Blockade running.
Blockade running has become a regular business in the
South.
So great are the facilities for running merchandize in and out of the
Confederacy and no enormous the profits realized from these ventures, that every one with money to invest wishes to take a hand in the game, and new companies are being established every day with that view.
It is therefore high time that the attention of our legislators should be given to the subject; it is one which calls for an early and searching investigation.
There can be no earthly doubt that the business of blockade running, as at present conducted, is doing much permanent injury to our circulation; that the morals of our people are anything but benefitted by it, as it panders to their vices, instead of ministering to their real wants and there is abundant evidence to show that most of the cotton and tobacco which those finds its way out goes into the hands of Yankee speculators, who flood our markets in return with their poisonous drugs and trumpery "notions."
It is the duty of the
Government to gather all the facts bearing upon this matter, and to lay them before Congress on the very first day of the approaching session.
The injury which the
Confederacy has already sustained from the abuses of the present system is in calculable, and no time should be lost in devising proper measures for making it what it ought to be, a benefit to us, instead of a curse, which it bids fair to become should its present operations be allowed to go on much longer unchecked.
Nothing can be easier than to place this trade under such regulations and restrictions as will, to a great extent, prevent our enemies from deriving all its benefits, without the slightest compensating advantage to our people or Government.
The suicidal "let alone" policy has been tried long enough, and we can all perceive with what results.
Let a new and well guarded system be inaugurated as speedily as possible; the statesmen by whom such a reform shall be effected will deserve and receive the thanks of the nation.
