M THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA FROM THE LIBRARY OF PROFESSOR CARL COPPING PLEHN 1867-I945 t .it \ THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS AGRICULTURAL, MANUFACTURING, COMMERCIAL. By henry C. CAREY. PHILADELPHIA: HENRY CAREY BAIRD, INDUSTRIAL PUBLISHER, 406 WALNUT STREET. 1868. ACOnHBISO TO ACT 0» OOBORIS*. IH THE TEAR 18S2, BT MTRON FINCH. ».TEe FOR THE lOAN STACK GIFT PREFACE. HK'(b4 5b6 The tendency of the whole British system of political economy is to the production of discord among men and nations. It is based upon the Ricardo and Malthusian doc- trines of rent and population, which teach that men every where commence the work of cultivation on the rich soils of the earth, and that, when population is small, food is abundant ; but that as numbers increase, men are forced to resort to poorer soils, yielding steadily less and less in return to labor. As a necessary consequence of the increasing scarcity of fertile soils, it is held that with this diminishing return, the land-holder is enabled to take a larger proportion of the proceeds of labor, thus profiting at the cost of the laborer, and by reason of tl.e same causes which tend to the gradual subjugation of the latter to the will of his master. Here are, of course, lying at the very founda- tion of the system, discordant interests, and this discord is found in every succeed- ing portion of it. Over-population is held to be a result of a great law of nature, in virtue of which men grow in numbers fiister than can grow the food that is to nourish them ; and the poverty, vice, and crime that eveiy where exist, are regarded as necessary consequences of this great law, emanating from an all-wise, all-powerful, and all merci- ful Being. War, famine, and pestilence are regarded as means provided by that Being for restraining population within the limits of subsistence. Charity is regarded as almost a crime, because it tends to promote the gi'owth of population. The landlord excuses himself for taking large rents, on the ground that it is a necessary consequence of the natural tendency of man to increase in numbers with too great rapidity. The stock- holder of the East India Company, who luxuriates upon the produce of his stock, regards it as one of the natural consequences of this great law that he should receive, as rent, so large a portion of the proceeds of labor applied to cultivation, as to leave to the poor cultivator but half a dollar per month out of which to supply himself and his family with food, raiment, aiid shelter ; and excuses himself to his conscience, on the ground that it is a necessary result of great natural laws. Capital cannot become more productive, except at the cost of labor ; nor can wages rise, except at the cost of capital. Among the consequences of this great law of discords, promulgated by Malthus and Ricaido, is found the idea that, if men would prosper, they must live ajjart from each other. The rich lands of England are, as it is said, already occupied, and those who would find rich lands must fly to America or to Australia, there to produce food and raw materials with which to supply the market of England ; and thus it is that that country seeks to establish a system of commercial centralization, that is — as was so justly said, seventy years since, by Adam Smith — a manifest violation of "the most sacred rights of mankind." That great man was fully posses.«ed of the fact that, if the farmer or planter would flourish, he must bring the consumer to his side ; and that if the artisan would 776 IV PREFACE. flourish, he must seek to locate himself in the place where the raw materials were grown, iv.u\ aid the farmer by converting them into the forms fitting them for the use of men, and thus facilitating their transportation to distant lands. He saw well, that when men ciime thus together, there arose a general harmony of interests, each profiting his neigh- bor, and profiting by tliat neighbor's success, whereas the tendency of commercial cen- tralization was toward poverty and discord, abroad and at home. The object of pro- tection among ourselves is that of aiding the farmers in the effort to bring consumers to their sides, and thus to carry into effect the system advocated by the great author of TIte Wealth of Nations, wliile aiding in the annihilation «f a system that has ruined Iieland, India, Portugal, Turkey, and all other countries subject to it; and the object of the following chapters is that of showing why it is that protection is needed ; how it operates in promoting the prosperity of, and harmony among, the various portions of society ; and how certain it is that the true, the profitable, and the onlt means of ATTAINING PERFECT FREEDOM OF TRADE, is to be fouud iu that efficient protection which shall fully and completely carry out the doctrine of Dr. Smith, in bringing the loom and the anvil to take their natural places by the side of the plough and the harrow. INDEX. Adtantage of bringing machinery to the cot- ton, page 145. African cotton, attempts to raise, 174. Agricultural labour in England, 155. Americans responsible for the wars of Eng- land, 197. Baltimore and Ohio railroad tolls, 24. and Ohio railroad tolls, diagram of, 35. Brazil, supply of cotton from, 170. British commerce ruinous to Ireland and In- dia, 71. efforts to underwork all other nations, 54. imports and exports, 56. legislation upon imports and exports, 5.3. slave history disgraceful, 169. system and protection contrasted, 72. causes poverty in the producer, 101. endeavours to maintain monopoly of machinery, 101. Bullion and specie should be included in Ta- riff tables, 7. Canada and Cuba, objections to their annexa- tion, 62. form of its commerce, 99. ruined by free trade, 99. Canadian desire for annexation, 62. desire for annexation, its cause, 99. exports, 91. independence would stop immigration in the United States, 73. produce sent to England, 22. Capital and labour wasted in transportation, 146. who suffers by its waste, 192. Capitalist, how affected by protection, 141. small, ruined by fluctuations occasioned by the British system, 199. Cheap labour, 130. China, manufacture of, 26. Chinese system of trade, 134. Clothing, power to obtain, in exchange for labour, 16, 40. power to obtain, increases under pro- tection, 16. price of, is really very high, 111. Coal, consumption of, 13, 33. rate of its consumption under the Tariff of 1828, 85. price of, reduced with increased pro- duction, 14. production and consumption of, in- crease and diminish together, 14. Coffee, consumption of, 28, 38. abolition of duties on, 30. Colonial system presents combination of ac- tion, 95. system depresses the price of cotton, 99. manufactures, object of prohibiting, 131. Colonies of England, their consumption of cot- ton, 110. Colonization, British system of, 64. Combination diminished by emigration, 94. impossible in a state of poverty, 87. increases population, 88. increases value of labour, 86. needed in this country, 52. of labour, strikes, Ac, 161. Commercial policy, review of our, 10. Commerce decreases under free trade, 73. definition of. 67. increases under protection, 72. internal, 23. power to maintain external, 39. power to maintain internal, 39. tends to produce equality of condition, 153. Communism among na.tions produced by po- licy of England, 154. Compromise Act, 3. .'... its operation, 5. Concentration needed to make labour produc- tive, 89. Condition of English people, 154. , of man improved by increase of pro- ductive power, 78. Consumer should live near the farmer, 96. Consumption equals production, 45. grows with power of j)roduction, 23. of foreign products decreases under free trade, 42. not arrested by high prices, 116. power of, decreases as the producers are more and more distant from mar- ket, 87. Conversion and exchange, doctrine of, 46. how maintained in England, 63. increases man's necessities, and di- minishes his powers, ".^Z. tends to destroy labour and capital, 150. Cottfm, comparative consumption of, under pro- tection and free trade, 110, 114. comparative prices of crop and cotton goods in Liverpool, from 1843 U 1847, 137. decrease in its cultivation, 103. decrease in Its price, 114. diagram of imports of foreign, 36. INDEX. Cotton, does not increase in supply for want of a market, 121. fluctuations in price of. 116. production of tiie world, 59. Prussian imports of, before the ZoUve- rein, 107. return for, consumed in England, 58. statement of crop and consumption of American, 106. speculation in India a failure, 111. supply of, to Britain falling off, 179. trade between the United States and England, 114. weekly consumption of, in Great Bri- tain, 175. where the best is raised, 105. goods, 110. goods and yam exported to India from England," 103. and twist, prices from 1844 to 1848, 117. consumption of, 15, 33. consumption of, under free trade, and under protection, 16. dearest when cotton is lowest, 117. import of, 15. imported into Canada from England, 99. Credit, public, 31, 39. Cultivator, his gradual operations with the land, 123. Currency, how affected by protection, 185. Debt created by importations, 26. foreign, 37. jmblic, 31, 38. Dependence on England a cause of non-eon- sumption of iron, S3. Depopulation, present tendency to, 20. diagram of, 34. Disasters of 1836 to 1842, how produced, 188. present tendency to, 189. Duties of the United States, 227. Duty affects amount of importation slightly. Earth, a machine to be fashioned to man's purposes, 123. the only producer, 124. Earthenware manufacture, 26. East Indies, British supply of cotton from, 176. Effects of putting a factory or furnace in ope- ration, 43. of establishing manufactures in the South, 50. Egypt, British supply of cotton from, 170. Emigration from cotton states, 121. from Eastern states, 87. should be stopped, 121. westward, 20, 87. England in distress by reason of the dispro- portion of consumers to producers, 65. condition of inhabitants of, 109, 154. fixes the price of products of the far- mer, 141. real wealth of, 63. result of dependence on, 60. English colonies continually want annexation, 113. consumers and producers, 95. consumption of cotton, 107. consumption of cotton cloth, 117. English free trade disastrous to other nations, 132. market for our cotton does not grow with its production, 180. school, its doctrines, 29. teaching of its opponents, 30. Exchanges, how affected by protection, 193. Exchangers, influence on pauperism, 81. producers make sacrifices to the, 101. Expenditure, public, 30, 38. ExporUtion of food, 81, 92. Exports, value of, 36. Farmer can get most clothing for his produce when the power of producing cloth is greatest, 21. exhausted by free trade, 73. how he may get the highest prices in foreign markets, 98. profit by emigration only under pro- tection, 98. sells in the cheapest market, and buys in the dearest, 81. suffers by non-production of iron, 80. Flax, manufacture of, 26, 37. Flour consumed in English cotton factories,lll. Food, product, export, and import of, 21. power to obtain in exchange for la- bour, 40. why supply of, increases faster than the demand, 97. why scarce in England, 57. Freedom of man increases with wealth and population, 162. Free trade among states, 3. approach to, creates debt, 23. approach to, is progress downward, 160. based on cheap labour, 130. doctrines about rights of man, 128. impoverishes the masses, 74. real, beneficial to all, 135. results, if introduced in the United States, 132. Freights should be included in valuation of exports, 8. French consumption of cotton, 122. productions, 139. productions imported into the United States, 27, 37. Friendship unknown in trade, 205. Fuel necessary to obtain iron, 78. Gibraltar, its use, 112. God and silver contribute little to man's ne- cessities, 190. Government, how affected by protection, 221. Grain dearer in coal regions than in PhUadel- phia, 98. price of, would increase under protec- tion, 98. production of, 21, 35. Harmony of interests, 41. perfect throughout the whole union, 1 17. between planter, manufacturer, and ship-owner, 119. between land-owners and labourers of the world, 131. Home markets make highest prices, 16. IiiMieRATioN affected slowly by change in Ta- riff, 19. INDEX. Immigration decreases under free trade, 28. dia<;rara of, 34. diminishing at present, 20. effect on consumption, 130. effect on price of wheat, 96. should he encouraged, 121. stops with decreased combination of action, 94. results of, had it continued at the same rate as in 1834, 115. table of, 17. would raise price of man abroad, 116. Importation diminishes under free trade, 28. means of, 90. of men and merchandise, 90. of men reduces shipping prices, 93. of labour and iron, 81. under different tariffs, 9. Independence of England, advantages of, 97. India, commerce of, 103. attempts to raise cotton in, 103, 117, 133. commerce of, 103. cotton exported from, to England, 104. ruined by dependence on England, 61, 103. Individual credit, how affected by protection, 213. Intellectual condition of man, how affected by protection, 209. Internal commerce, 23. Ireland, exports of, 91. importation of cotton into, 109. ruined by dependence on England, 61, 103. Iron, abounding in America, 78. associated with production, 125. chief constituent "f machinery, 78. consumption of, 12, 32, 79. cost of, in labour, 12. domestic production of, 11. fluctuation in price of, 82. foundation of civilization, 78. non-production of, injures the producer of food, 80. power of importing, greatest under protection, 13. production of, quadrupled by protec- tion, 83. quantity of, imported since 1821, 10, 11. Labour and capital wasted in transportation, 149. best rewarded under protection, 28. gives value to land, 124. has smallest return where machinery of transportation is most needed, 153. power of, to obtain food, clothing, and the aid of machinery, 40. saved in New England, 48. tends to produce equality of condition, 155. wasted in the Southern states, 49. Labourer, how affected by protection, 151. Labourers' common interest, 130. Lake tonnage, 24, 36. Land, a great saving fund, acquiring value from labour, 122. effect of sales of, on immigration, 20. more valuable in the United States I than in Canada, 129. I Land, public, 220. quantity of, sold, 20. value of, depends on cost of transporta- tion, 127. Land-owners in England, 129. in India, Ireland, Ac, 129. in Parliament, 132. remedy for their grievances, 130. Lead, consumption of, 31. production of, 18. Linens, importation of, 27. Louisville and Portland canal, trade on, 35. Machinery, increased facility of procuring, causes increased production of food, 21. must be brought to the cotton, 144. object of, 78. of three kinds, 151. power to obtain in aid of labour, 40. required to render labour productiye, 151. Man the most valuable commodity, 94. Manufacture of small articles in the West, 51. Manufacturer's true interest, 136. Markets, the best for products are those made at home, 45, 139. wanted for producers, 122. Marriage regarded as a luxury in Europe, 128. Merchants are agents of the producers, 80. get the benefit of the producer's toil, 81. Mission, true, of the United States, 227. Monopoly of machinery cause of the planter's poverty, 76. of machinery, effects of abolishing the, 136. Morality, how affected by protection, 202. Nation, how affected by protection, 223. National credit, how affected by protection, 218. Necessity for producers and consumers to live near each other, 96. New England, wages in, will rise when they increase in the South and West, 153. New Orleans, trade of, 25. diagram of produce received at, 36. New York canal tolls, 24, 35. diagram of houses built in, 36. growth of, 25. Non-production of iron injures the producer of food, 80. Ore and fuel in Ohio and the West, 78. Over-population, general pretext for the evils of a vicious system, 65. wrongly complained of in Europe, 129. Over-production and under-consumption, 103. Pauperism increases in free-trade countries, 128. results from th« English colonial sys- tem, 195. Pennsylvania canal tolls, 24, 35. Philadelphia, growth of, 25. Philadelphia, ratio of growth of, to the popu- lation of the Union, 36. Planters' advantages, if possessing their own machinery, 143. advantage to, arising from the an- nexation of Canada^ 99. INDEX. Planters benefited hy consumption of cotton at home, 116. , impoverished by the speculations of exchangers. 7(5. need machinery to convert their own crops, 1.38. oppose their own interests, 169. tobacco and cotton, relative returns for their products, 119. true polity to break down English mo- nopoly of machinery, and bring Eng- lish machinery to the cotton field, 185. why they receive small returns for their capital, 143. Population, diagram of, 3.3. of Philadelphia, 36. Portugal, causes of its poverty, 112. Powers of man increase as his necessities diminish, 192. Prices highest when a nation buys and sells at home, 14. Producer's returns in cotton cloth, 112. Production of food and iron unequal, 70. relation of, to commerce, 68. Productive power, diminution of, brings dis- cord and internal disorder, 194. Proportion of producers to consumers in Eng- land, 55. Protection, how it affects morals, 202. public credit, 217. revenueandexpenditure, 42, 219. the capitalist, 141. consumption of cotton, 108. currency, 185. exchanges, 198. friends of peace, 193. government, 221. growth of new states, 88. intellectual condition, 209. nation, 223. political condition, 213. power to import, 42. price of cotton. 114. slave and his master, 161. value of labour, 66. woman, 200. increases immigration and the number of consumers, 98. raises the value of man, 130. raises the value of land, 133. reduces prices, and increases the power of consumption, 41. saves cost of transportation, 141. why required, 51. Public credit, 31, 38. debt, 31, 38. expenditure, 30, 38. Railroads do not lessen the number of horses, 127. increase production, 127. Return freights, 93. Returns for products, 43. Revenue from customs, diagram, 38. from imports, 28. decreases under free trade, 28. how afi"ected by different tariffs, 29. how aflFected by protection, 219. Road from the Mississippi to the Pacific, 90. to be productive, must go through rich countries, 89. Rothschild, his system of accumulating wealth, 75. Russia wastes food for want of a market, 131. Russian exports, 91. system of commerce, 91. Saving-funds found in mills furnaces, and coal mines, 46. Settlers' life and experience, 126. Silver and gold contribute little to man's ne- cessities, 191. Ship-owner's true interest, 136. Shipping affected slowly by changes in tariff, 19. built to replace vessels sent to Califor- nia, 19. built, tables of, 19, 34. increases with protection, 90. Slavery agitation, bow best ended, 165. would be abolished by making a mar- ket on the land in the South, 164. Slave-history of England disgraceful to that nation, 169. Slaves have been well kept in the United States, 169. Northern men cannot afibrd to raise, 163. Smuggling as regarded by British authorities, 112. Soils, poorest, first cultivated, 29. South Carolina, her inability to produce cotton in competition with her neighbours, 166. Specie and bullion should be included in Ta- rifi' tables, 7. imported and exported, 1829 to 1849, 9. Steamboat tonnage, 24, 34. Sugar, production, importatiom, and consump- tion of, 23, 35, 120. returns for, 120. Swords and muskets hinder returns to labour, 193. Tariffs, outline history of, 3. merits of, require time for develop ment, 6. principal features of that of 1816, 5. 1824, 5. 1828,5. 1832,5. 1833,5. 1842, 5. 1846,5. of 1846, effects of maintaining it, 67. 1828, effects that would have resulted from its continuance, 115. Taxation of the sugar planter, 76. increased by pauperism, 76. Tea, abolition of duty on, 30. consumption of, 28, 37. Tendency to produce only the finest cotton fabrics in England, 179. Tolls on internal commerce, 24, 35. Tonnase, increase and diminution of, 19. ."lake, 24, 36. steamboat 24, 36. Tobacco, consumption of, 119. Tobacco trade, 118. Trade of New Orleans, 24. New York, 25. PhUadelphia, 25. INDEX. Trading with a poor popple tends to rodnoe our wages to a level with theirs, 77. Transportation, costs of, reduce the value of land, 127. capital emploj'ed in, 143. United States, British supply of cotton from the, 171. exports of cotton from, to England, 106. exports of grain from, to England. 95. importation of men into the, 92. present policy of the, 134. receipts of cloth and iron from Eng- land, 113. true mission of the, 227. wealth of, in land, coal, and metals, 128. Union between producers and consumers most profitable when made at home, 51. Value of exports, 25. of imports, 10. Variations in prices caused by dependence on England, 83. Wages, fall under free trade, 28. of labourers in England, 93. of labourers in Ireland, 94. process of reducing, 75. War, causes of recent, 193. on the labour and capital of the world prepared in England, 95. on what the power to make it depends, 194. Wars of England, Americans responsible for the, 197. Western steamboat tonnage, 30. Woman, how protection affects, 200. Wool trade, 102. Woollens, consumption of, 33. importations of, 16, 37. ZoLLVEREiN, cotton trade flourishing under its auspices, 107. imports into Prussia before and after its formation, 107. THi: HARMONY OF INTERESTS: AGRICULTURAL, MANUFACTURING, AND COMMERCIAL. Why is protection needed? Why cannot trade with foreign nations be carried on without the intervention of custom-house officers ? Why is it that that intervention should be needed to enable the loom and the anvil to take their natural places by the side of the plough and the harrow ? Such are the questions which have long occupied my mind, and to the consideration of which I now invite my readers. Of the advantage of perfect freedom of trade, theoretically considered, there could be no doubt. The benefit derived from such freedom in the intercourse of the several States, was obvious to all ; and it would certainly seem that the same system so extended as to include the commerce with the various states and kingdoms of the world could not fail to be attended with similar results. Nevertheless, every attempt at so doing had failed. The low duties on most articles of merchandise in the period between 1816 and 1827, had produced a state of things which induced the establishment of the first really protective tariff, that of 1828, The approach to almost per- fect freedom of trade in 1840, produced a political revolution, and a similar but more moderate measure, led to the revolution of last year. These were curious facts, and such as were deserving of careful examination. It may be assumed as an universal truth, that every step made in the right direction will be attended with results so beneficial as to pave the way for further steps in the same direction, and that every one made in the wrong direction will be attended with disadvantageous results tending to produce a necessity for a retrograde movement. The compromise bill, in its final stages, was a near approach to perfect freedom of trade, the highest duty being only 20 per cent. Believing it to be a step in the right direction, one of the enthusiastic* advocates of perfect freedom of trade proposed, soon after its passage, that, commencing with 1842, there should be a further reduction of one percent, per annum for twenty years, at the end of which time all necessity for custom- houses would have disappeared. With the gradual operation of the earlie. stages of that bill there was, however, produced a state of depression so extraordinary as to lead to a political change before reaching its final stages, 3 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. and the duties had scarcely touched the point of 20 per cent, before they were raised to 80, 50, 60, or more, by the passage of the tariff of 1842. With the election of l!544, the friends of free trade were restored to power, and two years afterwards was passed the tariff of 1846 — the free-trade measure — in which the revenue duty on articles to be protected was fixed at thirty per cent. Here was a retrograde movement. Instead of passing from twenty downwards, we went up to thirty, and thus was furnished an admission that so near an approach to free trade with foreign nations as was to be found in twenty per cent, duties had not answered in practice. Since then, it has been admitted, even by the most decided free-trade advocates, that on certain commodities even thirty per cent, was too low, and within six months from the date of the passage of the act of 1846, its author pro- posed to increase a variety of articles to thirty-five and forty per cent.* Here was another retrograde movement. It is now admitted that there are other articles the duties on which require to be raised, and daily experience goes to prove that such must be the case, or we must abandon some of the most important branches of industry. The tendency is, therefore, altogether backward. Thirty per cent, duty is now regarded as almost perfect freedom of trade, and instead of proposing a further annual reduction, each year pro- duces a stronger disposition for a considerable increase. In all this, it is impossible to avoid seeing that there is great error somewhere, and almost equally impossible to avoid feeling a desire to understand why it is that the approaches towards freedom of trade with foreign nations have so frequently failed, and why it is that every strictly revenue tariff is higher than that which preceded it. With a view to satisfy myself in regard thereto, I have recently made the examination, before referred to, of our commercial policy during the last twenty-eight years, commencing with 1821, being the earliest in relation to which detailed statements have been published. Before commencing to lay before you the results obtained, it may be well to say a {e\\ words as to the merits claimed by the two parties for their respective systems. The one party insists that protection is "a war upon labour and capital," and that by compelling the apphcation of both to pursuits that would other- wise be unproductive, the amount of necessaries, comforts, and conveniences of life obtainable by the labourer is diminished. The other insists that hy protecting the labourer from competition with the ill-fed and worse-clothed workmen of Europe, the reward of labour will be increased. Each has thus his theory, and each is accustomed to furnish facts to prove its truth, and both can do so while limiting themselves to short periods of time, taking at some times years of small crops, and at others those of large ones, and thus it is that the incjuirer after truth is embarrassed.! No one has yet, to my knowledge, ever undertaken to examine all the facts during any long period of time, with a view to show what have been, under the various systenis, the powers of the labourer to command the necessaries and comforts of life. One or other of the systems is true, and that is true under which labour is most largely rewarded : that under which the labourer is enabled toccnsnm.e most largely of food, fuel, clothing,'and all other of those good things for the attainment of which men are willing- to labour. If, then, we can ascertain • the power of consumption at various periods, and the result be to show that it has invariably increased under one course of action, and as invariably diminished under another, it will be equivalent to a demonstration of the • Treasury Report, Feb. 1, 1S47. I A person employed in the preparation of covernment statistics inquired, on being asked to prepare some tables, what was to be the policy to be proved. "Why," said tlie ether, "could you prove both sides?" "Equally well,'' said he. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. truth of the one and the falsehood of the other. To accomphsh this, has been the object of the inquiry in which I have recently been engaged. It is necessary now to show what have been the distinguishing features of the several systems that have been in operation during the period to be examined. They are as follows : — First. The tariff of 1816 was a planters' and farmers' measure. Cotton and coarse cotton cKths were carefully protected. Iron itself was well pro- tected, but almost all manufactures of iron, the commodities for the pro- duction of which pig or bar iron could be used, were admitted at 20 per cent. Wool paid 15 per cent. Blankets and woollen and stuff goods paid 15 per cent., and finer goods 25 per cent., until 1819, after which they paid but 20 per cent. Spirits paid a heavy specific duty, for the benefit of the farmers ; but paper, hats, caps, manufactures of leather, types, and manu- factured articles generally, paid only from 20 to80 percent. Coal paid 5 cents per bushel, but the commodities in the manufacture of w^hich coal was to be used paid ad valorem duties. Protection was thus given to the coarse commodities that least required it, and refused to those for the production of which the coarser ones were to be used. As a matter of course, its pro- tective features were totally inoperative. Second. That of 1824, under which iron was, as before, well protected, but manufactures of iron, and of metals generally, were admitted at 25 per cent. Wool was raised to 20 per cent., to increase, by successive stages, until it reached 30 per cent. Coarse woollens wore fixed permanently at 25 per cent. Finer ones were to rise gradually until they reached S:}^ per cent. Carpets paid from 20 to 50 cents per square yard. Hams paid 3, and butter 5 cents per pound. Potatoes 10, oats 10, and wheat 25 cents per bushel ; while scythes, spades, shovels, and other things requisite for the raising of wheat and potatoes, paid 80 per cent. Spirits were carefully protected. Bolting cloths paid 15 per cent. Sail-duck, Osnaburgs, &c., 15 per cent. Cotton cloths paid 25 per cent., with a minimum of 30 cents per yard. The general features of this law did not vary materially from those of that of 1816, although protection was slightly increased. Third. The first tarifl^ thoroughly protective, and so intended to bo, was that of 1828. It continued until 1832, when was passed the first of two laws by which the whole policy of the country was changed. This series constitutes stage the Fourth. By the act of July 14, 1832, railroad iron was admitted free of duty. Axes, spades, (fee, as before, 30 per cent. Bar and pig iron were carefully protected, but a large portion of the commodities for which they were needed were thus admitted without duty, or at the same rate as under our present free-trade tanfT. Tea and cofllje were free. Silks paid 10 per cent. Wool was protected, but worsted stuff goods were admitted at 10 per cent. Cotton goods paid 25 percent., with minimums of 30 cents for plain, and 35 for prints. This continued in force until the following March, when was passed the Compromise Arl, under which linens, stuff goods, silks, and other articles were admitted free of duty, and one-tenth of the excess over 20 per cent, reduced from all other commodities, to take efl'ect December, 1833, with a further similar reduction every two years until 1841, when one-half of the remainino- surplus was to be reduced, and the other half in 1842, when no duty would exceed 20 per cent. Fifth. The protective tariff of 1842, which was followed by Sixth. The free trade tariff of 1846, now in existence. We have thus had six different systems, but the first and second differ '"mm each other so little that it is unnecessary to separate the years fiilling under them, whereas the early years of the Compromise differ so essentially THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. from the two latter that it is expedient to separate them. I shall therefore group the results as follows : — First. The tariffs of 1816 and 1824, ending with 1829. Second. That of 1828, commencing with October, 1829, and ending with the period at which the Compromise began to become operative, Oc- tober, 1834. Third. The Compromise, commencing with 1835 and ending with 1841. Fourth. The years 1842 and 1843, the period immediately preceding and following the passage of the act of 1842, being that of the strictly reve- nue tariff of 20 per cent. Fifth. The tariff of 1842, commencing June, 1843, and ending June. 1847. Sixth. That of 1846, commencing June, 1847, and coming down to the present time. It will be observed that I have placed the year 1829 in the first period, and 1834 in the second. It is not the passage of an act that produces change, but its practical operation, and the first year of the existence of a new system is but the sequel of that which is passing out. When pro- tection is given to the makers of cloth and iron, mills and furnaces are not built in a day, nor are they abandoned as soon l s protection is withdrawn. Had it been possible, I would have piirsued the same precise system with every period, but it was not. The act of 1842 came into operation on the first of September of that year, and in the following one the time for making up the Treasury accounts was changed to June 30, and therefore only the first ten months that followed its going into effect could be included under the previous period. That of 1846 did not come into effect until December 1, and therefore but the first seven months that followed could be included in the system of 1842. The law of 1842 was in existence four years and a quarter, but I could give it only four years, which works materially to its disadvantage, and to the advantage of that of 1846. In some cases even more than a year would be required to make an exact comparison of the working of the different systems. The immigration of one year is materially influenced, perhaps I might say determined, by the state of the labour-market of the previous year, and the change in that is at least a year subsequent to the passage of a law. Thus, if the tariff of 1842 tended to raise the compensation of the labourer, its effects would not be- come obvious until 1843, and it would not be until 1844 or even 1845, that an increase of immigration would take place. The price of labour was high in 1847-8, and we have a large amount of immigration in 1849. It is now falling, and the immigration of next year will probably be reduced. So likewise is it with the supply of grain. A diminution in the demand for labour in mines and furnaces in 1842 tended to increase emigration to the West. For the first year, 1843, those emigrants were consumers only. In the second, 1844, they had grain to sell, and prices fell. In the present year, the demand for labour in mines and furnaces, and in the erection of mills and furnaces, is diminished, and emigration to the West is increased, yet the effect of this on the supply and price of food may not, and probably will not become obvious until 1852. Your predecessor appears entirely to have overlooked this necessity for allowing time to permit new systems to develope themselves, and to affect the movements of the peojile. In his last report to Congress is given a comparative view of the receipts from customs in the last six months of the tariff of 1842, and the first six of that of 1846, by which it is shown that the one was twice as productive as the other, and yet very slight reflection would have sufficed to satisfy him that scarcely any portion of t^e difference THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. had resulted from the change of commercial policy indicated by the adoption of his tariff. The amount that could be imported and paid for was dependent on the state of affairs that had existed in the country during the previous year, nnd the passage of the law had scarcely even the slightest influence upon it. In the same way, the receipts from customs from September, 1842, to November, 184(i, are compared with those of 1847 and 1848, when it is well known that in 1842, under the Compromise, the imports had fallen so low that the government was compelled to send to Europe to endeavour to effect a loan for its support even in a time of profound peace. If a cause has right on its side, such erroneous views cannot be required to be pre- sented. In the tables that I shall now offer for consideration, I have pur- sued, as nearly as possible, a uniform course, commencing each period at the time at which the system might fairly be deemed to become operative, to wit : at the close of the fiscal year following the one in which the law was enacted. If error, then, exist at the commencement of the period, it will find its compensation at the close, and thus justice will be done to all. There still remain two other points in regard to these tables, to which I have to ask your attention. First. It is usual in almost all tables of import and export to exclude specie and bullion. This is wrong, and tends to produce error, and to pre- vent a proper understanding of the working of the system that may be under consideration. Gold and silver are commodities produced abroad, of which we consume large quantities, occasionally exporting the surplus ; and there i6 no reason whatever why they should not be treated precisely as are coffee, wines, brandy, and other foreign commodities. When they are im- ported they come in exchange for our products, and the sum of merchandise and specie imported is the value of our exports. When exported, they go in lieu of our products, and should be treated as foreign merchandise re- exported. By deducting them from the value of the merchandise imported we obtain the value of our domestic exports. Second. It is usual to affix to the commodities exported arbitrary prices, and thus to obtain their money value. These prices are fixed at the ports of shipment, and represent only what we ask for the commodities we have \o sell, not what ive get for them. They represent, too, the prices minus ihe earnings of the machinery employed in performing the work of trans- portation, which must then be guessed at. The consequence of all this is, that the tables published by the Treasury are totally worthless as guides to a proper understanding of the genera] course of trade. What is needed to obtain such an understanding is that the nation make out its accounts as it would do if it were a merchant, putting down not the price asked but the price received, and then balancing its books by ascertaining whether the year's business has increased or diminished its debts. The amount received for our exports constitutes their precise value, and to ascertain what is that amount we should take the value of merchandise imported, deducting there- from any debt contracted, or adding thereto any debt paid off, during the year. Thus, if the imports be $100,000,000, and the debt contracted by the transfer of stocks has been $10,000,000, the amount paid for by our ex- ports is only $90,000,000. On the contrary, if we have paid off that amount of debt, it should be added, and we should thus obtain $1 10,000,000 as the true value of the produce and merchandise exported. The freights are thus included. To carry this fully into practice in the followinor tables would be im- practicable, but it may be done in part. It is generally understood that the amount of American stocks, public and private, held in Europe in 184 1 exceeded $200,000,000, and there is reason to believe that they exceeded THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. by SI 70,000,000 the amount held in 'November, 1834, when the great stock speculation commenced.* By deducting this sum from the merchandise imported between the close of 1834 and the year 1841, we shall obtain the value of produce and merchandise exported. A part of this debt was ab sorbed in the years 1845, 1846, and 1847, while on the other hand new debts were created last year, and are now being created by the transmission of evidences of debt. To the imports of the three first named should be added the debt absorbed, and from those of the last two years should be deducted the debt created, and we should then obtain the actual amount paid for by produce and domestic merchandise exported, and by the ship- ping employed in the work of transportation. There are other and earlier years in which corrections might be required, but they are of trifling amount by comparison with those to which I have referred. In those years small loans were made, but it is probable that nearly as much was paid ofl^, except perhaps in 1825, in which a con- siderable amount of European debt was created. The amount, however, is so uncertain that I have not thought it worth while to make any cor- rection therefor; aUhough to do so might, and perhaps would, produce a sensible diminution in the value received for our produce exported prior to 1829, which would thereby be placed in a somewhat worse position than that in which I have represented it. With these remarks, I will now proceed to lay before you the results of my inquiries. In doing so, I will give every fact that appears to me likely to throw light on this important question, conceahng nothing. If, then, those who have arrived at conclusions different fron) mine, and are in pos- session of other facts, will put them together as I now do, we may by de- grees arrive at the truth. It is the great question for the nation, and it is time that it should be examined as a purely scientific, and not as a party or sectional one. CHAPTER SECOND. The average population of the Union in the several periods referred to, is thus estimated in the last Treasury Report :t First. For the years from that ending Dec. 31, 1821, to that of Dec. 31, 1829 11,247,000 Second. From Sept. 1829, to Sept. 1834$ .... 13,698,000 Third. From Sept. 1834, to Sept. 1841 .... 16,226,000 Fourth. From Sept. 1841, to June, 1843 . . . . 18,296,000 Fifth. From June, 1843, to June, 1847$ .... 19,771,000 Sixth. From June, 1847, to June, 1848 .... 21,000,000 Seventh. From June, 1848, to June, 1849 . . . 21,700,000 • Report of Select Committee on Banks of Issue: Evidence of Mr. I. Horsley Palmei, pa^e 106. f Page 68. i As these years are frequently referred to separately, I give their population, on the same authority: — 1829-'30 12,856,165 1843-44 19,034,332 1830-31 1.3,377,415 1844-'45 19,525,749 18.31 -'32 13,698,065 1845-'46 20,017,165 lS32-'33 14,119.915 1846-47 20,508,582 ] 833-' 34 14,541,165 1847-'48 21,000,000 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. The amount of foreig^n merchandise, specie included,' *^ retained in these several periods, has been as follows : — Total. Annual Average. I'r.hend. 1821 to 1829 , $508,000,000 50,400,000 !f!5-()0 1830 . . 55,500.000 4-32 1831 . . 81.000.000 6-10 1832 . . 75,-500,000 5-51 1833 . 88,000,000 6-20 1834 . 103,000,000 7-08 1835 to 1841 85*4,000*000 Deduct debt incurred 170.000,000 684,000,000 ,) 145,000,000 97,700,000 82,000,000 6-02 1842 to 1843(21 months,endinorJune30, 4-48 1843-'44 ... , 96,000,000 503 1844-'45 . 101,000,000 516 1845-'4(> . 1 10,000,000 Add debt and back in- terest paid 5,000,000 115,000,000 5-75 1846-'47 . 138,000,000 Do. . 5,000,000 143,000,000 7 1847-'48 . 13 1,000.000 Deduct debt incurred 8,000,000 121,600,000 5-88 1848-'49 . . . 134,700,000 Do. 22,000,000 112,700,000 5-19 The facts derivable from an examination of the above accounts are as follows : — First. That the amount received from foreign nations in exchange for our surplus products largel}' increased during the existence of the tariff' of 1828. Second. That the amount so received diminished greatly after the Com- promise Bill began to become operative. Third. That the amount so received from foreign nations was still fur- ther and largely diminished under the strictly revenue clauses of that bill, and that the tendency was downward when the system was changed. Fourth. That the amount so received increased rapidly under the tariff of 1842, attaining nearly the same point that had been reached under the tariff of 1828, and that in both cases the tendency was still upwards when the system was changed. Fifth. That the amount so received diminished in the year 1848. Seventh. That the amount of debt incurred in the last two years must tend to produce a further diminution in future ones. In establishing the scale of value of our exports, including the earnings of shipping, the following is the order to be pursued : — First, and lowest. The strictly revenue clauses of the Compromise Act. •The movement of specie in those periods was as follows:— 1821 to 1829, Excess export . $8,000,000 Deducted from the merchandise imported. 18.30 to 1834, Excess import . 25,000,000 Added thereto. 1835 to 1841, « " . 27,000,000 do. 1842 and 1843, " " . 20,000,000 do. 1844 to 1847, « « . 18,000,000 do. 1848, Excess export . . 9,000,000 Deducted. 1849. " import . . 2,000,000 Added. 10 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Second. The partially protective tariffs of 1816 and 1824. Third. The Compromise Act. Fourth. The tariff' of 1828. . Fifth, and highest. The tariff' of 1842. Thus far, the tariff" of 1846 stands below that of 1842, and the tendency is downward, but to what place in the scale it will descend can be deter- mined only after it shall have been some years in operation. CHAPTER THIRD. REVIEW OF THE COMMERCIAL POLICY OF THE LAST THIRTY YEARS. I NOW proceed to show in detail the consumption of various commo- dities, of foreign and domestic production. In doing so, it will be necessary in some cases, to arrive at a correct understanding, to make allowances similar to those above given : my object being that of showing what was the power to consume that was derived from the power to produce commodi- ties to be given in exchange for those which were consumed.* It would be proper to do this in all, but the effect would be to render the whole somewhat complicated, besides involving much labour. In giving the imports of the period from 1834 to 1841, they will always be accompanied with the mark of minus one-fifth, so as to show the amount consumed and paid for. In giving those of 1845-6 and 1846-7, they will, in some important cases, be accompanied with that of plus one-twentieth, so as to show the quantity of merchandise imported in a pre\nous period, and then paid for by the cancel- ling of certificates of debt. Those of 1848 will have the mark of viinus one-seventh, to show the amount paid fokr by the re-export of nine millions of foreign merchandise in the form of specie, and the export of eight millions of certificates of debt. Of the imports of the year ending in June last, amounting to $134,700,000, about $22,000,000, or one-sixth, were obtained in exchange for such certificates, and will be so marked. The total value of pig, bar and manufactured iron, of every description, imported into the Union, since 1821, has been as follows : — Years ending, Per head. Sept. 30, 1821 to 1829, average .... $.5,400,000 48 cents "1830 6,500,000 46 " « 1831 7,200,000 54 « "1832 . 8,800,000 64 « « 1833 7,700,000 55 " "1834 8,500,000 59 " " 1835 to 1841 . $10,000,000 — f . 8,000,000 49 " " 1842 to June 30, 1843, average . . 5,500,000 30 » June 30, 1844 5,700,000 30 « "1845 9,000,000 46 « 1846 . . . $5,830,000 -I- jijy . 6,120,000 31 " " 1847 ... 4- 2^5 • 9,000,000 44 « 1848 . . 12.500,000 — ^ . ]0,80U,000 50 « " 1849 . . . 13,833,004— i . 11,500,000 53 • See page 9. