power of a.s.sociation throughout India, and yet the same government expends large sums annually in closing an outlet for African labour, rendered surplus by the rum and the gunpowder that are supplied to Africa!

To stop the export of men from that important portion of the earth, it is required that we should raise the value of man in Africa, and to do this, the African must be enabled to have machinery, to bring the artisan to his door, to build towns, to have schools, and to make roads. To give to the African these things, and to excite in his breast a desire for something better than rum, gunpowder, and murder, and thus to raise the standard of morals and the value of labour, has been the object of the founders of the Republic of Liberia, one of the most important and excellent undertakings of our day. Thus far, however, it has been looked upon very coldly by all the nations of Europe, and it is but recently that it has received from any of them the slightest recognition and even now it is regarded solely as being likely to aid in providing cheap labour, to be employed in increasing the supplies of sugar and cotton, and thus cheapening those commodities in the market of the world, at the cost of the slaves of America and of India.

Nevertheless it has made considerable progress. Its numbers now amount to 150,000,[169] a large proportion of whom are natives, upon whom the example of the colonists from this country has operated to produce a love of industry and a desire for many of the comforts of civilized life. By aid, generally, of persuasion, but occasionally by that of force, it has put an end to the export of men throughout a country having several hundred miles of coast. The difficulty, however, is that wages are very low, and thus there is but little inducement for the immigration of men from the interior, or from this country.[170]

Much progress has thus been made, yet it is small compared with what, might be made could the republic offer greater inducements to settlers from the interior, or from this country; that is, could it raise the value of man, ridding itself of _cheap labour_. Where there is nothing but agriculture, the men must be idle for very much of their time, and the women and children _must_ be idle or work in the field; and where people are forced to remain idle they remain poor and weak, and they can have neither towns, nor roads, nor schools. Were it in the power of the republic to say to the people for hundreds of miles around, that there was a demand for labour every day in the year, and at good wages--that at one time cotton was to be picked, and at another it was to be converted into cloth--that in the summer the cane was to be cultivated, in the autumn the sugar was to be gathered, and in the winter it was to be refined--that at one time houses and mills were to be built, and at another roads to be made--that in one quarter stone was to be quarried, and in another timber to be felled--there would be hundreds of thousands of Africans who would come to seek employment, and each man that came would give strength to the republic while diminishing the strength of the little tyrants of the interior, who would soon find men becoming less abundant and more valuable, and it would then become necessary to try to retain their subjects. Every man that came would desire to have his wife and children follow him, and it would soon come to be seen that population and wealth were synonymous, as was once supposed to be the case in Europe. By degrees, roads would be made into the interior, and civilized black men would return to their old homes, carrying with them habits of industry and intelligence, a knowledge of agriculture and of the processes of the coa.r.s.er manufactures, and with every step in this direction labour would acquire new value, and men would everywhere become more free.

To accomplish these things alone and una.s.sisted might, however, require almost centuries, and to render a.s.sistance would be to repudiate altogether the doctrine of cheap labour, cheap sugar, and cheap cotton. Let us suppose that on his last visit to England, President Roberts should have invoked the aid of the English Premier in an address to the following effect, and then see what must have been the reply:--

"My Lord:

"We have in our young republic a population of 150,000, scattered over a surface capable of supporting the whole population of England, and all engaged in producing the same commodities,--as a consequence of which we have, and can have, but little trade among ourselves. During a large portion of the year our men have little to do, and they waste much time, and our women and children are limited altogether to the labours of the field, to the great neglect of education. Widely scattered, we have much need of roads, but are too poor to make them, and therefore much produce perishes on the ground. We cannot cultivate bulky articles, because the cost of transportation would be greater than their product at market; and of those that we do cultivate nearly the whole must be sent to a distance, with steady diminution in the fertility of the soil. We need machinery and mechanics. With them we could convert our cotton and our indigo into cloth, and thus find employment for women and children. Mechanics would need houses, and carpenters and blacksmiths would find employment, and gradually towns would arise and our people would be from day to day more enabled to make their exchanges at home, while acquiring increased power to make roads, and land would become valuable, while men would become from day to day more free. Immigration from the interior would be large, and from year to year we should be enabled to extend our relations with the distant tribes, giving value to their labour and disseminating knowledge, and thus should we, at no distant period, be enabled not only to put an end to the slave trade, but also to place millions of barbarians on the road to wealth and civilization. To accomplish these things, however, we need the aid and countenance of Great Britain."

