This is the present aspect of the Provision question, as it regards slavery extension. Prices are approximating the maximum point, beyond which our provisions can not be fed to slaves, unless there is a corresponding increase in the price of cotton. Such a result was not anticipated by Southern statesmen, when they had succeeded in overthrowing the protective policy, destroying the United States Bank, and establishing the Sub-Treasury system. And why has this occurred? The mines of California prevented both the Free-Trade Tariff,[33] and the Sub-Treasury scheme from exhausting the country of the precious metals, extinguishing the circulation of Bank Notes, and reducing the prices of agricultural products to the specie value. At the date of the passage of the Nebraska Bill, the multiplication of provisions, by their more extended cultivation, was the only measure left that could produce a reduction of prices, and meet the wants of the planters. The Canadian Reciprocity Treaty, since secured, will bring the products of the British North American colonies, free of duty, into competition with those of the United States, when prices, with us, rule high, and tend to diminish their cost; but in the event of scarcity in Europe, or of foreign wars, the opposite results may occur, as our products, in such times, will pass, free of duty, through these colonies, into the foreign market. It is apparent, then, that nothing short of extended free labor cultivation, far distant from the seaboard, where the products will bear transportation to none but Southern markets, can fully secure the cotton interests from the contingencies that so often threaten them with ruinous embarrassments. In fact, such a depression of our cotton interests has only been averted by the advanced prices which cotton has commanded, for the last few years, in consequence of the increased European demand, and its diminished cultivation abroad. On this subject, the _London Economist_, of June 9, 1855, in remarking on the aspects of the cotton question, at that moment says: "Another somewhat remarkable circumstance, considering we are at war, and considering the predictions of some persons, is the present high price and consumption of cotton. The crop in the United States is short, being only 1,120,000,000 or 1,160,000,000 lbs., but not so short as to have a very great effect on the markets had consumption not increased. Our mercantile readers will be well aware of this fact, but let us state here that the total consumption between January 1st and the last week in May was: =CONSUMPTION OF COTTON.= =1853.= =1854.= =1855.= Pounds, 331,708,000 295,716,000 415,648,000 Less than 1855, 83,940,000 119,932,000 Average consumption of lbs. per week, 15,600,000 14,000,000 19,600,000