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 11 We see here, that the value imported and jMi'if for, hirgely increased from from 1830 to 1834, uudor the protective tariff of 1828 ; that it diminished considerably between 1834 and 1841, and that it reached the lowest point in 1841-2 and 1842-3. Thenceforward it rose, and the year 1846-7 shows an advance of about fifty per cent, from the lowest point. It is therefore ob- vious, that the power to pay for foreign iron increased under protection, and diminished with its withdrawal. I give now the quantity of various kinds of IRON imported : Pig, Old, Rolled, Hoop, Steel, Ham'd, Total, Pr h. tons. tons. tons. tons. tons. ton.s. tons. lbs. 1821 to 1829, average, 1550 — 5400 1500 1200 20,000 35,(550 7 1830, 1129 — 6449 1038 1223 30,093 40,532 7 1831, 6448 — 17,245 2532 1710 23,308 51,243 84 1832, 10,151 — 20,387* 2853 2146 38,150 73,087 12 1833, 9330 998 28,028* 3350 2131 36,129 79,961 13 1834, 11,113 1617 28,896* 2214 2431 31,784 78,055 12 1835 to 1841, average— ;J 8800 640 36,000* 2600 2150 24,000 74,190 10 1 S42-3, average, . . . 14,500 500 46,000f 2900 2400 14,750 81,050 10 1844, 26,050 5770 40,000 3600 2800 17,500 101,720 12 1845, 27,000 5800 51,000 5800 2800 18,176 110,576 13 1846, 24,000 2350 24,000 5040 5200 21,800 82,390 9 1847, 27,800 1850 40,000 6000 5400 15,300 96,350 lOf 1848, —4. 44,000 5700 70,000 8300 5850 17,000 150,850 16 1849, —^88,000 8000 145,000 10,000 9,000 260,000 27 The quantity paid for by our exports was thus almost doubled before the termination of the second period, in 1834; while it diminished under the compromise, and still further under the revenue system. As the tariff of 1842 came into activity, we find a rapid increase in the power to purchase, until the import became checked by the vast increase in the price abroad, and in the manufacture at home. DOiMESTIC PRODUCTION OF IRON. In 1810, the whole number of furnaces in the Union was 153, yielding 54,00C tons of metal, equal to 16 pounds per head of the population. 1821, the manufacture was in a state of ruin. 1828, the product had reached 130,000 tons, having little more than doubled in eighteen years. 1829, it was 142,000. Increase in one year, nearly ten per cent. 1830, " 165,000. Increase in two years, more than twenty-five per cent. 1831, « 191,000. Increase in Uiree years, about filty per cent. 1833, " 200,000, giving an increase in three years of above sixty percent. 1840, the quantity given by the censu« was 286,000, but a committee of the Home League, in New York, made it 347,700 tons. Taking the medium of the two, it would give about 315,000 tons, being an increase in eight years of fifty per cent. 1842, a large portion of the furnaces were closed, and the product had fallen to probably little more than 200,000, but certainly less than 230,000 tons. 1846, it was estimated, by the Secretary of the Treasury, at 765,000 tons, having trebled in four years. 1S47, it was supposed to have reached the ainoimt of not less than 800,000 tons. 1848, it became t^tationary. 1849, many furnaces being already closed, the production of the present year cannot be estimated above 650,000 tons ; but, from the accumulation of stock and the difficulty of selling it, it is obvious that the diminution next year will be greater. Railroad iron free of duty. ■{• Duty re-imposed. 12 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Domestic product. Per head. Import. Total consusiptlott Per head. 1821 to 1829, average, . 90,000 18 7 25 1830, 165,000 29 7 36 1831, 191,000 33 8| 41| 1832, 210,000 35 12 47 1833, 210,000* 33 13 46 1834, 210,000* 33 12 45 1835 to 1841, average, .250,000 35 11 46 1842-1843, average, 230,000 28 10 38 1844, 380,000 45 12 57 1845, 500,000 58 13 71 1S46, 765,000 86 9 95 1847, 800,000 88 lOf 98| 1848, 800,000 86 19 105 Deduct from this the quantity imported in exchange for certi- ficates of debt, and therefore remaining to be paid for at a future time, ......... 3 There vrill remain 102 If now we further deduct from this the accumulation of stock on hand, we shall find the consumption not exceeding that of the preceding year, say ... ..... 98| 1849, 650,000 67 32 99 The value imported in this period is $13,800,000, and the amount of debt incurred is g22,000,000, chiefly for this iron. The quantity on hand is variously estimated between 250 and 300 thousand tons. Taking the former, the amount per head would be 26 Which being deducted, would leave the consumption at . — 73 From 1821 to 1829, the cost of iron, in labour, was high, as is shown in the fact that the consumption was but twenty-five pounds per head. In 1832, it had risen to 47 pounds ; but, railroad iron being then freed from duty, the consumption of the two following years fell off, indicating an increased difiiculty of obtaining it. Thence to 1841, the average power of consumption appears to have remained almost perfectly stationary ; but, in the two following years, we find it receding rapidly. As the tariff of 1842 comes into operation, there is a rapid increase in the power of consumption, indi- cating a diminution in the amount of labour required for its purchase ; and the year 1846-7 shows it attaining a point far higher than ever before known, being almost 100 pounds per head. With the year 1847-8, the domestic production declined in its ratio to population, and the import increased ; but the total quantity in market was very little greater than in the previous year, yet the close of that year showed an accumulation of stock on hand. In 1849 we find a rapid increase of import and diminution of production, yet the total quantity brought to market is less per head than in 1846-7, and of that there is already so vast an accumulation that the seaports are filled with it, and the stock on hand at the furnaces is such, that many will be forced to stop work, as numbers have already done.f It is obvious that the difiiculty * Railroad iron, free of duty. + Feiinsylvania is the great iron-producing State of the Union, and we may form some idea of the accumulation of stoiik, or the diminution of production, there, from .he following facts. The pig iron sent to market by the one route of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, from die opening of navigation to the first of September, 1848, amounted to 24,00(.' tons ; whereas, in the same period of 1849, it fell to little over 12,OiJ0 tons, and the bar iron from 5000 to 1250 tons. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 13 of obtaining iron is increasing, and that the consumption is rapidly diminish- ing, with a tendency to still further diminution. The important fticts to be derived from this examination are — first, the small increase of importation that results, even temporarily, from the abo- lition of the duty. During the period from 1830 to 1832, railroad iron paid duty, and yet the importation trebled in that time, and the last year was far the greatest of the throe. For nine years after, it was totally free from duty ; and, although much of that which was imported for railroads is said to have been used for other purposes, the increase averages but seventy per cent. By the tariff of 1841,* railroad iron was rendered subject to duty, and the import of rolled iron in 1842 and 1843 was 46,000 tons, being two-thii-ds more than was imported free of duty in 1834. Second. That, under the protective tariff of 1828, the total consumption, per head, increased, in four years, fifty per cent. That, under the system which prevailed from 1832 to 1842-3, consumption was almost stationary, and was probabl}"^ less per head than it had been at the commencement of the period. That, under the tariff of 1842, the average consumption in- creased in the first year from thirty-nine to fifty-seven pounds, and that, in 1846 and 1847, it attained the height of almost one hundred pounds per head, exceeding by 150 per cent, the consumption of the free trade period of 1842-3. If, now, we look at the single article of railroad iron, we find similar results. Up to 1842, not a single ton of it had ever been made in this country, and yet the average consumption of rolled iron, of every description, in the ten years from 1832 to 1842, free of duty as it was, Vias but about 36,000 tons. Commenced only in 1843, the manufacture of railroad bars in 1845 had already reached about 50,000 tons, and, in 1847, it had attained nearly 100,000 tons, and yet the average import of rolled iron for the four years was nearly as great as before. The domestic production has now fallen almost to nothing, and yet the import has been only 174,000, of which, it is said, there is now on hand a supply adequate to meet the demand, such as it is at present, for two years to come. The questions to be settled are — Which is the system under which iron is most cheaply furnished ? Which is the one under which it is most readily obtained by those who desire to use it ? If free-trade be the one, then the power to import, under it, ought to grow more rapidly than the power to produce diminishes ; but we see here that the power to import diminishes with the power to produce, and grows with the growth of the power of pro- duction, being greatest under protection. COAL. Anthracite. Foreign. Total. Consumption per Tons. Tons. Tons. 1000 of populat'n 1821 to 1829, average, 37,000 30,000 67,000 (5 tons. 1830, 142,000 54,000 196,000 15 1831, 216,000 34,000 250,000 19 1832, 318,000 66,000 384,000 28 1833, 395,000 85,000 480,000 34 1834, 451,000 67,000 518,000 35 1835 to 1836, . . . 671,000 78,000 749,000 60 1837 881,000 140,000 1,021.000 64 1838 to 1841, . . . 850,000 145,000 995,000 58 1842, 1,108,000 141,000 1,249,000 69 * This was a provisional tariff, haviii<; for its soie object the increase of revenue, and was limited to alterations in a few articles. 14 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Anthracite. Foreign. Total. Consumption per Tons. Tons. Tons. WOO of populat'n. 1843, 1,312,000 55,000 1,367,000 74 1844, 1,631.000 87,000 1,718,000 90 1845, 2,023,000 86,000 2,109,000 108 1846 2,343,000 156,000 2,499,000 125 1847, 2,982,000 148,000 3,130,000 152 1848, 3,089,000 196,000 3,285,000 156 1849 3,200,000 200,000 3,400,000 156 In this ease, it has been necessary to separate the years 1842 and 1843, because of the whole of the latter coming within the action of the tariff of 1842,* the account of the domestic production being made up to the close, instead of the middle of the year, as in the case of imports. The facts that here present themselves are worthy of careftd consideration. When we produced little coal, we imported little, the total consumption being only six tons per thousand of the population. As the production grew, the import grew, and thus, in 1846 and 1847, when we produced eighty times as much as in the period from 1821 to 1829, we imported five times more. From 1829 to 1834, and thence to 1837, the increase of consumption was rapid. Thence to 1841, it diminished ten per cent. In 1842, it was scarcely higher than it had been five years before. In the five years which followed, it rose from 69 to 152 tons, showing a rapid diminution in the quantity of labour required to be given in exchange for it. In 1848, under the action of the tariff of 1846, the production became almost stationary, and the diminished power of consumption is shown in the fact that although the quantity sent to market maintains the same ratio to population, much of it is sold at a loss to the producer. With every step in the growth of the home production of coal, the money price has steadily diminished. That of a ton of anthracite in 1826, in Philadelphia, was six, eight, and sometimes ten dollars, and yet the whole import was only 970,000 bushels, or about 30,000 tons. In 1846, the price of anthracite was about four dollars, and yet the import was 156,000 tons. It would appear from this, that when a nation is capable of supplying itself, other nations, desiring to sell, must come to them and sell at the lowest price, and the consumption is large; but when it cannot supply itself, it must go abroad to seek supplies, and pay the highest price, and then con- sumption is small. Applying this to iron, we find that when we had to seek abroad for nearly all our supply, it sold at prices twice or thrice as great as those at which it is now obtained. In 1846 and 1847, notwithstanding the vast increase in the supply of coal, so great was the consumption that we had to go abroad to make up the deficiency, and to pay the high prices which our own demand largely tended to produce, a state of things which could not have happened had we been jirepared to supply the whole demand. It remains to be seen whether the converse of this proposition may not be true, to wit, that when a nation makes a market at home for nearly all its products, other nations have to come and seek what they require, and pay the highest price ; and that, when it does not make a market at home, markets must be sought abroad, and then sales must be made at the lowest prices. If both of these be true, it would follow that the way to sell at the highest prices and buy at the lowest is to buy and sell at home. ^ * It came into action on the 30th of August of that year. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 15 IMPORT OF COTTON MANUFACTURE. Years ending September 30, 1821 to 1829, average, $9,454,000 1830,..^ 7,8G2,000 1831 16,090,000 1832, 10,399,000 " 1833, 7,660,000 1834, 10,145,000 1835 to 1841, 12,000 — |... 9,600,000 1842 to June 30, 1843, average, 7,184,000 June 30, 1844, '. 13,641,000 1845, 13,863,000 '« 1846, 13,600,000 1847, 16,071,000 1848 $18,412,000 — f.. 15,582,000 1849, 15,180,000 — f.. 12,650,000 Ter head. 84 ctB. 61 1'21 76 54 70 59 39 72 71 67. V 78" 74 56 The numberof yards of cloth imported in 10 years is thus given. I have been unable to complete this table, or it should be given in full. I give all I have met with : 1831, 68,577,000 1835, 53,974,000 1836, 56,931,000 1837, 23,774,000 1838, 20,240,000 1839, 42,418,000 1840, 20,011,000 1842-3, 8,936,000 1844-5, 84,500,000 1845-6, 36,800,000 The differences here appear much more striking tuan in the table above. The diminution of consumption under the free-trade system is very regular, and the increase under protection nearly as much so. Owing to the variety of cotton goods imported, it is difficult to estimate the weight of cotton contained in them ; but, in the following table, I have made a rude estimate, with a view to show the growth of domestic con- sumption. It must be borne in mind that a large portion of the foreign commodities are of the finer and more costly descriptions, and that the weight is therefore small when compared with the value. Taken by Northern Crop of manufacturers, manufactur's. 1 825-6 to 1 829-30, average, bales 11 0, 000 1830-31, 182,000 1831-32, 173,000 • 1832-33, 194,000 1833-34, 196,000 1834-35, 216,000 1835-36, to 1841-42, average, ... 263,000 1842-43, 325,000 1843-44 347,000 1844-4.5, 389,000 1845-46, 423,000 1846-47, 428,000 1847-48, 531,000 1848-49 518,000 Taken by Per head, Southern domes- Per head. Total, foreign, p. head. 4 lbs. Ulbs. 51- 30,000 40,000 75,000 100,000 "A H 6J n 6f 6^ 7 7f io| 10| 13J 12J 16 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. In estimating the domestic consumption, I have throughout taken the bale at four hundred pounds, although aware that there has been a gradual increase of the weight. This change would be important to be considered, if it were my object to compare 1847 with the distant year 1831 ; but it is unimportant when the object in view is the comparison of years which are near together, as is the fact. The results in this case correspond almost precisely with those obtained from the examination of iron and coal. The home consumption of the crop of 1834-5, per head, was almost fifty per cent, greater than the average of previous years, while the import remained almost undisturbed. Under the Coinpromise, consumption appears to have remained almost perfectly sta- tionary, the increase of domestic production being compensated by diminished importation. In 1842—3, the consumption per head was scarcely greater than it had been eight years before, when it should have doubled. With the operation of the tariff of 1842, we find the consumption of domestic products 75 per cent, greater, while the import is also almost doubled. It would appear obvious, that the power to obtain clothing in return for labour increased in both protective periods, and diminished with the approach to free trade. With 1848-9, the demand for Northern manufactures dimi- nished; and, as many mills are now closed that were at work but a few months since,* there is reason to believe that the power to obtain clothing in return for labour is in a course of gradual diminution. A portion of the cotton worked up at home has been exported, and was therefore not consumed at home. To have made allowance for this would have made the table very complicated, and it did not appear to be necessary, as the proportions were well preserved, having been about a million of dollars when the home consumption was 100,000 bales, two millions when it rose to 200,000, three millions out of 300,000, and five millions out of 500,000 bales. WOOL. IMPORT OF WOOLLENS. Years ending Per head. September 30, 1821 to 1829, average, . . $8,900,000 79 centa 1830, 5,766,000 45 1831, 12,627,000 95 1832 9,992,000 75 1833, 13,262,000 93 1834, 11,879,000 82 1835tol841,av.,$13,950,000—i 11,160,000 69 1842 to June 30, 1843, . . 6,300,000 34 June 30, 1844 9,475,000 50 1845, 10,666,000 55 1846, 10,089,000 50 1847, 10,570,000 51 1848, . . $15,230,000—4 13,000,000 02 1849, . . 13,704,000 — ^ 11,400,000 53 • Within the last six months there have been been many failures among those engageil in the business; and, in these cases, the mills are not only closed, but likely so to rema'ir.. The import into Cincinnati may be taken as evidence of the course of affairs in t}:e West, and here we have the same result: 1846-7, 12,528 bales. 1847-8, 13,476 1848-9, 9,058 We see, thus, that notwithstanding the extreme lowness of price, the consumption ha* diminished. THE HAR!\rONY OF INTERESTS. 1' Prioi to the passage of the tariff of 1824, the woollen manufacture was in a very depressed condition; and, in 1825, the number of sheep was only fourteen millions,* producing about thirty-five millions of pounds of wool. Therueforward the number increased, and the crop of 1829, 1830 and 1831, was estimated at fifty millions of pounds, the produce of twenty mil- lions of sheep. At the close of 1834, there had been a further increase,* but to what extent we are not informed; but the value of the woollen manufacture was estimated at 05 millions of dollars against 40 millions in 1831. In 1840, the census returns show but 19,311,000, the number having diminished while the population had largely increased. The depres- sion of 1841-2 was accompanied by the sacrifice of sheep to a considerable extent; yet so rapid was the subsecjueut change, that the number, in 1845, was estimated at twenty-five millions,f and in 1848 at twenty-eight millions. Ohio had, in 1846, only 2,005,000; but, in 1848, the number had risen to 0,077,000. The number in New York, in 1845, was 6,443,000, and, sub- secjueutly to that date, it had largely increased. The deliveries on the New York canals, and at Pittsburgh, in 1840, were one-fifth of the total production by the census ; and, since that date, they are thus stated — ;{; 1841, . . . 5,094,035 1845, . . . 13,267,609 1842, . . . 4,823,881 1846, . . . 12,269,537 1843, . . . 6,713,289 1847, . . . 16,325,987 1844, . . . 6,798,769 1848, . . . 11,665,540 Even this does not mark the whole increase, as the woollens factories of the interior of New York and other States absorb much that would otherwise pass on the canals, destined for distant places. With these very imperfect data, we may now form some estimate of the consumption of this most important commodity. In estimating the weight contained in the cloth imported, I have taken it as being worth one dollar per pound, and therefore the figures which represent the value per head, give also the weic/ht per head. Ar-rage of 1821 to 1829, . MiUions of sheep. . 15 Pounds of wool. 37,500,000 Imports. Pounds. 2,000,000 Total, dome.'stic manufacture. 39,500,000 Per head. 3.-50 4-29 1830, . 1831, . 1832, 1833, . 1834, 20 . 21 22 . 23 24 50,000,000 52,500,000 55,000,000 57,500,000 60,000,000 669,000 5,622,000 4,042,000 950,000 2,341,000 50,669,000 58,122,000 59,062,000 58,4.50.000 62,341,u00 3-90 4-40 4-40 4-15 4-30 4-35 5-35 5-15 5-08 5-12 1835 to 1841, . . 22 55,100,000 10,000,000 65,000,000 4- 4-69 1842 and 1843, 19 48,000,000 7,500,000 55,-500,000 3- 3-34 1844, . 1845, . 1846, . 1847, . 22 , 24 26 . 27 .5.5,000,000 60,000,000 65,000,000 67,500,000 23,800,000 28,800,000 16,500,000 8,460,000 78,800,000 88,800,000 81,500,000 75,960,000 4-10 4-50 4-10 3-70 4-60 5 05 4-60 4-20 1848, . 1849, 28 70,000,000 11,380,000 17,860,000 81,-380,000 3-90 4-52 By the tariff of 1846, the duty on many descriptions of foreign wool wa3 raised, while that on cloths was lowered; which accounts for the gi-eat dimi- nution in the quantity imported. That this is very incorrect there is no doubt ; but it will enable ua to make some compari.son between the increase of imports as compared with the diminution of home production. From 1830 to 1834, the production * Pitkin's Statistics, p. 488. f Patent Office Report, 1847, p. 213. t Merchant's Magazine, Vol. XXI , p. 217 18 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 1828-'29,* average, 164:000 1834, . . 202r000 1845 1830, . . 254,000 1835 to 1841, . 298,000 1846 1831, . . . 151,000 1842, . . 473,000 1847 1832, . . 122,000 1843, 571,000 1848 1833, . . . 180,000 1844, . . 639,000 1849 grew, and the import was large. From 1835 to 1841, the former largely diminished in ita ratio to population; and the foreign cloths paid for in that period fell to sixty-nine cents per head. In the revenue period, from June, 1841, to June, 1843, production was very small, and the import fell to about thirty-four cents per head. In the four succeeding years, both grew rapidly. Under the tariif of 1846, there is a slight increase of import; but the home manufacture has diminished. The power to obtain cloth in exchange for labour has, therefore, invariably grown in the protective periods, and dimi- nished with every approach to free trade. PRODUCTION OF LEAD. The arrivals at New Orleans have been as follows : — Pis;a. Pigs. Pigs. . 732,000 785,000 . 659,000 606,000 . 508,000 We see here that the average of the seven years, from 1835 to 1841, was little greater than the product of 1830. The temporary tariff of September, 1841, raised the duty to five cents per pound, and production rose to almost 800,000 pigs. Since the passage of that of 1846, it has fallen to 500,000, and for this diminished supply there is little demand. We have thus far seen that the application of labour and capital to the opening of mines, the erection of furnaces, mills, and factories, and to the conducting of such works, was arrested at the close of 1834, and that it did not recommence until after the passage of the tariff of 1842. We have also seen that it increased rapidlj from 1843 to 1847, that it became sta- tionary in 1848, and is now retrograding. Both seek to be employed, and if denied employment at home they must seek it abroad. If employed at home, there is a tendency to concentration and combination of action. If sent abroad, there is a tendency to dispersion, with diminished power of com- bination. One of these courses tends to increase the reward of labour, the other to diminish it. With a view to ascertain the effects of the two systems, I give. First, The amount of immigration, as showing how far the wages of labour tended to invite the people of foreign nations to come and reside amongst us, and. Second, The amount of shipping built, to show how far the establishment of an import trade of men, the cargo that pays the highest freights, tended to increase the facilities provided for the export of merchandise : — 1821 to 1829, 1830, 1831, . 1832, 1833, . 1834, 1835 to 1841, IMIGRATION. 12,000 1842-3, 27,153 1844, 23,074 1845, 45,287 1846, 56,547 1847, 65,336 1848, 67,520 1849, 88,133 74,607 102,415 147,051 234,742 229,492 299,610 These are the earliest years for which I have met with any accounts. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS 19 821 to 1829, Total shipping built, tons. average, 90,000 Per thousand, of population. 8 1823 Steamers built -29 35 Per million of population. 3-1 1830, 1831, 1832, 1833, 1834, 58,000 85,000 144,000 161,000 118,000 4-5 6-4 10-5 11-4 8-1 37 34 100 65 68 3 2-6 7-2 4-6 4-7 1835 to 1841, 108,000 6-6 92 6-7 1842-3, . 91,000 5 108 5-8 1844, (nine months,) 1845, . 1846, 1847, 103,000= 146,000 188,000 243,000 =137, DOO 7-2 7-6 9-4 11-8 163= 163 226 198 217 11-4 8-5 11-5 9-7 1848, 1849, 316,000 256,000 15 11-8 176 208 8-3 9-6 AYe see here a large increase in the years from 1830 to 1834, followed by a gradual diminution until we reach 1843, after which the rise is very rapid. On a former occasion, I stated that immigration was not aft'ected by changes of policy until after the lapse of more time than was required for other of the subjects we have had under consideration. A change tends to raise or depress the value of laboiu- — to raise or depress the price of men — and after a rise has been effected, men come to offer their labour for sale. It will be seen that the number in 1831 was less than in 1830, and that it was not until 1832 that it rose. With the exception of 1835, it con- tinued to rise until 1836-7, when it reached 78,083, after which it fell. In 1843—1:, it felt the effect of the disastrous year 1842, and the number was only 74,000; and it was not until 1844-5 that it began to grow rapidly. At the present moment it is large, because of the great demand for labour in the years that have passed, but it is now feeling the effect of the present diminished demand, and consequent fall of wages. Such, likewise, is the case with shipping. The first effect of a rise of wages is to increase the power to obtain the necessaries of life, and it is not until after that shall have been done that the power to consume foreign com- modities tends materially to increase. The increase of ship-building did not commence until 1832. It fell off in 1838. Thus far the movement is pre- cisely tht same as that of immigration. It recommenced in 1844, somewhat in advance of immigration. It is now maintained by that, and that alone, and when that is falling oft', it must fall too. The close connection between the power to secure valuable return-freights and the power to build ships, is shown in the foll(nving table, in which the movements of both are shown : — Immigration. ShippiuK built. Immigration. Shipping built. 1821-31, aver., 14,000 . . 87,000* 1843, . . 75,000 . . 64,000 1832, 45,000 144,000 1844, 74,000 140,000 1833. . . 56,000 . . 161,000 1845, . . 102,000 . . 146,000 1834, 65,000 118,000 1846, 147,000 188,000 1835, . . 53,000 . 60,000 1847, . . 239,742 . . 246,000 1836, 62,000 113,000 1848, 229,492 316,000 1837, . . 78,000 . . 122,000 1849, . . 299,610 . . 256,00;) 1838-42, aver., 76,000 120 000 The amount of shipping at present employed is, probably, less than it was two years since. A vast quantity now lies idle in the ports of California, and it is to replace it that ships are now being built.f How far the immigration * Average of last two years only 71,000. •j- The reason for now building ships may be found in the fact stated in the following pviraf^raph, which I talce from one of the papers of the day : — " It is a remarkable fact, that of all the ships arrived in the bay of San Francisco from 20 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. of the ensuing year is likely to afford inducements for increasing our tonnage may be judged from the following comparative view of the arrivals at New York in the last four months of the two past years, as compared with the present one, furnished by the Commissioners of Immigration : — September, October, November, and December, 1847. 1S48. 1849. 44,137 61,310 48,715 Instead of an increase of about forty per cent., there is a diminution of above twenty per cent.; and that this decrease must go on, will be obvious from the facts contained in the following paragraph, which I take from the New York Herald: — "Emigration to Europe. — The fine and well-tried packet-ship, Ashburton, sailed yesterday for Liverpool, having on board 104 passengers, who having taken a glimpse at 'the land of liberty,' and not finding it the El Dorado they expected, came to the conclusion of returning homeward. They were principally natives of Ireland. The Jamestown and Constellation sail to-morrow with similar cargoes." Every man who thus returns prevents the emigration of a hundred that would otherwise have crossed the Atlantic. I propose now to show the tendency to depopulation, as marked by the sale of PUBLIC LANDS, compared with immigration : — Land sold. Acres. 1821-29, average, 825,000 , 1830, . . 1,244,000 1831, . . . 1,929,000 1832, . . 2,777,000 1833, . , . 2,462,000 1834, . . 4,658,000 1835-41, average, 7,150,000 1842, . . 1,129,000 . 11 At no period of our history has the process of depopulation proceeded with the vigour that is now manifested. Emigrants from Europe are now returning home, disappointed ; while the emigration to the West is almost marvellous. The quantity of land sold does not, as I understand, give any clue to the quantity occupied, because of the facilities afforded by the law to squatters. It is estimated, we are told, that from thirty thousand to fifty thousand have been added to the population of Iowa within six loeeks, and that, by the close of navigation, the population will have increased one-fourth since the 1st of September. Such is the course of things in regard to all the new States, west and south-west; and, if to this be added the emigration to Cali- fornia, it may be doubted if the population of the old States will be as large at the close of the year as it was at the commencement. Per head c Immigratic . 69 f °1843, Land sold. Acres. . 1,605,000 Per head of Immigration. . 21 46 . 83 61 . 44 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847, 1,754,000 . 1,843,000 2,263,000 . 2,521,000 . 23 . 18 . 15 . 11 70 . 105t 1848, 1849, 2,747,000 E 't obtained. . 13t • • X the Atlantic ports, some of which have been anchored there for near four months, not one is advertised for a return trip home. This, of course, is easily accounted for. There is no freight to come back, but passengers and gold dust, and as these mostly prefer the steamers, the ships have nothing to do but to wait and see what circumstances may do for them. Meanwhile, the absence of so many vessels, and the improbability of an early return, are having a strengthening influence upon home freights. Rates ere long must rapidly advance; and were it spring time now, instead of fall, I think it would be ditfi- cult to negotiate engagements at present prices." A vast amount of capital has been locked up in ships that are idle, and others murt now be built to take their place. If they were back again, ship-building would now be entirely suspended. ■f To this must be added the occupation of Texas and Oregon. i To these must be added the occupation of California. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. PRODUCTION OF FOOD. The power to supply food to those who come to live amongst us, and also to send it abroad iu exchange for other commodities, may be taken as some evidence of the productiveness of labour applied to its cultivation, and I therefore give the following statement of the export and import of wheat and flour, in bushels of the former: — Population Exports. Imports. by immi^'ration. Depopulation. 1821-29, average, 4,400,000 12,000 69 1830, . 6,100,000 27,000 46 1831, 9,441,000 23,000 83 1832, . 4,407,000 45,000 61 1833, 4,811,000 56,000 44 1834, . 4,113,000 65,000 70 1835, . 8,914,000 311,000] ■ 1836, 1'837, 2,529,000 . 1,610,000 650,000 4,000,000 ■ 63,000 105 1838, 1839, 2,247,000 . 4,712,000 927,000. ' Texas and Oregon. 1840, 11,198,000 72,000 1841, . 8,447,000 1842, 1843, 7,237,000 . 4,519,000 } 88,000 11 21 1844, 7,751,000 74,000 23 1845, . 6,365,000 102,000 18 1846, 13,061,000 147,000 15 1847, . 26,312,000 20,000 234,742 Mexico and 1848, 12,631,000 369,000 229,000 13 r California. 1849, . 9,500,000 299,610 It is here shown that, notwithstanding the rapid growth of manufactures in the period from 1830 to 1834, the export of food was not only maintained but it increased. The tendency to depopulation had diminished, and the power to obtain iron to assist in the work of cultivation had increased. Thereafter, with the increasing tendency to depopulation, as immigration and manufac- tures and the power to obtain iron became stationary, the production of food so far diminished that the price rose to such a point as to render it profitable to import it; and it may be doubted if, notwithstanding the in- crease of numbers, the whole quantity produced between 1835 and 1840 was greater than in the five previous years. From 1843, we find it gra- dually increasing, notwithstanding the vast amount of labour employed in producing coal, iron, cotton and woollen goods, ships, steamboats, &c. How great was the increase may be seen by the following comparison of the returns under the census of 1840, and the Patent Ofiice estimates for 1847:— 1840. 1847, Wheat. 1 Barley. 84,823,000 1 4,101,000 114,245,000 5,049,000 29,422,000 1,488,000 Oats. 12.3,071,000 167,807,000 44,797,000 Rye. 18,645,000 29,222,000 10,577,000 Buckwh't. 7,291.000 11,673,000 4,382,000 Ind. Corn. 377,531,000 539,350,000 161,819,000 Totals. 615.522,000 867.826.000 We have here an increase of no less than 40 per cent, in seven years, during which the increase of population was but 23 per cent. Equally divided among the whole people, there would be 36 bushels per 'head iu the one case, and 42 in the other; and thus we see that the increase in the faci- lity of obtaining the machinery of cultivation is attended by increase in the product of cultivation ; while increase in the power to produce cotton and woollen cloth enables the farmer to obtain for each bushel produced a larger amount of clothing than before. 22 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. The net export is as follows, per head of the population : — 1821 to 1829, . •39 1834, •29 1845, . -38 1830, . •47 1835 to 1841, •25 1846, . •65 1831, •71 1842-3, . •31 1847, . 1-28 1832, . •32 1844, . •41 1848, . •60 1833, •35 1849, •45 We see, thus, that with the exception of the year of the fanaine in Ire- land, it has never reached a bushel per head, and that it has invariably been largest in the periods of protection — those periods in which the largest and most valuable home freights could be obtained. With the approach to free trade the power to maintain trade has diminished j and as we have re- ceded from it and have approached protection, it has increased with the growth of immigration. The effect of this is seen in the constantly increasing quantity of Canadian produce that passes through New York on the way to England. It is stated that while in 1848 only 50,000 barrels of Canadian flour passed through New York, the quantity in 1849 that came through by the single route of Oswego was 200,000 barrels, and that there were, in addition, 623,000 bushels of wheat. This, being of foreign production, has, of course, to be deducted from the amount of exports ; but if the import of men should diminish, freights outward must rise, and the tendency to send flour or wheat to market through the ports of the Union will pass away. What was, prior to the census of 1840, the production of grain, it is not now possible to ascertain ; but we know that, in the period from 1830 to 1834, prices were moderate and consumption was large. It is not probable that it was as much per head as was given by the census for 1840, because the increased facilities of transportation in the latter period enabled the farmer to give more of his labour to cultivation. If it be taken at thirty bushels per head, it will probably not vary greatly from the truth. In the following period, production was so small that prices rose to a point that permitted importation from Europe; and the advance so far exceeded that of wages as to cause almost universal disturbance between employers and work- men. It may be doubted if it then exceeded twenty-five bushels per head. By degrees, the tendency to depopulation diminished; and, in 1840, we find it thirty-six bushels, to rise to forty-two in 1847. The same causes that diminished production in 1836 are now -again at work. Immense num- bers of people are in motion changing their places of labour; and those that have gone to California, New Mexico, the Salt Lake, &c., can scarcely be taken at less than a hundred thousand. These men are not now producers; and thus, while we have this year added to our population 280,000 persons from abroad requiring to be fed, we have exported great numbers who have not only ceased to be producers, but have taken with them vast quantities of food. It may fairly be doubted if the product of this year, per head, exceeds thirty-eight to forty bushels; and hence it is, in part, that the prices are even thus far maintained. Nevertheless, there is a gradual tendency to a fall of prices, showing a power of consumption dimin ishing in a greater ratio than that of production. That the power to obtain food in return to labour diminished greatly between 1835 and 1839 must be within the recollection of all who were familiar with the events of that period. Never has there been experienced in this country so much anxiety relative to the result of the harvest as was felt in 1838. From that time, the tendency to dispersion diminished ; and, in 1839 and 1840, labour commanded good supplies of food, as is obvious from the fact that immigration rose, attaining, in 1841-2, the height of 101,000. The value of labour and food had, however, by that time greatly fallen, and, THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 23 in 1842, it fell to a lower point than had been known for twenty years, the consequence of which was, a great diminution in the immigration of the two succeeding years. Thence to 1847, the increase was very rapid ; but. in the following year, it became stationary, and is now falling rapidly. We may now proceed to the next great article of food — SUGAR. Crop of Foreign. Louisiana. Total. Per bead 1S21 to 1S29 .... 57,000,000 45,000,000 102,000.000 9 1830 96,000,000 48,000,000 144,000,000 11 1831 69,000,000 75,000,000 144,000,000 10^ 1832 48,000,000 75,000,000 123,000,000 9 1833 97,000,000 70,000,000 167,000,000 12 1834 115,000,000 75,000,000 190,000,000 13 1835 to 1841,138,000,000 — J . 110,000,000 77,000,000 187,000,000 I4 1842 and 1843 . , . .114,000,000 115,000,000 229,000,000 12^ 1844 . .... 182,000,000 10.5,000,000 287,000,000 15 1845 114,000,000 200,000,000 314,000,000 16 1846 108,000,000 186,000,000 294,000,000 14| 1847 232,000,000' 146,000,000 372,000,000 18 1848 244,000,000 240,000,000 484,000,000 23 1849 ... . 242,000,000 220,000,000 467,000,000 21^ We see here a rapid increase of consumption from 1829 to 1834, and that it then diminished in actual amount until 1844, arnd that the average of 184G-7 and 1847-8 was but little less than double that of 1842-3. The power to consume foreign sugar has kept steady pace with the increase in the home supply, giving a total consumption for the year 1847-8 exceeding, by more than 150 per cent., that of the period from 1821 to 1829, and almost double that of 1842 and 1843. The power of producing food thus kept pace with the power to apply labour and capital to the conversion of food and other raw materials into iron, cloth, and other commodities requisite for the use of man ; and thus both kept pace with the tendency to the concentration of population. With every increase in the power of production, consumption grew, and the labourer received larger returns for his labour, producing a tendency to immigration. With every diminution in the power of production, the power to pay for foreign commodities diminished, and hence it was that the early years of the approach to freedom of trade were signalized by the creation of a vast debt, the interest on which has now to be paid. INTERNAL COMMERCE. We may now examine how fsir the power to maintain internal trade waxed or waned with the increased or diminished power of production, for which purpose, I give the tolls on the three principal routes between the east and west, and the tonnage that passed through the Louisville and Portland Canal. In examining them it will be prftper to bear in mind that the receipts from immigTants from Europe, in the last two years, have been prodigious, not- withstanding which there has been a large decrease in the two from which I have been able to obtain complete returns. It follows, of course, that the receipts from merchandise have greatly diminished in their ratio to popula- tion. Should immigration continue to fall oif, the deficiency in the receipts from these works will become of serious importance to the treasuries of both New York and Pennsylvania. 24 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. TOLLS. 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829, New Toi k Canal. $844,000 880,000 829,000 815,000 Per 1000 of population. $73 74 68 65 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Per 1000 of population. Penn. Canals. P. 1000 of population. It?? Canal 1830, 1831, 1832, 1833, 1834, 1,042,000 748,000 1,112,000 1,388,000 1,381,000 81 56 81 98 95 $31,000 137,000 196,000 205,000 9-9 13-9 14-1 148,000 306,000 10-5 21-1 76,000 70,000 170,000 162,000 1835, 1836-4] 1,482,000 . 1,655,000 99 102 263,000 349,000 17-6 21-5 679,000 1,020,000 45-4 GO-7 200,000 223,000 1842, 1,749,000 97 426,000 23-6 903,000 60-0 172,000 1843, 2,081,000 112 575,000 31-0 1,014,000 55-0 232,000 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847, 2,446,000 2,646,000 2,756,000 3,635,000 128 135 138 177 658,000 718,000 881,000 1,101,000 34-6 37-7 44-0 54-0 1,164.000 1,154,000 1,357,000 1,587,000 61-5 59-1 68-0 78 304,000 318,000 341,000 307,000 1848, 1849, 3,252,000 3,266,000 155 150 1,213,000 1,241,000 60-0 57-2 1,550,000 1,580,000 73-3 72-4 341,000 The Lake tonnage in 1834 was 28,521 tons. In 1841 it had risen to only 56,252 1846 it was 106,836 1847, . . 139,399 1848, 166,400 We thus see while it increased but 28,000 tons in the first period of seven years, it has gained 110,000 in the last, and nearly all of this since 1843. At the present time there is no tendency to increase. The great support of this trade is found in the transport of immigrants, and any diminution therein must be followed by a diminution in the tonnage. In 1842, the Steamboat tonnage on the western rivers was but 126,278, and the tendency was downward, as the business was very small, as may be seen from the number of trips made by certain boats : — Boats. Trips. Boats. Trips. 1839, . 35 . 141 1841, . 32 . 162 1840, . 28 . 147 1842, . , . 29 . 88 In 1846, only four years afterwards, it had almost doubled, the amount being 249,055. In the two succeeding years it increased rapidly, as may be seen by the following statement of boats built at Cincinnati : — 1845-6, 5657 tons. | 1846-7, 8268 tons. | 1847-8, 10,232 tons. In the last year the tendency has been downward; the boats built being only 7281 tons; and the number of arrivals being only 3239, against 4007 in tlie previous year. We thus meet everywhere the same results. From 1835 to 1843, scarcely any inci'ease; but from that date every thing starts into life and grows with rapidity. Arrived at 1848 and 1849, all tends downwards, notwithstanding the great increase of population. TRADE OF new ORLEANS. The value of the principal products of the interior received at New Orleans, from 1841-2, to the present time, has been as follows: — THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 2d 1841-2, 1842-3, 1843-4, 1844-5, Total. §45,716,045 1845-6, 53,782,084 1846-7, 60,094,716 i 1847-8, 57,166,122 I 1848-9, ToUl. $77,193,464 90,033,000 70,779,000 81,889,000 The value doubled in sis years, but it is now falling, notwithstanding the large increase of western population in the last two years. NEW YORK Being the place supposed to be most benefited by perfect freedom of trade, we may profit by an examination into the effect of the various systems, as exhibited in the number of houses built in that city, as compared with the population of the country, of which it is the commercial capital. The ear- liest account I have been able to obtain is that of 1834 : — Per million of Per million of Houses built. population. Houses built. population. 1834, . . 877 . . 60 1845, . 1980 . 101 1835-41, average, 943* 1842, . . 912 . 58 . 50 1846, 1847, . . 1910 . 1823 95 . 90 1843, . . . 1273 . 69 1848, . 1191 . 60 1844, . . 1210 . 64 1849, 1496 68 The rapid extension of Brooklyn has been since 1842. Had it been possible to obtain a similar account of that city, which is but a suburb of New York, the difference would have been much more striking. We have here, however, all that is needed to show that houses in New York grew with the growth of factories and furnaces, and diminished, as they now diminish, with the cessation of their operations. PHILADELPHIA. It is deemed desirable to give the movement of Philadelphia as the distributor of a large portion of the coal and iron of the Union, and as the centre of an important portion of the commerce between the East and the West ; but it is impossible to obtain the number of houses built, because of no such record having been preserved, by several of the districts, until quite recently, and to give the movement of the population in the several periods, it is necessary to take the returns under the State censuses, which are septen- nial, and those made under the authority of the federal government, which are decennial. The former returns give only the number of taxables, but by multiplying them by five the population was always found to be nearly ob- tained, and I have done so throughout, although it is said that the proportion of non-taxables has within a few years so far increased as to make it neces- sary to multiply by five and a half. How far that is the case will be deter- mined by the census of next year. 1821. State census 18-28. " 1830. U. S. « 1835. State " 1840. U. S. « 1842. State « '849. « Taxables. 27,892 37,313 49,847 51,063 77,285 Population. 139,460 186,565 increase 4-9 188,958 « -6 249,235 « 6-6 258,000 « -8 255,315 decrease -5 386,425 increa.se 7-4 Batio to population of thts, in cents per head of thepojmla- tion. (See page 15.) Of the four next following, the first two, French Merchandise and Manu- factures of flax, were in a great degree freed from duty in 1832, silks and linens being declared absolutely free. The duty was reimposed in 1841. The others, Tea and CoflFoe, were free from duty in 1832, and so remain. The first two are given chiefly for the purpose of showing how small is the increase of consumption consequent upon a remission of duty, compared with that which, in every case, we have seen to follow the production of a commodity at home. French Merchandise, paid for in cents per head of the jyojju- lation. (See page 2G.) Manufactures of Flax, ... cents per head of the popula- tion. (See page 26.) Consumption of Tea, in hun- dredths of pounds per head of the population. (See page 1 Average. J^HlJBm ^ MM ^"■SSwmBBbmmwIHS BBBi^w lOO 90 80 70 60 SO 1 Av 1 1 1 i |Av.!|9BH|HB| 40 to. H i3H 5 n 1 HMSm THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. m. IV. V. TI. Consumption of Coffee, in * pounds per head of tlie popu- ^ ' lation. (See page 27.) Revenue from Customs, in cents per head of the po^nda- tion. (See page 28.) Public Expenditure, in mil- lions of dollars. (See pago 30.) 