The reply to this would necessarily have been--

"Mr. President:

"We are aware of the advantage of diversification of employments, for to that were our own people indebted for their freedom. With the immigration of artisans came the growth of our towns, the value of our land, and the strength of the nation. We are aware, too, of the advantages of those natural agents which so much a.s.sist the powers of man; but it is contrary to British policy to aid in the establishment of manufactures of any description in any part of the world. On the contrary, we have spared no pains to annihilate those existing in India, and we are now maintaining numerous colonies, at vast expense, for the single purpose of 'stifling in their infancy the manufactures of other nations.' We need large supplies of cotton, and the more you send us, the cheaper it will be; whereas, if you make cloth, you will have no cotton to sell, no cloth to buy. We need cheap sugar, and if you have artisans to eat your sugar, you will have none to send us to pay for axes or hammers. We need cheap hides, palm-leaves and ivory, and if your people settle themselves in towns, they will have less time to employ themselves in the collection of those commodities. We need cheap labour, and the cheaper your cotton and your sugar the lower will be the price of labour. Be content. Cultivate the earth, and send its products to our markets, and we will send you cloth and iron. You will, it is true, find it difficult to make roads, or to build schools, and your women will have to work in the sugar-plantations; but this will prevent the growth of population, and there will be less danger of your being compelled to resort to 'the inferior soils' that yield so much less in return to labour. The great danger now existing is that population may outrun food, and all our measures in Ireland, India, Turkey, and other countries are directed toward preventing the occurrence of so unhappy a state of things."

Let us next suppose that the people of Virginia should address the British nation, and in the following terms:--

"We are surrounded by men who raise cotton wool, and we have in our own State land unoccupied that could furnish more sheep's wool than would be required for clothing half our nation. Within our limits there are water-powers now running to waste that could, if properly used, convert into cloth half the cotton raised in the Union. We have coal and iron ore in unlimited quant.i.ty, and are _daily_ wasting almost as much labour as would be required for making all the cloth and iron we consume in a month. Nevertheless, we can make neither cloth nor iron. Many of our people have attempted it, but they have, almost without exception, been ruined. When you charge high prices for cloth, we build mills; but no sooner are they built than there comes a crisis at 'the mighty heart of commerce,' and cloths are poured into our markets so abundantly and sold so cheaply, that our people become bankrupt. When you charge high prices for iron, as you _now_ do, we build furnaces; but no sooner are they ready than your periodical crisis comes, and then you sell iron so cheaply that the furnace-master is ruined. As a consequence of this, we are compelled to devote ourselves to raising tobacco and corn to go abroad, and our women and children are barbarized, while our lands are exhausted. You receive our tobacco, and you pay us but three pence for that which sells for six shillings, and we are thus kept poor. Our corn is too bulky to go abroad in its rude state, and to enable it to go to market we are obliged to manufacture it into negroes for Texas. We detest the domestic slave trade, and it is abhorrent to our feelings to sell a negro, but we have no remedy, nor can we have while, because of inability to have machinery, labour is so cheap. If we could make iron, or cloth, we should need houses, and towns, and carpenters, and blacksmiths, and then people from other States would flock to us, and our towns and cities would grow rapidly, and there would be a great demand for potatoes and turnips, cabbages and carrots, peas and beans, and then we could take from the land tons of green crops, where now we obtain only bushels of wheat. Land would then become valuable, and great plantations would become divided into small farms, and with each step in this direction labour would become more productive, and the labourer would from day to day acquire the power to determine for whom he would work and how he should be paid--and thus, as has been the case in all other countries, our slaves would become free as we became rich."

