§ 7. "The history of the colonics," said an eminent British statesman, "is that of a series of losses, and of the destruction of capital; and if, to the many millions of private capital which have been thus wasted, were added some hundred millions that have been raised by British taxes, and spent on account of the colonies, the total loss to the British public of wealth which the colonies have occasioned, would appear to be quite enormous." *

That this is, and must be, true, will be obvious to all who reflect on the object had in view, in the maintenance of so many costly establishments. Gibraltar facilitates the smuggling of cloth, and thus prevents the people of Spain from combining for the establishment of mills for making cloth at home. The dependence on foreign mills and ships is, thereby, much increased; but what is the profit that thence results to England? None whatsoever the whole of the merchandise sent to Spain being, in amount, far less than the cost of maintaining the soldiers and sailors required for doing the work. Malta and the Ionian Islands do the same for Southern Europe, and with the same result the cost being thrice greater than all the profits realized. Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, have annihilated the manufactures and commerce of India. Hong Kong and Singapore are maintained as dépôts whence to smuggle opium, and thus destroy the Chinese people. Quebec and Montreal facilitate the violation of American laws; and thus are almost all the British colonies used for the single and simple purpose of destroying the power of association throughout the world.

Look where we may, throughout the countries following in the lead of England, we obtain the same results-a daily increasing difficulty of developing the resources of the earth, consequent upon increased dependence on the will of those who control the movements of the one great market. Land and men, therefore, decline in value-slavery taking the place of freedom; and with every step in that direction, recovery becomes more difficult.†

* PARNELL: On Financial Reform.

"Let me tell you," said Law to the Marquis d'Argenson, "that the kingdom of France is governed by thirty intendants. You have," he continued, "neither Parliament, nor estates, nor governors-nothing but thirty masters of requests, on whom, so far as the provinces are concerned, welfare or misery, plenty or want, entirely depend." Trading centralization tends to make of the world a single kingdom, plundered by a multitude of intendants.

§ 8. In the growth of the United States, we have the nearest approach to the natural system first described. From the days of the Puritans, to the present time, we find the few and widely scattered people of the early settlements gradually coming together, to form counties, towns, and States-the whole ultimately resolving themselves into an Union, based upon the theory of leaving to local institutions the exclusive management of local affairs, and confining the general administration to those without the limits of the States.

In Massachusetts, this approach is most complete - local action being there more perfect than in any other country of the world. Passing south and west, we find a gradually diminishing tendency towards concentration, accompanied by growing centralization, until, on arriving at the extreme south, we find communities wholly composed of slaves and traders - the former being obliged to bring to the latter all the produce of their labors, to be by them distributed. North and East, we find much fixed and little movable property. South and West. land having little value-the proportion of fixed property is small, while that of the movable is large.

Based upon the idea of local action, or concentration, the Federal Constitution, or act of union, was intended for its promotion. More or less, such was the general idea of those charged with the administration of the government, during the first half century that followed its establishment. Since then, however the policy of the country, as finally settled in 1846, having tended exclusively to the promotion of trade, and to the establishment of indirect taxation as the permanent means of raising revenue-"the diminished importation of highly protected articles, and the progressive substitution of domestic rivals," has come to be regarded as a grievance-requiring to be remedied. So rapidly, at that date, was the substitution going on, and so rapidly was commerce relieving the people from the necessity for trade, that import duties were, as they were assured, "becoming dead letters, except for purposes of prohibition "— threatening, "if not reduced, to compel their advocates to resort to direct taxation to support the government."*

Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1845. Of all the documents published by the U. S. Government, since its first establishment, there is

Freedom and peace come with the growing power of a government to rely upon direct and honest application to the people, for the means required for its support. Declining freedom among the people, and war among the nations, are the companions of growing centralization and indirect taxation. How far the truth of this is proved by American experience, is seen in the facts, that, thirty years since, when the policy of the country tended towards the creation of domestic markets for the farmertowards increasing the value of labor and land- towards entire freedom of intercourse, abroad and at home, as a consequence of protection and towards the ultimate substitution of direct for indirect taxation- the public expenditures but little exceeded $10,000,000. Fleets and armies then required only $6,000,000

peace with all nations, as a consequence of respect for the rights of all, being then the habitual condition of the country. Ten years later-trade having, meantime, been adopted as the policy of the country- the expenditures for fleets and armies had been, already, tripled. Five years later, the policy of peace and commerce having, for the moment, been re-adopted, the expenditure for military purposes fell to $12,000,000. Since then trade having been, to all appearance, finally adopted as the policy of the country-the cost of army and navy has risen to $30,000,000; and the results are seen in a perpetual succession of foreign and domestic wars. The sister republic of Mexico has been invaded and dismembered. Cuba has been attempted. Greytown has been destroyed. Japan has been visited and threatened. Chinese forts have been destroyed. Indian tribes have been annihilated. Civil war has raged in Kansas, and vigilance committees have governed California. Preparatory to further wars, expeditions have been fitted out for the exploration of African and South American rivers, while expensive missions have been sent to Persia, China, and other countries.

