for the "twenty-six first class mills," to say nothing of their hundreds of thousands of dollars reserved and undivided at the same hazard.

One word in relation to Mr. Lawrence's scale of prices and rates of wages. He attempts to make out a very great disproportion between the decline of prices in cloth and cotton in fifteen years. He makes the decline 4 cents per pound greater in the price of the cloth than in that of cotton. This he sets down precisely as if it were so much abstracted from the market value of the cloth, while its cost to the manufacturer has remained unchanged. What has become of the great improvements in machinery he talks about? Have they done nothing toward reducing the cost of manufacturing in fifteen years? Does it cost as much to manufacture a pound of cotton now, as it did fifteen years ago? In first rate mills no: and yet the planter can raise cotton now no cheaper than he could then. But labor, he says, is higher. "Women's labor is increased three-fold, and men's is nearly double." Does he believe this statement himself? Charity says yes; but she has to stretch a point or two, to give such a reply. Mr. Lawrence will not say, a female operative now receives wages that would enable her to pay three times as much for board as she did in 1835, and then have three times as much left as she had then. He will not pretend to say that a man earns enough now to pay double what he paid then for the maintenance of his family, and have double the amount left he had then. No: even Mr. Lawrence dare not make such a statement, for he well knows it would not be true, and that everybody else knows it; his appeal to the cost of ticking, shirtings, and calicoes to the contrary notwithstanding. The truth is, neither men nor women, factory operatives, to my knowledge, receive more wages now than they did in 1835. Ffteen years have not increased their wages, nor materially reduced the cost of living. True, they spin and weave more pounds of cotton in a day than they did then. But they derive no advantage from it, and their wages, as a general thing, are not enhanced by it. Neither is Mr. Lawrence's statement a fair one in respect to the decline in prices.

To make out a case, if possible, the gentleman has taken the price of cotton at almost its highest value, for the last eight or nine years, the consequence of a short crop, and cloth at about its lowest value for the same period, when an average for cotton, much lower, would have been the fair test, and, for cloth, higher. And even this statement of his was made in the very face of his previous admission that cotton must decline in price during the coming season, or cloth rise, or both. Here is an admission that cotton was remarkably high when he wrote, and cloth very low-that the disproportion between them had been created by extraordinary causes, and that the operaration of the laws of trade must soon restore the two articles to something like their proper relative values. His prediction as to the increased market value of cloth is fast being fulfilled; and yet he takes the extraordinary period of a few months past as the basis of calculation for the average comparative diminution in the prices of cloth and cotton for fifteen years! Were the transactions of the commercial world regulated by such an interpretation of the laws of trade, they would present a singular spectacle. Yet, after all, it is enough to know that, during eleven of those fifteen years, twenty-six cotton-mills have divided, on an average for the whole time, among the whole number, 8 per cent per annum on enormous capitals, beside building new mills with reserved profits, and laying by hundreds of thousands of dollars for "surplus cash capital." Had Mr. Lawrence an object in making

the comparative statement above alluded to without a reference to the qualifying statement in his first number? It may be so.

Perhaps Mr. Lawrence wished to persuade the cotton planter to promote the planter's interest, no doubt-not to hazard his capital in the manufacturing business, with its small and diminishing profits, while the profits of cotton planting were large, and scarcely lessened at all in fifteen years; or perhaps, as we subsequently have a few pretty plain hints, to embark his capital at the North, to aid in the upbuilding of northern manufacturing cities in. progress or in embryo, or to arrest the fall of certain mills, by purchasing their stocks, already 40 per cent below par. Such may have been the case. Let others judge. It may be otherwise; but his frequent croakings about the hazards, the disasters, the failures, and, at best, the small profits of the manufacturing business, seem mightily like a sort of squinting toward the object of restraining the southern people from entering into competition with those of the North; or, that failing, to persuade them to embark their funds on board the new northern ship LAWRENCE, or some other craft belonging in whole or in part to the same firm. Thus, with honeyed words, and abundant fraternal sympathy, he exhorts "our friends" at the South, in effect, either not to enter the manufacturing field at all, or, if they should, to invest their funds in northern mills. The substance is, they must pay freight and expenses on their own cotton to Lowell, and on their cloth back again; and leave at the North all the wealth created by labor with the use of that capital, to build up northern towns and cities, equaling, once in two years at least, the amount of capital invested, with the exception of 8 per cent per annum on its amount, in the way of dividends! How kind! how considerate!