To this what would be the reply? Must it not be to the following effect:--

"We need cheap food, and the more you can be limited to agriculture, the greater will be the quant.i.ty of wheat pressing upon our market, and the more cheaply will our cheap labourers be fed. We need large revenue, and the more you can be forced to raise tobacco, the larger our consumption, and the larger our revenue. We need cheap cotton and cheap sugar, and the less the value of men, women, and children in Virginia, the larger will be the export of slaves to Texas, the greater will be the compet.i.tion of the producers of cotton and sugar to sell their commodities in our markets, and the lower will be prices, while the greater will be the compet.i.tion for the purchase of our cloth, iron, lead, and copper, and the higher will be prices. Our rule is to buy cheaply and sell dearly, and it is only the slave that submits dearly to buy and cheaply to sell. Our interest requires that we should be the great work-shop of the world, and that we may be so it is needful that we should use all the means in our power to prevent other nations from availing themselves of their vast deposites of ore and fuel; for if they made iron they would obtain machinery, and be enabled to call to their aid the vast powers that nature has everywhere provided for the service of man. We desire that there shall be no steam-engines, no bleaching apparatus, no furnaces, no rolling-mills, except our own; and our reason for this is, that we are quite satisfied that agriculture is the worst and least profitable pursuit of man, while manufactures are the best and most profitable.

It is our wish, therefore, that you should continue to raise tobacco and corn, and manufacture the corn into negroes for Texas and Arkansas; and the more extensive the slave trade the better we shall be pleased, because we know that the more negroes you export the lower will be the price of cotton. Our people are becoming from day to day more satisfied that it is 'for their advantage' that the negro shall 'wear his chains in peace,' even although it may cause the separation of husbands and wives, parents and children, and although they know that, in default of other employment, women and children are obliged to employ their labour in the culture of rice among the swamps of Carolina, or in that of sugar among the richest and most unhealthy lands of Texas. This will have one advantage. It will lessen the danger of over-population."

Again, let us suppose the people of Ireland to come to their brethren across the Channel and say--"Half a century since we were rapidly improving. We had large manufactures of various kinds, and our towns were thriving, and schools were increasing in number, making a large, demand for books, with constantly increasing improvement in the demand for labour, and in its quality. Since then, however, a lamentable change has taken place. Our mills and furnaces have everywhere been closed, and our people have been compelled to depend entirely upon the land; the consequence of which is seen in the fact that they have been required to pay such enormous rents that they themselves have been unable to consume any thing but potatoes, and have starved by hundreds of thousands, because they could find no market for labour that would enable them to purchase even of them enough to support life. Labour has been so valueless that our houses have been pulled down by hundreds of thousands, and we find ourselves now compelled to separate from each other, husbands abandoning wives, sons abandoning parents, and brothers abandoning sisters. We fear that our whole nation will disappear from the earth; and the only mode of preventing so sad an event is to be found in raising the value of labour. We need to make a market at home for it and for the products of our land; but that we cannot have unless we have machinery. Aid us in this. Let us supply ourselves. Let us make cloth and iron, and let us exchange those commodities among ourselves for the labour that is now everywhere being wasted. We shall then see old towns flourish and new ones arise, and we shall have schools, and our land will become valuable, while we shall become free."

The answer to this would necessarily be as follows:--

"It is to the cheap labour that Ireland has supplied that we are indebted for 'our great works,' and cheap labour is now more than ever needed, because we have not only to underwork the Hindoo but also to underwork several of the princ.i.p.al nations of Europe and America. That we may have cheap labour we must have cheap food. Were we to permit you to become manufacturers you would make a market at home for your labour and wages would rise, and you would then be able to eat meat and wheaten bread, instead of potatoes, and the effect of this would be to raise the price of food; and thus should we be disabled from competing with the people of Germany, of Belgium, and of America, in the various markets of the world. Further than this, were you to become manufacturers you would consume a dozen pounds of cotton where now you consume but one, and this would raise the price of cotton, as the demand for Germany and Russia has now raised it, while your compet.i.tion with us might lower the price of cloth. We need to have cheap cotton while selling dear cloth. We need to have cheap food while selling dear iron. Our paramount rule of action is, 'buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest one'--and the less civilized those with whom we have to deal the cheaper we can always buy and the dearer we can sell. It is, therefore, to our interest that your women should labour in the field, and that your children should grow up uneducated and barbarous. Even, however, were we so disposed, you could not compete with us. Your labour is cheap, it is true, but after having, for half a century, been deprived of manufactures, you have little skill, and it would require many years for you to acquire it.

