supplying steam boats. But, I have seen one single iron establishment in New-Castle upon Tyne which consumed more coal, than all the steam boats use from this yard just named, which is about one thousand bushels daily. And the Monkwearmouth coal pits deliver about twenty five thousand bushels per day from a depth of 1800 feet. Here our rail roads run into the pit, and the cars are loaded by the men who dig the coal. Let iron establishments, to a sufficient extent, or cotton factories, be erected, and in comparison with the demand for them, the steam boat demand would hardly be worth noticing.

F. Well, why are they not established?

P. I will explain as we return. Now besides iron and coalthere is here potter's clay for making earthen ware-fire clay — the best building rock, and every material which manufacturers can ask-all standing idle. But it is getting late. Let us return to our lodging house, on our way home, and we will talk about this

matter.

F. Well, you told me you had seen rail-road iron on its way to Pittsburg, to be laid an the rail-roads there, which was imported from England. How is it possible that they can bring rail-road iron 3000 miles across the ocean, thence 2000 miles up the Mississippi and Ohio, paying freights, charges, duties, and insurance, and undersell such advantages as you have here.

P. That is a very natural question, and it was to make you ask that question, that I was induced to ask you to take this ride with me. And I will endeavor to answer it.

The requisites for manufacturing to advantage are:

1st. A market. 2d. Material. 3rd. Capital. 4th. Labor. 5th. Cheap Living. 6th. Experience.-The 1st. we have at our doors; the 2nd and 5th also. The 3rd we have not. The 4th will always follow the balance, because if we had it not at home, it would take but twenty days to get it from abroad; but we have it in abundance at home. The 6th is the result of time, and naturally follows upon a continuance of the other five, in uninterrupted combination for a long period. Now capital, of all the ingredients, is the most essential for success-to be sure- capital is of no use without the balance. But the balance are of no use without capital. Capital is the substratum. Now where does Capital come from? It is in the hands of men noted generally for their caution, and who only let it go for investment, where experience shews, it is sure to return a certain per centage annually. It will not do to tell such men, when a depression occurs in the market, which cuts off dividends-"Oh, this is but temporary; have patience, and in a year or two there will be a reaction, when you will more than regain all that you are now losing." This is all nonsense to them. They want their dividends, and if they do not get them regularly, they will sell out their stock, and thus they add to the very evil they com

plain of. In England the judicious manage thus. A joint stock company is created. By the best calculations its dividends will be 7 per cent, but capitalists are satisfied with 5. If 7 are made, 2 are laid by as a safety fund, and invested in government stocks, and 5 are divided. While things move smoothly, the 7 continue to be made, and the safety fund rapidly increases. But in time markets become depressed, and the business is unprofitable, yields nothing. But the dividends continue regularly the same to the share holders who are paid their five per cent out of the safety fund, and unless the low prices continue an unusual time, this safety fund suffices to bridge over them, and the capitalist rests content to continue his funds in the investment.

There seldom happens in England one of those explosions, so common with us, every twelve or fifteen years, when our imports have for a period of years so far overbalanced our exports, that the difference has to be sent off in specie, finally producing such a collapse, as to ruin almost the whole country. No such can occur in England, being the chief manufacturer for the balance of the world; the balance of the world, who do not protect sufficiently their own manufacturers, are tributary to her, and her capital is always on the increase. But her rail road manias do some times bring her into difficulties. In 1849 an explosion of this kind occurred. A man by the name of Hudson, who obtained the name of railroad king, from the influence which he had obtained, had years before gotten the control of some important railroad, which was profitable, and paid ten per cent. He urged that its extension would add to its profit, and he would guarantee ten per cent, as far as he was allowed to extend it. He was accordingly empowered to do so, and invited capital on those terms. It came in to any required extent, and the roads were extended accordingly, and an extravagance of expenditure indulged in until finally they would not pay ten per cent. To declare this fact, would have blown up Hudson. So he determined to continue declaring the ten per cent, and paid it out of the capital stock, hoping for an improvement. But this improvement did not come, and finally the whole affair necessarily became exposed, but not before Hudson by his apparent extraordinary talent for making rail roads yield good dividends, had obtained the control of almost every rail road in England. And consequently, when the crash came, it shewed the bankruptcy of almost every road under his control. Great, of course, was the confusion and temporary distress created. But the indebtedness was from one resident to another; not to foreigners; there was none the less money in the country. It had only changed hands, and the same was there to give a new impulse to business in a new form. The sufferers sunk under the waters; a bubble or two shewed where they had gone down; but the general prosperity floated on, there was no less depth of water. But with us, when