If Mr. Lawrence could be in the least suspected of having the smallest and most remote interest in aiding any of his "first class mills," or building up the city of Lawrence, or any other place, or in advancing the prices of manufacturing stocks in "first class mills," suspicions might be entertained that, in all these kindly admonitions, there was a slight tincture of selfishness. Casting this unworthy thought to the winds, we view the kind-hearted gentleman, his heart teeming with tender compassion, warning "our southern friends" not to involve themselves in the disastrous results of the manufacturing business, which has so much "enriched New England." I would aid the gentleman's pious labors, by holding up, as frightful examples, such men as the LAWRENCES, the APPLETONS, and hundreds of others, New England manufacturers. Lest these examples should fail to produce the desired effect, I would also hold up to view Lowell, MANCHESTER, PAWTUCKET, WALTHAM, DOVER, WOONSOCKET, FALL RIVER, LAWRENCE, &c., &c., to which may be added commercial cities, such as Boston, Providence, and others. With such examples as these before their eyes, one would think "our southern friends" might be forewarned, and forearmed. Let the southern capitalists beware of manufacturing, lest they become LAWRENCES and APPLETONS, and build up LOWELLS in their midst. They must send their cotton to the North, and have it returned in cloth, with all expenses accumulated on it, including the cost of manufacturing. They must invest their capital in northern "first class mills," receive an annual dividend on it of 8 per cent, and leave behind more than 70 per cent, each two years, of the amount of the capital, in wealth created by the labor it pays for, to build up the fortunes of northern men, and to people and enrich New England. Let them do all this, and

they have no reason to fear that the fate of New England will ever befall them.

Near the close of Mr. Lawrence's review, he appears to have wrought himself up to some slight degree of pugnacity. He speaks of "Lawrence, Amoskeag, Saco, and other places of less note," and finally concludes that the water-power of Massachusetts alone, now unoccupied, is sufficient to drive all the cotton mills in the United States. Well-what then? Why, by holding a rod in terrorum over the heads of the southern people, by assuring them that the mammoth corporations will occupy the water-power, any how, he tries to frighten those same southern "friends" out of their wits with the vision of this mighty competition, and to thus prevent them from embarking in the manufacturing business. But does Mr. Lawrence recollect that if Massachusetts and New Hampshire have water, the South has wood and coal quite as abundant, and at much lower rates? Does he recollect, too, that the southern and south-western people have cotton, and that the saving to them, in the cost of that article alone, compared with its cost in New England, will be more than thrice the cost of steam-power to them to manufacture it? Of what use, for instance, would the water-power he names be to the manufacturers on the banks of the Ohio?-say at Cannelton, where, with the best of coal at NINETY CENTS PER TON AT THE MILLS, they can have a motive power better than any water-power, and at a cost less than that of heating a water-mill at Lowell, and save, also, at least $20,000 per annum in the cost of cotton for 10,000 spindles, compared with its cost at Lowell? Can Mr. Lawrence tell what competition Cannelton, or other places with locations equally favorable, have to fear from New England water-power, or New England corporations? And as to the time for the erection of cotton-mills during an experience of more than twenty years in the business, I have never witnessed a period more favorable than the present. Were it not that my business is so extended to almost all parts of the country, and my time so completely occupied, I would most assuredly embrace the present moment to erect a large mill to run on my own account. The prospect is as bright, too, as at any time in the history of our country; and would our New England manufacturers remodel their mills, and vary their business, instead of adhering to the practice of manufacturing plain cottons only, they would make much more money. A thousand articles might be made, in which the price of a pound of cotton would be magnified by its manufacture to fifty cents, and even to one dollar per pound, instead of twenty-five cents, and to great profit. The sooner the South monopolize the manufacture of coarse goods, the better will it be for the manufacturers of New England; and however much I may be blamed for spreading the facts I have before the people of the South, the time will come when the northern manufacturer will see that, as far as my feeble efforts may have any effect, as to their interests, that effect will be favorable.

For years, the northern press has been loud and frequent in recommendations to the South, to enter the field of enterprise, and manufacture her own staple; and, by way of encouragement, the success of New England in the same branch of business, with the enhanced cost of the raw material, has been held out as an example. No fault, to my knowledge, has ever been found with that course. During the time, however, the manufacturers have uttered no note of encouragement, keeping a continual studied silence, when their business was prosperous, and only opening their lips to give utterance to doleful complaints, if occasionally a reverse occurred. Though