90 Public Debt, in millions of ^ dollars. (See page ol.) National Credit, in millions ^ ■^_ of dollars. (See page 31.) i :z; Pi3 O < iz; W H « W iz; S f cotton manufactured in the first period amounted to 100,000,000 of pounds per annum, and the average price was 19 pence,* • McCulloch's Com. Diet., art. Cotton. 56 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. making the whole cost about £8,000.000. The value of cotton goods exported was £10,500,000, of which the raw material may have been about £5,500,000. The consumption of foreign wool was about 7,000,000 of pounds weight, and with this exception the whole amount of the export was of domestic production. The import of food amounted to about 1,500,000 quarters, or 13,500,000 bushels of 60 pounds weight. Putting together all the foreign food and raw materials required for the product of £44,000,000 of exports, the total cost could scarcely have ex- ceeded £12,000,000, leaving £32,000,000 as the value of domestic pro- ducts and labour exported by a population of 21,000,000, being equal to about £1*10 per head, or S7*20, to be applied to the purchase of foreign commodities for domestic consumption. In the second period, the quantity of cotton manufactured averaged about 275,000,000 of pounds, and the price had fallen to about 8d., making the cost about £9,000,000. The proportion exported had somewhat increased, judging from the difference between the quantity as given by the official value, and the product as given by the declared value, and the amount of labour had decreased, the exports of mere yarn having risen from £1,200,000 to between four and five millions. The value of the raw cotton thus exported may have been £6,000,000. The quantity of foreign wool retained for home consumption had risen to 30,000,000 of pounds, being an important portion of the quantity exported in the form of cloth. The average import of food was, as before about 1,500,000 quarters. If, now, we estimate the total consumption of food and other raw materials at £14,000,000, and deduct that sum from the amount of exports, we shall have remaining £24,000,000 as the value of the products and labour ex- ported by a population of 23,000,000, being about 21s. or §5 per head, to be appropriated to the purchase of foreign commodities, other than grain, for consumption. In the third period, the declared value of cotton goods exported had risen to about £25,000,000, and the cost of the raw cotton required for this pur- pose, in the year 1840, was estimated at about, . £8,500.000 And in the year 1847, at . . . . 8,800,000 For 1845 and 1848, the average was about . 7,350,000 making a total average of £8,000,000. To this must now be added the wool of Australia, Spain and Germany, of which the manufacture had risen to 70,000,000 of pounds ; the silks of Italy and China; the hides, the in- digo and other colouring materials, the gold, and innumerable other articles used in the production of this large amount of manufactures ; and I shall be safe in putting the whole amount, for those years, at not less than £14,000,000, and it is probably much more. The import of flour and grain averaged about 6,250,000 ■quarters, and as the last of those years amounted to about five and a half millions, it may be safe to assume that the average quantity required will not fall materially short of six millions, equal to fifty-four millions of bushels of sixty pounds each, and if the cost of these be averaged at 4s. per bushel, the amount will be ...".... £10,800,000* • The amount actually expended in fifteen months is stated to have been £33,000.000. This, however, was an exceptional case, and my object is rather to show from the past wha'. may be taken as an average of future years. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. If, now, we add for vast quantities of live-stock, pork, beef, lard, butter, cheese, and other articles of food, the whole consumption of which was formerly supplied at home, only 1,000,000 We shall have a total of i>5.S()0.000 To be deducted from the gross amount of exports, and leaving only 21.700,000 as the value of the export of the products and labour of the twt-iity-seven and a half millions composing the population of the United Kingdom, being about 18s. or $4-32 per head, to be applied to the purchase of sugar, tea, coffee, rice, spices, and numerous other foreign articles of food — for lumber, tobacco, foreign manufactures of every description, and for the purchase of the cotton, silk, wool, dye-stuffs, hides, &c. &c., required for the manu- facture of clothing used at home. We have here a constantly diminishing quantitj' to be applied to the pur- chase of various descriptions of food that from luxuries have become neces- saries of life, and that of the materials of clothing. It follows, of course, that as food is the article of prime necessity, the amount that each ex- pends of clothing is very small indeed ; the consequence of which is, that the people of England, engatred in furnishing cheap clothing to all the world, are not only badly fed but exceedingly badly clothed, the cost of clothing, in labour, being so great as to place it beyond their reach,* the aniount that can be expended for that purpose tending rather to decrease. Whenever a good crop causes a large quantity of cotton to come to market, the price falls to the point that is necessary to enable the purchaser at home to ab- sorb the surplus that cannot be exported ; and when the crop is short, the consumption is limited to the quantity that can be purchased by the small amount to be expended. The whole sum now applicable to this purpose appears not to varj' greatly from 2s. per head, sufficient to purchase three pounds at 8f/., or six pounds at 4cf. This will be seen by an examination of the followinof table : — • By reference to the report of the Assistant Commissioner charged with the inquiry into the condition of women and children employed in agriculture, it will be seen that a change of clothes seems to be out of the question. The upper parts of the under-clothes of women at work, even their stays, quickly become wet with perspiration, while the lower parts cannot escape getting equally wet in nearly every kind of work in which they are employed, except in the driest weather. It not unfrequently happens that a woman, on returning from work, is obliged to go to bed for an hour or two to allow her clothes to be dried. It is also by no means uncommon for her, if she does not do this, to put them on again the next morning nearly as wet as when she took them off. The evidence laid before Parliament in regard to the situation of the ojjeratives in coal mines, showed that men and women, boys and girls, were accustomed to work to- gether in a state of absolute and entire nudity. The slowness with which the power of consuming other articles than clothing has grown is remarkable. In 1 803, that of paper was 3 l,ri99,.').37 pounds. 1S41, with almost double the population, only . . 97,103,548 " The great diminution in the cost of cotton and linen cloth had been attended with a corresponding reduction in the cost of rags, while there had been great improvements in the mode of manufacture. The quantity of labour that could be exchanged against paper had evidently diminished. The consumption of candles in 1801, was .... 66,999,080 pounds. In 1830 it was 116,851,305 » Tiaving little more than kept pace with the population. 8 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Average cost of Cotton in England. Home consumption. Monej price, per head d. s. d. 1845 . . 41 . .170 millions . about 3 4k 1846 . . 5 . . 155 " ."23 1847 . . 61 . . 80 " ."17 1848 . . 41 . . 170 " ."33 We see, thus, that she clothes her people at the cost of the cotton planter. Slie has a certain quantitj'- of labour that she can give in exchange for cotton, and the price of the whole import is regulated thereby. If the crop is large, she takes a great deal for the money; if it is small, she takes but little ; and thus the producer not only derives no benefit from large crops, but is so much injured thereby, that it is actually more profitable to have one of 3.000,000 of bales, than one of 2,700,000. Had that of the present year reached three millions, he would have been ruined, for freights would have been h gi:, while pices abroad would ha\e fallen to a lower point than has ever yet been reached. Instead of applying her labour to the cultivation of her own soil, she pur- sues a course having for its object that of compelling all the farmers and planters of the world to make their exchanges in her markets, where she fixes the price for the world. Her power to apply the proceeds of labour to the purchase of other commodities than those of prime necessity is small, and gradually but steadily diminishing; and whenever the labours of the pro- ducer are rewarded with liberal returns, he is nearly ruined, because the price falls below the cost of production. The system is altogether so remarkable that at some future day it will be deemed almost impossible that it should ever have been tolerated. She has a certain quantity of the means of transportation and con version, and being thus provided she desires that all the cotton and sheep's-wool of the world shall be brought to her, that it may bo spun and woven, and that she may take toll for spinning and weaving it. The more that is brought to her the less of it she gives back to the producer, and the price she pays him fixes the price he receives from all the world. How the system works may be seen from the following statement : — 1815 to 1819. 1827-1834. 1845-1846. Cotton consiime.l, llis. . . . 100,000,000 275,000,000 596,000,000 Value £8,000,000 9,000,000 11,400,000 She pays for this in cotton-cloth and iron, the prices of which, at these periods were as follows : — A piece of calico, of 24 yards . . 16/6* 7/6f 6/7 A ton of merchant-bar iron . . £llt £7 5 £9 10 Had the whole been paid in these, the planter would have received of Cloth, pieces 9,700,000 24,000,000 34,700,000 Or iron, tons 730,000 1,250,000 1,200,000 The additional freight, home and foreign, charges, commissions, &c., in ihe last period were, at three cents per pound, on 496,000,000 of pounds, say i!* 15,000,000. For this the planter would receive, m Ziye?y?oo/, 470,000 additional tons of iron, the value of which, in Liverpool, at the present moment, would be about §1 1,000,000, and thus he not only gave away his cotton, but gave with it a large portion of the cost of transportation. The whole return to hfm for 600,000,000 was not as great as it had been to 100,000,000. It thus appears that notwithstanding all the improvements in manufacture, the planter had to give in the last period six times the quantity of cotton to * McCnlloclis Statistics, Vol. U. p. 70. ■[•This is the average of the years from 1831 to 1834, as given in Burnss Commercial Glance, and copied in the Merchants' Magazine, Vol. XIX. p. 277. ^Average of 1817 to 1819— Merchants' Magazine, Vol. XX. p. 337. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 5') obtain three and a half times the cloth that he could have had in the first— and six times the quantity to obtain a smaller quantify of iion. A" more admirable mode of taxing the world was certainly never devised. The result of the system is, that the productiveness of agricultural labdur is declining in every portion of the world that does not protect itself against this " war upon labour and capital," as I will now show. Consumption is measured by production. Every man is a consumer to the whole extent of his production. To that point he will go, and beyond it he cannot go. The first of his wants is food ; next comes clothing; after this follow the conveniences and luxuries of life. Tf his productive power increases, his power to obtain clothing increases rapidly, because the whole surplus is applicable to other things than food. If it diminishes, his power to obtain clothing diminishes with great rapidity, for food he must have. That it has diminished, and is now diminishing rapidly, will, I think, be evident from the following facts : — Sixty years since, the price paid by the consumers of cotton to the pro- llucers of it was estimated at $40,000,000. From 1827 to 1834, both inclusive, the crops of the United States ave- raged 945,000 bales, and the home consumption about 145,000, leaving 800,000 for export. The average price was about 840 per bale, and the product §32,000,000. In this period, India continued to produce extensively of cotton, and to manufacture cotton goods. The China market was not opened to the free traders until 1831, and it required some time to substitute the cotton cloth of England for the cotton and cloth of India. With every day that has since elapsed, the production of cotton has declined, as the manufacture has been passing towards annihilation. Cotton was then extensively raised in the West Indies, Brazil, Egypt, Africa, Mexico, and elsewhere ; and the total product, exclusive of that of the United States, was estimated at 450,000,000 of pounds, or about one-fifth more than that of the Union. Averaging the whole at the same price, we should now obtain an annual expenditure, excluding our own, for cotton wool, of $78,000,000. From 1842 to 1848, both inclusive, the crop averaged 2,060,000 bales, and the home consumption about 400,000, leaving 1,660,000 for export. Two hundred thousand of these may be given to the Zoll-verein, and other countries of Europe that have protected themselves against the system, not as the increased quantity actually taken under low prices, but as thai which would have gone at high ones, leaving 1,460,000 for the quantity that may be supposed to be influenced by the system. The average price, during that period, was seven and a half cents, or $34 per bale, and the average product of the portion of the crop thus exported, $50,000,000. Since then, the cultivator of this most important commodity, throughout the world, has been ruined, and it is greatly to be doubted if the whole pro- duction, outside of the Union, is now more than one half of what it was thirty years since; biit, at the utmost, it cannot exceed 270,000,000; and if we now assume that quantity, and, as before, put the whole at the same price, we shall obtain, as the amount paid for cotton, by almost the whole population of the world, outside of the Union, as follows : — For the crop of this country, . . $50,000,000 For that of the rest of the world, . . 20,000,000 $70,000,000 Showing a large reduction, notwithstanding the increase in the number ofi persons employed in its production, and the increase of those who should consume it, and yet the case, as here stated, does not represent the real 60 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. diminution in the amount paid to the producers. Of the cotton of India, nearly the whole value is now swallowed up in freights, and while the cost \o the consumer is large, the yield to the producer is scarcely more than two cents per pound. A more full examination of the subject would, I believe, result in showing that the producers of cotton, taken as a body, do not re- ceive in return for all the clothing material that has to so great an extent superseded wool, flax, &c., from the people of the world outside of the limits of the Union, twenty miUions of dollars more than they did sixty years since. • A similar examination of the movement in regard to sugar, coffee, wool, and other articles, would yield the same results, for the exhaustion is every- where the same. The whole effect of the system is that of reducing the farmer and the planter — the producers of the good things of the world — to the condition of an humble dependence upon the owners of a quantity of small machinery for the conversion of wool into cloth, that they themselves could purchase at the cost of less labour than, for want of it, they waste in each and every year. Let us now look to the results, as exhibited in the immediate dependencies of England. With this vast increase in the importation of food from abroad has come the ruin of the people of Ireland. Deprived of manufactures and commerce, her people were driven to hve by agriculture alone, and she was enabled to drag on a miserable existence, so long as her neighbour was content to make some compensation for the loss of labour by paying her for her products higher prices than those at which they might have been elsewhere pur- chased. With the repeal of the corn laws, that resource has failed; and the result is a state of poverty, wretchedness, and famine, that has compelled the establishment of a system which obliges the landowner to maintain the people, whether they Avork or not ; and thus is one of the conditions of slavery re-established in that unhappy country. From being a great exporter of food, she has now become a large importer. The great market forlndiar, corn is Ireland — a country in which the production of food is almost the sole occupation of the people. The value of labour in food, throughout a popula- tion of eight millions, is thus rapidly decreasing. From an inquiry instituted by Lord Clarendon, in 1847, and conducted in the most careful manner, it was ascertained that out of 20,800,000 acres of which the kingdom consists, there were but 5,200,000 under crop, and that the yield of cereal grains, chiefly oats, averaged 10 bushels (of 70 pounds) per head, while that of potatoes was 501 pounds per head. The cattle amounted to 2,591,000, or less than one to three persons of the popula- tion; the hogs to 622,000, or one to thirteen; and the sheep to 2,186,177, or one to four. Such are the products of a nation, exclusively agricultural, whose numbers were about one-half those of the people of the Union, at our last census. Were it possible now to ascertain the quantity of food, per head, produced in Great Britain and Ireland, it is probable that it would be found to be less than it was five years since, and that the whole quantity, foreign and do- mestic, was not materially greater than at that date. If so, it follows that the whole amount of la'bour expended in purchasing and fashioning the cotton of other lands to be given in exchange for food, is lost labour, and that the average quantity of food and of other commodities obtainable throughout the kingdom in return for any given quantity, tends downwards instead of upwards ; and that such is the case there is reason to believe. As evidence that such is the fact, we may take the expenditure for support of paupers, which in 1837 was ^^4,207,000, and for 1844, 5, and 6, averaged £^,890,000, THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Gl being an increase of forty per cent, in eight years. In 1848, it had attained the enormous height of ;^7,800,000. If now to this we were to add the expenditure for the same purpose in IreJand, we should find the growth to be absoKitely terrific. As a full answer to this, the English economist would point to the in- creased consumption of certain commodities ; but that increase is maintained, as we have seen, by the oppression and ruin of the agriculturist every- where. The whole system has for its object an increase in the number of persons that are to intervene between the producer and the consumer — living on the product of the land and labour of others, diminishing the po\*er of the first, and increasing the number of the last; and thus it is that Ireland is compelled to waste more labour annually than would be re- quired to produce, thrice over, all the iron, and convert into cloth all the cotton and wool manufactured in England. The poverty of producers exists nearly in the ratio in which thej^ are compelled to make their exchanges in the market of Great Britain, foregoing the advantages that would result to them from the free exercise of the power of associating for the purpose of combining their exertions, and thus rendering their labour more effective. The manufacturers of India have been ruined, and that great country is gradually and certainly deteriorating and becoming depopulated, to the sur- prise of those of the people of England who are familiar with its vast advantages, and who do not imderstand the destructive character of their ■own system. The London Economist says : — "Looking to our Indian empire, we cannot but be struck with the singular facilities which — in cUraate, soil, and population — it presents to the commerce of Great Britain. At first sight, it seems to otfer every thing that could be devised, in order to induce to a com- mercial intercourse almost without limit. There is scarcely one important article of tro- pical i)roduce which is consumed in this country, either as the raw material of our manu- factures, or as an article of daily use, for the production of which India is not as well, or better, adapted than any other country ; while us dense and industrious population would seem to offer an illimitable demand for our manufactures. Nor are there opposed to Ihese natural and flattering elements of commerce any riscal restrictions to counteract their beneficial results. Indian produce has long entered into consumption in the home markets on the most favourable terms ; v/hile, in the introduction of British manufactures into India, a very moderate duty is imposed. Yet, notwithstanding all these advantages, it is a notorious fact, deducible alike from the tendency which the supply of some of the most important articles of Indian produce show to fall off, and from the stagnant, or rather declining, state of the export of our manufactures to those markets — and, perhaps, still more so, from the extremely improfitable and unsatisfactory result which has attended both the export and import trade with India for some time past, — diat there exist some great and serious impediments to the realization of the just and fair hopes entertained u-ith regard to our Indian trade." Another writer* speaks of it as a country whose exports are rapidly diminishing. Sugar, he says, does not increase, while indigo decreases, and cotton is reduced one-third to one-half. The revenue is deficient. Gazerat and Cutch, which once supplied cotton to half the world, have almost ceased to produce it. The growth and manufacture of cotton have disappeared from Bengal, which once gave to the world the Dacca muslins, the finest in the world. Cotton fields have everywhere relapsed into jungle. Year after year we are told of efforts being made to increase the pro- duct and improve the quality of India cotton, and yet year after year the prospect of improvement becomes more remote, and necessarily so, because agricultural improvement under the existing impoverishing system is im- • London correspondent of the National Intelligencer. 62 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. possible. For a short period, premiums were granted on what is called free sugar — to wit, that raised by the wretched Hindoo who peiishes of starvation, the consequence of the system — and while that policy was main- tained its cultivation made some progress, but since the abolition of the re- strictions on slave-grown sugar, every thing tends downward.* Ireland and India are thus in the same condition. The West Indies are ruined, and Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, now seek annexa- tion, that they may have protection from a system under which they are being ruined. The owner of land, everywhere, knows that it would be doubled by the change, and the labourer transfers himself to the south of the boundary-Hne, that he may find employment and good wages, which cannot be found at the north of it. Those who remain north of it now anxiously seek for admission for their grain, because protection maintains a market that now they cannot have. In the existing state of things they have to compete with the low-priced labour of Russia and Poland, and are ruined. Thej^ desire, therefore, that their competition may be with the protected farmers and labourers of the Union. Lord Sydenham, in a letter to Lord John Russell, which accompanied his Report on Emigration to Upper Canada, observed : " Give me yeomen, with a few hundred pounds each, who will buy cleared farms, not throw themselves into the bush, and I will ensure them comforts and independence at the end of a couple of years — pigs, pork, flour, potatoes, horses to ride, cows to milk — but you must eat all your produce, for devil a purchaser is to be found: however, the man's wants are supplied, and those of his family ; he has no rent or taxes to pay, and he ought to be satisfied." Here is the cause of the desire for annexation that now exists throughout Canada. There are no consumers at hand, and the farmer cannot exchange his corn for cloth or iron, the consequence of which is, that labour and land are almost valueless. So is it everywhere. Every colony therefore desires to separate itself from England, and all would gladly unite with these United States, and for no other reason than that they might have protection. That the colonial system is rapidly approaching its close must, I think, be obvious to all who take the trouble to inform themselves of the condition of the people of her colonies, who have been compelled to bear with it ; and thence satisfy themselves that the independent nations of the world must continue to increase and to strengthen their measures of resistance until it shall be ended, that thenceforth there may be perfect freedom of trade. It is " a war upon the labour and capital of the world." Its object is that of preventing the spinner and weaver fromcombiningtheir efforts with those • " For many years they [Messrs. Arbuthnot & Co., of Madras] have been the most ex- tensive manufacturers of sugar in Southern India, converting to the extent of thousands of tons annually the coarse jaggery made by the ryots into the fine product which finds its way into the market ; but the attempt to raise the cane was first tried about two or three years since, and it is needless to say that no cost or skill was spared to render it successful. Planters were broight from the West Indies at liberal salaries to direct the cultivation, and machinery of tne most complete and extensive character was imported from England to irrigate the soil and manufacture the sugar on the spot. No project could possibly be set on foot under circumstances more favourable, but the upshot is that the land taken in Rajahmundry and Dawlaishwarum has been relinquished, and the cattle turned into the fields of standing cane. • » • • " The question of competition to be maintained on the existing system with the West Indies and the countries in which slave labour prevails must rest for future consideration. At present we have arrived at the important conclusion, that, imder the most favourable circumstances, we cannot hope to alter the present mode of cultivating the sugar-cane in Soutliern India." — Athenaum. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. of the farmer and planter, — compelling the latter to work alone, and therefore disadvantageously, and then to give two-thirds of the crop for the maintenance of horses and wagons, ships and men, brokers and merchants, whose services would not be needed were the system abolished. Its effects have been everywhere, to render men depressed and poor. Desiring to liberate themselves from it our ancestors made the Revolution, and the Canii- dians have now formed a league, induced thereto by their observance of the wonderful results that have been here obtained. Thus far, the system has been maintained at home by this power to tov the world for its support. India contributes three millions sterling per annum.* but there is a gradual diminution in the power to pay. Canada and the West Indies have paid their share, but the connection with the former is likely soon to be at an end, and the latter are ruined. This country is the main support of the system, but that support is gradually being withdrawn, and when it shall be absolutely so, the destructive effects of it upon England her- self will become fully obvious. It will then be seen that the wealth of that country is reallv, to use the words of Carlyle, but a magnificent "sham." The few are rich, but the many are poor, and the mass of wealth is by no means great. The whole amount of capital invected in buildings, machinery, &c. for the cotton manufacture, in 1834, was estimated at twenty millions of pounds sterling! or less than a hundred millions of dollars, being only double what has been expended in the effort to bring into activity the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania. She has also machinery for the production of a large amount of coal and iron, but the same quantity could be produced in this country in a few years, without an effort. She has made a considerable amount of rail-roads, but she broke down under the effort, and yet roads are made in that country at far less cost than here, and we have now more miles in operation. The nominal cost of her roads is great, because the prices paid for land are high, and large sums are paid to lawyers, conveyancers, &c., &c., but these are merely transfers of property, not investments of it. The real investment is only the labour employed in grading the road, erecting the bridges, and getting out the iron, and the cost of these per mile is less than for any well-made I'oad in this country. The power of England to make investments of labour is less than half of what it was in this country from 1844 to 1847, and less than one-third of what it would now be had the pro- duction of coal, and iron, and cotton goods been allowed to increase at the rate at which it was then increasing. Her system tends to the enrich- ment of the few, and hence there results a show of wealth far, very far, be- yond the reality. The impoverishing effects of the system were early obvious, and to the endeavour to account for the increasing difficulty of obtaining food where the whole action of the laws tended to increase the number of consumers of food, and to diminish the number of producers, was due the invention of the Malthusian theory of population, now half a century old. That was fol- lowed by the Ricardo doctrine of Rent, which accounted for the scarcity of food by asserting, as a fact, that men always conmienced the work of cultiva- tion on rich soils, and that as population increased they were obliged to lesort to poorer ones, yielding a constantly diminishing return to labour, and producing a constant necessity for separating from each other, if they would * •• Altogether it has been calculated that the tribute which India pours into the lap of England is at least equal to three millions sterling."' — Porter's Prof;t ess of the Nalioti, Vol. iii. p. 354. ■j- McCulloch"s Statistics, Vol. 2, page 75. G4 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. obtain a sufficiency of food. Upon this theory is based the whole English politico-economical system. Population is first supposed to be superabundant, when in scarcely any part of the earth could the labour of the same num- ber of persons that now constitute the population of England obtain even one- half the same return. Next, it is supposed that men who fly from England go always to the cultivation of rich soils, and therefore every thing is done to expel population. Lastly, it is held that their true poHcy when abroad is to devote all their labour to the cultivation of those rich soils, sending the pro- duce to England that it may be converted into cloth and iron, and they are cautioned against any interference with perfect freedom of trade as " a war upon labour and capital." Colonization is urged on all hands, and all unite in the effort to force emi- gration in the direction needed to raise up "colonies of customers." It is impossible to read any work on the subject without being struck with the prevalence of this " shopkeeping" idea. It is seen everywhere. Hungary was to be supported in her efforts for the estabHshment of her in- dependence, because she was willing to have free trade, and thus make a market for British manufactures. The tendency of the Ricardo-Malthusian system to produce intensity of selfishness was never more strikingly mani- fested than on that occasion. It happens, unfortunately, that the system is without a base, the fact being exactly the reverse of what it is stated by Mr. Ricardo to be. Throughout the world, and at all periods of time, men have commenced the work of cul- tivation upon the poorer soils, leaving to their successors the clearing of river bottoms and the draining of swamps ; and the increase of population it has been that has everywhere enabled men tosubject rich soils to cultivation.* Food, therefore, tends to grow faster than population, when no disturbing causes exist, and in order that the increase of population may take place, it is indispensable that the consumer take his place by the side of the pro- ducer. When that is not the case, the inevitable consequence is that the waste of labour is great, and that the perpetual cropping of the land return- ing to it none of the refuse, exhausts the land and its owner, and compels the latter to fly to other poor soils, increasing the transportation and dimin- ishing still further the- quantity of cloth and iron to be obtained in return to a given amount of labour. We thus have here, first, a system that is unsound and unnatural, and second, a theory invented for the purpose of accounting for the poverty and wretchedness which are its necessary results. The miseries of Ireland are charged to over-population, although millions of acres of the richest soils of the kingdom are waiting drainage to take their place among the most pro- ductive in the world, and although the people of Ireland are compelled to waste more labour than would pay, many times over, for all the cloth and iron they consume.! The wretchedness of Scotland is charged to over- * For a full examination of this question I must refer to my book, " The Past, the Pre- sent, and the Future."' f Of single counties, Mayo, with a population of 389,000, and a rental of only 300,000Z., has an area of 1,304,000 acres, of which 800,000 are waste! No less than 470,000 acres, being very nearly equal to the whole extent of surface now under cultivation, are declared to be reclaimable. Galway, with a population of 423,000, and a valued rental of 433,000/., has upwards of 700,000 acres of waste, 410,000 of which are reclaimable! Kerry, with a population of 293,000, has an area of 1,1 86,000 acres — 727,000 being waste, and 400,000 of them reclaimable! Even the union of Glenties, Lord Monteagle's ne plus ultra of re- dundant population, has an area of 245,000 acres, of which 200,000 are waste, and for the most part reclaimable, to its population of 43,000. While the barony of Ennis, that abominaiior. of desolation, has 230,000 acres of land to its 5,000 paupers — a proportion which, as Mr. Carter, one of the principal proprietors, remarks in his cinilar advertise- THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. G5 population when a large portion of the land is so tied up by entails as to forbid improvement, and almost to forbid cultivation. The difficulty of ob- taining food in England is ascribed to. over-population, when throughout the kingdom a large portion of the land is occupied as pleasure grounds, by men whose fortunes are due to the system which has ruined Ireland and India.* Over-population is the ready excuse for all the evils of a vicious sj'stem, and so will it continue to be until that system shall see its end, the time for which is now rapidly approaching. To maintain it, the price of labour in England must be kept steadily at a point so low as to enable her to underwork the Hindoo, the German, and the American, with all the disadvantage of freight and duties. To termi- nate it, the price of labour in England must be raised to such a point as will prevent that competition and compel her to raise her own food, leaving others to consume their own, and such must be the result of the thorough adoption of the protective system, even by the United States alone. The cause of the difficulty in which England now finds herself is the unnatural disproportion between consumers and producers. Men are cheap and therefore undervalued. Establish a market for these men, and their value will rise, and such will be the effect in every part of Europe. We have seen that immigration into this country increased in the period between 1830 and 1834, from twelve to sixty-seven thousand ; that from that period to 1843 it remained almost stationary ; and that in the last four yie security of consols, the price of which was then 84. The terms on which the money •^as lent were simple. If the price reached 74', the banker might claim the stock at 70; out Rothschild felt satisfied that, with so large a sum out of the market, the bargain was <>lerably safe. The banker, however, as much a Jew as Rothschild, had a plan of his ' wn. He immediately began selling the consols received from the latter, together with a similar amount in his own possession. The funds dropped; the Stock Exchange grew alarmed; other circumstances tended to depress it; the fatal price of 74 was reached; and the Christian banker had the satisfaction of outwitting the Hebrew loanmonger. But, if sometimes outwitted him.-elf, there is little doubt he made others pay for it; and, on one occasion, it is reported that his finesse proved too great for the authorities of the Brtnk of England. Mr. Rothschild was in want of bullion, and went to the governor to procure on lojm a portion of the superfluous store. His wishes were met ; the terms were agreed on ; the period was named for its return ; and the affair finished for the time. The gold was used by the financier; his end was answered, and the day arrived on which he was to return the borrowed metal. Punctual to the time appointed, Mr. Rothschild entered ; and those who remember his personal appearance may imagine tht 76 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. the planter much goes to the payment of taxes for the maintenance of those who are reduced by the system to a state of pauperism — much to the govern- ment, which taxes every note, bill or bond — servants, horses, carriages, &c. &c. Vast sums go to the maintenance of lav/yers and conveyancers, to that of stock-gamblers and speculators, and much is lost by failures of every kind, the natural results of a gambling trade. The result is, that the cotton which yields the planter, on his plantation, but five cents per pound, and is sold in Liverpool at four-pence halfpenny per pound, is sold by the mill owner at a shilling,* and yet the reward of the la- bour employed in converting it into cloth is not two-pence, and probably little more than a penny per pound. It is so obviously the interest of mill owners to obtain large allowances for the use of machinery, that it cannot be doubted they will continue to pursue this course, and to make every effort that maybe necessary to continue to themselves the control of the cotton market. That control depends upon continuing the monopoly of machinery ; and the moment that monopoly shall be broken up, and machinery shall become so abundant elsewhere as to relieve the planter from the necessity for seeking a market, the power of taxation will pass away, cloth will be cheap, consumption will be trebled, and the producer will grow rich. We may now, for a moment, look to the manner in which the sugar-planter is taxed. The quantity of sugar entered for home consumption in 1847 was 5,800,000 cwt., and the average price was about 25s. per cwt., of which at least one-fourth, and very probably one-third, went to pay the cost of trans- portation in and from India, the Isle of France, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, &c., storage, commission, &c. Allowing it to have been three-tenths, the planter had at his command about £5,000 000 The price of iron was £9, 12s. and if we now add to this for the transportation to Cuba, Brazil, India, &c., and from the port to the plantation, only £,\, 8s. we have £11 as the cost of a ton, at which rate 450,000 tons would amount to £4,950,000 and if the account were more accurately made up, it would not probably amount to 400,000 tons. To add that quantity in a single year to the product of iron in this country, would not require the slightest exertion, and yet we see here that in return for it, small as it was, England obtained, in 1847, more than one-fourth of the products of the labour of all the sugar-producing countries of the globe ! A very slight examination of this statement will show in what manner the people of the world are taxed for the maintenance of iron-manufacturers, railroad speculators, and the host of middle-men, with whom England so much abounds. Her producers are few, and her consumers are many, and the materials for their consumption are obtained by means of a system of taxation the most extraordinary that the world has yet seen. The object of protection is not only to rescue ourselves from the necessity of contributing to the maintenance of such a system, but also to facilitate the process of emigration from lands so taxed, adding to the value of the people who remain, by diminishing the supply of men in market, and com- cunning twinkle of liis small, quick eye, as, ushered into the presence of the governor, ho handed the borrowed amount in bank notes. He was reminded of his agreement, ano the necessity of bullion was urged. His reply was worthy of a commercial Talleyrand. 'Very well, gentlemen. Give me the notes. I dare say your cashier will honour them with gold from your vaults, and then I can return you bullion.' To such a speech, the only worthy reply was a scornful silence." * The piece which sold at 6s. Id. required to produce it about 6J pounds of cottoE The price was thus almost exactly a shilling per pound. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. pelling those who desire to purchase labour to give for it the proper equiva- lent in food and raiment, which now they do not. With every step in that direction, their power to produce iron and to consume food and clothing must grow, and the power to maintain commerce must increase. We have seen that iron was much more costly in 1845-0 than from 1827 to '34. In opposition to this unquestionable fact, the late Secretary of the Treasury asserted that, "experience proves that from improved ma- chinery, new inventions and reduced cost of production, the foreign articles are constantly diminishing in price."* In opposition to this we have the fact that not only was iron higher but cotton was lower. The man who gave two pounds of cotton in 1845-6 for less iron than he could have had in 1833-4 for one, found that the price of iron was increasing and not diminishing, and that it was far more difficult than in the former period to obtain what he needed for the construction of machinery. His wages in iron were thus reduced, and his power to accumulate capital was reduced ; whereas, if he had made his exchanges on the spot with the pro- ducer of iron, both would have grown. Nevertheless we are told by the same authority that the necessary consequence of the protective system is, that " wages throughout the country became lower than before, because the aggregate profits of the capital of the nation engaged in all its industry is diminished."