Your foreign trade has disappeared with your manufactures, and the products of your looms would have no market but your own. When we invent a pattern we have the whole world for a market, and after having supplied the domestic demand, we can furnish of it for foreign markets so cheaply as to set at defiance all compet.i.tion. Further than all this, we have, at very short intervals, periods of monetary crisis that are so severe as to sweep away many of our own manufacturers, and at those times goods are forced into all the markets of the world, to be sold at any price that can be obtained for them. Look only at the facts of the last few years. Six years since, railroad iron was worth 12 per ton. Three years since, it could be had for 4.10, or even less. Now it is at 10, and a year hence it may be either 12 or 4; and whether it shall be the one or the other is dependent altogether upon the movements of the great Bank which regulates all our affairs.

Under such circ.u.mstances, how could your infant establishments hope to exist? Be content. The Celt has long been 'the hewer of wood and drawer of water for the Saxon,' and so he must continue. We should regret to see you all driven from your native soil, because it would deprive us of our supply of cheap labour; but we shall have in exchange the great fact that Ireland will become one vast grazing-farm, and will supply us with cheap provisions, and thus aid in keeping down the prices of all descriptions of food sent to our markets."

The Hindoo, in like manner, would be told that his aid was needed for keeping down the price of American and Egyptian cotton, and Brazilian and Cuban sugar, and that the price of both would rise were he permitted to obtain machinery that would enable him to mine coal and iron ore, by aid of which to obtain spindles and looms for the conversion of his cotton into cloth, and thus raise the value of his labour. The Brazilian would be told that it was the policy of England to have cheap sugar, and that the more he confined himself and his people--men, women, and children--to the culture of the cane, the lower would be the prices of the product of the slaves of Cuba and the Mauritius.

Seeing that the policy of England was thus directly opposed to every thing like a.s.sociation, or the growth of towns and other local places of exchange, and that it looked only to cheapening labour and enslaving the labourer, the questions would naturally arise: Can we not help ourselves? Is there no mode of escaping from this thraldom?

Must our women always labour in the field? Must our children always be deprived of schools? Must we continue for ever to raise negroes for sale? Must the slave trade last for ever? Must the agricultural communities of the world be compelled for all time to compete against each other in one very limited market for the sale of all they have to sell, and the purchase of all they have to buy? Are there not some nations in which men are becoming more free, and might we not aid the cause of freedom by studying the course they have pursued and are pursuing? Let us; then, inquire into the policy of some of the various peoples of Continental Europe, and see if we cannot obtain an answer to these questions.

CHAPTER XVI.

HOW FREEDOM GROWS IN NORTHERN GERMANY.

Local action has always, to a considerable extent, existed in Germany.

For a time, there was a tendency to the centralization of power in the hands of Austria, but the growth of Prussia at the north has produced counter attraction, and there is from day to day an increasing tendency toward decentralization, local activity, and freedom.

It is now but little more than seventy years since the Elector of Hesse sold large numbers of his poor subjects to the government of England to aid it in establishing unlimited control over the people of this country. About the same period, Frederick of Prussia had his emissaries everywhere employed in seizing men of proper size for his grenadier regiments--and so hot was the pursuit, that it was dangerous for a man of any nation, or however free, if of six feet high, to place himself within their reach. The people were slaves, badly fed, badly clothed, and badly lodged, and their rulers were tyrants. The language of the higher cla.s.ses was French, German being then regarded as coa.r.s.e and vulgar, fit only for the serf. German literature was then only struggling into existence. Of the mechanic arts, little was known, and the people were almost exclusively agricultural, while the machinery used in agriculture was of the rudest kind. Commerce at home was very small, and abroad it was limited to the export of the rude products of the field, to be exchanged for the luxuries of London or Paris required for the use of the higher orders of society.