such an event happens, the water has been evaporated, the channel has become dry, and we are left upon sand bars to await the coming wet season. This is a condition to which we are now fast verging, and to which no prudent government would ever subject the country, for nothing is easier than to avoid it.

F. But if the substratum of manufacturing is capital, and we have it not, would we not be legislating in vain to force a system upon our country which it had no foundation for, and consequently was not prepared for?

P. I would make a foundation, sir. If the nature of the ground is too sandy or boggy to be built on without aid, I would drive down piles, until I made a solid foundation. If you have a city lot, favorably situated for commerce, and of great value for warehouses, but which is marshy, and not suitable for building on, will you therefore abandon it, when an outlay of ten thousand dollars will make a foundation, and build a warehouse which would be worth fifty thousand dollars? The capital can be created, sir, very easily. Give a wise protection to our manufactures, such as we have heretofore had, but make the duties specific, so as to avoid fraud. Give some assurance that this protection will be permanent, and you will find that capital will go rapidly into manufacturing, and the millions which we annually send abroad will stay at home. Only think. In England the very ore which you have just seen, would bring $4000 per acre, at the rates I have named, to be manufactured into iron to send across the ocean, and two thousand miles up stream to sell to us, when we too ship them bread and meat to feed the manufacturers on. While this ore, and the coal close by it, lies measurably valueless, when all that is needed to make it worth as much as it is in Scotland, is to pass such laws as to induce the same capitalists who manufacture it there, to send that capital and the hands who make it there across the ocean, and make it here. "T would take them but twenty days to come, and the workmen would not lose their knowledge by crossing the ocean. The mere passage of a wise law will accomplish all this. Yes, sir! The American people, if they could obtain such a law on no other terms, would find it a cheap purchase to give one thousand millions of dollars for it, that would be but sixty millions per annum, and we are now annually going in debt over this amount, which in that event would be saved. There is no fiction in this. 'Tis all plain palpable matter of fact.

F. Provided, we are willing to tax ourselves sufficiently to do it.

P. Well. Let us see what this tax would amount to. I will take yourself for instance. What would be your part of this tax? Of the suit you wear, what is the cost of what is imported?

F. Why, my coat about $30, pants $10, vest $5. The balance I presume, was made at home. Oh! my cloak $40, which I have

not on.

P. Very well, $45, and you do not wear out on an average over one suit a year. The cloak on an average will last four years. So add $10, making $55. Say the required duty, to support government, which you now pay, is 20 per cent; ten more is all we ask; this would be $5.50. Now, sir, would you grudge $5.50 per annum to see such a change created, as would be by a wiser tarif which should start up factories in all our coal fields, and bring all our iron ore into value? With the same capital invested here, there is no reason, why our coal and iron ore should not be worth as much as it is in England. And it is the coal and iron ore of England, which is the basis of her wealth and power. We have ten times as much as she has, and by a policy similar to that which has given her this power and wealth, we could in time overtop her ten-fold in both. But as it is, we are mere hewers of wood and drawers of water for her. All the wealth of California, which rightfully ought to be ours, and ought to be spent at home, among our own manufacturers, who can as well supply their wants as England, only comes among us for a day, then to be shipped off to that country, for which our commercial cities are mere agencies, collecting and sending to that country all our wealth, as fast as we accumulate it. Oh, it is too bad, too bad! And all because our citizens, taking you as a sample, are unwilling to pay $5,50 per annum, to prevent it. Yes, if a missionary to the Hindoos, to the Sandwich Islands, to any foreign land, asks you for $5.50, to aid in his mission, your purse is open to him. If some straggling foreigner, pretending to have been shipwrecked, asks you for $5.50, you are ready to give it to him. But if you are pointed to magnificent founderies, furnaces, cotton factories, all standing still, and going to ruin, and thousands and ten thousands of your own fellow citizens thrown out of employment thereby; if it is made apparent to you that the yielding of this $5.50 per annum will aggrandize your country, make her independent, prosperous, and powerful; all this is nothing in the scale against the $5.50. For all sorts of outlandish purposes, your pocket is open, but you have no bowels of compassion for your own country.