Concentration would, at an expense of less than two millions of dollars, render the Ohio and Mississippi navigable throughout the year thus relieving the country of an annual tax of none so much abounding in rash and unfounded assertions, as those which emanated from the author of this Report-none displaying a more thorough incapacity for comprehending the importance, to the farmer, of being relieved from the grinding and oppressive tax of transportation.

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twenty millions. Centralization neglects the rivers at home, that it may open up those abroad. Trade becomes, from year to year, more and more master of the country's fortunes; and hence it is, that while the highest judicial authority of the country decides that freedom is sectional and slavery national, the private trader employs his ships in the transportation of coolies, and the planter seeks the re-opening of the trade in negro men. Look where we may, the people become less free, as the trader grows in power.

§ 9. Concentration tending, as it does, towards the ultimate freedom of commerce, and the substitution of direct for indirect taxation, brings with it that application of the public revenues which looks to the general development of the potential energies of man and matter- thus placing those who are weak of arm on a level with the strong. Centralization, on the contrary, looking to obtaining indirectly the means of supplying fleets and armies, tends towards strengthening the already strong, at the expense of those who are weak. Massachusetts relies almost wholly on direct taxation; and therefore it is, that, while she expends little on her governor, she raises millions for the support of common schools. The Federal Government, on the contrary, having now adopted a system looking to the perpetual maintenance of indirect taxation, doubles the salaries of secretaries and ministers, at a time when the artisan finds a daily increasing difficulty of obtaining food and clothing for his children; and trading cities treble their expenditures, while pauperism advances with giant strides.*

Prussia pays her ministers of State 10,000 rix-dollars=$7500, and educates her people; but her policy tends towards commerce and direct taxation. England rewards chancellors and bishops by salaries of ten and twenty thousand pounds; but her policy tends towards trade and indirection. Generals are rewarded with estates whose cost is counted by hundreds of thousands, while the mass of the people can neither read nor write. India is required to pay her officials at a higher rate than almost any

The expenditures of New York city have risen, in seven years, from three to nine millions of dollars, and the fees of the city attorney have advanced, from the moderate amount at which they stood a few years since, to $71,296 for a single year!

'country of the world; while those who pay, perish for want of food and clothing. France taxes the poor man's salt, and requires his son to serve for years, at nominal wages—while enabling ministers, generals, and financiers, to accumulate enormous fortunes.

Turning, now, to the France of the last century, we find the same difference between the pays d'états and pays d'élection — those which had, and those which had not, retained the right of taxing themselves-that now are found in passing from those counties whose policy tends to the extension of commerce, to those in which it looks towards trade. In Languedoc, one of the former the taille bearing wholly on landed property-not only did every one know beforehand what he had to pay, but he had, also, the "right of demanding a comparison of his quota with that of any other resident of the parish he chose to select ""being," says M. de Tocqueville, "precisely the process that is now pursued."*

The effects of this were seen in the vast expenditures for works of public utility-the annual appropriations therefor, just prior to the Revolution, having been no less than 7,000,000 livres = $1,400,000. The central government being shocked at this large expenditure, the province pointed proudly to its roads, all of which had been made without resorting to the corvée, or system of forced labor, then usual throughout the kingdomadding, that, "if the king will grant permission, the estates will do yet more-improving the local roads, which affect so many other interests." "Further," said the memorialists, "the king need be at no expense for the establishment of workhouses in Languedoc, such as have been required in the rest of France. We ask no favors of the kind-the works of public utility we ourselves undertake, standing us in the stead of workhouses, and furnishing a remunerative demand for all our labor."†

Directly the reverse of this, was what was witnessed throughout most of the other provinces- the taille having there been "arbitrarily distributed and levied," and having "varied constantly with the fluctuations in the means of those who paid it." As a consequence of this, those provinces made no roads,

*L'Ancien Régime, chap. xii. Ibid, appendix. Ibid, chap. xii.