Thirty years later, the slave trade furnished cargoes to many, if not most, of the vessels that traded between this country and Germany.

Men, women, and children were brought out and sold for terms of years, at the close of which they became free, and many of the, most respectable people in the Middle States are descended from "indented"

German servants.

The last half century has, however, been marked by the adoption of measures tending to the complete establishment of the mechanic arts throughout Germany, and to the growth of places for the performance of local exchanges. The change commenced during the period of the continental system; but, at the close of the war, the manufacturing establishments of the country were, to a great extent, swept away, and the raw material of cloth was again compelled to travel to a distance in search of the spindle and the loom, the export of which from England, as well as of colliers and artisans, was, as the reader has seen, prohibited. But very few years, however, elapsed before it became evident that the people were becoming poorer, and the land becoming exhausted, and then it was that were commenced the smaller Unions for the purpose of bringing the loom to take its natural place by the side of the plough and the harrow. Step by step they grew in size and strength, until, in 1835, only twenty years after the battle of Waterloo, was formed the _Zoll-Verein_, or great German Union, under which the internal commerce was rendered almost entirely free, while the external one was subjected to certain restraints, having for their object to cause the artisan to come and place himself where food and wool were cheap, in accordance with the doctrines of Adam Smith.

In 1825, Germany exported almost thirty millions of pounds of raw wool to England, where it was subjected to a duty of twelve cents per pound for the privilege of pa.s.sing through the machinery there provided for its manufacture into cloth. Since that time, the product has doubled, and yet not only has the export almost ceased, but much foreign wool is now imported for the purpose of mixing with that produced at home.

The effect of this has, of course, been to make a large market for both food and wool that would otherwise have been pressed on the market of England, with great reduction in the price of both; and woollen cloths are now so cheaply produced in Germany, that they are exported to almost all parts of the world. Wool is higher and cloth is lower, and, therefore, it is, as we shall see, that the people are now so much better clothed.

At the date of the formation of the Union, the total import of raw cotton and cotton yarn was about 300,000 cwts., but so rapid was the extension of the manufacture, that in less than six years it had doubled, and so cheaply were cotton goods supplied, that a large export trade had already arisen. In 1845, when the Union, was but ten years old, the import of cotton and yarn had reached a million of hundredweights, and since that time there has been a large increase.

The iron manufacture, also, grew so rapidly that whereas, in 1834, the consumption had been only _eleven_ pounds per head, in 1847 it had risen to _twenty-five pounds_, having thus more than doubled; and with each step in this direction, the people were obtaining better machinery for cultivating the land and for converting its raw products into manufactured ones.

In no country has there been a more rapid increase in this diversification of employments, and increase in the demand for labour, than in Germany since the formation of the Union. Everywhere throughout the country men are now becoming enabled to combine the labours of the workshop with those of the field and the garden, and "the social and economical results" of this cannot, says Mr. Kay [171]

"Be rated too highly. The interchange of garden-labour with manufacturing employments, which is advantageous to the operative, who works in his own house, is a real luxury and necessity for the factory operative, whose occupations are almost always necessarily prejudicial to health. After his day's labour in the factories, he experiences a physical reinvigoration from moderate labour in the open air, and, moreover, he derives from it some economical advantages. He is enabled by this means to cultivate at least part of the vegetables which his family require for their consumption, instead of having to purchase them in the market at a considerable outlay. He can sometimes, also, keep a cow, which supplies his family with milk, and provides a healthy occupation for his wife and children when they leave the factory."

As a necessary consequence of this creation of a domestic market, the farmer has ceased to be compelled to devote himself exclusively to the production of wheat, or other articles of small bulk and large price, and can now "have a succession of crops," says Mr. Howitt--