ture will give us a law in keeping with the generally wise and exemplary commercial legislation of the Empire State.

To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York, in Senate and Assembly convened :

The memorial of the undersigned, citizens of the State of New York, respectfully represents,

That the present laws of this State regulating the rate of interest are undoubtedly the most severe of any usury laws in the commercial world. That this severity has utterly failed of producing the end for which it was intended, or any other useful end, all experience having shown that any increased restric tion, or attempted restriction, has never failed to enhance the price for the use of money during the existence of any money pressure, to which all commercial communities are occasionally liable.

That in addition to this increase in the rates of interest, the provisions of our present usury laws lead to circuitous devices and discreditable subterfuges and stratagems to evade them.

And these evasions are attempted by persons unmindful of the faet, that inasmuch as both parties can be made to testify in an action under this law, they cannot evade the penalty without a false oath, provided a prosecutor does his duty. All this has a demoralizing tendency, and can only result in evil.

Your memorialists, therefore, humbly pray that all the usury laws of this State may be abolished, retaining only a fair maximum rate to govern in the absence of a contract between borrower and lender, also a fair rate to acerue on a judgment in law, after its rendition.

Your memorialists would, at this point, respectfully suggest that this freedom can be extended to our banks with great benefit to our business community.

Those institutions, blended as they are with all the leading interests of society, are pre-eminently serviceable in the encouragement of credit and in the promotion of all the useful enterprises of the day. They are managed by men whose interest, as a general rule, must of necessity harmonize with the pecuniary interests of the community at large.

Even those who have favored restrictive usury laws, admit that banks are subjected to expenses and risks peculiar to that business. They are required to have a specie basis, and to conform to rigid requisitions of law in a way deemed necessary for the protection of the currency and for the protection of the commercial interests of the people. Hence, they argue that in any relaxation granted, banks ought not to be excluded.

Loans secured by mortgages of real estate should also, in the opinion of your memorialists, be allowed to enjoy the benefit of the wholesome competition among lenders that would immediately ensue from the relaxation now sought for.

Your memorialists, in conclusion, most respectfully advance the opinion that no matter whether money be called a commodity or not a commodity, parties owning it should be as entirely free from legal restraint in paying it away, or receiving it for the use of other money, as they are in parting with it or receiving it for any other service, or for any commodity or any gratuity whatever.

Thus entertaining the full opinion that our usury laws, as they now stand, have disappointed all hopes of their useful operation, your memorialists would humbly pray that a law may be enacted like the one herewith submitted:

AN ACT REGULATING THE RATE OF INTEREST ON THE LOAN OR FORBEARANCE OF MONEY.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

SECTION 1. No grant, transfer, bond, note, bill of exchange, contract, or agreement, or loan, or forbearance of any money, goods, or things in action, shall be

void by reason of any paying or receiving, or agreement to pay or allow such rate of interest as the parties may agree upon.

SEC. 2. In all cases where the rate of interest is not specified, the interest shall continue to be at the rate of seven dollars upon one hundred dollars for one year, and after that rate for a greater or less sum, or for a longer or shorter time.

SEC. 3. No greater rate of interest than is specified in the second section of this act shall be charged on any judgment after the date of the rendition thereof, entered in any of the courts of this State, although such judgment may have been founded upon a writing stipulating a higher rate of interest.

SEC. 4. So much of title third, chapter fourth, and part second of the Revised Statutes, and so much of the laws of 1837, chapter 430, as are inconsistent with the provisions of this act, are hereby repealed. SEC. 5. This act shall take effect immediately.

Art. VII.-THE COTTON TRADE.

THE events of the past year have shown the utter insignificance of Russia as a commercial power. With all her ports blockaded on the Baltic, the White and the Black seas, the prices of merchandise have been scarcely disturbed. The demand for cotton, that great barometer of Commerce, has been undiminished. Though the peace of Germany, Sweden, Greece, and Italy had been threatened, no falling off in the English exports has been experienced. All the operations of Commerce move on undisturbed, just as they did in our war with Mexico. The price of hemp, tallow, sheetiron, and a few unimportant articles, has been affected, but no great important interest in the commercial world has been seriously injured.

