With the decay of the power of the people over their own actions, the nation is gradually losing its independent position among the nations of the earth. It is seen that the whole "prosperity" of the country depends on the power to purchase cheap cotton, cheap sugar, and other cheap products of the soil, and it is feared that something may interfere to prevent the continuance of the system which maintains the domestic slave trade of this country. We are, therefore, told by all the English journals, that "England is far too dependent on America for her supply of cotton. There is," says the _Daily News_, "too much risk in relying on any one country, if we consider the climate and seasons alone; but the risk is seriously aggravated when the country is not our own, but is inhabited by a nation which, however friendly on the whole, and however closely allied with us by blood and language, has been at war with us more than once, and might possibly some day be so again." From month to month, and from year to year, we have the same note, always deepening in its intensity,--and yet the dependence increases instead of diminishing. On one day, the great prosperity of the country is proved by the publication of a long list of new cotton mills, and, on the next, we are told of-- "The frightful predicament of multitudes of people whom a natural disaster [a short crop of cotton] denies leave to toil--who must work or starve, but who cannot work because the prime material of their work is not to be obtained in the world."--_Lawson's Merchants' Magazine_, Dec. 1852. What worse slavery can we have than this? It is feared that this country will not continue to supply cheap cotton, and it is known that India cannot enlarge its export, and, therefore, the whole mind of England is on the stretch to discover some new source from which it may be derived, that may tend to increase the competition for its sale, and reduce it lower than it even now is. At one time, it is hoped that it may be grown in Australia--but cheap labour cannot there be had. At another, it is recommended as expedient to encourage its culture in Natal, (South Africa,) as there it can be grown, as we are assured, by aid of cheap--or slave--labour, from India.[164] It is to this feeling of growing dependence, and growing weakness, that must be attributed the publication of passages like the following, from the London _Times_:--