!" It is deemed most profitable to trade with those nations whose labour is low, and the lower it is " the greater is our gain in the ex- change." The labour of Great Britain is lower than it was fifteen years since, because it is less productive, and the less her people produce, the less they have to give us in exchange for our products ; the consequence of which is, that we give more cotton for less iron. If all the people of England were to work, they would produce far more cloth and iron; wages would then rise, and the equivalent of a bale of cotton in iron would be doubled. The more productively the people of the world are employed, the greater will be the value of their labour, and the larger will be the quantity of good things that we shall obtain in exchange for our labour. The larger their armies, the more destructive their wars, the more numerous their revolutions, the more their money-spending classes, paupers and noblemen, abound, the smaller will be the value of labour abroad, the smaller will be their power to main- tain commerce, and the smaller will be the advantage to those who trade with them ; for the less silk or iron they produce, the more food or cotton must be given them as the equivalent of similar quantities. The document to which I have above referred belongs to the school of discords ; that which teaches to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, and sees great advantage to be gained by reducing the cotton of the poor Hindoo to a penny a pound, careless of the fact that famine and pestilence follow in the train of such a system. The policy that produces a necessity for depending on trade with people who are poorer than our- selves tends to reduce the wages of our labour to a level with theirs, and to diminish commerce. That which should give us jao/z^er to trade with na- tions who might be richer than ourselves would tend to raise our wages to a level with theirs. By bringing the Irishman here, and enabling him to make his exchanges with us, we raise him to our level as a producer. By exporting our people to Ireland, and compelling them to make their exchanges there, we should sink their wages to a level with those of that country. The policy that brings people here and raises them in the scale of civiliza- tion, is that which promotes commerce. That which causes them to return home, and thus arrests the tide of immigration, preventing advance in civilization, is the one which diminishes commerce. Report, December, 1S4S f Ibid. 78 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. CHAPTER SEVENTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF THE MACHINERY OF PRODUCTION. The object sought to be iiccomplished is the improvement of the condition of man. The mode by which it is to be accomplished is that of increasing his productive power. The more food a man can raise, the more and better food may he consume, and the larger will be the surplus that can be appro- priated to the purchase of clothing, to the education of his family, to the en- largement of his house, or to the improvement of his machinery, and the greater will be the amount of leisure that can be appropriated to the im- provement of his modes of thought. The better his machinery, and the more readily it can be obtained, the larger will be his production. Machinery consists chiefly of iron, and the more readily that can be obtained, the more rapid will be the increase of production and the improvement of the physical, moral, intellectual and political capacities of man. It is the great instrument of civihzation. The more durable his work, the more rapidly will his capital increase. Where iron is abundant it is substituted for wood in the building of houses, which are thus secured from fire, and in the construction of ships and roads, by which transportation is improved — and with each such step his powers of production are increased. That he may obtain iron readily, he must have the command of fuel, ob- tainable at moderate cost of labour — in other words, cheaply — for things are cheap or dear not in proportion to their money-price, but to the quantity of labour required for obtaining them. The money-price of grain, in Ireland, is less than in England, yet the cost in labour is so great that the poor cul- tivator eats still poorer potatoes. The money-price of coal is less than it was two years since, yet the consumption has diminished, because the labour-price has risen. The money-price of cotton in those parts of India in which it is raised, is about two cents per pound, yet the man who raises it covers his loins Avith a rag, dispensing with clothing for the rest of his body, because the labour-price of cloth is great. Where production is small, the labour-price of commodities is high, and consumption is very small ; and vice versa, where production is large, the labour-price of com modities is low, and consumption is great. Large production requires good and cheap machinery, and that we may obtain such machinery, we must have good and cheap fuel. Abundance of fuel and iron are the foundation upon which civilization must rest, and whatever the course of policy that tends most to facilitate their acquisition, that is the one which must tend most rapidly to augment the productive power of man, and to increase his power and his capacity for improvement. Iron ore and fuel exist throughout this country in such profusion as is elsewhere unknown. Nowhere in the world can they be so readily ob- tained — nowhere so easily brought into combination with each other. The anthracite of Pennsylvania is the best fuel in the world, and it can be mined as cheaply as any other. It is interstratified with iron ore in great abun- dance. Limestone abounds close to the great Schuylkill region, and It may be obtained with as little labour as anyw^here in the world. The ores and fuel of Ohio and the West are thus described : — The beds of ore are easy of access, being and associated with materials necessary for its re- duction, cannot fail to be of immense sources of ^\•ealth. Most of the working-beds of ore are above the first workable bed of coal. The amount of workable ore in Muskingum county is estimated at 153,600,000 cubic yards, which, when melted, will yield about THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 79 half that number of tons, in pigs. We need not now speak of localities. Mr. Brig^'s closes his report on iron ore as follows :— " A very low calculation of the amount of ffood iron ore in the region which has this season been explored, is equal to a solid, unbroken stratum, si.xty miles in length, sixty miles in width, and three feet in thickness. A square mile of diis layer, being equivalent in round numbers to three millions cubic yards, when melted, will yield as many tons of pig iron. This number, multiplied by the number of square miles in the stratum, will give 1,080,000,000 tons ; which, from three coutitios alnne, will yield anininlly, for 2700 years, 400,000 tons of iron — more than equal to the greatest amount made in England previous to the year 1829.'" — Ohio Paper. The country bordering on Carp River (Lake Superior) is, perhaps, the richest on the globe for its iron ore. The =' Jackson Iron Company,'' whose location we had the pleasiu'e of visiting, is situated some twelve miles from the Lake Shore, and about three miles from the iron mountains. One of these mountains belongs to the above-named company, and the other to the " Cleveland Iron Company."' These two mountains, as we were informed, are by far the richest and most valuable of any iron deposit that have been discovered — though it is said that more or less iron ore is found spread over some seventeen or eighteen townships between Lake Superior and Green Bay. This ore con- tains from 75 to 00 per cent, of pure iron, and metal made from it by the Jackson Com- l)any has been submitted to the severest tests, and proves to be of the very best quality of iron that is made in any part of the world, having been drawn down to the size of No. 36 wire. The Jackson Iron Company (under the superintendence of P. M. Everett, Esq., who we now understand leaves, and is succeeded by Czar Jones, Esq., of Jackson) has been making iron for some twelve or eighteen months. — Lake Superior News. Sucli being the case, we might suppose that the consumption of fuel and iron would be great, but such has not been the case. In 1810, the domestic manufacture amounted to only 50,000 tons. In 182S, it had reached 100,000. In 1818, '19, '20, it "may perhaps have reached 70,000, but even that is very doubtful. The total importation of bar and pig iron in those years was 40,000 tons, or 13,333 per annum. The import of manufactured articles of iron may have been half as much, and this would give a consumption of 90,000 tons, or 200,000,000 of pounds for apopulation of 9,400,000 persons, beinga little over 20 pounds per head. The average consumption of the Union for all purposes, for house-building and ship-building, for agricultural implements, and for machinery of every de- scription, was equal, therefore, to little more than twice the weight of an axe per head per annum, and yet there existed, as there now exists, a capacity to produce iron at less cost of labour than anywhere in the world. If we desire now to understand the cause of this, it maybe found in the fact that up to the Revolution, the manufacture of iron, even that of horse-shoe nails, vvas prohibited, and there existed no inducement to erect works for the smeltmg of the ore, when the pig could not be used. The consequence was, that it did not grow with its natural growth, while that of England was forced forward, and when the day of nominal independence arrived, that of real independence was still far distant. Under the various tariffs from 1789 to 1812, the duties were ad-valorem, commencing with 71 per cent, and gradually rising until they had attained, before the war of 1812, 171 per cent. The production of iron had made no progress, and the whole supply had to be sought abroad, the consequence of which was that it was scarce and dear. Embargo, non-intercourse, and war raised the price so high that furnaces were built in considerable numbers ; but with the peace, the duties on manufactured iron were reduced to 20 per cent. The demand for pig iron was thus diminished, and the price in Pittsburgh, which had been SfiO, fell in 1820 and 1821 to §20, the consequence of which was the ruin of nearly all engaged in its production. This, however, was not a consequence of reduction of duty. At that very time the duty on pigs was $10, and on bars S30 per ton, and thus the selling price at that place was far less than the freight and duty on imported iron. Iron was nominally cheap, but 80 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. really dear: so dear that consumption was destroyed. Labour was at S6 per month, and wheat sold for 25 cents a bushel, and thus was produced so total an inability to consume this most necessary of all commodities, that al- though the furnaces were closed, the whole import of pig and rolled iron in 1821, was but 4000 tons, or one ton to every 2,500 persons. It may be doubted if the consumption of that year exceeded six pounds per head. We see thus that the power to import disappeared with the power to pro- duce, as has already been shown to have been the case on other occasions. Who, now, were the losers by the greatly increased difficulty of obtaining this great instrument of civilization ? To answer this question, we must first inquire who are the great consumers of iron ? The farmers and planters constitute three-fourths of the population of the nation, and if the loss were equally distributed, that portion of the loss would fall upon them ; but we shall find upon inquiry that it is upcn them, the producers of all we con- sume, that the whole of it must fall. The farmer needs iron for his spades and ploughs, his shovels and his dung-forks, his trace-chains and horse-shoes, and his wagon-wheels; for his house, his barn, and his stable. He needs them, too, for his timber. If iron be abundant, saws are readily obtained, and the saw-miller takes his place by his side, and he has his timber converted into plank at the cost of less labour than was before required to haul the logs to the distant saw-mill. He obtains the use of mill-saws cheap. If iron be abundant, the grist-mill comes to his neighbourhood, and now he has his grain converted into flour, giving for the work less grain than was before consumed by the horses and men employed in carrying it to the distant mill. If iron be abundant, spades and picks are readily obtained, and the roads are mended, and he passes more readily to the distant market. If iron increase in abundance, the railroad enables him to pass with increased facility, himself, his turnips and potatoes, to markets from which before he was entirely shut out by cost of transportation, except as regarded articles of small bulk and much value — wheat and cotton. If iron be abundant, the woollen-mill comes, and his wool is converted on the spot by men who eat on the ground his cabbages and his veal, and drink his milk, and perform the work of conversion in re- turn for services and things that would have been lost had they not been thus consumed. At each step he gets the use of iron cheaper — that is, at less cost of labour. If iron be abundant, the cotton-mill now comes, and the iron road now brings the cotton, and his sons and his daughters obtain the use of iron spindles and iron looms by which they are enabled to clothe themselves at one-twentieth of the cost of labour that had been necessary but twenty years before. Instead of a yard of cotton received in return for two bushels of corn, one bushel of corn pays for six yards of cloth — and now it is that the farmer grows rich. A careful examination of society will satisfy the inquirer that all the people engaged in the work of transportation, conversion, and exchange, are but the agents of the producers, and live out of the commodities they produce, and that the producers grow rich or remain poor precisely as they are required to employ less or more persons in the making of their ex- changes. The farmer who is compelled to resort to the distant mill em- ploys many persons, horses and wagons, in the work of converting his grain into flour, and his land is of small value. Bring the mill close to him, and a single horse and cart, occasionally employed, will do the Avork. The farmer who employs the people of England to produce his iron, is obliged to have the services of numerous persons, of ships and wagons, and horses, tc aid in the work. Bring the furnace to his side, and let his neighbour get out his iron, and he and his sons do much of the work themselves, furnishing THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 81 timber, ore, and the use of horses, wagons, t&c, when not needed on the farm. The man of Tennessee sends to i larket 300 bushels of corn, for which he receives in return one ton of iron, the money-cost of which is $G0, but the labour-cost of which is the cultivation of ten acres of land. If he could follow his corn, he would find tiiat the men who get out his iron receive but 30 or 40 bushels, and that the remaining 260 or 270 are swal- lowed up by the numerous transporters and exchangers that stand between himself and the men whom he thu,3 employs. If, now, he could bring those men to his side, giving them double wages, say sixty bushels of corn, he would be a gainer to the extent of 240 bushels. While he has to give 300 bushels, his iron is dear, and he can use little. When he obtains it for 60 bushels it is cheap, and he uses much. His production increases, and his ability to use iron increases with it, and the demand for workers in iron increases, and all obtain food more readily, the consequence of which is that they have more to spare for clothing, and for other of the comforts or the luxuries of life. Whenever there is in market a surplus of any commodity, the whole quantity tends to fall to the level of the lowest price required to enable the holders to find purchasers, and so long as we shall continue to have a sur- plus of food for export, the price of the whole must continue to be regulated by that which can be obtained for the trivial quantity sent to Liverpool. Whenever it is necessary to resort to distant places to procure a part of the supply of any commodity, the price of the whole is regulated by the cost of obtaining. this last small portion. In 1847, we produced 800,000 tons of iron, yet the demand was so much in advance of the supply that we were obliged to import a small quantity, and the price at which that was obtained fixed the price of the whole. The farmer is thus always selling in the cheapest and buying in the dearest market. The labour and capital required to produce a ton of iron, are not as great as are needed for the pro- duction of forty bushels of corn, and yet he gives for it three hundred, be- cause of the quantity of labour wasted in transporting the one to the man who produces the other. The prices of labour and iron are both higher than in Europe, and there- fore we import both. The price of food is lower than in Europe, and there- fore we export it. Whenever the import of labour shall be such as to do away with the necessity for exporting food, as food, its price will be high, and we shall cease to export it. Whenever the import of men shall be such as to do away with the necessity for importing iron, the price will be low, and we shall export food in the form of iron. By the same operation the farmer will thus be enabled to obtain high prices for his grain, and to buy his iron cheap. He will then buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, and the value of his labour will be increased. We have seen that in the period that elapsed between 1821 and 1829, em- bracing the six years which followed the passage of the act of 1824, the con- sumption of iron rose to about 25 pounds per head. In the three following years, under the tariff of 1828, it rose to 47. By the Compromise Act, the duty on railroad iron was abolished, and the consequence was, that the power of consumption diminished, remaining at an average of but 40 pounds for the next nine years. Under the strictly revenue clauses of the tariff it fell to .38 pounds, beino- less than the consumption of eleven years before. By 1840, it had risen to 94, and in the following year it rose to 98. Who were the persons that benefited by this change ? Let us see. The abundance of iron facilitated the opening of coal mines by means of steam-engines and other machinery, and the making of roads, by means of which coal, and food. 11 2 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. and timber could be taken to market, and thus greatly diminished the number of persons intermediate between the producer and consumer ; and the abund ance of fuel and iron facilitated the construction of steamboats, diminish- ino- greatly the cost of transportation to and from market ; and facilitated the construction of mills and furnaces, at which the farmers and planters could make their own e.xchanges ; while the increased facility of obtaining ploughs and harrows, spades and axes, tended to increase the productiveness of labour, with large increase in the quantities to be exchanged, and in this manner the whole benefit resuhing from the augmented facility of obtaining iron went to the cultivators of the land, farmers and planters. But why should protection have been necessary to produce this result"? To the general reasons already given, may now be added, those which refer particularly to iron. In a table now before me,* the English prices of mer- chant-bar iron are thus given : — . £ s. 1837—10 5@ 1838— 9 10@ 1839—10 5 @ 1840— 9 @ 1841— 7 15@ 1842— 6 10@ 1843— 5 0@ 1844— 6 6 @ 1845— 6 10@ 1846— 9 £. *. 6 15 9 15 We have here £4 10=$21 60, and £15=S72, and every price between. Why should these enormous variations take place ? It costs no more labour to make iron at one time than at another. The man who mined a ton of ore or coal in 1832, when the price was £5 10, could mine more than a ton in 1846, because machinery had been greatly improved, and yet the price was then £Q. The season may be adverse for the growth of grain or cotton, and the roi may destro}'^ the potato crop, thus diminishing the quantity to be supplied with great increase of price, and yet neither food nor cotton is liable to the enormous and sudden changes that we see in regard to iron, which ought to be perfectly steady. These changes are due to the unsound character of the system, and the perpetual changes that result therefrom. The consequence of them is, the constant recurrence of ruin to all, in other countries engaged in the manufacture of iron. In 1816 it was high, and furnaces were built. In 1821, it was low, and iron-masters were everywhere ruined. In 1825 it was high, and furnaces were again put in blast. In 1831, furnace-masters were again ruined. In 1836 it \vas high, and in 1842, it was low, and on both occasions the same operations were repeated. So again in 1846, furnaces were built, and now, in 1849, they are being closed. The consequence of this is that the iron manufacture throughout the country is in a barbarous condition. Small furnaces abound, at which much labour is given to producing little iron. At each forced intermission of the exertions of England to maintain the monopoly of the production of this im- portant commodity, we can see it making its way gradually to the land where alone it can be produced at small cost of labour — that land where ore, coal and limestone are interstratified with each other, and at which it would long since have arrived but for our frequent changes of policy. * Merchants' Magazine, Vol. XX. 337. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 83 Very little examination is necessary to satisfy the inquirer that it has been precisely when iron has been lowest in England, in 1822 and 1843, that our consumption was least; and it is now diminishing rapidl}^ as our furnaces are being closed and their owners ruined. The power to consume derlines daily. With another year or two the price abroad will be high, but time will then be required to get the old furnaces into operation, and still longer to build new ones; for irnn-inaking is like buying lottery tickets, and the blanks are more numerous than the prizes. That time arrived, pig iron may be again 810 and bars §80 per ton. S) long as a nation is dependent on England for any portion of its supply, so long must prices continue to be thus variable, and so long must the con- sumption of this important article, aud the facilities for producing it, be small, and all the deficiency falls on the producer of food, or wool, or cotton ; for it is he that pays the cost of transportation, conversion and exchange. The consumption of the present year will not, probably, exceed 700,000 tons, for the make at home is greatly diminished, and the stock on hand has increased to an extent nearly approaching that of the import from abroad. Next year, there is strong reason for beheving that it VN^ill be still farther diminished, whereas, there can be no doubt that that year, had the system of 1842 remained unchanged, would have seen the domestic product attain 1,300,000 tons, or 3,000,000,000 of pounds, being 125 pounds per head; the increase for 1846 having been almost equal to the whole consumption, per head, in 1842-3. Thenceforth, the price would have been regulated by the cost of production here, and not by the fluctuations of policy abroad ; and thenceforth the prices would have been daily diminishing, as the machinery of production improved. The object of the colonial system is that of increasing the number of trans- porters, converters and exchangers, who are to be supported out of the labours of the farmers and planters. The object of the protective system is to diminish the number; and the question now to be settled is, whether the labourers, the men who produce all that we consume, or the exchangers shall be masters. Were the latter to succeed, we should have perfect freedom of trade, so far as freedom consists in being compelled to forego the association of men with their fellow-men for the improvement of their condition, and the result would be the stoppage of every furnace in the Union; when all those engaged in mining coal and ore would be compelled to resort to the raising of food, which would be lower, while iron would be higher and greatly higher. Its cost in labour would be so f&r increased that consumption would fall to the point at which it stood in 1821. Perfect protection would soon quadruple our production, and vast num- bers of persons would mine iron and coal instead of raising food, which would be higher. The labour-cost of iron would be diminished, and the consumption would be increased; and it is by aid of iron that production is to be increased, exchanges facilitated, conversion improved, land increased in value, and farmers and planters made rich. From 1829 to 1832, the domestic production increased about fifty per cent. During the whole of that period, the Union was agitated by threats of nullification and disunion, and there existed no motive for investing in fur- naces or rolling-mills the large amounts required for the cheap production of this important commodity. From 1842 to 1847, the production trebled, and perhaps quadrupled. During the intermediate period it was almost stationary I propose 10 inquire what wo\ild have been the result, had the production gono on to increase at the rate of only 1 5 per cent, per annum, and then to examine what would have been the effect on the working men, the planters and 84 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. farmers of the Union, with a view to ascertain from the experience of the past what is probably the true course of policy for the future. Starting with 200,000 tons in 1832, and increasing the product 15 per cent, the succeeding years would have been as follows: — Years. 1000 tons. Years. 1000 tons. Years. 1000 tons. 1833 . . 230 1839 . . 532 1845 . . 1230 1834 . . 265 1840 . . 612 1846 . . 1415 1835 . . 305 1841 . . 704 1847 . . 1630 1836 . . 350 1842 . . 810 1848 . . 1875 1837 . . 402 1843 . . 930 1849 . . 2150 1838 . . 462 1844 . . 1070 1850 2472 It will be seen that the highest increase of any year is scarcely more than that which actually took place in years between 1843 and 1847, when every thing had to be recommenced, after a state of almost utter ruin. What now would have been the amount of investment required for the production of this quantity of pig-metal? A furnace capable of producing. 5000 tons per week may cost $30,000. We can now produce 800,000 tons. To have made it 2,000,000 would have required the building of 240 furnaces more than we have built, and their construction would have required $8,000,000, being far less than the amount that has in that period been spent in biiilditig psicket ships to run between New York, London, and Liverpool, — leaving out of view all other expenditure upon shipping, whether for building or sailing them. The ships have disappeared, or will disappear, leaving nothing be- hind. The furnaces would be still in existence. At one establishment in Pennsylvania there are six furnaces capable of producing 800 tons of metal per week, or 41,600 tons per annum. The cost of these may have been $200,000. To build ships capable of transporting that quantity would re quire an investment of at least $750,000. At the end of a few years, the whole of that capital would be sunk, while the furnaces might last almost for centuries. The tendency of the colonial system is thus to compel the employment of capital in temporary machinery, and the object of protection is to enable the owner of it to invest it in that which is permanent. It will be asked, what should we have done with all this iron? In answer, I say, that every man is a consumer to the full extent of his pro- duction. The man who made the iron would have required food, fuel and clothing. The man who mined the fuel would have required iron, food and clothing. The man who raised the food would have required iron, fuel and clothing. The man who made the clothing would have requifed iron, food and fuel. The man who raised the wool and the cotton would have required food, fuel, iron, and clothing. Production would have largely increased, and there would have been a large increase in the power of con- suming all the commodities necessary for the convenience and comfort of man. In other words, there would have been a great increase in the pro- fits of capital and the wages of labour. Had production gone on at the rate I have indicated, we should have in the period from 1834 to the present time 15,000,000 of tons, whereas we have had but 5,000,000. These 10,000,000 would have filled the country with machinery, enabling the farmers and planters to have the consumers by their sides, and in addition would have given them roads by which to go t-^ market at half the present cost. Their necessity for going to distant markets would have diminished, while their power so to do would have in- creased, and with every step in this progress they would have become enriched. It may, perhaps, be said that this demand for labour would have dimin- THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 85 ished the power to produce food and cotton. On the contrary, it would have increased it. Two-thirds of the labour actually employed in the making of this iron and its conversion into the various forms to fit it for use, would have been saved labour — labour that has been wasted. Further, the farmer and planter would have exchanged their food and cotton on the spot for iron, and here would have been a further and vast saving of labour. The increased facility of obtaining spades and hoes, ploughs and harrows, horse-shoes, carts and wagons, would have rendered the labour on the farm or plantation more productive. The rapid growth of railroads would have prevented the necessity for going to market with produce, and facilitated the transport of manure, and marl, and lime, and thus the power to apply labour steadily and advantageously would have largely increased. The neighbouring cotton-mill or woollens-mill would have furnished clothing for food and labour, and thus the necessity for looking to distant markets would have been diminished, while the power to resort to them would have largely increased. The increased demand for labour and its increased reward, would have tended largely to augment immigration, and each new arrival would have been a mouth to be fed and a back to be clothed, to the advan- tage of both farmer and planter. Farms and plantations would have been divided, and more food and cotton would have been obtained from small ones than are now obtained from large ones. The land would have increased in value, and the farmers and planters would have grown rich because of increased production and diminished cost of exchange, and a part of the sur- plus would have been appropriated to the purchase of books and news- papers, and musical instruments and pictures, and thus would intellectual have kept pace with moral and physical improvement. Instead of all this, the period from 1835 to 1843 was one of diminished production and in- creasing poverty and crime, ending with bankruptcy and repudiation. What has been said in regard to iron is equally true in regard to coal, but it is unnecessary to go into detail. Had the tariff of 1828 been adopted as the settled policy of the nation, the consumption of anthracite would hy this time have reached 10,000,000 of tons, and the vast coal fields of the West would likewise be giving forth their products by millions, and thus the food of the farm would have been condensed into fuel and iron, fitting it for transportation, and providing means of transportation. Instead of this, we have had a series of changes that have involved in ruin almost all that have been largely interested in giving to the nation the extraordinary works that connect Philadelphia and New York with the great coal region of Pennsyl- vania, and State bankruptcy and repudiation have been followed by that of companies which have done more for the real advantage of the Union than any others that have ever existed within its limits, and all this has been pro- duced by a policy under which the whole consumption of iron was reduced below 40 pounds per head, when it might long since have reached 300. Had the production of iron and coal been allowed to increase, and the manufacture of cotton to grow, we should be now consuming a million and a half of bales ; and had the woollens manufacture been allowe'-l to grow, we should now have a hundred millions of sheep, the whole of whose wool would be required for our domestic consumption, for those who produce largely consume largely. The perfect harmony of interests is nowhere more perfectly exhibited than in a thorough examination of the course of proceeding in relation to both coal and iron. Both were heavily protected from 181G to 1824, but neither grew, because the iron maintfacftire, the cotton and the woollen manufactures, did not grow ; and so would it now be, were iron and coal pro- tected at the cost of cotton and wool. All wax and wane together, and the S6 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. man who would protect himself at the ci st of his neighbour, makes a sad mistake. It is useless to produce iron without a market, and that market is to be found in the rolling-mill, the fovmdery, the machine-shop, the cut- ler's shop and that of the axe-maker, and they in turn must find a market among the producers of food, and wool, and cotton. The shipwright uses largely of iron, and that he may do so, there must be a large market for sugar, tea, coffee, and other of the luxuries and comforts of life. The larger the market, the larger will be the consumption of iron, and the larger the latter, the more rapidly will the former grow. In a wise political economy there will be found no dispords CHAPTER EIGHTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS POPULATION. Combination of action is indispensable to increase in the value of labour. The first cultivator can neither roll nor raise a log, with which to build himself a house. He makes himself a hole in the ground, which serves in lieu of one. He cultivates the poor soil of the hills to obtain a little corn, with which to eke out the supply of food derived from snaring the game in his neighbourhood. His winter's supply is deposited in another hole, liable to injury from the water which filters through the light soil into which alone he can penetrate. He is in hourly danger of starvation. At length, how- ever, his sons grow up. They combine their exertions with his, and now obtain something like an axe and a spade. They can sink deeper into the soil ; and can cut logs, and build something like a house. They obtain more corn and more game, and they can preserve it better. The danger of starvation is diminished. Being no longer forced to depend for fuel upon the decayed wood which alone their father could use, they are in less danger of perishing from cold in the elevated ground which, from necessity, they occupy. With the growth of the family new soils are cultivated, each in succession yielding a larger return to labour, and they obtain a constantly increasing supply of the necessaries of life from a surface diminishing in its ratio to the number to be fed ; and thus with every increase in the return to their labour the power of combining their exertions is increased. If we look now to the solitary settler of the West, even where provided with both axe and spade, we shall see him obtaining, with extreme difficulty, the commonest log hut. A neighbour arrives, and their combined efforts produce a new house with less than half the labour required for the first. That neighbour brings a horse, and he makes something like a cart. The product of their labour is now ten times greater than was that of the first man working by himself. More neighbours come, and new houses are wanted. A "bee" is made, and by the combined effort of the neighbour- hood the third house is completed in a day ; whereas the first cost months, and the second weeks, of far more severe exertion. These new neighbours have brought ploughs and horses, and now better soils are cultivated and the product of labour is again increased, as is the power to preserve the surplus for winter's use. The path becomes a road. Exchanges begin. The store makes its appearance. Labour is rewarded by larger returns, because aided by better machinery applied to better soils. The town grows up. Each successive addition to the population brings a consumer and a producer. The shoemaker wants leather and corn in exchange for his shoes. The blacksmith requires fuel and food, and the farmer wants shoes for his horses ; and with the increasing facility of exchange more labour is applied to production, and the reward of labour rises, producing now wants, and requiring more and larger exchanges. The road becomes THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 87 a turnpike, and the wagon and horses are seen upon it. The town becomes a city, and better soils are cultivated for the supply of its markets, while the railroad facilitates exchanges with towns and cities more distant. The tendency to union and to combination of exertion thus grows with the growth of wealth. In a state of extreme poverty it cannot be developed. The insignificant tribe of savages that starves on the product of the upper soil of hundreds of thousands of acres of land, looks with jealous eyes on every intruder, knowing that each new mouth requiring to be fed tends to increase the ditliculty of obtaining subsistence ; whereas the farmer rejoices in the arrival of the blacksmith and the shoemaker, because they come to eat on the spot the corn which heretofore he has carried ten, twenty, or thirty miles to market, to exchange for shoes for himself and his horses. With each new consumer of his products that arrives he is enabled more and more to concentrate his action and his thoughts upon his nome, while each new arrival tends to increase his power of consuming commodities brought from a distance, because it tends to diminish his necessity for seeking at a dis- tance a market for the produce of his farm. Give to the poor tribe spades, and the knowledge how to use them, and the power of association will begin. The supply of food becoming more abundant, they hail the arrival of the stranger who brings them knives and clothing to be exchanged for skins and corn; wealth grows, and the habit of association — the first step towards civilization — arises. It is not good for man to live alone, and yet throughout this country, we find thousands and tens of thousands of men flying to the West, there to commence the work of cultivation at a distance from their fellow-men, while millions upon millions of acres of rich land in the old States remain untouched. If, now, we refer to the course of events during the last thirty years, we see that the tendency to migration increased rapidly between 1834 and 1842, when the building of mills and furnaces ceased, and that during that period we colonized Texas and Oregon. In the years which followed, the tendency to emigrate diminished, to break out afresh under the influence of the policy of 1846. The last twelve months have witnessed the departure of very many thousands to California, Santa Fe, &c., while the emigration to Iowa, Wisconsin, and other portions of the extensive West, is entirely with- out precedent. " It is estimated," says the editor of one of the Iowa papers, " That between fourteen and fifteen hundred wagons have crossed the Mississippi at this place, within the last live weeks, brinj,'iiig emigrants from (^io, Indiana and Illi- nois, and all of them seeking homes in Iowa. They have," says he, "generally gone to the new counties on and west of the Des Moines river, where, we know, they will find lands and other agricultural advantages, equal to any in the world. Allowing five per- sons to a wagon, there have crossed at this place alone, between 7000 and 8000 persons. We are told that the same extraordinary influx of immigrants has taken place at all the other crossings along the river Dubuque, down to Keokuk. It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that from 30.00U to 50, i 'GO persons have been added to our population within the last month and a half, and the tide is still pressing towards us."* If we desire to find the reason for the extraordinary tendency now prevail- ing to seek the West, it may be found in the diminishing value of labour in the older States. The production of iron, coal, cotton and woollen cloths, and of commodities generally, has diminished ; and there is not only no de- mand for labour in the construction of new mills and furnaces, or in the opening of new coal mines, but the number of persons employed is actually diminished. The natural increase of our population is almost 600,000, and the immigration of the present year is about 800,000 ; and thus 900,000 • Burlington (Iowa) Ga/etie. 88 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. persons are added, while the number that can find employment in the old States is less than it was two years since. All these people must eat, and if they cannot obtain food in exchange for labour, employed in the mining of coal or manufacture of cloth or iron, they must raise it for themselves, and hence it is that the population of the new States grows now so rapidly. Here is a case of apparent discord. The people of the new States need neighbours to help them to make roads and build churches and school-houses, and the state of things that injures the farmers of Pennsyl- vania, New York and Virginia, benefits all those who are already in Wis- consin and Iowa. They profit by free-trade and would be injured by pro- tection. Strange as it may seem, however, directly the reverse is the case. The harmony of interests is perfect, and the discord is only apparent. The new States would grow faster under protection than they now do under free-trade. But for the abolition of protection, in 1833-3, Iowa, Wis- consin, &c., would now be populous States, as I propose now to show. From lb21 to 1825, there existed no inducement for emigration from Eu- rope to this country. Wages here were low, and the difficulty of obtaining employment was great. The average number of immigrants was but713S, and the last year was little more than the average. By 1829, it reached 24,000. Five years after, (1834,) it was 65,000. The average of the next nine years was but 72,000 ; and, in the last of those years, it was but 75,179. Like every thing else, immigration was stationary. In the four following years it was trebled. This year it may reach 230,000. It has already begun to decline. It is obvious that the demand for labour grows with increase in the num- ber of modes in which it can be applied ; and that with every step in that direction the return to labour increases, enabling the labourer to obtain larger wages — that is to say, more food, fuel, clothing, books and newspapers, and greater facilities for the education of his children, in return to the same labour. We see that the power to obtain these good things increased rapidly from 1830 to 1834, and that the effect was to produce a vast increase of immigration. With every such increase there must, necessarily, have been increased power of combination, accompanied by increased facilities for ob- taining the things for which men are willing to labour ; offering new attrac- tions for the labourer, and producing a further increased tendency in the same direction. In a former chapter, I have supposed that it might by this time have reached 1,000,000 per annum, and that it would have done had it doubled but once in four years. A dfl plication in three years would have brought it by this time to 2,000.000^ Taking it, however, at the former quantity, we should have imported in the intermediate period nearly (3,000,000, instead of less than 2,000,000. If we now add thereto the natural increase of all these people, we would have at this moment a population exceeding b}^ at least 5,000.000 the number we now have ; and of these, while vast numbers would have been employed in giving value to the lands of the older States, by opening mines and building furnaces, millions would have sought the West, the access to which would have been rendered daily more and more easy by the increased facility of obtaining iron for the construction of steam- boats and rail -roads. The large immigration of the last and previous years is by many ascribed to the troubles in Europe ; but their effect has been small. All commodities tend to seek the best market, and to this rule labour forms no exception. The people of Europe are anxious to transfer themselves here because man is here a commodity of more value than in Europe, and can obtain more food, fuel and clothing, and better shelter, in return for the same quantity of labour, than he can at home ; and the more widely extended the knowledge that such is the fact, the greater is the anxiety to reach our shores. Had THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 89 the demand for labour continued to increase as it did from 1844 to 1847, the immigrationof the present year would probably far exceed even half-a-million; whereas, there is every reason to believe that there will be a great diminu- tion. CHAPTER NINTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL. The more widely men are separated, the greater is the difficulty attendant on the making of roads, and the greater is the quantity of labour lost to the farmer in performing the work of transportation, and the poorer he remains. The more men are enabled to combine their exertions, the greater is the facility of obtaining roads ; the less the labour lost in transportation, the more can be given to the work of production, and the richer will the farmer grow. During the years from 1835 to 1840, the tendency was to separation, and there was great need of roads. The widely scattered settlers of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Mississippi could tiot make them of themselves, and none would trust them individually with the means necessary for their con- struction. To remove this difficulty, they united in borrowing the food and clothing and the iron required for the purpose, pledging the faith of the State for payment of the cost, and the result was universal ruin. Men were scattering themselves, and labour was becoming less productive ; the con- sequence of which was, that immigration ceased to increase ; and it was pre- cisely when the growth of population from that source was arrested, that we were extending the area of settlement, and diminishing the power of combining exertion for the purpose of increasing the return to labour. We are now doing precisely the same thing. Men are scattering them- selves widely, and there is a great demand for roads. The papers from day to day inform us of the new ones that are being made in the West with iron that is obtained in exchange for certificates of debt, bearing interest, that must be paid. The men who should be making iron are seeking the West, and borrowing the iron they should be making, and, if the system be long continued, the result must be the same that was witnessed in 1842-3. It is to this unnatural expansion of a small population over large surfaces that is due the agitation of the question of improvement by the general government, one of the most dangerous now remaining to be settled. If the settlement and cultivation of new lands, and the formation of new States, proceeded naturally, the population would become sufficiently rich to be enabled to make their own roads and improve their own harbours ; but as that cannot be the case under the existing system, they look to the govern- ment for aid. At this moment, it is proposed that a vast amount of land should be given, or sold at a very low price, to aid in the making of a road to California, a work that, if prosecuted with vigour, would be finished half a century before it would pay interest on its cost, because it would tend only to promote the further dispersion of population, and the further diminution in the productiveness of labour. We need concentration to render labour more productive, and to promote immigration ; and if that be obtained, the natural and profitable settlement of the country beyond the Mississippi will go on so rapidly as to insure a connection with the Pacific, with advantage to all, in a very reasonable time. It is doubtful if there is a single instance on record of a road having been made with a view to attract population, or one that has been altogether dependent on through travel and trade, as this must for a long time be, that has not proved a failure. To make roads pro- ductive, they must pass through countries where men consume on the land a good portion of the products of the land, ar.d grow rich, and not through 12 90 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. those in which, because of the absence of consuming population, every thing that is raised on the land is sent from the land, and its owners remain poor. If this road be now made, there will be great loss somewhere, and fall where it may, it will be a loss to the community. The reason why such roads are unprofitable is, that the transportation upon them is almost entirely limited to bulky articles that must be carried at low freights. The most valuable of all commodities is man, and upon such roads the travel is small, for the people are poor, and must remain at home. Their products pay little to the road, yet the little that is left pur- chases but little of silk, or cloth, or other of the articles of merchandise upon which high tolls can be charged. Where, on the contrary, there is a large consuming population on the line, the way-travel is great, and the commodities that pass to market pay good freights, while the balance pays for much merchandise to be returned. Applying these views to the means of intercourse with foreign nations, we may now, I think, see why it is that shipping grows with protection. The merchandise we send to Europe is bulky, and the returns are com- pact, a consequence of which is that the outward cargo has generally had to bear almost all the charges of the voyage. From 1830 to 1834, the reward of labour was, however, such as induced a great increase of immigration, and thus was secured a valuable return cargo, the receipts from which tended largely to diminish the charges on outward freights, and thus the planter and farmer were enabled to consume more largely of the merchandise of Europe, which pays high freights, and more of tea and coffee, while the demand for the raw materials used in manufac- tures, also enabled ships to bring them as part of their return cargoes, facilitating the transmission of our produce and merchandise to other parts of the world. From 1835 to 1844, immigration was almost stationary. So was ship- ping. From 1845 to the present time immigration has grown rapidly. So has shipping. We now import 300,000 persons, and the usual allowance being two persons to five tons, it follows that shipping to the extent of 250,000 tons, making three trips per annum, is so employed. Freights to Europe are low, because the return cargo is large and valuable. Ships of the first class are now built expressly for the importation of men, and so will they continue to be, if the number of passengers shall continue to increase. With a diminution of it, the building of ships will diminish, and freights to Europe will rise, because a valuable return cargo cannot then be cal- culated upon. The rise of freights will, as a matter of course, diminish the number of articles that will bear exportation, and the quantity of mer- chandise that can be imported from Europe, while the diminution in the number of mouths requiring tea, coffee, and other similar commodities, will tend still further to diminish the tendency towards the building of ships. Were we now importing a million of people, the shipping required for that purpose alone would be 830,000 tons, and freights to Europe would be almost nominal, for great numbers would go altogether in ballast. What- ever tends to increase the bulk of the commodities imported tends equally to diminish the cost of transportation, and to increase the export of the pro- ducts of the farmer and planter. If we imported raw silk, we should import Frenchmen to manufacture it, and cofl^ee for them to drink, and the ships that imported the silk, the men, and the cofl^ee, would cheaply transport cotton or cotton cloth. If we import gutta percha, we obtain it from one who desires to buy cloth, and to whom cloth can then be cheaply sent. If we import gutta percha goods, we obtain them from men who have cloth to sell, and to whom cotton cannot be cheaply sent. If we desire, then, to increase THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 91 our ccmmerce and our navigation, the object is to be accomplished by the adoption of measures that will bring the loom to take its place by the side of the plough. The harmony of the agricultural, manufacturing, and ship- ping interests would here appear to be complete. With such an importation of men, there would be an annual addition of 1.000,000 with whom we would have perfect freedom of trade, uninterfered with by custom-house officers, sailors, or ships. At the end of ten years, there would be thus made an addition of twelve or thirteen millions of persc'iis, who would consume twice as much cotton as is now consumed by the whole people of Great Britain and Ireland. The harmony between the views of the free-traders and those of the protectionists would thus appear to be almost perfect. The more the subject is examined, the more obvious does it become that the only road to perfect freedom of trade lies through perfect protection. CHAPTER TENTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE FARMER. Among the large exporters of food are Ireland, Canada, Russia, and the United States. The tirst exports both food and population. The bulk of her trade is alto- gether outward, and the fcfcd has to bear all the cost of the voyage out and home. The yield to the producer is therefore small, and tends rapidly to diminish, the consequences of which are, famine, pestilence, and depopu- lation. The second exports food and lumber, and imports some population for home consumption, and much that is exported to the United States. The excess of exports is, however, sufficiently great to throw nearly the whole weight of the voyage out and home upon the producer. ' Neither of these countries has any protection against the colonial system. The food they export comes back to them in the form of cloth and iron, duty frue, and almost freight free, because the bulk of the traffic is in the outward direction. Russia exports food, but she protects manufactures, and thus makes a market for much of it at home. Her capacity to supply grain is by one authority stated to be equal to 17,000,000, and' by another ^28,000,000 of quarters. (153 and 252 millions of bushels of 60 pounds weight,) and we are told that — " In the years when there is no foreign demand for this surplus, a portion of it is em- ployed, with little regard to economy, in fattening cattle for the butchers, and for the sake of the tallow. Much is absolutely wasted, and the remainder, left unthreshed, becomes the prey of birds and mice." Also that " if a foreign market could be found for it, Russia could easily export annually 50,00'.i,000 of quarters of grain, (equal to 450,000,000 of bushels of sixty pounds weight.)"