The consumption of cotton has, indeed, slightly declined in England, France, and on the continent; but so small is this decline, that it is fully explained by other causes well known and understood. The deliveries to the trade at Liverpool have only fallen off from 1,430,000 bales to 1,424,000 bales, up to the 7th of October. At Havre, the consumption was 27,000 bales less than it had been in 1853 at the end of the first half of the year, but part of this loss has since been regained; the exports from the United States and England to the continent of Europe have decreased more than either of these amounts; but this decrease is not over 100,000 bales.

If war, the deficient harvests in England, France, and Germany, and the consequent high prices of provisions, be considered, the wonder is that the decline in the consumption of cotton has not been larger from this cause alone than has been really experienced.

Russia may be a great country in territory, or population, or agricultural resources, but as a commercial power she is utterly insignificant.

The events of the past year have also shown the immense benefits which have already been received from the mines of California and Australia, and go far to establish the fact that a sensible appreciation in prices is already observable, from the large supply of the precious metals.

In former wars, the extra demand for specie for the military chests of the armies disturbed very much the currency of the war-making powers, and while it depreciated property generally, raised the price of wheat and

flour and other articles of this kind. The present war, though not less expensive, has hardly been felt in the monetary world. The extra expenditures of England have exceeded fifty millions of dollars; of France, about the same; of Austria, a large sum; and both Russia and Turkey have had heavy outlays of an extraordinary character. Amidst all, the price of English consols has not fallen over five or six per cent, the circulation of the Bank of England has not materially declined, the specie in her vaults has decreased only four millions sterling, and the demand for money has not largely increased either in Europe or America.

The rate of interest was, indeed, raised considerably in England, but this was due mainly to their deficient harvests. The stringency in their money market produced its effect in the United States, on account of our close connection with Liverpool and London, and of our large over-trading and borrowing in the preceding year.

The extra demand for coin for the support of distant, large, and expensive armies, has thus had but a slight influence on Commerce, and this can only be explained by the large supply of gold from the new fields which America and Australia have opened to the world.

The two facts that have now been referred to are of great importance in considering the demand and supply of cotton. If Russia is of small influence as a commercial power, the slight decline in the consumption of cotton during the past year is not due to the war; and if the extraor dinary supply of the precious metals suffices to meet the extra demands made by distant and expensive armies, the fair and steady prices we have received for our exports have been due to the regular and legitimate demands of trade to meet the actual wants of the world. And if the war only affects, in the slightest degree, both the demand and the rate for cotton, our expectations for the coming year may be based on the usual circumstances that have heretofore influenced the consumption and the price of cotton.

In the United States, the purchases made by the Northern manufacturers have declined in 1854, if we compare them with 1853. This falling off is over 60,000 bales. But the amounts used by the factories have not probably been much less than during the preceding year. The tightness in our money market this summer compared with last, has made the Northern manufacturers lay in but small supplies, so that the stocks in their hands are very low. The prosperity, North and South, of all branches of the cotton manufacture, forbids the belief that the wants of 1855 will decline.

The average consumption for the three years ended 1845, were......bales 354,000

1848
1851

1854...

461,000

469,000

628,000

650,000 bales will be needed for 1855, against 611,000 and 671,000 for the last two years.

The deliveries to the trade at Liverpool, which constitute over 95 per cent of the English consumption, have suffered no decline for the present year. In the earlier part of the season they were less than in 1853, but this loss has been entirely recovered.

On the 30th of June these deliveries were 904,000 bales, against 989,000 of the year before. During the months of July and August this deficiency remained about the same. On the 14th of July it was 90,000 bales; on

!

the 18th of August, 86,000; and on the 25th, 89,000 bales. About this time the favorable influence of the fine harvests began to be felt, and the deficiency has lessened every week since. On the 9th of September it was 58,000 bales; on the 23d, 37,000; and on the 30th, only 20,000 bales. On the 13th of October the consumption for 1854 was 1,456,600 bales, against 1,460,000 for 1853, exhibiting a decrease of only 4,000 bales. For the whole year we may expect no decline, and as the consumption of 1853 was 1,904,000, against 1,861,000 bales of 1852, the amount for 1854 will be above rather than below 1,900,000.

For 1855, even supposing the war to continue, we may anticipate an increase. The favorable harvests in England and on every part of the continent, and the moderate prices which are likely to prevail, will increase the demand for cotton goods. The prosperity of the agricultural interest, as well as every department of manufactures, will exert a favorable influence. In every part of the world, excepting only the United States and China, the demand for the English exports will be large, and in these two countries only a slight check will be experienced. The scarcity of money, the uncertainties connected with the war, the hesitating and undecided position of the German States, will be drawbacks on the other side; but, taking both into consideration, we may reckon the wants of Great Britain as not less than two millions of bales for 1855.

