The Resources and Prospects of America. By Sir S. Morton
Pato, Bart., (Strahan.)—Sir S. Pete lies produced a useful volume of statis- tics. As he informs us in the preface, he has avoided all political allu- sions, and has not attempted any description of the country or of the man- ners and habits of the people of the United States. Ho simplylells us bow many they are, what theyprodute, what they want, and, we are sorry to add, their barbarous system of trade and taxation. On all these mat- ters he writes fully, fairly, and temperately, and the leading conclusions that'he draws from his figures are these. In the first place, that the Americans are quite able at present to pay for the goods that they order on this side of the Atlantic ; and secondly, that they may pay off their debt if they choose to let trade take its natural course, and carry out Sir Morton's railway scheme. With regard to the South, he is sceptical as to its supposed devastation, and believes that with its magnificent climate there is a great future before it, under the stimulus of free labour ; indeed, he considers "that he is not over sanguine in predict- ing that within five years from the present time the cotton production of America will be doubled." Let us only hope that there may be no more fighting, either domestic or foreign, so that when we have all turned our ploughshares into swords in this mad old Europe, we may feel that there is still left one "land of sufficient harvests for all dearth."
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