* The system of that country is adverse to the growth of wealth and in- telligence. Large armies and Tiosts of officials are maintained out of her heavy taxes, paid from the earnings of the producing classes, while the existence (j.f serfdom, and the necessity for giving so large a portion of the lives of the healthiest and best-furmed of the population to the business of carrying fcabres and mtiskets, tends to prevent the existence of any hope of improve- ment; and without hope there can be httle disposition for exertion. Never- theless, as we see, the Russian lias food to waste, while Irishmen perish by tens of thousands of starvation. In this country the system of protection exJsts. It is now limited to thirty * London Economist. 92 THE Harmony of interests. per cent. ; and for the last twenty years it has but once, and for a very brief period, been at a lower pomt. By its aid there has been produced a diversification of pursuits, that enables men to economize much time and many things that would otherwise be wasted, while women and children find employment at such wages as enable them to be large consumers of both food and clothing. Wages are high, and hence it is that there is so large an import of the most valuable of commodities — man. We imported last year about 300,000 persons. Estimating their con- sumption of food at twenty cents per day for each, there was thus made a market on the land for the products of the land to the extent o{ twenty mil- lions of dollars. Their transportation required the constant employment of 250,000 tons of shipping, and ships carried freight to Europe at very low rates, because certain of obtaining valuable return cargoes. The farmer thus obtained a large home market, and the power of exporting cheaply to the foreign one, and to the conjoined operation of these two causes is due the fact that wheat and flour have continued so high in price. We may now, I think, understand many curious facts now passing before our eyes. Food is so abundant in Russia that it is wasted, and yet among the large exporters of food to Great Britain is this country, in which it sells at a price almost as high a-s in Liverpool, and now even higher. The produce of Russia has to bear all the charges out and home, and the con- sequence is, that the producer remains poor and makes no roads, and thus the cost of transportation, internal and external, continues, and must continue, great. The farmer of the United States sends his produce to market cheaply, because the return cargo, being chiefly man, is valuable, and the space it occupies is great. He therefore grows rich, and makes roads, and canals, and builds steamboats; and thus is the cost of transportation, internal and external, so far diminished that the difference in the price of ,a barrel of flour in Pittsburgh and in Liverpool is, when we look at the distance, almost inconceivably small. The bulk of the trade of Canada is outwards ; and the consequence is that outward freights are high, while our imports of men and other valuable commodities keep them low with us, and therefore it is that the cost of trans- porting wheat and flour from our side of the hne is so much lower than from the other, that both now pass through New York on their way to Liver- pool.* Hence it is that there has arisen so vehement a desire for commercial re- • From one of the journals of the day I take the following extract from a Canadian letter : — " Our commercial relations with your Union are a subject of great anxiety with us at the present time. Wheat is worth from 2s. to 3s., York, more on your side of the Lake than on this. This is owing to two causes: the 20 per cent, duty you impose upon our grain when imported and sold in your market, and the want of a sufficient number of resident wheat buyers who have sufficient capital to enable them to take advantage of your bond- ing Act. If your Cabinet has determined to annex us, they will refuse us reciprocity. In 1847, we exported of Canada wheat, 3,349,686 bushels, and in 1848, 3,413,397. We shall export, at least, twice as mucli this year ; for every acre of land that was in a condition to grow wheat was sown with that grain, and the crop throughout the whole of Western Canada, except perhaps the Middle District, is unusually heavy. " ' The Examiner' estimate:^, and I think with tolerable accuracy, that Our farmers M'ill this year lose $1,500,000, from a want of having free access for their produce to your markets. The Convention of Delegates from eaih of these Provinces, now sitting at Halifax, have under consideration the question of securing a more easy interchange of commodities between the Provinces and the States. A notion has got abroad, that if Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brimswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland were united, they would then have a better chance of obtaining free trade from you than in their present isolated condition. It is rumoured that the Home Government, for som« THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 93 ciprocity, and even for annexation. The protective system has thus not only the effect of bringing consumers to take their places by the side of the producer, facilitating the consumption on the land of the products of the land, and facilitating also the exportation of the surplus to foreign markets, by diminishing outward freights, but the further one of producing among our neighbours a strong desire for the establishment of the same per- fect freedom of trade that now exists among the several States, by becoming themselves a part of the Union. Protection, therefore, tends to the increase of commerce and the establishment of free trade, while the British system tends everywhere to the destruction of commerce and to the production of a necessity for restriction. We see, thus, that if we desire to secure the command of that which is falsely called " the great grain market of the world," it is to be effected by the adoption of such measures as will secure valuable return freights. The most costly and the most valuable of all are men. The least so are pig-iron and coal. The more of the latter we import, the larger will be our surplus of food, the higher will be the outward freight, internal and external, the greater will be the waste, and the poorer will be the farmer. The more of the former we import, the smaller will be our surplus of food, the lower will be the outward freights, and the more numerous will be the commodities that can go to Europe, to be given in exchange for luxuries that now we cannot purchase. Were we now importing a million of men annually, the downward freights on our canals and railroads would be greatly diminished, while the outward freight across the ocean would be little more than would pay the cost attendant upon loading and unloading it, and yet we should be building ships and steamboats, and making railroads at a rate of which we could now form no conception. By aid of these men, coal and iron would be produced by millions of tons, and the increased facility of obtaining food and iron would give new facilities for building cotton and woollen mills, and type-foundries and printing-offices, and all the men employed in them would be large consumers of food, and thus would the farmer gain on every hand. The labourer, in Ireland, obtains 6d. or 8d. for a day's lab(Xir when em- ployed, but the average of the year is even less than the former sum. He is our great customer for Indian corn, the cost of which, by the time it reaches him, is about 4s. or five times what it has yielded to the farmer, delivered on his farm." Eight day's labour are thus required for the purchase of a bushel. Transfer that man to the coal-fields of Ohio or Indiana, and he may purchase far more by the work of a single day. He at once becomes a much better customer for food, and is enabled to consume largely of sugar and coffee, to the advantage of the merchant — of wool, to the further advan- tage of the cultivator of the land — of lumber, to the advantage of the man who has land uncultivated that he desires to clear — of cotton, and indigo, to the benefit of the planter — and thus it is that every interest in the country profits by the transfer of the poor cultivators of Ireland, and of Germany, to the coal fields and iron-ore beds of the Union. The young Englishman who aspires to be an operative spinner,and now fills purpose of its own, has recommended this federation, and of course the Colonial puppets who move at the dictation of Downing street, will pretend that a measure which has-been forced upon them, originated in the commercial necessities of the Provinces. To obtain the free trade they desire, the Nova-Scotians showed symptoms of a willingness to admit your fishing vessels a little nearer than within three miles of their shores ; and Canada would probably throw open her coasting-trade to your vessels, if England will permit her after the new Navigation Law comes into operation." 94 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. the place of the latter in his absence, receives 7s. 6c?. — 31-80 per week,* the price of two bushels of Indian corn. Place him in Alabama, and he will earn the present price of twenty bushels, and he will then eat more and better food, and consume ten pounds of cotton where now he consumes but one. The hand-loom weavers, of Avhom England has 800,000, without Avorlc fir one-third of the number,! consume little food or cotton. Transfer liiein here, and they will become large consumers of both. The agricultural labourer of England receives 8s. or 9s. a week, little over the price of a bushel and a half of wheat. Transfer him here, and his services as a miner, or labourer, will enable him to earn the price of live or six bushels. He will then consume more and better food, and largely of cotton. The poor Highlander, driven from his native hills to make room for sheep, starves in the miserable lodging-houses of Glasgow. | Could he be trans- ferred here, he would become a large consumer of food and clothing. Our present policy is directly the reverse of all this. We are exporting men by tens of thousands to California, and by hundreds of thousands to the West, thus diminishing the power of combination of action, and increasing the necessity for the use of ships and wagons to carry their produce to market. Thus far the immigration has been maintained, and freights to Europe are consequently low, but, with the diminished wages of the labourer, immigration must fall off, and then freights must rise, and thus the same measures that diminish the home consumption must increase the cost (-f going to the distant market. The cost of the voyage out and home must be paid by somebody. If there is no return freight, the farmer or planter must pay the whole. If there is a large and valuat»le return freight, he need pay scarcely any portion of the cost. To California, we muf . pay all the outward freight, for there is no cargo to be returned. Bulky articles, the produce of the farm, cannot, therefore, go from here, aiid tne consequence is, that every emigrant to that country is a customer Ico. to che farmer, and a customer to a diminished extent to the planter. The most costly and most valuable of commodities., as I have already said, is Man. The more valuable the commodities that can be imported into any country, without going in debt for them, ttie richer that country wil{ grow ; and this is equally true of every State, county, township, town, &c., into which it may be divided. Of this no one can doubt, and yet every portion of the Union is engaged in expoiting to the West, to Texas, Oregon, and California, this most valuable of all commodities, receiving • London Economist, Vol. VI. p.. 259. j- Edinburgh. Review, October, 1849. \ A recent British journal, speaking of the Queen's visit to Scotland, thus describes the effects of the desolating policy that has been pursued in the Highlands : — " The untilled hills and glens tell their own story most effectually. The sheep farms of twenty miles length and breadth proclaim the dark character of that policy which is fast making of the Highlands a great hunting-ground. Her Majesty is to pass through a land of Ameers. The same wretched policy as that which has desolated Scinde, originating in the same miserable cause — the selfishness and pleasure-seeking of the owners — has laid waste the Highlands. They want a Sir Charles Napier — a legislative if not a military Napier. They need the repeal of the game and entail laws, and with those laws repealed, in twenty years there would be no difficulty infnding a popvlaiion to welcome the monarch on tht beautiful but now desolate shores of Loch Long and Loch Jlwe. The pines§ would flourish again; and newspaper reporters would not be weighing the question whether there be or be not a habitable house where they might rest within ten miles of Loch S^ggan,"— North British Mail. § The standard of the Campbells, who inhabited this region, bore a pine. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 95 nothing in return. "We import now hundreds of thousands, yet the old Slates retain scarcel}' any of them. Ail must go Wost, for the working of mills and furnaces is stopped, and the building of mills is at an end until we have a change of policy. Such is the effect of the colonial system, established for the purpose of preventing combination of action among the people composing various nations of the world, and maintained by the pursuit of measures destructive alike to the interests of the people of England, and of the world at large. "Many of our manufacturers," says a Manchester broker, " have exported to a loss, and if, by so doing, they have kept foreign competition at bay, and checked the increase of industrial establishments abroad, it is an unenviable success; still," he adds, " as this country is doomed to be a manu- facturing state, nothing remains but to beat or be beaten."* These losses are of perpetual recurrence. They are a natural conse- quence of the " war upon the labour and capital of the world," in which England must " beat or be beaten." They must be paid by somebody, and they are paid by the labourers of England, who are compelled to work at diminished wages ; but to a much greater extent by the labourers of the world, who are compelled to be idle, earning nothing to pay the farmers and planters for food and clothing, when they would gladly be employed, earning wherewith to feed and clothe themselves and their children. How small is, under these circumstances, the power to consume food, will be obvious to those who see that three-fourths of the people of England are consumers and not producers, and that yet their import of grain of the iast two years of free trade is but two bushels per head. How insignificant is the quantity she takes from us, and trivial the amount when distributed among the people of the Union, may be seen from the following statement of the last two years of comparatively large export : — Flour. Wheat. Corn. Corn-meal. Barrels. Bushels. Bushels. Barrels. Year ending June 30, 1848, 958,744 1,531,000 5,062,000 2-26,000 Aug. 31, 1849, 1,114,016 4,684,000 12,721,000 88,000 The last and largest amounts in round numbers, to 10,000,000 of bushels of wheat, and 13,000,000 of bushels of corn. Deducting the transportation, the product of this on the farm may be taken at not exceeding, and pro- bably not equalling $10,000,000, or less than fifty cents per head for the people of the Union. What is the prospect that even this amount w-ill con- tmue to be exported may be judged by the facts that nothing but the exceeding lowness of freights has thus far maintained the export, and that calculations, based upon the low price of food in Europe, are now being made upon the export of grain to this country. " The accounts that have reached us from your side about the wheat crop have led to an id-ea her'e that it is not improbable the United States may become an importing country for ^rain. as on some previous occasion about ten or twelve years ago. We regard tliis as highly improbable ourselves, althougii Stnrfres allude to it in their commercial circular to-day. It is said Mark Lane governs the tcorld's grain prices: and, if so, the European range may certainly be expected to be very low, for the fall here is fully 5a. to 6s. per quarter, one-sixth of the entire value, within the last montli. Oats are down to 16s per qu.^rter." — London Correspondent of the National Intelligencer. The shipments of both wheat and flour have already fallen ofl^ in a most extraordinary degree, since freights have somewhat advanced. In Septem her, flour was carried to Liverpool for Qd. a barrel, and sometimes even Jess. The lapse of two months has brought the charge up to 18rf., and the • Circular of Du Fay & Co., March 1, 1848. 96 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. effect is shown in the following statement of the export from the principal ports of the Union from the first of September to the latter part of Novem- bpr : — Flour. Meal. Wheat. Corn. Barrels. Barrels. Bushels. Bushels. 1849 . . . 118,000 1,210 212,504 544,874 Last year, same period 491,000 27,754 849,350 3,447,820 Decrease . . . 373,000 26,544 636,846 2,902,946 Notwithstanding the large increase of agricultural population, the quantity of wheat and flour received at tide-water, on the Hudson, shows a diminu- tion, while the only increase is that of about 2,000,000 of bushels of corn, which found a market abroad only because of the very low freights. The import of men has made a market for $20,000,000 worth of food, and these people, once here, remain consumers of food, and customers to the farmer, unless compelled to become producers of food and rivals to the farmer. The "great grain market of the world" has absorbed half as much because of the low freights, but with the advance of freight it is now diminishing, and must still further diminish with the continuance of that advance. "Since the commencement of the Cahfornia excitement, near seve., hundred vessels," we are told,* "have left for the Pacific, many of which will never re-visit us." These ships will not be replaced unless freights be sufficiently high to pay their owners. If immigration go on, they will be soon replaced, and the cost of doing it will be paid by immigrants who come to be customers to the farmer and planter. If it do not, they will not be replaced, and the high freights of the remaining ones must be paid by the farmers and planters seeking customers in Europe. That immigration will be arrested, must be obvious to all who study the tables given in the third chapter. The difficulty of obtaining food, fuel, and clothing — i. e. wages — in return for labour, is increasing. The value of man is falling, and the inducements to immigration are passing away. Should it diminish next year to the extent of 100,000 persons, there will be a loss of market to the extent of $7,000,000. The California excitement which carried off so very many thousands of the customers of the farmer, with food to feed them on the road,t vvill no longer exist. Here is another hundred thousand customers lost to the farmer, and with them a demand for another $7,000,000 worth of food. The European market is being closed. Nothing that diminishes production can maintain prices. A comparison of the amount of immigration and the prices of Avheat during the last few years, will show how essentially the interests of the farmer are connected with every operation tending to bring the consumer to take his place by the side of the producer : — Years Immigration. Price of Wheat in Philad. Price of Flour in N. Y. 1840 . 84,000 . . $1-00 . . $5-25 1841 . 83,000 . . 94 . . 5-72 1842 . 101,000 . . M2 . . 5-74 1843 . 75,000 . . 75 . . 4-47 1844 . 74,000 . . 89 . . 4-70 • New York Herald. ■j-"Your receipts of beef from Missouri will be very moderate this winter, m conse- quence of the great demand for cattle to carry emigrants to California."— CVrfis;>wj(^J of the Tribune. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 97 Years. Ininiisrntion. Price of Wheat in Philad. Price of Flour in N. Y. 1845 . 10-2.(101) . . 86* . . 4-52* 1846 . 147,000 . . 104 . . 5-23 1847 . 2:34.000 . , 1-33 . . 5-96 [potato rot.] 1848 . 220,000 . . M9 . about 5-25 1849 . 299,000 500 If we convert into iron delivered back upon the farm, free of duty, all the food thai has been this year exported, we shall find that it will yield 250,000 tons, or twenty-five pounds for every person of the population. Let us now go to the vicinity of a furnace, and see how light, by comparison, is the charge for iron when it is produced on the spot, and paid for m com- modities ot which the earth yields by tons, as potatoes or hay — or in straw that would otherwise be wasted — or in labour not required on the farm, and then estimate how many tons might have been obtained by the producers of this grain, had they made a market on the land for the products of the land. Let us now suppose that instead of closing old furnaces we had built fifty new ones, each capable of making 5000 tons, with rolling-mills to convert the product into bars, and had thus applied the labour of some of those im- migrants ; and that we were now making, as wc might readily be doing, 250,000 tons of iron more than was made last year, would not that alone have made a. permanent market on the land for as much of the products of the farmer as we have exported to England ? Would not that have reduced the cost of iron ? Would it not have raised the price of labour? Would it not have promoted immigration? Would it not have promoted the building of ships and the reduction of freights? Would not the farmer thus have had the control of the market of England to a much greater extent than he can have under a system that discourages immigration and ship-building? Does not his power to go abroad increase with the diminution of the necessity for seeking a market abroad? If we were importing largely of raw silk and men from Italy, could we not send cotton yarn to Italy more cheaply than it now goes through England ? — and if we were importing silk weavers from France, could we not send to France, in return, food, in the form of coalt and iron, at less cost for freight than that at which they now have English coal and iron that must pay all the cost of the voyage out and home ? The greater the value of the import trade — and men are the most valuable commodities we can import — the greater will be the variety of articles we can export. It is contended that by having two markets to which he must resort, the condition of the farmer is improved, and that if he had but the home-market he Avould have lower prices than at present — that is to say, that if he could sell all he produces at home, he would obtain less than he now obtains by going from home. Directly the reverse is the fact, when men are compelled to seek a distant market. The first questions to be asked in reference to this are — Why is h^ obliged to go from home ? Why does the supply of food increase faster than the demand? For this there are two reasons. First: we do U' t import consumers enough ; and, Second : of those whom we do import, too many are forced to become producers of food, in consequence of th'^ difficulty attendant upon employing themselves in other pursuits where they would be consumers of food. The man who works in a coal mine earns $300 a year, and perhaps more. Much of this goes for food, * Some of these variations are, of course, attributable to the extent of the crop. Tlio yield of wheat in the West in this year was larger than in any since 1839. -j- Offers have been made to transport coal to France at little more than the ordinary freight from Philadelphia to Boston. 13 98 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. and all of it goes in payment for things that are the product of the earth, for every man is a crnsumer to the full extent of In-- production. Ten thousand miners and labourers are customers for those products to the extent of $3,000,000. Forty thousand mechanics, miners, and labourers, are customers to the farmer and planter to the extent of 812.000,000, which is far more than we can expect to export in future years. "VVe now import annually above a quarter of a million of people, and there are half a million of our own home-grown population annually attaining;- maturity. By deducting from agriculture 20,000 working-men we diminish the number of producers, and by employing these 20,000 in other pursuits we increase the number of consumers to such an extent as to prevent the ex- istence of the surplus of which we now complain. Judging, however, from the past, the adoption of protection as a permanent system would result in the increase of immigration to a vast amount, and of these a large proportion would gladly remain consumers of food, whereas under the present system they are compelled to become producers of food. When farmers have a demand at home for all they raise, they obtain a higher price than when they have to go abroad. In the one case, they ob- tain nearly as much more than the price in distant markets as the cost of transportation /rom those markets, whereas, when they have to go abroad, they obtain as much less than the price in those markets as the cost of trans- portation to those markets, and the price of the whole is regulated by that which can be obtained for the trivial surplus. Grain and flour have for several years been higher in the coal region of Pennsylvania than in Philadelphia, because the demand has been always in excess of the supply. Close the mines, and the farmers will have to send their products to Philadelphia, re- ceiving therefor the city prices, minus the cost of transportation. At the present time, the price of grain throughout the Union is maintained wholly by the domestic market, for flour sells in Liverpool at less than the price in New York. Close the mines and factories, and convert miners and me- chanics into farmers, and the price at home must be the Liverpool one, which will then be lower than at present, minus the cost of transportation, which will then be higher than at present. Admitting, however, that we are to have at all future times, a surplus of grain for export, the next question would be — What is the course that will secure to the farmer the highest price in foreign markets ? The answer must assuredly be, that it will be that which tends most to diminish the quantity to be sent to those markets from this or other countries. If, then, the present system of the commerce of the world tends to increase the supply, it must be adverse to the interests of the farmer. That such is the case can, I think, readily be shown. We know that the more miners and mechanics we have, the more food we consume; and that the more agriculturists we have, the more food we pro- duce. Such, then, must be the case with other countries. We know that under the protective system miners and mechanfcs increase in number, and that under the free-trade system the producers of food increase in number. Such, then, must be the case with other countries. It is obviously, then, to our interest that Russia and Germany should consume more food and export less, and that if they and we should do so, the price of food would rise. Russia and Germany, and we ourselves, have established the pro- tective system, and the result has been to increase the consumers and diminish the producers ; and if all the world could follow our example, the supply of food now pouring into "the great grain market of the world" would be so far diminished that the price would rise. This, however, is THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 90 but one of the effects that would result from a general determination to put down the colonial system. We have seen that the consumption of cotton in other countries is small, while here it is large. The price has alread}' fallen so low that the planters are resorting to the cultivation of wheat, a measure that must tend to the injury of the farmer. Now, if we were consuming one half more cotton than at present, this state of things could not exist. The price obtainable by the planter would then be sufficiently high to prevent the necessity of abandoning its culture. Let us now suppose that Canada, and Russia, and Germany, and Ireland, could make a market for their now surplus labour, and thereby enable themselves to consume two or three pounds of cotton, where now they consume but one, and to consume more food than now they do — is it not obvious that the prices of food and cotton would both rise ? That such would be the result of the abolition of the colonial system, as regards these countries, appears perfectly certain. If so, then the maintenance and ex- tension of the protective system, with special reference to the entire abolition of that unnatural one which Great Britain has established, appears to me to be, most certainly, to the interest of the farmers as well as of the planters o^ the Union, and of the world. Let us next examine the working of the system in Canada, in which there being, alm.ost literally, no manufactures of any kind, there is no market on the land for the products of the land. ^^^^ Freedom of trade is, there, perfect : that is to say, the people of Great ^ Britain enjoy a complete monopoly of the machinery by aid of which alone the lumber and food of the people of Canada can be converted into cloth and iron. The consequence is, that the labour-cost of manufactured arti- cles is so great that the consumption of them is small. The whole export of cotton cloth from Great Britain to her North American pos- sessions, in the seven years, 1840-46, averaged twenty millions of yards, fine and coarse, and if the whole were there consumed, it would give but ten yards per head, or about two and a half pounds of cotton to each individual ; whereas the consumption of the Union averages thirteen pounds per head, and is far more than that in the States nearest to Canada. If, now, we desire to know why it is that consumption is less on the one side of the fine than on the other, the reason may be found in the fact, that the Canadian gives much more labour for his cloth and his iron than the American. Even his wheat is less in price; and if so, how must it be with those bulky com- modities that will not bear transportation? He must, in the words of Sir Francis Head, " eat all he raises," for he has not made, nor can he make a market on the land for the products of the land. To the Canadians it is perfectly obvious that the price of food with us is maintained by the demand for home consumption, and therefore it is that there exists so universal a desire for the abolition of all restriction in the importation of their productions into the Union. They have perfect freedom of trade with " the great grain market of the world," and by it they are ruined. They desire intercourse with the great gxd^n-producers of the world, and to obtain it they would gladly sacrifice their intercourse with England, taking production in lieu of free trade, and becoming members of the Union. Were Canada within the Union, her consumption of cotton would rise to a level with our own, for she would at once commence to make iron and cloth at home, producing thereby a demand for labour that is now being wasted. In- stead of being a customer to the planter to the extent of two and a half pounds per head, every Canadian would take a dozen pounds; and thus would fifteen millions of pounds be added to the consumption, to the infinite advantage of the planter. The farmer of lUinois might then safely admit of free trade with 100 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. his Canr.diPft r'-j/jhbours, because with increased home consumption they would experif nee less necessity for going abroad to find that market for their products which the colonial system now denies to them at home. The farmer who believes in the advantage of free trade with England, should give his Vote for the free admission of Canadian wheat, raised by men who consume cloth and iron made by men who eat the wheat of Poland and Russia. The farmer who sees that the price of wheat is maintained by the home demand, will be cautious of the admission of foreign wheat, duty Iree, until, by means of annexation, the farmer of Canada shall obtain the same protection that he himself enjoys, and thereby be enabled to make a market on the land for the products of the land. Having thus examined the effects of protection, let us now look to what would be the effects of the adoption of perfect freedom of trade, as urged upon the world by England. It could not fail to be that of rivetting upon the world the existing monopoly of machinery for the conversion of the products of the farm and the plantation into cloth and iron, closing the fac- tories and furnaces of Russia, Germany, and the United States, and com- pelling the people who work in them to seek other modes of employ- ment, and the only resource would be to endeavour to raise food. There would then be more food to sell ; but who would buy it ? We have already seen that the vi^hole exports of Great Britain amount, after paying for the grain she now imports, to but $4 32 per head, and that, small as it is, it tends to diminish. With that she has to pay for her sugar, tea, coffee, cotton, wool, lumber, and all other foreign articles required for her own consumption, leaving her no power to pay for more grain. Nevertheless it would be poured into her markets, and the consequence would be that she would obtain three bushels where now she has but one, precisely as we have seen to be the case with cotton. " Mark Lane governs the world's grain prices," and as the price obtainable for the surplus would fix that of the crop, the result would be, that the farmers would everywhere be ruined, and this with no benefit to the manufacturers of England, for her farmers would likewise be ruined, and her agricultural labourers would be discharged as is now the case with Ireland, whose population, deprived of employment at home, swarms to England, and destroys the power of the English labourer to obtain food, even at its present low prices — and the lower they fall, the less must be the demand for labour, and the less the power to obtain wages. The proverb says, " put not too many eggs in one basket," The object of the British system is, and has always been, that of compelling the world to put all the eggs in the same basket; and the natural result is the occur- rence of perpetual convulsions, producing devastation and ruin throughout the world, whenever her artificial system becomes deranged. A review cf her operations, during the past thirty years, shows her, at every interval iC four or six years, holding out to the world the strongest inducements to send her all they could spare of sugar, and cofTee, and cotton, and agricultuvnl produce of every description. About the close of the second year of thi.s movement, when the machinery of importation had got into full operati( n, a change is seen to have " come over the face of the dream," and the whole energies of the country to have been directed to breaking down prices, with a view to compel exportation. The farmers and planters whom she so recently courted are now ruined. Their agents are selected as the first victims, and if the result be bankruptcy, public or private, it is followed by vituperation of the foulest kind ; and thus is insult added to injury. The people of Pennsylvania and Maryland, Indiana and Illinois, Michigan and Mississippi, have had to endure all this, the result of the working of the Compromise tariff of 1833. In 1846, the whole world was urged to send food at any price. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS 101 In 1847, the whole object was to depress prices. Rice was sold for the mere freight and charges. Large shipments of corn brought the shippers in debt for the payment of those expenses. The fever and the chill having passed away, there is next seen to succeed a period of languor: then one of moderate activity, such as is now beginning to make its appearance. Next, specula- tion, excitement, and large imports, to be followed by the ruin of all around, in the effort to save herself. At the present moment, she takes certificates of debt in payment for iron, as was the case ten years since; but the day is not far distant when these certificates will have to be redeemed with gold. Were it proposed to the people of the Union to make New York or Penn- sylvania the deposit for all the products of the Union that required to be converted or exchanged, the absurdity of the idea would be obvious to every one. The wheat-grower of Michigan would find himself entirely at a loss to know why he should exchange with the neighbouring wool-grower by wny of New York; and the cotton-grower of Sotith Carolina would be equally at a loss to see the benefit of a system that should compel him to exchange with the wheat-grower of Virginia, through the medium of Philadelphia or Pitts- burgh ; yet such is precisely the object of the colonial system. The wheat of Michigan travels to Li\'erpool with the wool of Michigan, and the exchanges between the wheat-grower and the wool-grower are effected through the market of Leeds, three-fourths of the wool and the wheat being lost on the road. The rice of South Carolina goes to Manchester in company with the cotton of South Carolina ; and the corn and the cotton of Tennessee cross the ocean together ; and this long journey is performed under the idea that the planter can obtain more cloth for his rice, or the farmer more iron for his corn, by this circuitous mode of exchange than he would do if the exchanges were made on the spot. There are many who doubt the truth of this, yet all English politico-economical writers assure us that such is the fact ; and every measure now adopted by the British Government is directed towards the maintenance of the monopoly of machinery, by aid of which the people of the world have been compelled to make their exchanges in her factories. If such a course would, under any circumstances, be absurd, how much more absurd is it in a case like the one under consideration, where the power of purchase is so small, and so little capable of increase. Whatever goes to England must be there consumed, unless it can be forced off by means of low prices; and for what she consumes, be it much or little, she has $4-32 per head of her population to distribute, in the form of cloth and iron, among the farmers and planters of the world. It is a Procrustean bed, and the mis- fortune of the poor farmers and planters is, that whatever she cuts off from the portion sent to her is, as a consequence of the system, cut off from all the crop. The producers of the world have been, and they are now being, sacrificed to the exchangers of the world ; and therefore it is that agriculture makes so little progress, and that the cultivators of the earth, producers of all we con- sume, are so universally poor, and so generally uninstructed as to their true interests. The day, however, cannot be far distant when our farmers and planters, at least, will be satisfied that their interests cannot be promoted by a system that separates the consumers from the producers, and renders cloth and iron so costly as to cause the average amount of the consumption of either to be utterly insignificant. The object of protection is that of diminishing the distance and the waste between the producer and the consumer; thereby enabling the producer to grow rich, and to become a large consumer of cl-oth and iron. That it did produce that effect is obvious from the immense increase in the consumption of both in the period between 1S4;} and 1847. That the facility of obtaining 102 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. iron enabled the farmer to improve his mode of production and obtain large returns is obvious from the fact that the supply of food increased so rapidly. That the free-trade system produces the reverse effect, is obvious from the great reduction in the consumption of iron in the years 1842 and 1843, and from the reduction now going on; the whole consumption of this year not equalling that of 1847, notwithstanding the vast increase of population. The producers of food throughout the world have one common interest, and that is to be promoted by the abolition of the existing monopoly system, which tends to destroy themselves and their customers. The farmer is also a producer of wool, and therefore I will briefly allude to that interest. If we desire evidence of the truth of what has been said in relation to food, it may be found in the condition of the wool market for several years past. Our production is less than our ordinary consumption, and the consequence is, that the price is higher than -in any country of the world, by the whole amount of the cost of transportation.