For France the consumption for the coming year will be as large as in any former year. The slight check it has received during the past season has been owing to the high prices of food. And though these will not be low in the coming year, because the supplies of the last crop have been entirely exhausted, and because the war will interfere with the usual receipts from the Baltic and the Black Sea, for 1854, the exports of American cotton to France have been 374,000 bales against 427,000 for 1853; and though both these are larger that for 1852 and 1851, the universal prosperity of France since the accession of Louis Napoleon to the Imperial throne, authorizes us to have our expectations for the coming year on the past two, rather than on the preceding results. For 1855 the demand for American cotton in France must therefore exceed 400,000 bales.

On the continent there has been a decline, in consequence of the war and the deficient harvest. Part of this will be recovered, but a deficiency in our exports to the north of Europe will still exist. Russia is, indeed, of small importance, still she wants some of our cotton. The decline in the English outgoings has been greater than ours, because nearly all the Russian imports were received from England, and not from the United States. To the whole continent, omitting France, our exports have fallen off 23,000 bales, while from Liverpool alone they have gone down from 223,000 to 156,000 bales. As the amounts for the whole year were 350,000 bales from the whole of Great Britain, the deficiency for 1854 will be fully 100,000 bales. The continental supplies exported from America and England during the year 1852 were 636,000 bales; for 1853 they were 715,000 bales, and for 1854 about 590,000 bales. For 1855 the moderate prices and abundant harvests will probably make up half this loss, and thus raise the demand to 650,000 bales.

These several estimates for the coming year make a total demand for 1855 of 3,700,000 bales against 3,475,000 for 1854, and 3,717,000 for 1853, as in the following table:

The supplies for 1854 from the East Indies have fallen off largely from 1853. They were indeed excessively large in that year, compared with former years, having reached 485,000 bales, on account of the good price of cotton and the civil war in China. In Liverpool, on the 14th of October, the decline had reached 68,000 bales, and for the whole year the deficiency at London and Liverpool may reach 130,000 bales. But even with this falling off, the imports from the East Indies will exceed the amount of any former year. The average receipts from 1848 and 1849 were 205,000 bales; for 1850 and 1851 they were 318,000, and for 1852 and 1853 they were 354,000 bales. The probable troubles at Canton, on account of the Chinese rebellion, by lessening the demand in that part of the world, will tend to divert the Indian cotton to Europe; but this effect will be counteracted by the moderate prices, and the English receipts will not probably vary much from 350,000 bales.

The English imports from Brazil and the West Indies are small and stationary. They have been between 100,000 and 200,000 bales for every year of the past seven. The receipts at Liverpool, up to October 14, were 65,000 bales against 63,000 of the preceding year; and as the total for 1853 was 141,500, the amount for 1854 will not exceed 150,000 bales. The average for the last five years has been 152,000 bales, and for 1855 this average may be anticipated.

In Egyptian cotton the average for the last three years has been 121,000 bales. For 1853 it was 105,000. For the present year there has been an increase of 24,000 bales, making the probable amount for 1854 as high as 130,000 bales. This limit will not probably be reached for the coming year, on account of the war. This has interfered with the planting and gathering of the present crop, and, therefore, with the expected receipts for 1855. From Egypt, and Brazil, and the West Indies, the supplies for the coming year will not probably reach 250,000 bales, against 245,000 for 1853, and 347,000 for 1852.

The crop of the United States exhibits a decrease for 1854 of 333,000, compared with the preceding year. Part, but not all, of this decline will be recovered in 1855. From South Carolina a considerable increase is expected. The excessive drought of 1853 did more injury than the one we have this year experienced. The late frosts in April interfered with the early growth of the plant, but the beautiful weather in May and June fully made up for the backward spring. The drought of July and August was relieved by the partial showers, which have given to many planters most excellent crops. The lowlands and bottoms have produced very well. The storm on the 8th of September destroyed not a little by blowing it off the stalk, as a large amount was open in the fields, under the influence of the hot unclouded sun of August. The deficiency on the poor uplands, though not so great as last year, will be considerable. Yet, as the killing frost has come very late, every boll that could come to maturity has opened,