Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

Here was $22 per week for the family, and a cottage found them. The old lady did the cooking, house work, etc., the girls at night did their washing, and the son then cut up the wood. But here is the house. We will call for a drink of water. Good morning, Mr. K., all well?-Yes, tolerably. Will you not get down?-No, I thank you; we want a drink of your fine water. (The son goes for it) Well, how do you get on nowadays? Oh, poor enough. 'Tis mighty hard making a living out of the ground for a large family, and four of 'em grown daughters, who cant help any. When will the factory start again? I cannot tell. English goods are now selling so low in our market, that they have stopped about one third of all our factories, and I cannot tell when we can start again. Well, I'm mighty sorry, for there have been hard times with us, since the factory stopped. But, why cant we make goods as cheap as the English? It seems to me we ought to do it.

P. We could with a little protection. But it requires a little, and this gentleman's part of the tax would be $5 which he says, he is not willing to pay, to keep up this establishment. Why, said one of the pretty girls, my good sir, do agree to it, and I will pay your part of the tax; 'twill only take two weeks of my wages.

F. My dear Miss, if it depended on me, you should have the protection to-morrow. But I am only one out of a million. Oh, exclaimed the old lady, well sir, we will all give a month's wages. Yes, said another pretty daughter, two months, three months, and if all will do so, as I reckon they will, we can make up the tax ourselves.

F. Come, P., it's time we were getting home; let's drive on, P. Good bye, Mr. K. I am sorry we cannot stay longer. F. Confound you, P. This is taking foul hold.

P. I wanted to show you, by the change in fortunes of this amiable family, by the stopping of the factory, the amount of distress caused thereby to all the operatives thrown out of employment. And I ask you now in candor, does this offer no argument in favor of protecting our home industry?

F. Yes, sir. All your arguments put together, were not half so strong, as that of those pretty girls. Curse their little hearts, to talk to me about paying my part of the tax.

P. Now, sir, reflect! By a protection, which to you, at the highest figures you claim yourself, would only be $5.50 to you, you would give prosperity and happiness to hundreds of thousands of your own countrymen and women, such as you have just seen. By refusing it, you leave them in poverty, and transfer that help to English operatives. But, while for the sake of argument I admit that you will pay $53 tax, which is not the fact, I show conclusively, as in the McDuffie case, that by paying $5 out of one pocket, you cause over $20 to be put into the other; yes sir, and most sincerely do I believe $100, if you are engaged in any sort of

enterprise, or nave any interest in the general prosperity of the country.

F. There is a fine flock of sheep. Does your country syit sheep?

P. Yes, very well. But the uncertainty of demand for wool has caused farmers to devote themselves otherwise. I see in Michigan they estimate their flocks at a million and a half, and in Ohio at six millions, and gradually the business will become a large one. Why should it not? In England they raise great flocks upon land which costs £100 or $500 per acre. Why can we not raise them here on land which can be had for one fiftieth part of that sum? And why should not this wool be manufactured at home? Take all the expense of sending it to a foreign market, and bringing back the goods which it makes, the charges will amount on an average to a quarter of a dollar per sheep, over what they would be if manufactured at home, saving freights, commissions, profits, insurance, drayages, storages &c., saying nothing of the import duty. This ought to go into the pocket of the farmer. And if one acre of land will sustain ten sheep, here is a loss of $2.50 per acre, so appropriated, equivalent to the interest on $40, which sum per acre is thus lost, so far as the land is appropriated to sheep raising.

F. Oh, nonsense! $40, indeed!

P. All the measure of value, which we have for any thing, is the income which it will bring, that which will bring $6, is worth $100, and that which will bring $2.50, is worth $40. If any man will cause an acre of my land to yield me $2.50 more than it dil before, he has therefore increased its value $40. Give us a tariff, sir, and this wool will find a market at home, and this $2.50 per acre per annum be saved, besides the increased wealth resulting from the increased value given to the wool, by being manufactured. My knowledge in regard to this increased value of wool is limited, but of cotton, I know, that taking the article of sheetings and shirtings, and the increased value is about two and a half for one, take finer fabrics, and the increase is in proportion. One hundred hands will, of the former, manufacture five bales a day, or fifteen hundred per annum. It will take three hundred hands to grow the same cotton. Now, our cotton exports are estimated at $70,000,000 per annum. Manufacture it, and the same would be worth in coarse goods $175,000,000. And less than half the additional number of hands required to grow it, will give one hundred and fifty per cent of additional value to it by manufacturing it.