* Close the woollen mills, and the price must fall to the level of the markets of Europe, minus the cost of exporta- tion. The increased supply then would, as a matter of course, produce a fall of prices, and then the sheep grower would be ruined. The changes of policy of the last twenty years have several times ruined the woollen manufacturers, and the sheep growers have as often extermi- nated their flocks ; the consequence of which is, that we have less than 30,000,000, when, if the policy adopted in 1838 had been maintained, we should now have 100,000,000, and a market for their whole products at higher prices than now; for the prosperous labourers, miners and mechanics, cotton-growers and food-growers, would then consume six pounds where now they consume but three, and the number of our population would be greater by 7,000,000 than at present. The discord that now exists is the result of the "war upon the labour and capital of the world" maintained by England, and when peace shall have been restored by the abolition of the monopoly, it will be found that, between the interests of the sheep-grower, the producer of food, the miner and the mechanic, there is perfect harmony. CHAPTER ELEVENTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE PLANTER. Having thus shown how the English, or colonial, system operates upon the farmers of England and of the world at large, I propose now to examine how it operates upon the planters. Of all the products of the earth, cotton is that which is best fitted for clothing purposes, and that which would be most universally used were it accessible to those who desired to use it, which it is not. I'here are few commodities that can be more easily raised, none that can be con- verted into clothing at less cost of labour, and yet, so defective are the arrangements for its distribution, that by the time it reaches the consumer it has become so costly that its consumption is almost nothing. The whole quantity of cotton raised is probably 1,500,000,000 pounds being about one and a half pounds for each person composing the popula tion of the world ; yet, notwithstanding the exceeding smallness of this quan- tity, the power of consumption throughout the world is ro small that the THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 103 I)roclucers are contending with each other for the possession of the markets: •iml the competition is so great that whenever the crop of this country reaches 10!)0.000,0{)0 pounds, it is sold at a price less than the actual cost of pro- dn ninn. Some of the countries that formerly exported it to a considerabk' extenl, now raise little more than is needed for their own small consumption ; and even here the question of limiting the quantity, as the only way to avoid ruin, has heen the subject of anxious discussion. Throughout the South, planters are turning their attention to food, although the market for every description of food is, and must continue to be, glutted, unkss we have a change of policy. There is a perpetual complaint of over-production, and it is matter of rejoicing when, by reason of short seasons, or any other occurrence, the crop is diminished 200,000 or 300,000 bales, the balance producing more in the market of the world than could otherwise have been obtained for the whole. No better evidence need be desired that there exists some error in the dis- tribution. Over-production cannot exist, but under-consumption may and does exist The more that is produced, the more there is to be consumed; and as every man is a consumer in the exact ratio of his production, the more he can produce the better it will be for himself and his neighbour, unless there exist some disturbing cause, preventing the various persons desiring to con- sume from producing what is needed to enable them to effect their exchanges with the planter, to the extent that is necessary to their comfort. In examining into the movements of the cotton trade of the world, I may sometimes have occasion to refer to facts already given ; and if I prefer to re-stale them, it is because, from the great importance of a proper understand- ing of the subject, I deem it best to collect all the facts necessary to that end under one head. The two great cotton-producers of the world are India and the United States. The former has long exported to distant markets food and cotton, indifjo and saltpetre, bulky articles, the freight and charges upon which absorb nearly the whole product, and, as a necessary consequence, the condition of the people has steadily deteriorated. The difficulty of obtaining food has steadily increased as her manufactures have declined, and repeated famines and pestilences have swept off millions, thus diminishing the power of com- bination ; and she now therefore exports men to occupy the places recently oc- cupied by the slaves of Jamaica, Guiana, Demarara, and other of the West India colonies. With each such step, the cotton culture recedes from the low and rich lands towards the higher and poorer ones, and the condition of the cultivator deteriorates, for with each a larger proportion of his product is swallowed up in the cost of transportation. In the early part of the present century, the manufacturers of India sup- plied cotton g-oods to a large portion of the world. England had then, how- ever, invented machinery for its production, and to secure herself in its ex- clusive use she had prohibited its export, as well as that of artisans, and thus she compelled the cotton to come to the loom, instead of permitting the loom to go to the cotton. By degrees she cut off the foreign market of the manu- facturer, but his home market still remained to him, so long as the Company retained the exclusive contr I of the trade. In 1831, the last year of the monopoly, the export from Enirland to India was but 5,000,000 of yards, and 4,000,000 of pounds of v.un. In 1832, it had reached 60,000,000. In the first half of last year it was 110,000,000 of yards, and 10,000,000 of poiinds of yarn. Larg-e as are these figures, they require but little more than 100,000 bales for their prnductii;n. and would make a consumption of perhaps 220,000 bales per annum, to take the place of that which ha$ 104 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. ceased to be raised. With every step in the increase of importation, production has diminished. The culture and the manufacture both have disappeared from the rich lands of Bengal. The fields formerly occupied by this most useful plant have relapsed into jungle, and if we now desire to find the poor cotton planter we must seek him among the hills, where he obtains small crops in return for much labour, and then spends months in the work of transportation to the Ganges, where his miserable product is shipped to Calcutta on its way to England, to return to him at the close perhaps of the second year, giving him a few yards of poor cloth, a com- bination of cotton and flour, in return for the cultivation of an acre of land.* Under this system the value of labour diminishes steadily and regularly, and with it the quantity and quality of the cotton produced,! yet Englishmen are accustomed to regard the low price of labour as one of the elements of cheap production, and to look to it as affording good reason to hope for large supph'es in future. Thus Mr. Porter informs us that : — "In the level plains of Candeish, and in many other parts of Hindostan, cotton wool, freed from the seed, could be sold with a profit to the cultivators, at one penny per pound, a cost which is trebled or quadrupled by the expense of conveyance to the ports of shipment." — Porter's Progress of the Nation. The price which remains to the cultivator is one penny per pound, but where "the profit" is to be found Avhen the whole wages consist in an in- sufficient supply of the poorest food and clothing, followed by famine and pestilence in every case of failure of crops, it is difficult to imagine. Such, however, is the usual mode of treating this subject in England.^ The more • The produce of the great cotton-growing districts on the Nerbudda is carried on oxen, each taking one hundred and si.xty pounds, at the extreme rate, in fair weather, of seven miles a day. The distance to Mirzapore, on the Ganges, is five hundred miles, and the cost is two and a halfpence, or five cents, per poimd. Thence it goes to Calcutta, a dis- tance of eight hundred miles, by water, unaided, I believe, by steam. From another portion of the cotton-growing districts, in the Deccan, the transport occupies a continuous journey of two months, and in the rainy season the road is impassable and the traffic of the country is at a stand. In the ahsenre of even a defined road, the carriers, with their pack cattle, are compelled to travel by daylight to prevent the loss of their bullocks in the jungles through which they have to pass, and this under a burning sun of from one hun- dred to one hundred and forty degrees. If the horde, sometimes amounting to a thousand, is overtaken by rain, the cotton, saturated with inoisture, becomes heavy, and the black clayey soil, through which lies the whole line of road, sinks under the feet of a luan above the ankle, and under that of a laden ox to the knees: and in this predicament the cargo lies sometimes for weeks on the ground, and the merchant is ruined! "Black clayey soils,"' rich and fertile, are here superabundant, but the poor wretch who raises the cotton must cultivate the high lands that require neither clearing nor drainage, and his masters take half the product of their poor soils while refusing even to make a road through the rich ones: yet forcing him to send his cotton to market to be exchanged for cotton cloth manufactured thousands of miles distant. A system better calculated to compel men to continue cultivating the poorp.^t soils, by aid of sticks, could not be devised. ■\ Import of cotton from India into England : — 1844 88,000,000 lbs. 1845 58,000,000 " 1846 34,000,000 " Total export of all India to all parts of the world : — 1835-36 1,305,000 cwts. 1836-37 1,557,000 " 1844-45 1,623,000 « 1845-46 1,328,000 " 1846, 8 months .... 600,000 « * A series of popular lectures on the cotton manufacture has recently been delivered m London, by Mr. Warren, of Manchester. In his first lecture he stated that should the THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. lOC^ unproductive labour can be made the lower will be its price, the more con- fident will be the hope of using it to advantage, and the larger will be the sums expended in an effort that must prove for ever vain, while the people shall con- tinue to be prevented from consuming on the land the products of the land.* The deterioration of qualitjMS due to the recession of cultivation from the lower and richer hinds; and that recession is a consequence of the system that has ruined the manufacturers of India, and destroyed the power of combination of action. We know the superiority of the sea-island cotton. In Deinarara, cotton plantations have always succeeded better on the sea- coast than in the interior. So was it in India. Salt manure is deemed to be of absolute necessity if superior quality be desired, as it gives a staple at once strong and silky. Such being the case, it is useless to attempt im- provement, when day by day the cultivation recedes from the neighbour- hood of the sea, producing in England a strong desire for the making of railroads by which it may be enabled to make its way from the hills without costing more labour for its transportation than had been required for its pro- duction. Every such efiort must prove a failure. Free trade with England drove it to the hills. Freer trade will drive it to hills yet more distant. In some cases it is thought that if the poor people could be provided with carts, they could extend the cuhure with advantage, but the use of such vehicles supposes the previous possession of something like laid-out roads, and those are luxuries with which most of India is yet unprovided. Like the people of India, those of the Southern States of the Union have, thus far, had a bulky outward trade, that had, of course, to bear all the ex- penses of the voyage out and home. For a time, this prospered. India was distant from the machinery of conversion and Carolina was near, and while it still continued necessary to resort to the former for suppHes, the price of that raised in the latter was the price in India, plus the difference of transportation. England was a sort of home market in which the planter obtained twenty or thirty cents per pound. By degrees, however, the near supply rose above the near demand, and it became necessary to seek for manufacturing population of that country increase during the next ten years in the ratio in which it has done during the last, it will become necessary, in order to employ them, to secure a permanent and cheap supply of cotton. This can be done, he thinks, by culti- vating it in British India, where, on the authority of Major-general Briggs, Sir Charles Forbes, and others, there can be produced a supply sufficient for the wants of the entire world, equal in quality to the article supplied from New Orleans, and cheaper than it by one-half. He states the wages of American slave labour to be equal to about Is. Qd. per day, while that of tJie free Hindoo is only about two pence. The advantages to be derived from such a course, he stated to be the certainty of a good and adequate supply at a cheap rate, the consolidation of our Indian possessions by the means of commerce, and the eman- cipation of the American slaves, by rendering dieir labour profitless to die owners. * The " London Chronicle,*' of a late date, has an article showing that the eflbrts which have been put forth during the last few years to make India a cotton-growing country that might rival the United States have entirely failed. It notices the failure and aban- donment of the experiments in cotton cultivation that have been carried on, under Dr. Wight's superintendence, at Madras. Tliis enterprise, which had for its object the pro- duction of an article less palpably inferior to the cotton of America than the present baflly- picked and indifferent Indian commodity, was zealously, and even lavishly, supported by the local government; but the late failure of a similar experiment in Bengal, after an outlay of about £100,U00, had already given fair warning of the probable issue of Dr. Wight's efforts in the sister presidency, and with its abandormient would seem to settle the question that India will not again become, as it once was. a great cotton-growing country. In 1796 America did not export a single pound. In 1834 she exported as much as all the rest of the world put together. And in 1S46, out of 467.8oti,274 l">s. imported into this country, 401,949,89.3 lbs. came from the United States, while only 34.556,143 were supplied by the East Indies and Ceylon! The total value supplied from India in 1845 did not exceed £600,000. 14 106 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. markets for cloth and yarn in India and China, in which the price realized by the producer could not exceed that at which it could there be sold, minus the difference of transportation. The necessary effect of this was to diminish the productiveness of Indian labour, and the power to consume cotton, and of course to increase the quantity to be forced upon the world, and with every step in course of this operation, there has been increased competition on the part of the American grower; the result of which is, that the Indian pro- ducer is ruined, and the American one is saved from ruin only by destructive operations of nature, frosts, freshets, and crevasses, by aid of which the supply is retained within the limits of demand. The average consumption of this country is not less than thirteen, and is, most probably, fifteen pounds per head ; and it is less, by at least one-half, than it would be but for the heavy cost, in labour, to the consumer. The average consumption of the world, outside of the Union, is little more than one pound per head, or about one-thirtieth of what it ought to be; and yet cotton has become almost the weed of the world, and men are every- where desiring to substitute in its place something that could be better grown elsewhere. On the high lands they substitute wheat, which would grow better farther north. On the low lands they raise sugar, which would be much more productive farther south. Here are serious discords, and it is important that we trace the cause of their existence, with a view to provide a remedy for a state of things so unnatural. With a view that we may do so, I give the following SUMMARY STATEMENT OF CROPS, COXSU.MPTIOX, YEARS &c., OF AMERICAN COTTON, FOR TWELVE Crops, as Consumed stock at Imports of American Total am't. of Ameri- stock of Average sbown by in the the ports Cotton into Great can Cotton Am. Cot- quot. of reeeipt.0 the U. States, end of the Britain, from 1st Jan. consumed ton in Gt, Uplands 31st Aug. year end'g year to 3l8t Dec. in Great Britain, Jin Liver- 31st Aug. 31st Aug. Britain. Dec. 31. pool. 183G— 7 1,422,930 222,540 109,036 1837 844,812 778,492 158,100 7 d. 1837—8 1,801,497 246,063 68,961 1838 1,124,800 913,328 316,100 7 1838—9 1,360,532! 276,018 69,963 1839 814,500 813,488 242,300 n 1839-40 2,177,835 295,193 78,780 1840 1,237,500 1,018,784: 403,000 6 1840—1 1,631,945 297,288 72,479 1841 902,500 809,900 344,600 6i 1841-2 1,684,211 267,850 31,807 1842 1,013,400 893,256 373,400 51 1842—8 2,379,400 325,129 94,486 1843 1,396,800 1,110,0461593,200 4.i 1843—4 2,030,409 348,744 159,772 1844 1,246,900 1,126,008 654,900 H 1844—5 2,415.448 389,006 98,420 1845 1,499,600 1,289,808 809,100 t4| 1845—6 2,100,537 422,597 107,122 1846 937,000 1,280,096 897,800 4i 1846—7 1,778,651 427,967 214,837 1847 874,100 867,516 286,200 3 1847-8 2,347,634 531,772 171,468 1848 1,375,400 1,189,500 348,300 The stock in our own ports, Aug. 31, 1836, appears to have been, That of American cotton in English ports, ... The crops of the twelve years, from 1836-7 to 1847-8, were To which must be added, for the additional consumption in the South and West, in the last two j'ears, . - - Total, The stock in port, and in G. B. at the close of the season 1847-8, Consumption of twelve years, Thus divided— English, . . . . 12,100,000 American, - - 4,052,000 Additional, as above, 125,000 4,177,000 Leaving for the rest of the world, 7,098,000 109,000 90,000^ 23,571,000 125,000 i:«, 805,1)00 520,000 23,375,000 23,375,000 • From the New York Courier and Inquirer. f Duty, Y^flf- per lb. taken oif by Act of Parliament, passed 8th May, 1845. i The imports of 1837 exceeded the consumption by Cfi.OOO bales, and the stock, at the ose of the year, was 158,000, from which, if we deduct the 66,000, there remain 92,000. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 107 Average of the first Two Tears. Total Average. Arcrage of last Two Years English, . . 846,000 . 1,008,000 . 1,028,000 American, . 235,000 . 348,000 . 542,000 Another, . . 444,000 . 591,000 . 648,000* 1,525,000 1,947,000 2,118,000 From this we see that the average consumption of the twelve years ex- ceeded that of the first two, in the following ratio : — English, 18 per cent. American, . . . . . 50 " " All other, .... 22 «« «' But when we compare the first and last two years of the period, we ob- tain the following results : — English, 21 per cent. American, ..... 125 " " All oiher, .... 23 " " The portion of Europe that has most fully adopted the system of projec- tion being the Zoll-verein^ it will be useful to compare the growth in their consumption with that of Great Britain and Ireland. The imports of raw cotton into Prussia before the formation of the Tariff- league or Zoll-verein, remained from 1827 to 1S35 stationary at 44,000 cwts. per annum.| That of yarn increased from 1823 to 1835, from 61,000 to 115,000 cwts. The total increase of twelve years, was from 105 to 15i),000 cwts., or from 30 to 45,000 bales. The following shows the growth from that period in the territories of the confederation : — Raw cotton, quintals Cotton twist and wadding, do. The quantity has more than doubled, and the home consumption has increased about 75 per cent.§ in a period during most part of which our own consumption had remained stationary, || The quantity of twist and wadding imported from Great Britain had increased 135 per cent, in a shorter period than was required in the latter for an increase in her home and foreign consumption of only 21 per cent. The power to import thus grew with the power of production. It is obvious that the con- sumption tends, and must tend, to increase most rapidly where there is the least intervention between the producer and the consumer, and equally so that the English demand, based upon the principle of intervention between the two, and consequent increase of cost to the consumer, cannot be largely and permanently increased. That of 1846-7 was less than that of 1837-8, and the difference between that of 1839-40 and that of 1847-8, great as was the fall of prices, was but 171,000 bales. The great increase in the consumption of the Zoll-verein is due to pro- 1836. 152.364 244.809 Average from 1837 to 1841. 200,093 35LS84 1843. 306,731 475,564 1845. 443,887 574,.303 * This period embraces a se-dson of war and cnnvulsion over the whole contineiiL ■f Dhe liberty to ask a farmer from Tennessee who had a drove of hoj,'s in cur streets, the price of corn in the region from whence he came. He replied that it was worth ten cents, and wheat fifty cents a bushel.'' — .Augusta Chronicle, May, 1849. i MeCuUoch's Commercial Dictionary, article Cotton. 112 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. What is true of Tennessee and India, is equally so of the othei parts of the world that are compelled to depend on England for supplies <^t cotton cloth. The poor Russian obtains less than a pound of cotton for a bushel of wheat, and thus he gives ten da_ys' labour for one ; whereas, if he could have cotton converted on the spot, by the man who ate his food, he would obtain day's labour for day's labour. So is it with the German, the South Ameri- can, the Mexican, the Italian, the Spaniard, and the Turk. The system tends to prevent concentration and combination of action, and to diminish the value of labour throughout the world, and it is because of this, that almost all na- tions are endeavouring to shut out the manufactures of Great Britain. Ever3'where, however, they are met by the smuggler, now regarded by the highest authorities of Great Britain as the greatest of reformers. Gibraltar is maintained for the purpose of smugghng goods into Spain. Exhausted Por- tugal receives millions of pounds of cotton goods, likewise to be smugglea into Spain ; and thus is that unfortunate country kept in a state of poverty, because the people of England are pleased to believe that it is profitable to buy cloth produced abroad, while the labourer at home is idle for want of demand for his labour, and the food perishes on the ground for want of mouths to eat or roads to transport it. If the system tends to the exhaustion of the people who have to buy cot- ton at so high a price, not less does it tend to the exhaustion of those who have to produce it, and who are compelled to sell at whatever price the peo- ple of England think proper to fix upon it. Why that is so, may, perhaps, be ascertained by an examination of the following table : — Crop. 1837—1,422,000 1838—1,801,000 1839—1,360,000 1840—2,177,000 1841—1,631,000 1842—1,684,000 1843—2,379,000 1844—2,030,000 1845—2,415,000 1846—2,100,000 1847—1,778,000 1848—2,347,000 The quotations of the latter portion of the last year were below the aver- age, being about 4d., and about that point they remained for several months, until the chief portion of the crop had been shipped. The un- favourable prospects for the new crop tended to prevent a further fall, but it is impossible to tell what would have been the price had that of the pre- sent year increased in its proper ratio to the population engaged in its pro- duction. It would certainly have fallen much below even fourpence. An examination of this table will, I think, enable us to understand the cause of the present extraordinary state of things. A large portion of the crop of the present year has been destroyed by frosts, freshets, t&c, and that fact, instead of bringing with it distress and ruin, has brought with it increased activity and life among planters, and increased power to consume cloth, sugar," coffee, &c. Why is it so? The answer can, I think, readily be given. The amount that can be collected by Great Britain, in payment for Ameri- can cotton, consumed at home and abroad, and for freights, commissions, &c., appears to be limited to somewhere between $45,000,000 and $57,000,000. Gross proceeds of sales of American cotton in Liverpool, from which are to be deducted freights, com- Liverpool, Dee. 31. missions, &c. &c. Weight of bale Bales. Price. estimated at 450 pounds. 158,000 Id. . $49,000,000 316,000 7 57,000,000 242,000 n 57,000,000 403,000 6 55,000,000 344,000 6i 45,000,000 373,000 5| 47,000,000 593,000 4f 47,000,000 6.54,000 H 49,000,000 808,000 ^ 51,000,000 597,000 H 56,000,000 286,000 ^ 51,000,000 348,000 n .. 45,000,000 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 113 with an obvious tendency to diminution. Of the crop of the past four years, the quantity consumed among ourselves, and exported by us directly to foreign ports, has not varied materially from 1,000,000, The balance has gone to England, who has $57,000,000 with which to pay for 900,000 bales, say $63 a bale. The crop, however, reaches 2,400,000 bales, and we send her 1,400,000; all of which have to be compressed within a smaller sum than 57,000,000, for now there are large expenses for storage, interest, risk, &c., and the amount falls to 50,000,000, leaving the planter but $36 a bale, out of which he has to pay the high freights consequent upon large crops, and upon a large number of bales, instead of that moderate freight that would have accompanied small ones, and upon a small number of bales. The price obtained in England fixes that of the crop, and the result is as fol- lows : — 1,900,000 bales at $63, $120,000,000 Less low freights, at home and abroad, upon a small quantity. 2,400,000 bales at $36, 86,000,000 Less high freights, at home and abroad, upon a large quantity. It is obvious that it would have been far better that the 500,000 bales should have been burned, or destroyed by frost before being picked. The crop of 1844 was 812,000,000 pounds, and the product was esti- mated at $65,772,000 In 1845, it rose to 958,000,000, and the product fell to . 56,00i).000 In 1847, it fell to 7 11, 000,000, worth 72,000,000 In 1848, it rose to 1,100,000,000, and until the occurrence of frosts and freslrets, the prospect was that it would not aver- age at New Orleans more than 5^ cents, or . . 60,000,000 The gradual but steady subjugation of the planters to the system may be seen from the following facts : From 1830 to 1835, the price of cotton here was about eleven cents, which we may suppose to be about what it would yield in England, free of freight and charges. In those years our average export was about 320,000,000, yielding about $35,000,000, and the average price of cotton cloth, per piece of 24 yards, weifrhing- 5 lbs. 12 oz., was 7s. lOrf., ($1-88,) and that of iron £6, 10s., ($31-20.)^ Our exports would therefore have produced us, delivered in Liverpool, 18,500,000 pieces of cloth, or about 1,100,000 tons of iron. In 1845 and '46, the home consumption of the people of England was almost the same quantity, say 311,000,000 pounds, and the average price here was 6| cents, making the product $20,000,000. The price of cloth then was 6s. 6ld., ($1-575,) and that of iron about £10, ($48,) and the result was, that we could have, for nearly the same quantity of cotton, about 12,500,000 pieces of cloth, or about 420,000 tons of iron, delivered in Liverpool. Dividing the return between the two commodities, it stands thus: — jiverage from 1830 to 1835. 1845-6. Loss. Cloth, pieces, 9,250,000 6,250,000 3.000,000 And iron, tons, 550,000 210,000 340,000 The labour required for converting cotton into cloth had been greatly diminished, and yet the proportion retained by the manufacturers was greatly increased, as will now be shown: — Weight of Cotton given Retained by the Weight of Cotton used. to the planters. manufacturers. 1830 to 1835, - - 320,000,000 - 110,000,000 - 210,000,000 1845 and 1846, - - 811,000,000 - 74,000,000 - 237,000.000 15 114 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. In the first period, the planter would have had 34 per cent, of his cotton returned to him in the form of cloth, but in the second only 24 per cent. The grist miller gives the farmer from year to year a larger proportion of the product of his grain, and thus the latter has all the profit of every improvement. The cotton miller gives the planter from year to year a smaller portion of the cloth produced. The one miller comes daily nearer to the producer. The other goes daily farther from him, for with the increased product the cost of transportation is increased. We may now inquire into the cause of the accumulation of stock in the English market, and if that can be ascertained, we shall be able to see why it is that cotton has fallen so ruinously low. Of the crop of 1828-29, our own consumption was . . 118,000 Of those of 1832-33 and 1833-34, the average was . . 195,000 Of that of 1834-35, it was 216,000 having almost doubled in six years, and with a tendency to an increase in the ratio of advance ; and this increase was attended by no diminution in our consumption of foreign cloth. Of the crop of 1841-42, we consumed only . . . 268,000 with a great diminution in the consumption of foreign cloth. Of that of 1847-48, ....... 607,000 with a large increase in the consumption of foreign cloth, the total con- sumption having much more than doubled in a similar period of time. In the period mtermediate between 1835 and 1843, our consumption had been stationary. Had it not been interfered with by the action of the Compromise bill, it would certainly have doubled in that period, and probably much more than doubled. If, however, we assume an increase of only 12^ per ?ent. per annum, or quadruple the increase of population, the following vould have been the home demand : — 1835-6 1836-7 1837-8 1838-9 The actual consumption was Difference 640,000 The loss of demand to the planter was thus more than the whole quantity that was left unsold when the market broke down. Following up the consumption to the present time at the same rate, we :btain the following results : — 1S46-7 . . 883,000 bales 1847-8 . . 994,000 « 1848-9 . . 1,019,090 « 243,000 bales 1839-40 . 388,000 bales 273,000 " 1840-41 437,000 " 307,000 « 345,000 " 1841-42 . 491,000 « 5 Total . 2,484,000 . 1,844,000 1842-3 552,000 ba 1843-4 621,000 " 1844-5 680,000 » 1845-6 785,000 " 5,550,000 The actual consumption has been about .... 3,000,000 Difference in seven years, 2,550,000 Total difference, 3,190,000 No one can doubt that the progress would have been greater than is here set down, and yet with no more than this, we should have used above 3,000,000 bales that we have not used. Had we done so, the producer )f cotton would have fixed the price and not the buyer. Under such cir- cumstances would it have fallen below ten or twelve cents per pound ? Would it not, on the contrary, have risen to fourteen or fifteen, unless the crop had been much increased 1 I think it would, and I feel assured that it will do so in a very brief period from the thorough adoption of a system THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 115 that will establish here such a market for labour as will enable us to con- sume on the land the products of the land, and my reasons for so beheving are as follows : — The good cotton lands of India are now waste. To render them productive requires labour and capital. To induce the application of either, the labourer must have wages and the owner of capital must have profits. Both must rise in price with any increased demand for them. Such demand must arise when England shall find herself compelled to look to India for any increased supply, as she must do so soon as our home demand shall have risen to the extent of 1,000,000 bales per annum, as it will do in the next three years, if permitted so to do. It will be asked, what should we do with all this cloth? in reply, I say again, and I repeat it because it is essential that it be recollected — evevLj man is a consumer to the whole extent of his production, ivhatever that may be. Had the tariff of 1828 remained unchanged, the producti'^m of coal in the same period would have reached 15,000,000 tons, for furnaces and rolling-mills would have been built throughout the country, and railroad bars would have been made by hundreds of thousands of tons, and treble the roads would have been made without producing bankruptcy. The r^emand for roads, and mills, and furnaces, and steam-engines of every description would have created a vast demand for labour that was wasted, and the surplus earnings would have gone to the purchase of clothing and other of the con- veniences and comforts of life, and there would have been made a market on the land for the products of the land, to the extent of hundreds of miUions of dollars, enabhng both farmer and planter to improve the machinery of production and transportation, growing rich instead of remaining poor as they have done. With each such step the immigration from Europe would have increased, and as every man would at once have become a producer, every one would have been a consumer. The Englishman would consume twelve pounds, where before he consumed but four, and the Irishman would con- sume twelve where before he consumed but one, while freights to Europe would be so far reduced that the price of cotton in New York wouln be almost as high as in Liverpool. It will be observed that the quantity here set down for 1846-7 exceeds, by only one-third, that which we actually did consume. Had immigration contfttued to increase, from 1834 to the present time, at the rate at which it was then advancing, our population would be greater than it now is by 20 per cent., providing for nearly the whole quantity, without any allowance for increased consumption by the population previously existing. The whole of them would have needed large supplies of coffee, silk, and a thousand other things from abroad, for much of which we should have paid in cotton goods. The facility of obtaining iron would have given roads to the fanner and planter, and all would have had more of the proceeds of their labour to apply to the purchase of clothing. ' The planter himself, and his people, would now be consuming three yards where now they consume but one; and the home-market would now be absorbing 1,200,000 bales, in- stead of a million. What then would be the price of cotton, even with a crop of 3,000,000? Would it not be $60 a bale, yielding him 180 millions in- stead of 80 ? I think it would. In 1845 and 1846, the planter supplied 311,000,000 of pounds, for which, delivered on the sea-board, he cnuld have had 74,000.000 lbs. delivered in Liverpool, the freight and commissions, homeward, being paid by him. He gave 156,000,000 for 37,000,000, the charges upon which, without duty, would have reduced it to 30,000,000 on the plantation, and probably less. The 30,000,000 had, however, been twisted and woven, and the difference, 116 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. one hundred and tiventy-six millions, was what he gave for the twisting and weaving of thirty millions. The average work of operatives, men and women, boys and girls, exceeds the conversion of 3000 pounds of cotton into such cloth, per annum. The planter, then, gave 126,000,000 of pounds of cotton for the labour of 10,000 persons, chiefly boys and girls, and he trans- ported 156,000,000 to market. Were he to calculate the cost of transporta- tion from the plantation to Nashville, or other place of shipment, he would find that that alone was far more than the labour he obtained in return, and that he had in fact given the cotton itself away, receiving for it no equivalent whatever. Had the whole 156,000,000 been converted at home into cloth, it would have amounted to about seven pounds additional, per head, for the people of the Union, and it would then have been consumed at home, for the con- sumption of the South would then have risen to a level with the present consumption of the North, and the latter would have largely increased, be- cause of the great demand for labour that would have existed. Had that been done, the price of the whole crop would have been Sd. instead of 4^^/., and the planter would have received seven cents per pound, additional, on 900,000,000 of pounds, or sixty-three millions of dollars — and that, large a sum as it is, is but a part of the benefit that would have resulted from such a course of operation. It will be said that high prices would arrest consumption. If so, how im- portant it is to the producer to cut off the enormous charges of the host of persons that now intervene between himself and those who desire to con- sume his products. High prices, consequent upon the maintenance of the existing system, do arrest it, because they are a tax upon both producer and consumer. Such prices realized by the former, consequent upon an in- creased facility of exchanging with the latter, would produce a contrary effect. They would increase it ; for we should obtain more from all the world for what we had to sell, and our own consumption would in- crease more rapidly. The increasing emigration to this country would raise the value of man abroad, and those whour we now see expelling him from their lands, burning his house that he may not return, would then find them.selves compelled to offer him inducements to remain. Agriculture would then improve and wages would rise, and the power to consume cot- ton, on both sides of the Atlantic, would grow, to the infinite advantage of \\\e. planter. With the increased demand, he would at length find some- thing hke certainty in place of the present gambling system under which he is so often nearly ruined. How httle certainty he now can have, will be seen by the following diagrams, which I take from the circular of Messrs. Rathbone, Brothers, & Co., before referred to. Fluctuations in the price of Cotton, in 1848. Jan. Feb. Mar. April. May. June. J ' ' " "— '^ ' * Fair Orleans. f Middling. X Ordinary. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 117 The following shows \he variations, from 1844 to 1848, in the prices of cotton, twist, and cloth. The highest and lowept lines show the comparative prices of yarn and cotton, the quotations bein; per. lb. on the left of the tables. The middle line shows the fluctuations of a cotton long cloth, thi quotations being per piece, on the right of the tables. Here we see the price of cotton lowest when cloth is at the highest; and the manufacturers realizing fortunes, while the planter is being ruined. Such are the inevitable results of a system that forces almost all the cotton of the world into a market in which there is but a given amount to be exchanged against it, and in which the price of each pound is dependent entirely upon the relation which the whole mass bears to the constantly diminishing sum that can be spared to pay for it. It is a constantly shrinking Procrustean bed. While thus destroying the planter, and lessening his power to provide for his people, there is an unceasing abuse of him as an owner of slaves, and an unceasing threat to substitute the free labour of the wretched Hin- doo for that of the well-fed, well-clothed, and well-housed labourer of the South, and the lower the price of cotton, the stronger is the determination to keep it low. Railroads are to be made in India, that cotton may come to market cheaply, and cotton cloth go more freely to that country ; and yet with ever}' step of increase in the export of cotton goods, the poor Hindoo becomes more and more enslaved, and more and more the victim of famine and pes- tilence. The difference between twelve cents and eight cents per pound for cotton is, on an average, about one cent a yard. The consumption of Great Britain and Ireland is about fifteen yards per head, while the average of that of her colonies is about three. It is absurd to suppose that this difference could make any essential difference in the consumption of an article of the first importance, under natural circumstances; but if it could, how immense would be the difference in our home consumption that would result from the adoption of a system that would enable the farmers of Tennessee and Ohio to exchange produce with the planter — food for cotton — giving acre for acre, instead of, as now, bushels for pounds — the difference being swallowed up in the transit of the food and the cotton to and from Liverpool and Man- chester. The harmony of interests, throughout every part of the Union, is perfect, and all that is needed is, that all should understand it. What injures the farmer injures the planter; and vice versa, the planter cannot suffer without injury to the farmer. Throughout the South, planters are abandoning cotton and substituting wheat, and that ai a moment when the European market 118 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. for food is to be closed against the hundreds of millions for which, as it is asserted, we now need a market. As some may doubt the existence of this harmony, I propose now to show how the present course of action, as relates to food, tends to destroy the market for cotton. The people of Germany and Russia, after feeding themselves, have food to sell. With the produce of that food they desire to buy cloth. The hiofher the price of the food they sell, the more cloth they can buy. The great food market, at present, is England. If we fill that market, the price of food will be low, and the German can buy little cotton. If we do not, it may be high, and he may buy rr^uch cotton. We are now converting labourers, miners, and mechanics into farmers, diminishing the consumers and increasing the producers. The more consumers we have, the less food we shall have to spare, the higher will be the price of food in England, and the greater will be the quantity of cotton that can be purchased by the German and the Russian. The more producers we have, the more food we shall have to sell, the lower will be its price, and the smaller will be the quantity of cotton that can be produced by the German and the Russian. All this seems to me so obviously true, that it needs only to be stated. It has been seen that the price of food is here maintamed by a home demand resulting from the great immigration now taking place, and we know that if by causing a demand for labour for the building of furnaces and mills, and other similar works, we could cause the immigration to go next year to half a million, there would be a further demand for grain, that would carry prices to a point still higher. Let us now suppose the immi- eration of next year to be 600,000, producing a further increase of demand for food to the extent of twenty or thirty millions of dollars, and see what would ])e the effect upon the planter. The Canadian would find a market for his grain within the Union, for the price would be sufficiently high to enable him to pay the duty. The value of agricultural labour everywhere would rise with the increasing price of food ; and every farmer, at home and abroad, would consume more cloth, because he could sell the products of his labour higher, i. e. he could obtain more cloth and iron for it. The German, the Russian, the Irishman and the Englishman would be larger customers than now, while the home demand would absorb enormous quan- tities that would otherwise go to England to augment "the stock on hand," by the size of which is measured the price to be paid for the ensuing crop. Our present policy tends to destroy the home market and the foreign market too. It diminishes the productiveness of labour on both sides of the Atlantic, and all that is taken from the surplus that remains after feeding the labourer, is so much taken from the fund that would otherwise go to the purchase of cloth or iron. THE TOBACCO PLANTER. A brief examination of the tobacco trade Avill show precisely similar re- sults. In 1832, we exported 83.000 hogsheads, and the price was $74 83, yielding about $6,300,000. In 184.5, we exported 147,000 hogsheads, and the price was $50, yielding $7,350,000. Deducting the extra expense of transportation to the place of shipment, the producers received less for the large quantity than they had done for the small one. From 1830 to 1835, the export averaged 90,000, and the amount was $6,300,000, yielding to the producer, on his plantation, as much as the larger quantity in 1845. The sum of $6,300,000, at these two periods, would have brought in Liver- pool j'^ THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 119 1830 to 1835, pieces of cloth, 3,300,000, or tons of iron, 200,000 1845, " " 3,900,000 » 130,000 Tlie planter is giving almost two-thirds more of tobacco for twenty per cent. more cloth, although his brother planter is almost ruined by the low price of cotton; but in the case of iron it is worse, for he gives two-thirds more for thirty-five per cent. less. In the first period, he could have two and one- fifth tons for a hogshead; whereas in the last he has little more than one- third of the quantity, or seven-eighths of a ton. It is obvious that he is being taxed by somebody, that he is giving more and receiving less, and that the cause of this is, that the productive power enabling the people outside of the Union to pay for tobacco, does not keep pace with the power of those inside of the Union to produce it. What is his remedy ? It is to increase the number of people inside of the Union, with whom he can have perfect freedom of trade. The Englishman will consume six pounds for one that he can now consume, burdened as it is with a tax of 3s. per pound ; the German will do the same; and so will the Frenchman, when he can free himself from the tax imposed upon him by the government monopoly. The more men that are imported, the more will be transferred from the list of small cus- tomers to that of large ones, and the less will be the cost of transportation from the place of production tn Maryland or Virginia, Ohio or Kentucky, to the place of consumption, Philadelphia or New York, Berlin or Vienna; for the larger the bulk and value of the commodities transported west, the lower will be the charge for transportation eastward. Between the interests of the tobacco planter, the manufacturer, and the ship-owner, there is there- fore perfect harmony. THE SUGAR PLANTER. The sugar trade presents the same state of things. The agriculturists of the world are giving a constantly increasing quantity of labour as the equiva- lent of a constantly diminishing one. The following exhibit of the move- ment of the great sugar market, since the commencement of the present century, shows that the amount paid for sugar has been constantly dimin- ishing, while the price of the English commodities given in exchange has varied in a degree so much less that whereas in 1801 the consumption of \^f^ persons paid for a ton of iron, that of 24 was required :n 1831, and the pro- portion has been steadily increasing. The whole sum paid in 1847 for this important article of food, by twenty-nine millions of people, was less than was paid in 1801 by sixteen millions, and the contribution per head was less than one-half, and yet the difTerence in the price of iron was, by com- parison, trifling.* * The case is the same in regard to all other of the products of the land. In 1841 and 1842, the colonial timber received in Great Britain averaged 931,000 loads. In 1846 and 1847, the average was 1,150,000 loads. In 1848, 1,102,000 loads. The price, meanwhile, had, however, fallen almost ten per cent.,-j- and the colonist, after paying the extra freight, must have received less, in money, for the large than for the small quan- tity, while the price of iron hud advanced fifty per cent. His timber would therefore yield him about forty per cent, less weight of iron to be employed in the further pro- duction of timber. The writer from whom I quote gives many other facts to show that the increased supplies have been obtained at "the same cost of labour,'' or that means have been found " for making our [their] own industry more productive.'t It does not matter which, but of the two conditions he " prefers the former."' The former is the one, and being such it is scarcely to be wondered tliat the poor and over-taxed colonists desije annexation. f Edinburgh Review. July, 1849. ^ Ibid. 120 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Number of per. »,ns fed wiXh Qmndty retained for Price per Total value sngir in jx- chanse for a PopulaUon. consumption.