This $5.50 too, is allowing the heaviest tax you claim. I say even for the first year it would be but the half, and in a year or two after, nothing. And then what benefits arise? Let one of those manufacturing establishments arise where they may, they make a market for all the neighborhood. Your corn, your hay, pork, butter, eggs, chickens, hire for your hands, wagons and teams, all at good prices, making the whole country cheerful and happy. Are those considerations-is your interest in them, not worth $5.50 per year, even if it were to be all lost, and no other advantage to

arise?

F. Why, I think you're losing that calm mood with which you sat out, and which you promised to preserve in order to a dispassionate discussion of this subject, with a view to elicit truth. De

clamation, you know, is not argument. It is the judgment, and not the feelings, which we are now appealing to.

P. Perhaps I am more excited by the subject than I ought to be, but really it is hard, when I see as I believe, such a magnificent promise for our country by very reasonable protection to home industry on the one hand, and ruin so inevitable on the other, and the first to be obtained at so small a temporary sacrifice, indeed, no sacrifice at all, it is hard, I say, not to be excited. But I will try to avoid it, because I wish you to have all the advantage of your coldest judgment in the discussion of this subject. For I see you are so fixed in your opinions, that proof, strong as Holy Writ, will be required to shake them, nor do I wish to shake them except by evidence, too powerful to be withstood. I desire you to bring forward every possible objection to protection, and every argument in favor of free trade. I am myself convinced, that protection is for our advantage. If you can show me that it is not, I wish you to do so, promising you most faithfully that no prejudice, or pride of opinion, shall interpose, to prevent my seeing and acknowledging the truth of any fact which you give me evidence of. All I ask, is similar magnanimity on your part.

F. If I could be satisfied, that this inequality in trade between England and ourselves, was really as you say, and that it was to continue, I am ready to admit, I would not be satisfied with it. But you admit, you do not speak from official information, but from Newspaper report. Now, Mr. Webster makes the imports of 1850 about $178,000,000, and exports about $152,000,000. — There is but a difference of $26,000,000, not a matter to be scared about.

P. Mr. Webster, I presume, includes in our exports, specie, which has gone out to the amount of about $20,000,000, for the last half year. If as much the previous half year, which I do not recollect, there would be a total of excess of imports over exports of about $66,000,000, leaving out specie. It is more probable, Mr. Webster speaks, as I am sure he does, of the trade of last year. My remarks apply to the estimate for this year.

F. But you are taking the wrong road. We came in the other fork.

P. It is but a little out of the way, to go by a Mr. K whose family I wish you to see. This man is rather delicate for out-door work; his wife quite a neat, tidy woman, and he has four very pretty daughters and a son. Until three years ago, he was exceedingly poor, could hardly feed and cloth his family decently, until the erection of the cotton factory, which I will show you tomorrow. He there got employment for himself and all his family. He got $4 per week, his son and daughters each $2 at the start. Soon he was found so handy as a folder, that his wages were raised to $6 per week. His son's were increased as pressman to $4, and his daughters became expert weavers, and made $3 per week.