F. And why is not this sufficient inducement without a tariff, or any increase, to cause our manufactories to flourish?

P. Because capital and skill are requisite to aid in manufacturing, which cannot be obtained without permanent and ample protection. Give this protection, and you bring the capital and

skill; with sufficient inducement it remains, and when fixed and disciplined, it then becomes profitable, and then competition brings down the price of goods; but with an unstable policy, no matter what may seem to be the inducement, capital will not be attracted: for five per cent. certain, is better than ten per cent uncertain. A specific duty is certain, but an ad valorem is uncertain, the latter being as variant as the conscience of importers. The time will come, at some future day, when the political philosopher, looking back, and seeing that America produced three fourths of all the cotton of all the world, and nearly all that is good, that she had food at her doors, which she shipped abroad to feed the manufacturers of this cotton, when the same mouths could have been brought to the cotton and the food, to consume both, by a wise policy, saving two freights across the ocean, and commission and profits indefinite, this philosopher will ask, how was this, what kind of men could have governed America, to have suffered such a state of things? But the men who did it, will not be there to answer; or else perhaps unable to bear the shame of so apparent a folly, they might feel inclined to adopt Lord Castlereagh's plan, when the simple view by Bonapart, of the folly of his administration, made it so manifest, that from remorse and mortification he cut his throat.

We have the materials, and the labor, to make every thing we want. Making all we want, we must be always in a prosperous condition, cheerful and happy. Our gold would remain among us. Our cotton crop and tobacco, to the amount of seventy millions, would be adding to our wealth, instead of to the wealth of England. We would have a coasting trade and home commerce, greater in extent infinitely, than all our foreign commerce. Rail roads and improvements of all kinds, would go rapidly forward; our lands would rise in value, and our produce would all find a ready and rich market at home. But this would not cut off our foreign commerce. Other countries must, and will have our cotton and tobacco; but, if we favor home industry, and give it the preference over the foreign, instead of our picking the crumbs from foreign tables, they must be satisfied with the crumbs from ours. We ask of our government only reasonable protection, but let that be specific, specific, specific. And then no country on earth can vie with us. If we want evidence of the beneficial effects of protection, look to the result of the tariffs of 1882 and 1842. A prosperity immediately followed, as manifest and palpable as that change which is produced by a rich coat of manure upon a worn out farm. To the farmer, we would say:

In what manner have your interests been advanced by the Free Trade policy? By it Mr. Walker told you, and he is the great Free trade apostle, that your exports would be rapidly increased annually, until in 1850, they would reach $488,000,000. Has

such been the fact? Most certainly it has not. On the contrary, in proportion to population, from 1848 inclusive, to the present time, our exports have been diminishing. Last year, instead of $488,000,000, they amounted to only a little over $134,000,000. You have then gained nothing by reducing the tariff in 1846.

The cotton planter we would ask: what have you gained?

You have, by shutting up numerous manufactories, turned at least 200,000 manufacturers and their dependents, into agriculturists, and thereby thrown more competition against yourselves, lowering thereby the price of your cotton in consequence of over-production.

To the common laborer, we would say: What have you gained? By stopping the factories, iron furnaces and other establishments, you are thrown out of employment, and the bread taken from your families.

Of our country, we would ask: What has been gained by repealing the tariff of '42, and establishing that of 46? We would answer: You have "gained a loss" of sixty millions of dollars per annum. You have been feeding foreigners with the bread, which of right ought to belong to our own countrymen.

As before said, and it cannot be too often repeated, we have given up a certain home market, created by our manufacturers, with the calculation that we would thereby create a greater foreign market for our agricultural products. But in the latter we have been deceived. Our foreign demand has not increased. We have. taken foreign manufactures to an immense amount, calculating that to a corresponding amount would be the demand for our products. But in this we have been deceived; for foreigners have supplied the manufacturers with food, who have taken our home market for manufactures. While this home market has been forfeited, we have thrown more producers into competition with the farmer and planter, and by a double process been guilty of a suicidal policy.

The Public Lands and Western Improvements.

We desire to make some remarks on the relation of the Public Lands to our leading enterprises of internal improvements, and the dependence to a certain extent of the one upon the other, but it is with discouragement and reluctance, that we approach a subject whose popularity is so hacknied and barren, and whose interest is so conceded and general, as to have become all but destitute of any salient points, from which to command the public sympathy.

The subject interests us in Missouri, first as a local question.

The state of Missouri (and the same may be said of the states of Arkansas and Iowa,) has been made, we trust, temporarily, a sufferer by the late action of Congress in the application of public lands to state improvements.

The liberal appropriation of lands in aid of the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad, has made certain the completion of a leading railroad through the centre of Illinois, from her extreme Southern boundary at Cairo, to Galena on her northern boundary, with an important branch to Chicago, connecting the entire state by railroad with the commerce of Lake Michigan, and of the Upper and Lower Mississippi respectively; and this great leading road will be the parent of numerous branches, comprehending as well all the available riches of the country away from its immediate vicinity.

The effect of this gift will enhance immensely the advantages of the state of Illinois to emigrants as a place of settlement, will increase proportionally her resources, and will extend proportionally her influence. The advantageous position which Illinois is destined to occupy so much sooner in consequence of this assistance, and which is already so distinctly felt in the West, may convert those who have doubted the propriety of such an application of the public lands. Until Missouri is placed in a similar position, her citizens may complain justly of the effect of such one-sided legislation on the progress of individual states, and the city of St. Louis may complain, and will have reason until then to complain, of the construction through Government assistance, of roads, whose completion will interfere most materially with her present commerce with the Upper Mississippi, will change to a great extent its direction and character, and will force her to apply immediately her resources in

« PreviousContinue »