— cwts. cwt. consumed. Price per bead. Price of iron, ton of iron. 1801 16,3:38,000 3.639,000* 45 1 £8.188,000 102 £7 6t 14-2 1811 18,500,000 3,818,000* 4161^7,888,000 8/6 £8i 18-8 1^21 21,200,000 3,529,000* 34 t £6,000,000 5,-8 £6 10| 23 18:31 24,029,000 4,233,000 23 8t £5,000,000 4 2 £5t 24 1 do not extend this table, for Mr. Tooke's list of prices does not come down to the end of the next decennial period, and I have no other that ap- pears to correspond with it. Enough, however, is given to show that the people of the United Kingdom wore steadily giving less iron for more sugar. In 1801 the planter could have 1,100,000 tons as "the equivalent of 180,000 tons : but in 1831 he could have but a million of tons as the equivalent of 210,000. From that time to the present there has been an unceasing ef- fort to cheapen sugar, and yet there were taken for consumption (including the large quantity exported after being refined) in the years 184.5 to 1847, only 15,900,000 cwts., or an average of 5,300,000, being only 45 per cent, more than in 1801, while the population had increased 90 per cent. It is obvious that the power of consumption diminishes, and yet the prices of the world are fixed in England. The conseqi^pnce of this is seen in the fact that 5,800,000 tons, in 1847, would command but £7,200,000, while 3,600,000 in 1801 would command about £8,200,000. The return to labour employed in the cultivation of cotton has fallen so iow that the Carohnian tries wheat, and the Mississippian sugar. Sugar falls so low that the West Indian turns his attention to coffee. By the time his trees have become productive, the price has so far fallen that he cuts them down, and then the price rises, while that of sugar falls. § Thus is it ever and everywhere. The producers are over-ridden by the exchangers, and so must they continue to be while they shall continue to have the price of their whole crops determined by that which can be obtained for a small surplus in the constantly diminishing market of England. The production of sugar does not vary greatly from a million of tons, and the yield to the planter may be about $70, the whole amount being about $70,000,000. Taking the cotton crop at S80,000,000, we have the sum of $150,000,000 as the value of the labour of that large portion of the popula- tion of the world employed in producing these two articles, so essential to the comfort of the rest of the world. The equivalent of this sum in 1845 and 1846 might have been (delivered on the plantation) about 2,500,000 tons of iron, the article that, of all others, is most essential to the mainte- nance, or the increase, of the productive power. A ton of bar iron is not the equivalent of twenty-five days' labour, pro- perly employed among the coal and iron fields of the Union, but even at that rate, one man would give more than twelve tons per annum. To pro- duce the whole quantity required to pay for the cotton and sugar crops of the world would require, then, the labour of 200,000 men. Is it not obvious that the agriculturists of the world are taxed to a vast amount for the support • Porter's Progress of the Nation. Vol. III. page 32. "t" Tooke's History of Prices. 'Vol. II. page 413. Mr. Tooke gives the various prices of the year. I have taken what appears to ine to be the average. ^ Ibid. p. 406. § From this cause it is that coffee is now scarce and high, and sugar abundant and cheap, the price of the latter in London being but about 24s. How much is left for the poor producer that has paid freight from Benares, far up the Ganges, and all the charges of all the persons through whose bands it has passed, may readily be imagined. Twenty pounds of sugar must be required to pay for one of cotton, in ihe form of coarse clot'ii. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 121 of the fleets and armies, the merchants and brokers, the paupers and the noblemen of Great Britain, and is it not incumbent upon them to free them- selves from such a state of vassalage ? To add to the present annual pro- duction of the Union in the next seven years, the whole qiiantihj of iron required to pay fur the cotton and sugar crops of the world would require not the slightest efl()rt, and so far would it be from diminishing the supply of food, or cotton, that the production of both would increase at a rate more rapid than was ever before known, for the farmer and the planter would thus obtain a market.on the land for the products of the land, and good roads to go to distant markets, and the chief part of the time and labour now wasted in the work of transi)ortation might be given to the work of cultiva- tion. We should then import hundreds of thousands of men to make roads through the States already organized, instead of exporting hundreds of thousands to California, and then squandering our resources in the prema- ture effort to make a road by which to communicate with them. It is time for the cotton planter to look this question fully in the face. Had he a market, he could in a brief period increase the crop to 5,000,000 of bales. Having no market, he is compelled to limit the cultivation, and thus it is that the product of such a region as South Alabama does not in- crease. In 1839 it yielded, bales, 551,000 From 1845 to the present time the average has been only 440,000* The people who should be raising cotton, or making iron, are perpetually on the move, producing nothing. The picture presented in the foUow^ing paragraph, taken from one of the papers of the day, is the one that meets our eyes look where we may : — "The tide of emigration continues to pour through our city southward and westward with increasing volume. The rush, is tremendous. Throughout the day, from early dawn until late at night, long trains of wagons, families, and forces are seen moving through our streets. Both our ferries are kept in continual operation. Mr. Fairhurst, one of the proprietors of the lower ferry, has kept a memorandum of the movers crossing at that point during the last two weeks. In that time three hundred and fifteen wagons have crossed the river, of which number 214 were bound for Texas, 89 for the southern counties of our own State, and 12 for Louisiana. It is estimated that, counting whites and blacks, there are about five persons to each wagon. This would show that within the last four- teen days about fifteen hundred movers have passed this one ferry. We have no record of the number crossing at the upper ferry, but if it is as large as the lower, the number of movers passing through our city during the present month will be about six thousand !"' — Little Rock (^Arkansas') Democrat, Nov. 16. Those men are flying from the rich and unoccupied soils of lower Caro- lina and South Alabama to the high lands of Arkansas and Texas, thus in- creasing their necessity for transportation, and diminishing their power to obtain it. Let them fly as they may, they cannot fly so fast as to prevent the increase of the cotton crop, the average of which must soon stand at 3,000,000 of bales ; but where then shall the planter find a market ? Among the sugar planters of the world ? Like himself, they are ruined for want of a market. Among the cofl^ee growers ? Like himself, they are ruined for want of a market. Among the wheat growers ? The Russian wastes his crop for want of a market, and the American is competing with him for the possession of that of England, while the Englishman is ruined by com- petition with both.t Is it among the operatives of England ? They are • De Bow's Commercial Review, Vol. VII. page 446. ■j-The following passage from one of the journals of the day, presents a tolerabLy cor- rect view of the course of things in Great Britain. The producers are being ruined, and all are becoming consumers, and thus it is that Ireland, exclusively agricultural, furnishes ft market for food. It is forgotten, however, that every diminution in the amount of pro- 16 122 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. endeavouring to underwork the Hindoo, and their power to purchase cotton or sugar diminishes daily. They need a market for their labour. Is it in B' ranee ? France is always at war, and produces little. Her consumption of American cotton in 1842 and 1843 was 717,000 bales. In 1846 and 1847, only 575,000.* Look where he may, he must see that the producers of the world want markets, and that for want of them they are becoming poorer instead of richer, and that their power to obtain even the machinery of production is daily diminishing, the price of iron in sugar, coffee, cotton, wheat, indigo, or any other of the products of the earth, tending steadily upward, and yet there is no single commodity in the world that would tend to fall so steadily, but for the existence of the monopoly system. The supply might be in- creased to an indefinite amount, and with a rapidity far exceeding that of any otherof the products of the earth. Make a market for it requiring annually 10.000,000 of tons, and this country could supply it in ten years. Double or treble it, and we could supply the whole in reasonable time, for our ca- pacity is without limit, and we could command the services of half the labourers of Europe. Here it is, and here alone, that the planter can look for a market capable of expanding itself in the ratio of the increase in his power to furnish supplies. Here, and here alone, can the market for coffee, silk, indigo, and all other of the products of the world be so far enlarged as to enable the coffee planter, and the cultivator of silk and indigo to quadruple their consumption of cotton. CHAPTER ELEVENTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE LANDOWNER. The great saving fund is the land, and it is by the almost insensible contribution of labour that it acquires value. The first object of the poor cultivator of the thin soils is to obtain food and clothing for himself and his family. His leisure is given to the work of improvement. At one place he cuts a little drain, and at another he roots out a stump. At one moment he cuts fuel for his family, and thus clears his land, and at another digs duction diminishes the amount of commodities that can be given as the equivalent of the products of others, and that those who buy food have little to give for clothing, and must go in rags: — •' The prospect of an Irish demand for corn is improving, and. also tliat the dependence of England, on foreign supplies, will gradually increase,. The land monopoly of England, by adding the item of rent to be paid by the occupier and producer, made requisite a tax on the foreign article, which should protect him against the pioprietary producers abroad, who had no rent to pay. The removal of this tax has now thrown directly upon the EHglish farmer the whole burden of his rent, which was before borne by all consumers of bread. This burden will be enhanced, by the abrogation of the navigation laws, which, by diminishing freights, will make the competition between the cheap rentless lands of other countries, and the landlord-burdened soil of England, more severe, and, as a consequence, much of the poorer soils 'will be abandoned, while the expensive system of culture before resorted to, to increase the quantity of protected corn, must be relin- quished as unprofitable. A considerable diminution in the product of a good English harvest, as compared with former years, may then freely be looked for. We have given above an official table of tlie quantity of food taken for consumption in England, for the year ending August, 1849. That was in aid of the harvest of 1848, which was "good," but the acreable product, from causes alluded, could not have been as large as usual. The result of this is, that the small farmers, with small crops at low prices, cannot meet tithes, taxes, poor rates, and rent, the last the most onerous ; and their capital and num- bers are annually diminishing, swelling the numbers of bread-consumers in other em- ployments." • Merchants" Magazine, Vol. XVH. page ''/63 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 123 a well to facilitate the watering of his cattle, and thus keep his manure in the stable-yard. He knows that the machine will feed him better the more perfectly he fashions it, and that there is always place for his time and his labour to be expended with advantage to himself. The land was given to man for his use, and the basis of the whole science of political economy is to be found in the law which governs his relation with this gi-eat and only machine of production. Mr. Ricardo taught that in the infancy of society men could command rich soils, from which they could obtain an abundant supply of food ; but that with tlie growth of popu- lation food became more scarce, producing a necessity for dispersion in quest of those rich soils. The common sense of mankind teaches the contrary, and in this case, as in all others, the common sense of the many is right, while the uncommon sense of the few is wrong, as will be seen by all who will take the trouble to follow out the following sketch* of the gradual occupation of the earth : — " The first cultivator commences his operations on the hill-side. Below him are lands upon which have been carried, by force of water, the richer portions of those above, as well as the leaves of trees, and the fallen trees themselves ; all of which have there, from time immemorial, rotted and become incorporated with the earth, and thus have been produced soils fitted to yield the largest returns to labour: yet for this reason are they inaccessible. Their character exhibits itself in the enormous trees with which they are covered, and in their power of retaining the water necessary to aid the process of decomposition ; but the poor settler wants the power either to clear them of their timber, or to drain them of the superfluous moisture. He begins on the hill-side, but at the next step we find him descending the hill, and obtaining larger returns to labour. He has more food for himself, and he has now the means of feeding a horse or an ox. Aided by the manure that is thus yielded to him by the better lands, we see him next retracing his steps, improving the hill-side, and compelling it to yield a return double that which he at first obtained. With each step down the hill he obtains still larger reward for his labour, and at each he returns, with increased power, to the cultivation of the original poor soil. He has now horses and oxen, and while by their aid he extracts from the new soils the manure that had accumulated for ages, he has also carts and wagons to carry it up the hill: and at each step his reward is increased, while his labours are lessened. He goes back to the sand and raises the marl, with which he covers the surface; or he returns to the clay and sinks into the limestone, by aid of which he doubles its product. He is all the time mak- ing a machine which feeds him while he makes it, and which increases in its powers the more he takes from it. At first it was worthless. It has fed and clothed him for years, and now it has a large value, and those who might desire to use it would pay him a large rent. " The earth is a great machine, given to man to be fashioned to his pur- pose. The more he fashions it the better it feeds him, because each step is but preparatory to a new one more productive than the last; requiring less labour and yielding larger return. The labour of clearing is great, yet the return is small. The earth is covered with stumps, and filled with roots. With each year the roots decay and the ground becomes enriched, while the labour of ploughing is diminished. At length the stumps disappear, and the return is doubled, while the labour is less by one-half than at first. To forward this process the owner has done nothing but crop the ground; nature having done the rest. The aid he thus obtains from her yields him • Origina'ly published in my book. « Tlie Past, the Present, and the Future." 124 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. as much food as in the outset was obtained by the labour of felling and de- stroying the trees. This, however, is not all. The surplus thus yielded has given him means for improving the poorer lands by furnishing manure with which to enrich them, and thus he has trebled his original return without further labour ; for that which he saves in working the new soils suffices to carry the manure to the old ones. He is obtaining a daily in- creased power over the various treasures of the earth. "With every operation connected with the fashioning of the earth, the result is the same. The first step is, invariably, the most costly one, and the least productive. The first drain commences near the stream, where the kbour is heaviest. It frees from water but a few acres. A little higher, the same quantity of labour, profiting by what has been already done, frees twice the number. Again the number is doubled, and now the most perfect system of thorough drainage maybe established with less labour than was at first required for one of the most imperfect kind. To bring the lime into connection with the clay, upon fifty acres, is lighter labour than was the clearing of a single one, yet the process doubles the return for each acre of the fifty. The man who wants a little fuel for his own use, expends much labour in opening the neighbouring vein of coal. To enlarge this, so as to double the product, is a work of comparatively small labour ; as is the next enlargement, by which he is enabled to use a drift wagon, giving him a return fifty times greater than was obtained when he used only his arms, or a wheelbarrow. To sink a shaft to the first vein below the surface, and erect a steam-engine, are expensive operations; but these once accomplished every future step becomes more productive, while less costly. To sink to the next vein below and to tunnel to another, are trifles in comparison with the first, yet each furnishes a return equally large. The first line of rail- road runs by houses and towns occupied by one or two hundred thousand persons. Haifa dozen little branches, costing together far less labour than the first, bring into connexion with it three hundred thousand, or perhaps half a million. The trade increases, and a second track, a third, or a fourth, may be required. The original one facilitates the passage of the materials and the removal of obstructions, and three new ones may now be made with Jess labour than was required for the first. "All labour thus expended in fashioning the great machine, is but the prelude to the application of further labour with still increased returns. With each such application wages rise, and hence it is that portions of the machine, as it exists, invariably exchange, when brought to market, for far less labour than they have cost. The man who cultivated the thin soils was happy to obtain a hundred bushels for his year's work. With the pro- gress of himself and his neighbour down the hill into the more fertile soils, wages have risen, and two hundred bushels are now required. His farm will j^ield a thousand bushels; but it requires the labour of four men, who must have two hundred bushels each, and the surplus is but two hundred bushels. At twenty years' purchase this gives a capital of four thousand bushels, or the equivalent of twenty years' wages; whereas it has cost, in the labour of himself, his sons, and his assistants, the equivalent of a hun- dred years of labour, or perhaps far more. During all this time, however, it has fed and clothed them all, and the farm has been produced by the insensible contributions mad'? from year to year, unthought of and unfelt. " It is now worth twenty years' wages, because its owner has for years taken from it a thousand bushels annually; but when it had lain for cen- turies accumulating wealth, it was worth nothing. Such is the case with the earth everywhere. The more that is taken from it, the more there is left. When the coal mines of England were untouched, they were valueless. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 125 Now their value is almost countless; yet the land contains abundant sup- plies for thousands of years. Iron ore, a century since, was a drug, and leases were granted at almost nominal rents. Now, such leases are deemed equivalent to the possession of large fortunes, notwithstanding the great quantities that have been removed, although the amount of ore now known to exist is probably fifty times greater than it was then. • '■'The earth is the note producer. Man fashions and exchanges. A part of his labour is applied to the fashioning of the great machine, and this produces changes that are permanent. The drain, once cut, remains a drain ; and the limestone, once reduced to lime, never again becomes lime- stone. It passes into the fond of man and animals, and ever after takes its part in the same round with the clay with which it has been incorporated. The iron rusts and gradually passes into soil, to take its part with the clay and the hme. That portion of his labour gives him wages while preparing the machine for greater future production. That other portion which he expends on fashioning and exchanging the products of the machine, pro- duces temporary results, and gives him wages alone. Whatever tends, therefore, to diminish the quantity of labour necessary for the fashioning and exchanging of the products, tends to increase the quantity that may be given to increasing the amount of products, and to preparing the great machine ; and thus, Avhile increasing the present return to labour, preparing for a future further increase. " The first poor cultivator obtains a hundred bushels for his year's wages. To pound this between two stones requires twenty days of labour, and the work is not half done. Had he a mill in the neighbourhood he would have better flour, and he would have almost his whole twenty days to bestow upon his land. He pulls up his grain. Had he a scythe, he would have more time for the preparation of the machine of production. He loses his axe, and it requires days of himself and his horse on the road, to obtain another. His machine loses the time and the manure, both of which would have been saved, had the axe-maker been at hand. The real advantage derived from the mill and the scythe, and from the proximity of the axe- maker, consists simply in the power which they aflbrd him to devote his labour more and more to the preparation of the great machine of production, and such is the case with all the machinery of preparation and exchange. The plough enables him to do as much in one day as with a spade he could do in five. He saves four daya for drainage. The steam-engine drains as much as without it could be drained by thousands of days of labour. He has more leisure to marl or lime his land. The more he can extract from his machine the greater is its value, because every thing he takes is, by the very act of taking it, fashioned to aid further production. The machine, therefore, improves by use ; whereas spades, and ploughs, and steam-engines, and all other of the machines used by man, are but the various forms into which he fashions parts of the great original machine, to disappear in the act of being used ; as much so as food, though not so rapidly. The earth is the great labour savings' bank, and the value to man of all other machines is in the direct ratio of their tendency to aid him in increasing his deposits in the only bank whose dividends are perpetually increasing, while its capital is perpetually doubling. That it may continue for ever so to do, all that it asks is that it shall receive back the refuse of its produce, the ma- nure; and that it may do so, the consumer and the producer must take their places by each other. That done, every change that is effected becomes permanent, and tends to facilitate other and greater changes. The whole business of the farmer consists in making and improving soils, and the earth • 126 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. rewards him for his kindness by giving him more and more food the more attention he bestows upon her. The sohtary settler has to occupy the spots that, with his rude machinery, he can cultivate. Having neither horse nor cart, he carries home his crop upon his shoulders, as is now done in many parts of India. He carries a hide to the place of exchange, distant, perhaps, fifty miles, to obtain for it leather or shoes. Population increases, and roads are made. More fertile soils are cultivated. The store and the mill come nearer to him, and he obtains shoes and flour with the use of less machinery of exchange. He has more leisure for the preparation of his great machine, and the returns to labour increase. More people now obtain food from the same surface, and new places of exchange appear. The wool is, on the spot, converted into cloth, and he exchanges directly with the clothier. The saw-mill is at hand, and he exchanges with the sawyer. The tanner gives him leather for his hides, and the paper-maker gives him paper for his rags. With each of these changes he has more and more of both time and manure to devote to the preparation of the great food-making machine, and with each year the returns are larger. His poioer to command the use of the ma- chinery of exchange increases, but his necessity therefor diminishes ; for with each year there is an increasing tendency towards having the consumer placed side by side with the producer; and with each he can devote more and more of his time and mind to the business of fashioning the great instru- ment ; and thus the increase of consuming population is essential to the progress of production. " The loss from the use of machinery of exchange is in the ratio of the bulk of the article to be exchanged. Food stands first; fuel, next; stone for building, third ; iron, fourth; cotton, fifth; and so on; diminishing until we come to laces and nutmegs. The raw material is that in the production of which the earth has most co-operated, and by the production of Avhich the land is most improved; and the nearer the place of exchange or con- version can be brought to the place of production, the less is the loss in the process, and the greater the power of accumulating wealth for the produc- tion of further wealth. " The man who raises food on his own land is building up the machine for doing so to more advantage in the following year. His neighbour, to whom it is given, on condition of sitting still, loses a year's work on his machine, and all he has gained is the pleasure of doing nothing. If he has employed himself and his horses and wagon in bringing it home, the same number of days that would have been required for raising it, he has misem- ployed his time, for his farm is unimproved. He has wasted labour and ma- nure. As nobody, however, gives, it is obvious that the man who has a farm and obtains his food elsewhere, must pay for raising it, and pay also for trans- porting it ; and that although he may have obtained as good wages in som.e other pursuit, his farm, instead of having been improved by a year's cultivation, is worse by a year's neglect ; and that he is a poorer man than he would have been had he raised his own food. " The article of next greatest bulk is fuel. While warming his house, he is clearing his land. He would lose by sitting idle, if his neighbour brought his fuel to him, and still more if he had to spend the same time in hauling it, because he would be wearing out his wagon and losing the manure. Were he to hire himself and his wagon to another for the same quantity of fuel he could have cut on his own property, Jae would be a loser, for his farm would be uncleared. " If he take the stone from his own fields to build his house, he gains doubly. His house is built, and his land is cleared. If he sit still and fet THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. .127 his neighbour brine him stone, he loses, for his fields remain unfit for cul tivation. If he work equally hard for a neighbour, and receive the same apparent wages, he is a loser by the fact that he has yet to remove the stones, and until they shall be removed he cannot cultivate his land. " With every improvement in the machinery of exchange there is a dimi- nution in the projjcrtion which that machinery bears to the mass of produc- tion, because of the extraordinary increase of product consequent upon the increased power of applying labour to building up the great machine. It is a matter of daily observation that the demand for horses and men increases as railroads drive them from the turnpikes, and the reason is, that the farmer's means of improving his land increase more rapidly than men and horses for his work. The man who has, thus far, sent to market his half-fed cattle, accompanied by horses and men to drive them, and wagons and horses loaded with hay or turnips with which to feed them on the road, and to fat- ten them when at market; now fattens them on the ground, and sends them by railroad read}- for the slaughter-house. His use of the machinery of exchange is diminished nine-tenths. He keeps his men, his horses and his wagons, and the refuse of his hay or turnips, at home. The former are em-ployed in ditching and draining, while the latter fertilizes the soil here- tofore cultivated. His production doubles, and he accumulates rapidly, while the people around him have more to eat, more to spend in clothing, and accumulate more themselves. He wants labourers in the field, and they want clothes and houses. The shoemaker and the carpenter, finding that there exists a demand for their labour, now join the community, eating the food on the ground on which it is produced; and thus the machinery of exchange is improved, while the quantity required is diminished. The quantity of flour consumed on the spot induces the miller to come and eat his share, while preparing that of others. The labour of exchanging is diminished, and more is given to the land, and the lime is now turned up. Tons of turnips are obtained from the same surface that before gave bushels of rye. The quantity to be consumed increases faster than th-e population, and more mouths are needed on the spot, and next the woollen mill comes. The wool no longer requires wagons and horses, which now are turned to transporting coal, to enable the farmer to dispense with his woods, and to reduce to cultivation the fine soil that has, for centuries, produced nothing but timber. Production again increases, and the new wealth now takes the form of the cotton-mill ; and, with every step in the progress, the farmer finds new demands on the great machine he has constructed, accompanied with increased power on his part to build it up higher and stronger, and to sink its foundations deeper. He now supplies beef and mutton, wheat, but- ter, eggs, poultry, cheese, and every other of the comforts and luxuries of life, for which the climate is suited ; and from the same land which affiirded, when his father or grandfather first commenced cultivation on the light soil of the hills, scarcely sufficient rye or barley to support life." If we undertake to study anywhere the cause of value in land, it will be found to result from diminution in the cost of transportation. The news- papers of the day, in sjieaking of the operations of the railroad recently constructed from Springfield (lUinois) to the Illinois river, tell us that " One week before the railroad was finished, corn could be had here in any quantity, at 10 cents a bushel. Not a bushel can now,'' says the Sangamon Journal, "be had for less than 25 cents. This," it adds, " is the effect of the completion of the railroad on the price of one article of the products of our farmers." The first thing to be paid by land is transportation. When that is so great as to eat up the whole proceeds, the land will remain uncultivated. 128 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Diminish the cost of transportation so as to leave sufficient to pay the wages of labour, and it will be cultivated, but it will pay no rent. Diminish it further, ,so as to leave a surplus over and above the reward of the labourer, and the land itself will acquire value. Diminish it still further, by removing altogether the necessity for transportation, making a market on the land fur all the products of the land, enabling the farmer readily to return to it all the refuse of its products, and it will acquire the highest value of which land is capable. The commodity of which the government and people of the Union have most to sell is land. In quantity it is practically unlimited, and long before our present territory shall have been even laid out for sale, rast countries will have been brought within the limits of the Union. In quality it is entitled to stand first in the world. The area of the coal region is 13:3,000 square miles. Iron ore is everywhere, untouched. Copper, zinc, and almost all other metals abound. South Carolina has millions of acres of the finest meadow-land unoccupied, and she has lime and iron ore in unlimited abundance. Virginia is in a similar condition, and yet people are leaving both, when population is all that is needed to place them in the first rank among the States of the Union in point of weahh. Of the three States of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, with advantages unrivalled for the production of the great clothing material of the world, two-thirds of their whole surface, or 83,000,000 of acres, yet remain unsold. The land at the command of the government counts by hundreds of milhons, and to give to all this value we need only population. In Europe, on the contrary, population is held to be superabundant. Marriage is regarded as a luxury, not to be indulged in, lest it should result in increase of numbers. " Every one," it is said, " has a right to live," but this being granted, it is added that "no one has a right to bring creatures into life to be supported by other people,"* Poor laws are denounced, as tending to promote increase of population — as a machine for supporting those who do not work " out of the earnings of those who do."t No man, it is thought, has "a right" to claim to have a seat at the great table provided by the Creator for all mankind, or that " if he is willing to work he must be fed." Labour is held to be a mere "commodity," and if the labourer can- not sell it, he has no " right" but to starve — himself, his wife, and his chil- dren. " The particular tendency to error apparent in the prevalent social philosophy of the day," to which it is deemed necessary to direct special attention, is "the unsound, exaggerated, and somewhat maudlin tenderness with which it is now the fashion to regard paupers and criminals. "J Such are the doctrines of the free-trade school of England, in which Political Economy is held to be limited to an examination of the laws which regulate the production of wealth, without reference to either morals or intellect. Under such teaching it is matter of small surprise that pauperism and crime in- crease at a rate so rapid. § Throughout Europe, men are held in low esteem. They are considered to be surplus, and the sooner they can be expelled the better it will be for those who can affcird to remain behind. To accomplish this object. Coloniza- tion Societies are formed, and Parliament is memorialized by men who desire to export their fellow-men by hundreds of thousands annually. Whig and Tory journalsll unite in urging the necessity for expeUing man from the • J. S. Mill's Principles of Political Economy. + Edinburgh Review, October, 1849. t Ibid. § See article on Transportation, Blackwood's Magazine, November, 1849. I The number of Blackwood's Magazine, just received, advocates the application of ;t'300,000 per annum to this object. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 129 land of Britain. Secretaries of State furnish ingenious calculations as to the amount required for accomplishing the work of expulsion. On all hands, it is agreed that men are too numerous, and that their numbers grow too fast, and yet there is not a country in Europe that can justly complain of over-population. Ireland, the tj^pe of \.\\\s free-trade system, has millions of acres of her richest lands as yet untouched, that would alone, if drained, yield food in abundance for the whole population. It is not, however, the labourer alone that stands in need of aid. The condition of the land-owner is little better. This system of universal discord is thus described in one of the journals of the day: " The state of the country is frightful. The assassinations are computed at more than ten per week, half a hundred per month, whicli, added to the systematic starvation of ahnost another hundred, in the same time, gives a state of things without parallel in modern civilization. With this diminution of the people, the million of work-house inmates and dependents increases. In less than a month it Vill be more than a proprietor's life is wortli to be seen by his tenantry. Rents, which of course are nominal in collection, have, therefore, lately sunk to the fourth of their nominal amount. Lands, let hitherto at £2 10s. per acre, are offered at less than 15s; and such is the exasperation of the starving millions, that the lar.d'.ord* are afraid further to aggravate their sufferings." The Parliament of England is now engaged in passing laws to transfer, for the fourth time in little more than two centuries, the mass of Irish pro- perly to English undertakers. The little cultivator of land has been ruined. Labour has become utterly valueless, although labour alone is needed to bring into cultivation 7,000,000 of acres of the richest soils in the world, now unproductive. The land-owner of India has been ruined. The immense body of vil- lage proprietors that but half a century since existed in that country, helping and governing themselves, has disappeared. The land-owner of the West Indies — of Demerara and Berbice — has been ruined, and the condition of the labourers has not been improved. The land-owner of Portugal — the continental colony of Great Britain — has been ruined, and with diminished value of land there has been steady deterioration of civilization, until the name of Portugal has become almost synonymous with weakness and barbarism. If we look to Canada, Nova Scotia, or New Brunswick, the same picture meets our view. " Land of the same quality, at one minute north of the imaginary line dividing the provinces from the Union, is worth less than half as much as that which is one minute south of it. Lord Durham, in his report, made but a kw years since, says that "land in Vermont and New Hampshire, close to the line, is five dollars per acre, and in the aJjOining British townships, only one dollar," and that on the northern side of the line, '.vith superior fertility, it is " wholly unsaleable even at such low prices." Canada has no market on the land for the products of the land, and the cost of transportation eats up the product, much of which is absolutely wasted because it cannot go at all to market. The labour of men, women, a.nd children, and that of wagons and horses, is everywhere being wasted, and therefore it is that the Canadian desires a change of government that will enable him to obtain a protective tariff". Give him that — annex him to the Union — and his land will acquire value similar to that of the Union. Far- mers will then grow rich, and labourers will grow rich, and the power to con- sume cloth and iion will grow with the same rapidity with which it re- cently grew with us. Every colony of England would gladly separate from her, feeling that connection with her is synonymous with deterioration of condition. Every one would gladly unite its fortunes with those of our Union, feeling that 130 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. connection with us is synonymous with improvement. The reason for all this is, that the English system is based upon cheap labour, and tends to depress the many for the benefit of the few. In our system, it is the many who govern ; and experience having taught them that prcsperity and free trade with England are inconsistent with each other, we have " free trade" tariffs with protective duties of thirty per cent., and likely to be in- creased. The colonies are ruined by free trade, and they desire annexation, that they may have protection. This idea of cheap labour is universal among English colonists. It is found in ail their books. If they fail to succeed, it is because labour is "too high." They are willing to receive convicts, because they can be had "cheap." They tell their correspondents that men may be had from the Continent who will work for small wages, ivhile Englishmen must have large ones, i. e. enough to feed and clothe themselves conrifortably. They emancipate the negroes, and thefi they find their labour " too dear," and send to India, or to the coast of Africa, for " cheap" labourers. The Times informs us that the great works of England are based upon an ample supply of " cheap labour." The whole system looks to the degradation of the labourer, by requiring him to underwork and supplant the labourer of other countries, with all the disadvantage of distance and heavy cost of transporta- ti.n. Protection looks to raising the value of labour, and thus promoting the annexation of individuals, and the establishment of perfect free trade between ourselves and the people of Europe by inducing them to transfer themselves to our shores. It is a bounty on the importation of the machine we need — man — to give value to the machine we have in such abundance — land. It leads to perfect free trade — the annexation of nations — by raisiiTg the value of man throughout the world. It has been, at times, matter of surprise that the hundreds of thousands who have arrived in this country have been so instantly absorbed that their presence has been unfelt, and that the more we received, the larger was the quantity' of food, fuel, cloth, and iron given in exchange for labour, but such is the natural result of a system which tends to enable the miner and the Avorker in iron, the spinner and the weaver, to combine their exer- tions with those of the farmer and planter. Had the policy of 1828 remained unchanged, and were we now receiving a million of men, the only effect that would be observed, would be that wages and profits, and the power of labourer, landowner, and capitalist, to command the good things of life would be steadily increasing, and with each step forward the tendency to immigration and to increase in the value of land would grow with accelerated pace. We need population. In the thorough adoption of this course by the people of the Union, is to be found the remedy of the ills of both the land-owners and the labourers of the rest of the world, and the removal of the discords now so universal. That we may clearly see how it would contribute towards producing har- mony, we must first inquire into the causes of discord. The labourers of the world have one common interest, and that is that labour should become everywhere productive and valuable. The more wheat produced in return to a given quantity of labour, the more of it will the shoemaker obtain for his work, and the more advantageously the shoe- maker can apply his labour, the more readily will the farmer provide him- self and his family with shoes. Such, likewise, is the case with nations. It is to the interest of all that labour in all should become productive, and if the labour of the cotton-growing nation become unproductive, that of the sugar or wheat-growing nation feels the effect in an increased difficulty of obtaining clothing. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 131 The land-owners of the world have one common interest, and that is, that .and should everywhere become productive and valuable. It does so be- come with every increase in the skill and intelligence of the labourer, as may be seen by a comparison of times present with times past in every im- proving country, or by a comparison of the various countries of the world at the present moment. In Russia land itself has little value. In Belgium, where cultivation is carried on with intelligence elsewhere unknown, it has great value. Every increase in the facilit}'- of obtaining cloth for food, or food for cotton, diminishes thequantity of labour to be given for food or clothing, and enables the producer to obtain other commodities and things needed for the improve- ment of his mind, or which tend to enable him more advantageously to apply his labour. The landed proprietor of England is therefore directly inte- rested in the improvement of the mode of cultivatinc: cotton in the United States, because it tends to improve the condition of the man who labours on his land ; and the cotton-grower is interested in the improvement of the wheat-grower of Russia, because the latter is thereby enabled to purchase more clothing. Among the land-owners and labourers of the world there is, therefore, perfect harmony of interests. Between them stand the men employed in the work of transportation, conversion and exchange — ship-owners, manu- facturers, and merchants. The object had in view in the prohibition of manufactures in the colo- nies was that of compelling the colonists to use ships that they would not otherwise require, and to pay manufacturers and merchants for doing for them those things that they could have better done themselves. The necessary consequence of this was discord, which in our case led to war, and vast Wiiste of time and money. Another consequence was, that the people engaged in the work of transportation, conversion, and exchange, in- creased more rapidly than the producers, and England, from having food to sell, became a purchaser of foreign food. Next came the corn-laws, by which the importation of food was to be prevented, for the benefit of land- owners, and other laws prohibiting the export of machinery, for the benefit of the owners of ships and machinery of various kinds. By the one the owners of land Avere enabled to tax the labourer and the mechanic, and by the other the mechanic was enabled to tax the world in return. The -eft^ has been that of preventing the application of English labour and capital to the work of production, and driving it into the far less profitable work of transportation, conversion, and exchange, to such an extent that the con- verters have at length become masters of the land-owners, and have abolished restrictions on the import of food which the latter had established for their pro- tection, and as revolutions never go backward, we may fairly conclude that tho corn-laws will not be re-established. The result, thus far, has been to ruin the landholders of Ireland, and the next result must be to ruin those of Eng- land, if the system be allowed fair play. The people of Russia, we are assured, have been compelled to waste food for want of a market. Rather than do this, they would give a bushel of wheat for a yard of cloth. That they cannot afford to do this, we are assured; but what else can they do ? If they cannot make cloth they must buy it, and they must give an equivalent, and if that be even bushels for yards, they must give them. Until Russia can make a market for this now surplus food, it will seek a market at any price, and the price in England cannot much exceed the cost of transportation between the farm on which it was produced and the town at which it is consumed. Nearly the whole ■yf that price must go to the exchanger, to the loss of both land and labour. 