Charles F. Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.
The Rebel cotton loan.
From the London Index, (rebel
organ.)
During the year now closing, about 130,000 bales of cotton, of about
500 pounds weight each, have found their way through the blockade to
European ports, which, at the ruling prices, sold for upwards of £6,000,000 sterling. With this fund to its
credit, had the cotton been exported for its own account, instead
of, for the most part, private speculators, the confederate
government might have dispensed with foreign loans, might have
bought its warlike stores at the lowest cash rates, and supplied its
citizens with commodities of prime necessity at a moderate advance
on cost. Not only would it have earned the fabulous profits pocketed
by foreign merchants, but it would have saved itself the issue of
that flood of promises to pay with which it purchased importations,
and which the importers made haste to dispose of on any terms. And
what creditor at home could have doubted the solvency of a debtor
who was the largest holder of foreign exchange in the country?
Let it not be said that the government would have failed where
private en terprise succeeded. The experiment has been sufficiently
tried to demonstrate that the government, in blockade ventures, has
been even more fortunate than individuals, probably for the reason
that, thanks to the patriotic enthusiasm of the whole people, it is
at present the best served government in the world. To its success
in this respect is clue the credit which, amid the most adverse
circumstances, it still commands in the markets of Europe. The
question, then, would simply have been to extend on a larger scale
what has been done with considerable success on a small one. The
mercantile marine of every country, not excepting that of the north,
is open to it to select the staunchest and the swiftest vessels. It
commands a staff of naval officers inferior to those of no country
in skill, courage, and dash; and although the service may not be so
brilliant and so much to their taste, at the country’s bidding they
would render it as zealously and as devotedly as though they trod
the decks of Merrimacks and Alabamas. It will scarcely be contended
that vessels avowedly the property of the confederate government
would run greater risks on the high seas from the enemy’s cruisers
than those owned by British subjects run under the warm neutrality
of the foreign office.
But if private enterprise must be called into aid, the cotton bonds
now in the hands of European holders afford the desired machinery,
provided all private exportation, except in redemption of these
bonds, is prohibited. The £3,200,000 which
the government now owes in Europe represents, at six pence per
pound, 260,000 bales of cotton, which, at the rate of this year’s
exportation, could be run through the blockade in about two years.
Every obligation thus redeemed would make room for a new one, which,
as the only
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means of
purchasing cotton, would be eagerly sought at prices remunerative to
the government. We are told that sound political economy forbids the
granting of monopolies; but blockade running is virtually already
the monopoly of those firms which were the first and the most
enterprising in the attempt. Why not, if a monopoly must exist, give
it to those who Lave trusted the government? Besides, no one is
injured thereby, for those who now hold this virtual monopoly may
still retain it by merely changing their purchasing medium.
We have reasons to believe that in advocating this recommendation of
Mr. McRae we express the convictions of nearly every important
officer of the Confederate States in Europe, and of the great
majority of the friends and well-wishers of the confederate cause.
If anything approaching the same unanimity exists in the Congress
now assembled at Richmond—and there appears no cause to doubt it—we
may expect by any steamer, within the next four or five weeks, to
hear of the passage of an act laying an embargo on the exportation
of cotton, under conditions similar to those here indicated.