myself a New England man, I am also an American, and claim brotherhood with the American people, as a whole. It gives me pleasure to witness the prosperity of New England; but, as an American citizen, it gives me equal pleasure to witness the prosperity of the whole country. Hence, in whatever has been written by me on the subject of manufactures at the South, my object has been to promote the interest of that section of our common country, without the most remote wish to injure that of any other. Business has never been sought by me there, nor ever will be. The pamphlet, of which the abridgment appeared in "Hunt's Merchants' Magazine for November, 1849," was written by the especial request of southern men, and the abridgment was made also by request. The southern people wished for information on the subject of cotton manufactures, in order to know whether it was, or was not, prudent for them to engage in the business. They applied to me to impart that information. The call was, after a time, responded to by me, and, as in duty bound, I gave them facts in an honest and truthful manner-facts that I have fully substantiated-and to establish which, on the basis of future operations, also, I hold myself pledged and bound to do. I have not only the ability, but the means to do it. Fully aware of the reluctance of northern manufacturers to have the details and results of their operations exposed, and wishing neither to excite their animosity, to alarm their cupidity, nor to injure their interests, I carefully abstained from all interference with their concerns, and merely stated the general results of the business in New England, and what could be done, and had been done, with a steam-mill of my own construction. And what has been the result? I have been attacked from all quarters, and in all forms-and why? Evidently because my statements were calculated to give encouragement to manufactures at the South, and to bring them into competition with those of the North. What other motives could have animated those who have assailed me? I pretended not, though I could have done it, to penetrate the veil hung over the doings of northern manufacturers. My effort was to show the southern people what they might do not by reference to the doings of a number of pretended "first class mills," but to others of my own building. Mr. Lawrence, and others, apparently alarmed at this, and fearing the result, entered the arena, and, by insinuations, inuendos, and broad statements, have endeavored to fix the falsehood upon me; not because I had misrepresented northern mills, or their products or profits, but because, as they would have it to be understood, I had made exaggerated statements relative to mills erected by me. And how have they succeeded? There is scarcely a statement made by them that has not been proved fallacious-not a statement of mine that has not been substantiated. Mr. Lawrence has driven me, in self-defence, to bring out facts relative to which, if let alone, I should have been silent. If they have a heavy and injurious bearing on the northern manufacturing interest, those connected with it may thank their champion. I flatter myself that no one can tell me much that I do not know about the cotton manufacture in New England, or the cost, condition, product, and profit and loss of a great number of New England cotton mills, and among them, most of the twenty-six "first-class mills." Thus far, they have just been touched on by me, and there it is my wish to leave them; yet much remains behind, that some would rather should be permitted to rest undisturbed. So shall it rest, unless farther provocation shall call it out.

Why all this hue and cry, like the cry of mad dog, after an humble indi

vidual like myself? It is envy, jealousy, hate; because, without the patronage of overgrown and aristocratic corporations, I have, after more than twenty years of patient and unremitting toil, by means of self-culture alone, qualified myself, by erecting about one-eighth of all the cotton-mills in America, as an engineer and manufacturer, to construct a better mill than the best of theirs, at less cost, that will manufacture a grearer quantity of better goods, at less expense. This I proclaim to the world, without the intention of boasting, and appeal to my works as evidence. It is for this crime-because I can beat Lowell-that attempts are made, and not now for the first time either, to hunt me down; but the pursuers are mistaken in their game, and in their powers. They may as well give up the chase-the manufacturing spirit is fast gaining strength in the Middle and Southern States. Cottonmills are rapidly on the increase. As their owners begin to handle the profits, you cannot cheat them out of the evidence of their own senses. Southern competition must come. The South can manufacture coarse goods cheaper, and at greater profit, than the North. If the northern manufacturers are wise, they will, instead of fretting themselves on this account, make all necessary improvements in their manufacturing establishments, and supply the markets with such fabrics as the South will not find it to its interest to supply for many years to come.

I now take leave of the subject, leaving the public to make up judgment between Mr. Lawrence and me. I harbor no unkind feelings to him. If plain language has been used by me, and some degree of asperity, they have not been aimed at him personally, but at his works; and it is presumed he will understand my allusion, when I say, "the blows aimed at the helmet were not intended for the head." Mr. Lawrence is a man of talents, and it is presumed has written as well as any one else would have done for his side of the question. Unfortunately for him, his case is a bad one-even much worse, as I know, and could readily prove, if occasion should require— much worse than I have labored to show."

C. T. J.

Art. V.-BANKRUPTCY-BANKING.

FREEMAN HUNT, Esq., Editor of the Merchants' Magazine, etc.

DEAR SIR-Having given our views, denying the proposition of your correspondent, "F. G. S.," that "the too high rate of interest" is the cause of the general prevalence of bankruptcy among the mercantile class of Society, we proceed to assign our own reasons for the admitted fact.

These we believe to be :-The too large an appropriation of industry in that direction; the unreasonable amount of credit used in mercantile operations; and the excessive use of credit in the construction of the currency.

Society is governed by precedent and routine. Its opinions and habits are of slow growth, and fix themselves so firmly in its mental constitution, that they are turned aside from their direction or obliterated with difficulty, and only by the most gradual process.

In the early period of American society, without any other distinctions han those of professional life and wealth, the mercantile became one of the aristocratic classes. The great body of the people were engaged in agricul