THE CONSUMPTION OF MEN IN AMERICA. (From the Times, August 25.)

Otago Witness, Issue 624, 14 November 1863, Page 7

THE CONSUMPTION OF MEN IN AMERICA. (From the Times, August 25. )

Few persons anticipated, two years ago, that the consumption cf men would create an earlier difficulty in the American war than the consumption of money. Such, however, is tbe fast. The Federal States have incurrel without a murmur a debt, of which the annual charge is little less than that of ulie public dest of Great Britain. Th°y are living upon a paper currency, and if they have not as yet paid many taxes, they have at any rate consented to the imposition of heavy taxation. But the financial aspect of the war appears to have eiven them very little concern. Mr Chase manages the money market with grept dexterity, and as there is no difficulty at present there is bnt slight anxiety for the future. Far different, however, is the case with the supply ot men, So prodigal has been the expenditure of life on both sides, but especially on the part of the North, that the most desperate expedients are now required for the reinforcement of the armies in the field. Volunteering, Air Lincoln himself tells us, is " palpably exhausted," recruits are no longer to be purchased by bounties, and at length a nation which prided itself, above all things, on the military organisation of its willing and independent citizens finds itself reduced, in the third year of a war, to the necessity of a conscription. So urgent, in fact, are the needs of the State, that the President cannot wait till the arrangements for the draught are properly completed, The Governor of New York writes to him with a statement demonstrating the unfair and pirtial operation of the projected levy in certain districts under his authority. Mr Lincoln cannot deny that the figurps show something wrong ; but he answers that he has no time to rectify them. He will do the be3t that he can by-and-bye, but at present the men must be pressed, enrolled, and scut off'to the depots, without delay. He does not pretend to deny that even the draught itself may be of questionable legality ; but that point, too, must be left for future decision. A t this moment he must have the men.

These confessed necessities of the Federals contrast somewhat strangely with the boast of inexhaustible resources in which they have indulged, but we cannot be su prised at the results. Never, we presume, in the history of civilised nations, were men so rapidly consumed as in this Civil War. Volunteering was not " exhausted" prematurely. Mr Lincoln's calls since the spring of 1861 have certainly exceeded one million men. He began with 70,000 meu ; he rose presently to 700,000 ; and at very short inte -vals the demands were repeat ;d. Unless, indeed, we assume that one man o"ut of every two iv the Fe Jeral armies has been killed or wounded, we niusr raise the aggregate amount of their levies to numbers even greater than we have suggested ; for it seems to be beyond question that half a million of men at least have been placed hors de combat since the war began. In the intercepted correspondence of the Confederates which was brought before our Government by the Federal authorities themselves, the )o«ses of the North are estimated at 349, 51 0. But this wa> twelve months ago, and all the carnage of Chaucellorsville and Gettysburg, to say nothing of the incessant drain at Vicksburg, Port Hudson. Charleston, and many other points, has -to be brought to account. Less thau 500,000 the total can hardly be, and that, indeed, was the computntion of our correspondent in the South some six months ago. Theloses of the Confederates, even at that perioJ, were supposed to be 200,000, so three-quarters of a million would be the lowest estimate of the whole consumption To form an adequate idea of this prodigious drain let tha reader remember our own position in the Crimein war The comparison will be all the easier," because the available resources of tlv two countries are exactly alike. The United Kingdom contains a population as nearly as possible equivalent to tuat ot the Northern and Southern States together- blacka included, so that we had as good a stock to draw upon as the Americans have had. Our army before Sebastopol was never, at any one time, 50,000 strong;, and yet the 27 000 casualties in that force were" enough to throw England into mourning, and to reduce the standard of the army for some time. What would have been the case if ten or twenty times that force had been in the field 1 What would have happened if 75U,000 British soldiers had been killed or wounded in two years of war?

At this rate of consumption the American war will soon literally become what some of its piomoters desire- a war of extermina'ion. That phrase is a mere hyperbole in European stories, but it will pxpress only the bare truth in America. President Lincoln alleges, as his reason for precipitating the draught in New "iork, that President Davis is " driving every ab'ebodied man he can meet into his ranks," and it is now reported that the f-outh, like the North, is enrolling and arming negroes. We cannot wonder at the resolution, however much we may lament it At the beginning of the war. the whole white population of the Sou'beni States could hardly have contained more than 1,000,000 or 1,2C0 000 men of fighting age. How many deductions must even be made from these figures before an effective total can be reached we need not say, and yet the South must huve already raised at least 500,000 or 600,000 men, of whom 250,000 have fallen. The negroes in the South are just about half as numerous as the whites, so that this expedient will add 50 per cent, to their resource.*. It shows, however, the desperate nature of the struggle wh.-n we such a measure adopted. Nothing but the very sternest re<olution and direct need would have drawn the Confederates to this extremity. They are as ready as the Federals to accept " the bitter end." The North vows that if the South will not submit every Southerner shall be slain ; the South answered that rather than submit every Southerner will die. We have not laid much stress on those imports of men from Europe of which ths North has had tbe advantage, but the aid from this source cannot have been inconsiderable. German and Irish have been poured into New York along with the cannon, rifles, sabres and stores. Emigration from the Old World has actually received a strong impulse under the attractions of the war. The Germans, trained soldiers already, accept war aa a promising business, and hope to rise in a service in which military education is rare. The Irish follow the invitations of their kindred to a land of high wages, and are overpowered on their arrival by the allurements of the recruiting sergeant. Stili emigration can only have supplied a per centage of the hosts which the Worth has sent into the field. The fcoutherenerß complain, with great justice, that their country is inyaded by foreigners, for Irish and Germans Lave formed a ponspicuou3 element in the Federal armies ; but the bulk of these must have been naturalised Americans, who. for all practical purposes were citizens of the Union. It remains now to ba se?n what will come of the last appeal— whether the north will endure the conscription, and with what spirit the conscripts will fight. In the South the conscription has Joug been iv force, and the last resource of the Confederates is shown in the en'istment ot negroes. In the North there has been no such trial, and Governor Seymouv distinctly intimates to the President his opinion that is may be too much for the patience of the people. "I do not dwell,'' say-? he, "on what I believe would be the consequence of a violent, lnreh policy before the constitutionality of the Act is tested. Yon can scan the immediate future as well ns I." These are ominous words, nnd they are applied to a State which has hitherto been eminently zealous in supplying men for the wnr. We shall «oon learn which of the two is ritrht — Governor Seymour in his deprecitions of the measure, or 'President Lincoln in h\s determination to enforce it at all hazards, but )he yery oqcurrence of the difficulty shows the straits to which the Sovemment is reduced. Hitherto fie Federate haye endured everything for the e»ke of the war ; but they are now called uppn for a sacrifice whichit is not yet certain they will consent to make,