132 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. both of which must tend towards the Russian level, now a very low one, because of the absence of a market on the land for the products of the land. The object of the now dominant class in England is that of bringing about free trade with the world. Such a measure adopted by this country would close every furnace and rolling-mill, and every cotton and wonlleti > factory in the country, and would diminish the value of both labour and land, b}'' compelling the producer of food to seek a market in England. Similar measures adopted by the Zoll-verem, would compel the people of i Germany to do the same, attended with similar results. The market of I England would be borne down with the weight, and the price would fall so low as utterly to destroy the power of the labourer on land to pay rent for its use, and the power of the owner to improve it. The class intermediate between the producers in various parts of the world, would daily grow in numbers and strength, and the productiveness of labour and land would daily diminish, with steady diminution in the value of both. On the other hand, let us suppose the people of the Union, of Russia, and of Germany, to adopt such measures as would enable them to consume on the land the whole of the food produced upon the land, and thus to put a stop to the enormous imports by which the English agriculturist is now being crushed. The immediate effect would be that the labour and land of all those countries would rise in value, and therewith there would be an in- crease in the value of both in England. The demand for labour here would speedily drain off the surplus hands employed in factory labour, and the increased demand for home-grown food would induce the application of labour and capital to production,* and the value of both would rise. Con- sumption would increase as labour became more productive, and the power of the producers would be restored, while that of the mere exchangers would be diminished. To the improvement of the condition of labour and land in the United Kingdom the abolition of the colonial system is essential. Its maintenance involves the payment of taxes to an amount that is ievYiRc, all of tvhich must be paid by the producers and those ivho own the machine of pro- duction, abroad or at home. The tax that is nominally paid by the man who sells the wheat, or by him who transports it, is really paid by the man who produces it, and by him that consumes it. Three-fourths of the nation are engaged in the work of transporting, converting, or exchanging the pro- ducts of others, adding nothing whatever to the quantity produced, while living out of it, and thus deteriorating the condition of the land-ov/ners and labourers of England and of the world. The land-owners of England have been the legislators of England. They made the system which produced our revolution — that which has depopu- lated India, and must ruin every country subjected to it — and they are now paying the penalty. Each step towards the degradation of the people by whom they were surrounded has been attended by loss of power in them- selves. Their policy has converted the little occupant into the hired labourer, and the labourers on land into the tenants of lanes and alleys in liiverpoolt and Manchester. Throughout much of Scotland they have sub- stituted sheep for the men whom they have driven to take refuge in Glas- gow,, and with each such step they have weakened themselves, converting * At a recent meeting in London, Dr. Buckland asserted that the product of all the clay lands oi" England might be doubled by a moderate expenditure for drainage. •j-The greatest crowding of population in a neighbourhood is in a district in Liverpool, England, containing a population of 8000 on 49,000 square yards of ground, being in the proportion of 657,963 to a square mile. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 133 those who were their own support into the tools of those who live at the cost of both. The exchanger has set his foot upon their necks. Commerce is King. They are prostrate, and so they must remain until they shall have help from abroad. Their natural allies are the land-owners of the rest of the world. The East India Company, as the great land-owner of India, is greatly interested. That country is becoming daily less and less able to pay taxes, and the power so to do must diminish with the continuance of the system. Were the machinery now employed in converting cotton into cloth /or India employed in making cloth in India, thus making a market on the land for its products, the culture of cotton would revive, the demand for food would increase, population would grow, and jungle would he cleared, and the Company might then obtain a constantly increasing rent from taxes constantly decreasing in their weight, paid by a people constantly improving in condition. The price of labour would rise, and the necessity for armies would diminish, and the Company might then, at no distant period, sell out its establishments to a people who would thereafter govern themselves. It is to the people of the United States, however, that they must chiefly look for help. Owners already of the chief part of North America, they are likely soon to own the whole. The national, not party or sectional, adop- tion of the protective policy would at once raise the value of land throughout the Union, because it would then be felt that a market would everywhere be made on the land for the products of the land. The British provinces would then speedily be incorporated into the Union, and the supply of food to British markets would cease; Cuba and Mexico would follow, and thus would be made a market for the population of all Southern Europe; and with each such step the value of labour would rise, followed by a necessity, on the part of the landholders everywhere, for an effort to retain their rent-payers, if they would preserve the value of their land. Spain and Italy would become manu- facturers for themselves, and thus the colonial system would gradually pass out, and with it the power of the exchangers over the labourers and land-owners. It is not by immigration alone that the population of the Union would be augmented, and increased value given to the land which so much abounds. The present system degrades the country to build up great cities, to be- come the resort of tens of thousands who would have remained at home among parents and friends, had furnaces, rolling-mills, cotton or woollen mills afforded them employment for time and mind. The same cause compels another portion to fly to the West; and while, in the one case, we have the poverty, vice, and disease of crowded cities, in the other we have those of scattered population; and men, women, and children starve in New York, while other men, women, and children perish of fevers incident to the occupation of new countries in advance of the arrangements that would have resulted from the more gradual extension of the area of settle- ment. It will be said that here is discord. If the city population did not grow, what would become of the OAvners of city lots? The harmony of in- terests is here, as everywhere else, perfect. Towns and cities would grow more rapidly than ever, but they would grow more healthfully, preserving a nearer relation to the population of the countr}^ whose trade they desired to perform. New York would cease to be, as now, a great wen, absorbing all the profits of hundreds of thousands of the poor farmers, her customers, who give ten days' labour employed in raising corn for the labour of one day employed in producing British iron. The country and the city would grow together, and the jealousy of the country towards the city would speedily pass away. The people of China constitute a world of themselves. They have little 134 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. intercourse with the exterior world, nor is the example of Hindostan likely to produce any desire for its extension: certainly not, while they shall con- tinue to recollect that their desire to prohibit the importation of opium in- volved them in a war that resulted in the destruction of cities and the ruin of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. The system of that country is directly the reverse of ours, in the fact that t^e government is in the hands of one, while here it is in the hands of all. In this, it labours under infinite disadvantage, yet the spectacle there presented of the results of combined action puts to shame our boasted civilization. A recent writer thus describes the condition of the people: — " The farms are small, each consisting of from one to four or five acres, indeed, every cottager has his own little tea garden, the produce of which supplies the wants of his family, and the surplus brings him in a few dollars, which are spent on the other neces- saries of life. The same system is practised in every thing relating to Chinese agriculture. The cotton, silk, and rice farms, are generally all small, and managed upon the same plan. There are few sights more pleasing than a Chinese family in the interior engaged in gathering the tea-leaves, or, indeed, in any of their other agricultural pursuits. There is the old inan, it may be the grandfather, or even the great-grandfather, patriarch-like direct- ing his descendants, many of whom are in their youth and prime, while others are in tlieir childhood, in the labours of the field. He stands in the midst of them, bowed down with age. But, to the honour of the Chinese as a nation, he is always looked up to by all with pride and affection, and his old age and gray hairs are honoured, revered and loved. When, after the labours of the da}' are over, they return to their humble and happy homes, their fare consists chiefly of rice, fish and vegetables, which they enjoy with great zest, and are happy and contented. I really believe there is no country in the world M'here the agricultural population are better off than they are in the north of China. Labour with them is pleasure, for its fruits are eaten by themselves, and the rod of the oppressor is unfelt and unknown."'* T -^t this be compared with the results of the system thau has desolated Ireland and India, and that drives our people to Oregon and California, Avhile men are everywhere, among ourselves, half-cultivating large farms, when they inight obtain treble the result from half the surface, and let it then be determined which is the one that tends most to promote the pros- perity and happiness of the labourer, and to improve the condition of the owner of land. The policy of England tending to dispersion, she desires to facilitate the making of roads by which all the commodities of the world may be brought to her, thence to be returned to the places from whence they came, retainina: no large a portion as to cause the destruction of the land and its owner. Lower India is utterly exhausted, and England desires railroads to more distant points, which will be then exhausted in their turn. From 1884 to 1840 she lent us iron to make roads in new countries, and we were ruined by dispersion. From 1843 to 1847, we filled up the spaces, the policy being that of concentration, and we grew rich. The present policy is that of dispersion. It is proposed to make a railroad to the Pacific, that men may scatter themselves more widely, although we now occupy a space that \vould be sufficient for almost the population of the world, if properly culti- vated. The more mads we make in the now-settled States, the richer and stronger we shall orovv, and the greater will be the value of land. The more roads we make in yet unsettled lands, the poorer and weaker we shall grow, and the less will be the value of land. It behooves the farmer, then, to look carefully to every scheme for promoting dispersion. The value of labour and of capital is dependent on the quantity of both that can be given to the work of production. Every increase in the quan • Fortune's Wanderings in Ciiina. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 135 tity of either required to be given to the work of con version and transportation, tends to diminish the value of all. Every diminution in the quantity tends to increase the value of all. The nearer the consumer and the producer can he brought together, the greater is the quantity of capital and labour that can be given to the work of production, the smaller is that which is required for transportation, and the more rapid is the advance in the value of both labour and land. We are now separating the consumer from the producer, and the conse- quence is, that five per cent, stocks are at par, land is cheap, and wages are low. Were the tariff of 1842 re-enacted, interest would rise to six per cent, and labour would command a large return — the consequence of which would be a great increase in the consumption of food, and wool, and cotton, and the value of land would rise. The annexation of a million of people, emigrants from Europe, to our cniiimunity, establishes free trade with them. The annexation of the land and the people of Canada, and the other British possessions, would enlarge the domain of perfect free trade. So would that of Cuba, Mexico, Ireland, or even England,* and free trade thus established would be beneficial to all, the annexers and the annexed. The people of the north would not object to the annexation of Canada, although such a measure could profit them but little. They and the Canadians are both sellers of food, and it is the superior value of wiieat and flour on the south side of the line by which they are divided that induces the Canadians to desire to be brought within the Union. The puople of the South would oppose the admission of Canada, although the eifect of such a measure would be to convert the Canadians into large customers, instead of per- mitting them to remain small ones.t Once within the Union, the con- sumption of cotton in the British provinces would speedily rise from '2I).00!),000 of yards, weighing .5,000,000 of pounds, to 30,000,000 of pounds, and thus would the planter gain a market for 50,000 bales of cotton. I'he material interests of the South would be promoted by the annexation of Canada, yet would the South oppose the measure on the ground of sup- posed danger to political interests. The South would advocate the admission of Cuba into the Union, although the effect of such a measure would, under existing circumstances, be that of ruining the cultivation of sugar, the only resource to which the planter now can look with hope — the only one that has enabled him to bear up under the late and present hopeless condition of the cotton culture. The man of the north would oppose the measure, although it would give him sufjar at a cost far below the present one, and a market for grain and cljth that would absorb of both to a vast amount. Political interests are thus at va- riance with material ones. In both cases the discord is but apj^arent, while the harmony is real. The establishment of that real freedom of trade which results from the immigration of individuals, or from the annexation of com- nsunities, can never fail to be productive of benefit to all. The cotton planter, as we have seen, now sells his product in the cheap- • Ircl iiid and England are mentioned here only to show that the difficulty of having perfect free trade with them would be removed by the change in the value of labciii that would result from change of their political system. f Export to British North America in the first six months of 1S46. 1847. 1848. 1849. Plain calicoes . V.lSrj.Tl 8 7,n.'i9,r.86 6,745,536 5,979,991 Print»a « . . S,483.16J 6,407,845 4,589,811 5,701,857 16,9ri6.481 13,837.531 11,335,347 11,G81,S4S 136 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. est market and buys his cloth and iron in the dearest one. He gives away the one, and is then unable to buy the other. By changing his system, and compeUing the loom to come to the cotton, and the anvil to come to the food, he will sell his cotton and obtain his cloth and iron in exchange fur labour that is now being wasted. He will then export cloth to all the world, and the necessity for resorting to the cultivation of sugar will cease. The people of the North will then consume all the sugar that Cuba can produce, and those of Cuba will require pounds of cotton where now thev consume but ounces.* CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE MANUFACTURER. The shipowner stands between the producer of cotton and his customers, and the larger proportion the quantity to be transported bears to the number of ships to do the work, the higher will be freights. We might thence suppose that his interest would be promoted by the pursuance of a course that would compel the cotton to go to the loom, and that he would be injured by the adoption of one requiring the loom to come to the cotton. Directly the reverse, however, as we have seen s the fact. The more the loom can be made to come to the cotton, the mor>. valuable are the services of men, the greater the number of men to be imported, the larger the number of com- modities that can be exported, and the larger the business for ships. The manufacturer, in like manner, stands between the producer and the consumer of cotton, and the larger the quantity of cotton to be converted compared with the machinery of conversion, the larger will be his charge for the use of his machinery. It might, therefore, be supposed that he would be injured by the adoption of measures tending to place the loom in the cotton-fields of the South, or on the coal-fields of the West, but the reverse is the fact. The more people make coarse cloth in the South and West, the more will there be to require fine cloth and silks from the East, and the greater the demand for labour in the one, the greater will be the requi- sitions made upon the other for the skill they have already acquired, with a constant increase of wages, and equally constant increase in the power of consuming food, cloth, and iron. The more they can make their exchanges at home, with men whose labour is valuable, the larger will be the equiva- lent received for their own labour; and the more rapid the increase in the value of that of others, the greater will be the value of their own. Every measure tending to break down the monopoly of machinery tends to increase the value of man throughout the world, and none could have that effect to such an extent as wnuld the transfer of the machinery of Lowell to the cotton-fields, to be replaced by other machinery of a higher order. But, it will be said, " The "people of the South need no further protection than they now have. They are satisfied with 30 per cent., and why, if they can go on to manufacture without any increase of duty, should they impose higher duties on fine cloths and silks, for the benefit of the North and East? W^e know that the latter cannot make fine muslins at the present rate of duly — nor can they manufacture silk goods in competition with France, The South will work up its cott( n and make its own exchanges, leaving the duty as it stands, and then Lowell, Lawrence, and Providence must go down, for competition is impossible." Such are the views perpetually pro< mulgated by journals whose editors profess great acquaintance wuh political • The export from Great Britain to all the foreign West Intlia Islands is biv little ovei 20,000,000 of yards. THE HARMONY OF fNTERESTS. 137 economy, and whose speculations are received as authority by their readers. Nothinir, however, could be less in accordance with the true in- terests of the planters. The larger the (juantity of the iiiachiner)' prepared for the conversion of cotton into clotli, the smaller will be the charge for its use. The planter ■rei]uires to rid himself of a monopoly that limits the increase of that ma- chinery, and compels him to give to the owners of the little that exists, whether English or American, a share of the product entirely dispropor- tioned to its value as compared with that of the machinery required for pro- ducing his cotton. To break down one monopoly and establish another would not answer his purpose, and yet such would be the result at which he would arrive were he to pursue a course that would merely substitute Augusta for Lowell, or Graniteville for Lawrence. The man of the South would, and necessarily, do as he of the North now does, buy his cotton at the market price, as fixed in Englawl, and sell his goods at the market price, as fixed in England, for until the quantity of machinery shall be so far inci'eased as to prevent the accumulation of large stocks in England, the price must continue to be there fixed for the world; and so long as we_ shall continue to be compelled to go there for any portion of our supplies of cloth, the price of the whole will continue to be fixed by the cost of obtaining the last small portion. What the planter needs is that the price shall be fixed here, for both cotton and cloth, and that it may be so, he requires an increase of the quantity of machinery ready to do his work, and not the mere substitution of that of Southern men for that of Northern men. How indispensably necessary it is that they should do so will be obvious from an examination of the diagram given at page 75. It is there shown how enormous are the charges of the manufacturers when the quantity for cotton requiring to be converted bears a large proportion to the machinery for con- verting it. In the following table are given. First. The amount of the crop. Second. The prices of cotton in Liverpool, by which those of the rest of the world are settled. The dates taken are March, 1844, July, 1845, May, 1846, and June, 1847. Third. The price of best mule twist, No. 2 per pound, at the same periods of time. Fourth. The price the whole crop, allowing twelve per cent, for waste, would yield, if converted into this description of yarn. Fifth. The yield to the planter, supposing the whole crop so sold, from which are to be deducted all the freights, charges, &c., between his plantation and Liverpool. Sixth. The amount retained by the manufacturer as his charge for con- verting cotton-wool into yarn. Year. Crop. Price. Jjj^f^^ Amount of twist. Price of crop. fonvoTsion. 1843-4 815,000,000 6d. \{)}d. £31,000,000 £20,000,000 £11,000,000 1844-5 9.58,000,000 4 111 41.000.000 16,000,000 25,000.000 1845-6 840,000,000 4| 9| 30,000.000 16,500,000 13,500,000 1846-7 711,000,000 7 lOi 27,500,000 20,700,000 6,800,000 If we deduct from the crop of 1846-7, the comparatively small sum required for the payment of freight, charges, &c., and from that of 1844-5, the large sum required for the same purposes, it will be seen how insignifi- cant is the return to the planter for a large crop compared with what he receives for a small one. In 1847, the manufacturer gave 7d. and sold at an advance of about fifty per cent. — i. e. he charged half as much for converting the wool into yaru THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. ^.s he paid for the wool itself. In 1845, when he paid id. he sold at nea;lv a shilling — i. e., he charged twice as much for the work of twisting the woui as he paid for the wool. He was enabled to do this, because of two reasons: — First, the machinery of conversion was disproporticned to the quantity of cotton to be converted ; and second, the market for cotton goods was extending itself, because the world was comparatively peaceful, and labour was being applied more productively than usual. The effect of the change that has since occurred will be seen from the following view of the cpsrations of 1848. Crop. Price ^^^^^"^ Amount of yarn. Amount of crop. pon^f?.Jon. 1847-8 940.000,000 4d. 8d. £28,000,000 £15,600,000 £12,400,000 The machinery had been increased, but the market was gone. Wars, revolutions, and threats of war and revolution, had destroyed it. The planter had 4d. per pound, of which a large portion was swallowed up in the cost of transportation ; and the manufacturer obtained as much for twist- ing the wool into yarn as the planter received for raising, ginning and baling it, and for transporting it, first to the place of shipment, and thence 'to Liverpool, together with all the charges of the numerous persons through whose hands it passed on its way. The planter needs machinery adequate to the conversion of his crop, and also a market for it when converted. The failure of either is equally fatal to him. The first he cannot have under the monopoly system. It is one of mere gambling; and while a few make fortunes, the many are ruined. The distant few, already wealthy — the cotton-lords of England — are not the men to whom he must look to provide him with it. It is to himself, and the many like himself, at home. Fuel and iron ore abound in the South, and cotlon fields furnish cheap sites for the erection of acres of factory, in which the product of thousands of acres of cotton could be converted by aid of the labour that is now wasted — the coal and the iron ore whose powers remain unused — the water powers that remain unimproved. By their aid, every pound of cotton now produced in the South, not required by Great Britain and others for their own immediate consumption, could be converted into yarn or cloth, and cheaply furnished to the world. The planter would then receive a yard of cloth for a pound and a half of cotton, instead of giving five pounds for one. The difference between the price of the crop of cotton, m Liverpool, and the price of yarn, also in Liverpool, in 1844-5, would have exceeded a hundred millions of dollars, being twice the amount* that it would cost to place in the cotton fields of the South spindles for converting into yarn the whole crop that is now sent without the limits of the Union. He would then have yarn or cloth to sell instead of cotton, and then his crop would speedily rise to five millions of bales, for the labour and manure now wasted on the road would go upon the land. Capital now absorbed by brokers, ship-owners, and distant manufacturers, would be applied to the mak- ing of railroads, the improvement of the machinery of cultivation, the diffu- sion of knowledge, and in a thousand other ways tending to render labour more productive. Where, however, is he to find a market for his products, thus increased? Commerce is but an exchange of equivalents ; and if the supply of iron, silk, coffee, tea, and other commodities required by the planter, do not keep })ace with increase in the supply of cotton, he will be constantly giving • See Plnnjrli, Loom, and Anvil, No. XIX., page 421. Vol. II.— 85 THE HARIMONY OF INTERESTS. 139 more cotton for less iron or silk, and thus others will enjoy the whole ad- vantage resulting from his increased exertion. That the advantage may, as justly it should, be his, it is necessary that the production of the commo- dities that he desires to receive in exchange go on to increase in a manner correspondent with that which he desires to give. If it does so, he gives labour for labour. If it does not, he gives more labour for less labour. The question now arises: Can the production of the world, under the existing system, go on to increase in such a manner as to give to the ])Ianter a proper equivalent for his production ? The answer is to be found in the fact, that it has already failed to do so, and that he is even now obliged to abandon cotton for wheat and sugar. How, then, can it be expected to do so in future ? The average crop must speedily reach 3,000,000 of bales ; and, when it shall have done so, his condition will be worse than at present. The production of the world does not increase correspondingly with our own ; and until it can be made so to do, we must work at disadvantage, giving much labour for little labour. With all its immense mass of rich and unimproved land, the United King- dom produces little. It does not even feed itself. It has a little iron and coal to sell, but a demand for an extra hundred thousand tons of the former would greatly increase the price of the whole without producing any ma- terial increase in the demand for cotton ; for the rich iron-master would be made richer, while the poor miner would remain as poor as now. Great Britain has scarcely any thing to sell but services — not products. To her we cannot look for a market. Of the people of France, almost half a million of those most capable of working employ themselves in carrying muskets, and a large portion of the labour of the rest is employed in raising food for them and other non-pro- ducers, in making clothing for them to wear, and powder for them to burn They have, therefore, few products to sell, and, like Great Britain, they have little to offer in exchange but services. The people of Italy and India raise some silk, but the chief part of both are otherwise occupied than in labours of production; and so are they like to be, and they cannot increase their product to keep pace with ours. Germany maintains large armies, and produces little to sell. So it is with Spain and Portugal. Mexico has a little silver and cochineal: but the quan- tity does not grow, nor is it likely so to do. Look where we may, the power of production is not only small, but incapable of increase under existing circumstances, and unless a change can be effected, we cannot find markets for the products of our constantly increasing population. What is the re- medy ? It is to bring the people to the place where alone their labour can be made productive, and thus establish perfect free trade with them. Fifty thousand English miners and furnace men distributed among the coal and iron-ore fields of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Alabama, would produce 600,000 tons of bar iron, to be exchanged with the farmer for his wheat, and the planter for his cotton, and the latter would then obtain a ton of the one for a bale of the other, instead of giving two or three for one. He could then make roads to go to market, and the labour of his people would become valuable, and they would con- sume five times the cloth they now consume, and thus would be made a double market for his cotton. The same number of Italians would raise quadruple the silk we now consume, and they would be large consumers of food and cotton. Were the market for silk once made here, we should in a little time raise as much as all the world beside, and cnsume almost all we raised. The planter and the farmer must make a market on the land for the 140 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. products of the land, by bringing here the people they desire to employ in the production of the commodities they require to consume ; or they must continue to give a continually increasing quantity of labour for a continually decreasing one. By adopting the first course, they would convert the con- sumers of one pound into consumers of twenty pounds, and the consumers of twenty pounds into consumers of forty pounds. By adopting the opposite poHcj' — that now called free trade — they will convert consumers of twenty pounds into consumers of one. Were it now known in Europe that such was the fixed and unalterable policy of the nation, the present year would see the transfer of population to the extent of half a million of persons, and of capital, in the form of ma- chinery, to an incalculable extent; and once here, here they would stay, in- creasing at once, and immensely, the market for both food and cotton. Five years would scarcely elapse before it would reach a million ; for with every year the power to obtain food, clothing, and the machinery for profitably applying labour, would increase, offering new inducements for the transfer of both labour and capital. With each year, the desire of our neighbours, north and south, to enter the Union would increase, and but few would elapse before it would embrace all North America, and a population of forty or fifty millions of people, themselves consuming far more than all the cotton we now raise. The Canadian, in the Union, would find his labours trebly profitable, for he would obtain treble the iron and cloth in return for less exertion. The mines of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick would give forth their treasures in return to the labour of men who now can consume but little food or clothing, but would then have power to consume much. The mines of Mexico would be made to yield three dollars where now they yield but one ; and all would obtain silver, gold, iron, lead, cloth, and all other of the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life, at diminished cost of labour. With each step of this progress there would be increased demand for the labour, both physical and mental, of the manufacturers of the North, for the demand for fine cloths and for silk would grow with the growth of the power to produce coarse cloth and iron; the demand for fine books would grow with the increase of school-books and newspapers ; and the demand for cotton and woollen machinery would grow with the increase in the power to obtain railroad iron. Between the manufacturer and the planter there is, therefore, perfect harmony of interest. All are alike interested in the exertion to shake off the load imposed upon them by the present monopoly of machinery ; but of all the agriculturist is most interested. Its tendency is to reduce the power of production throughout the world, to diminish the power of consumption, and thus to destroy the customers of both planter and farmer. The tendency of protection is to raise the value of labour throughout the world, by increasing the estimation in which man is held abroad, and thereby to augment production and the power of consumption. With every increase in the tendency to fly from Europe, it would be felt more necessary to endeavour to keep the people at home. By that process, and that alone, will the labourer of the world be raised to a level with our own. THE HARJIONY OF INTERESTS. 141 CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE CAPITALIST. Ir protection be "a war upon labour and capital," it must tend, by les- sening the productiveness of labour, to prevent its proper employment, and thus to diminish the power of accumulating wealth by the clearing, drain- ing, and enclosing of lands, the building of houses, the construction of roads and bridges for facilitating transportation, and of machinery for converting the products of the earth into the form required to fit them for the use of man. lf,on the contrary, it be really, as its name imports, protection to the labourer, then must it increase the power of accumulating wealth, to be used for increasing his productive power, and thus facilitating the accumulation of further wealth. The great machine of production is the land. The more time and mind that Can be given to its cultivation, the more rapid will be the increase of production, the larger will be the return to capital, and the more rapid the improvement in the condition of man. The more time and mind that must be given to the preparation of ma- chinery of transportation, the slower will be the increase of production, the smaller will be the return to capital, and the slower the improvement in the condition of man. The object of protection is that of bringing the consumer to take his place by the side of the producer; thus saving transportation, and fjicilitating the application of labour to production, while diminishing the number of persons among whom the produce is to be divided. A furnace, capable of producing 5000 tons of iron per annum, may be put in motion at a cost of §30,000. These 5000 tons would exchange in Ohio for 150,000 bushels of wheat, the produce of 12,500 acres of land that has cost $40 dollars an acre, equal to $500,000, for the labour employed in clearing and draining it, in making fences, building barns, houses and doing all other things necessary to fit it for production. Let us suppose the furnace, houses for the men, preparation of the mines, &c. to have cost $100,000, and yet the capital employed is five to one, to obtain precisely the same return. This, however, is not all. The wheat weighs 4000 tons, and to transport this to New York and thence to Liverpool requires more .capital in wagons and canal boats than would have been required to produce the iron at home; and far more capital employed in ships than would have done it ; and thus we have a total of seven or eight, if not even ten times the capital that is needed, while the return is precisely the same — 5000 tons of iron. The capital invested in building the furnace, the houses, and in preparing the mines, would have been permanent, and it would have given value to every acre around, because it would have made a market on the land for the products of the land, whereas, the wagons, ships, and canal-boats disap- pear with time ; and the land, constantly cropped, becomes exhausted, and is frequently abandoned by the owners, and thus is the whole wasted. The farmer will say that he could have obtained no more iron on the spot for the produce of his land, that the iron-master paid him for his wheat and charged him for his iron according to the price in Liverpool, and that he profited as much by exchanging in the one place as in the other. This is too nearly true. So long as he is compelled to compete with the inferior labour of Europe, so long must he accept this as a consequence. So long as he is dependent on England for a market for a single million of bushels of wheat, she will fix the price of all that is produced ; and so long as he is dependent on her for the last few thousand tons of iron, she will fix the price of all that 142 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. IS consumed. He needs to bring the home consumption of food up to the production, and the home production of iron up to the consumption, and the price of both will then be fixed at home. A little capital will then yield much iron. Now, much capital is required to produce litlle iron. It has been shown (page 74,) that the whole of the cotton, 311,000,000 of pounds, consumed by the people of Great Britain and Ireland in 184.5 and 1848, would have been paid for by 6,250,000 pieces of plain cottons, and 210,000 tons of iron, delivered in Liverpool. By the time this cloth and iron reached the plantation they would have shrunk into 5,000,000 pieces of cloth (120,000,000 of yards)' and 160,000 tons of iron ; and perhaps into a still smaller compass, even supposing them imported duty free. To have produced this 120,000,000 yards' of cloth in those tioo years would have required 20 mills of moderate size, each capable of converting into cloth 2000 bales of cotton, and to have produced this iron would have required little more than two establishments, such as the one described at page 42, as existing in the Lehigh region of Pennsylvania. To transport the 700,000 bales of cotton must have required 60 ships, each carrying 2000 bales, and making three voyages a year. Add to these, steamboats, warehouses, packing-machinery, &c., on this side of the Atlan- tic, and the docks, drays, warehouses, cars, railroads, &c. on the other side, and it will be found that the capital required for the work of transporting these 311,000,000, after they had reached the place of shipment, was three times more than would have furnished machinery that would have enabled the planter to convert the whole of them on the spot. For all this the planter pays, and therefore it is that we find him to have sent away 31 1,000,000 of pounds of cotton, to be exchanged in Liverpool for 74,000,000 of pounds in the form of cloth, and then to be reduced to 60,000,000 by the time they arrive on the plantation, thus giving five pounds of cotton for one yard of cloth. It is obvious that, even thus far, much capital is required to obtain small product. Let us now see what was the amount employed by the planter in produc- ing, at the place of shipment, the 250,000,000 of pounds that he gave in those two years to the people of England, for twisting and weaving the 60,000,000 that came back in the form of cloth. The annual average is 155,000,000 sent out, and 30,000,000 returned, 125,000,000 being lost on the road. The ave- rage product of cotton land is under 300 pounds an acre, at which rate 416,000' acres would be required for the production of the 125,000,000, saying nothing of the remainder of the various plantations not under cultivation. The average amount of labour, per acre, required to fit these lands for production, includ- ing fencing, houses, machinery, gin-houses, roads, &c., has not been less than one hundred days, and I should be safe in putting it much higher. Estimating those days at only 50 cents each, we obtain $50 as the actual expenditure required for each acre of land, at wliich rate the capital in land would be $20,800,000. Estimating the hands employed at no more than the land, we have a further sum of $20,800,000. Next, we have the capital employed in transportation to the place of shipment, and that some idea may be formed of that, I give the following statement, by one who furnishe.i it as the result of his personal observation : — " Of the expense of this first movement, some idea may be formed by those who havt^ seen it coming over dreadful roads, up to the hub, dragged slowly along 20, 30, or 40 miles, as we have seen it coming into Natchez and Vicksburg, hauled by five )'oke of oxen carrying 2800 to 3000 pounds, and so slowly that motion was scarcely percej)tilj!o. So many perish in the yoke in winter and spring that it has been said, with some exag- geration, that you might walk on dead oxen from Jackson to Vicksburg. That was be- fore the railroad was made. A wagon is loaded up, say 14 miles from Natchez, and THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 143 started at night, and reaches there in time to get back the next night time enough to "load up." Thus ten oxen have been wearing and tearing and dropping their manure on the road for 24 hours to make one load."* Here we have five yoke of oxen transporting 3000 pounds in a day, a dis- tance of only fourteen miles. Supposing the average distance to be 75 miles, and the roads to he similar, it would take them, on an average, a week to transport that quantity from the plantation to the place of shipment. I will, however, su])pose that a single jmke of oxen can transport four bales, or 1800 pound^, per week. The number of loads would be 70,000, to be transported in the shipping season, which averages about eight months. To do this would require, always on the road, 2:300 wagons, average cost §80, . . . §175.000 4400 oxen, " " §40, . . . 175,000 2200 men, " " $000, . . . 1,320,000 1,670,000 Total capital, .... $43,270,000 This is a very low estimate of the fixed labour, called capital, given to the production at the place of shipment of these 125,000,000 of pounds of cotton. Let us now see how much is the fixed capital, the use of which is given by the distant manufacturers in exchange for all this. A mill that will work up 2000 bales of cotton can readily be produced at a cost not exceeding 8100,000. These 2000 bales contain 900,000 pounds of cotton. Thirty-four such mills would work up 30,000,000 of pounds, and the cost of all these mills would be $3,000,000, or about (jne-fifieenth of the capital employed by the planter. Need we wonder that the planter's capital yields him a small return? The more directly power is applied, the more efficiently it is applied. The more machinery that intervenes, the less is the power and the smaller the effect. The planter obtains his cloth and iron by the indirect means of raising cotton and food to send abroad, whereas, if he would apply his power directly to the production of both, production would be doubled and his power of accumulation quadrupled. Had the planters of 1845 and '46, pro- vided themselves with machinery for the conversion of cotton into cloth, to the extent of the 155,000,000 consumed in England, they would have seen furnaces rise among them capable of producing treble the iron they could have obtained for that cotton, and thus would have been made a market on the land for the products of the land, the result of which would have been that they would have obtained far more for the balance of their crop than they did obtain for the whole. The produce of those 155,000,000 would then have bought them iron sufficient to make many hundred miles of railroad, and thus, while diminishing their necessity for resorting to distant mar- kets, they would have increased their power so to do, by increasing their capital. It will be said, however, that while the labour employed in pro- ducing the cotton is set down, there is no allowance for that required fcir its conversion into cloth. No such allowance is needed. The labour of men, women, and children, now absolutely wasted in every county of the South is more than would be required for five such mills, and the cotton that is lost for want of aid in harvest-time would twice over pay for it. The whole of those 125,000,000of pounds of cotton consumed by the people of Great Britain and Ireland was thus absolutely wasted, and therefore it was Skinner's Journul of Agricu)t are, Vol. HI., p. 483. 144 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. that the planter obtained one pound of cotton in exchange for five. Could the charges be saved that now intervene between the planter on one side, and the spinner and weaver on the other, he would obtain two pounds of cloth for three of cotton, and to acomplish this there is but one mode of proceed ing, and that is to persuade the machinery to come to the cotton, and thu? obviate the necessity for sending the cotton to the machinery. At present, we seem to be pursuing the same course that would be pursued by the man who should expend hundreds of thousands of days of labour in clearing and cultivating land for the production of wheat, and then wasting two- thirds of it on the road to and from the distant mill, for want of the applica- tion of three or four thousand days of labour to put up a mill on his own land. A grist-mill costing 5,000 days of labour will grind all the grain produced upon land that has cost 300,000, and perhaps 500,000, days of labour to place it in its existing condition; and yet the man above referred to, would waste on the road annually more days than would build such an one. So it is with our planters and farmers. We see in every little com- munity that mills speedily rise for the conversion of grain into flour, and are satisfied with one-eighth toll; and so we see in every neighbour- hood, where there are timber and a little water-power, saw-mills are got up for converting lumber into boards ; and with each such operation, flour and boards are obtained at less cost of labour, and the farmer has to give less of wheat, and of timber, to have them converted into flour and boards. What would the wheat-grower say who should have to give five bushels for get- ting one back in flour* — and what should the cotton-grower say to getting back one bale of cotton in the form of cloth ? Let him reflect on this question, and then answer the following one : Why should not every community of some- what larger size have in like manner its own place for converting cotton into cloth ? Could that be done, the planter would obtain half the cloth yielded by his cotton. The latter will at first view probably deny this. He will say: If I sell my cotton to go to Manchester, it will produce me five cents. If I sell it to the manufacturer on the ground, he will give me no more. If I buy Engnsn cloth, it Avill cost me ten. If I had a manufacturer on the ground, I should pay the same. Such must be the case so long as he shall find himself compelled to compete in the market of England with the poor Hindoo for the sale of his cotton, and compelled to purchase there, a part of his supply of cloth, for so long will the prices of both be fixed in Liverpool. With every step in the progress of emancipation, however, he would find himself * gainer. Let him look around and see how much of the labour of his neigh- bourhood and of his own plantation is Avasted for want of the demand that would be produced by the vicinity of the factory ; and then let him reflect upon the advantage to be derived from having, in that factory, a place of employment throughout the year, of the persons who might, in case of need, aid him in his picking, and thus save for him the labour that is now lost or cotton wasted in the field, or overtaken there by frost. Let him consider these things, and he will probably find that the loss in them alone is equal to the value of the labour required for the conversion of all the cotton of the neighbourhood into yarn. If they could be saved, and 'he could thus, with * " In some places io Virginia — in Rappahanock, for instance — the farmer does pay as much as one barrel to get four transported to Fredericksburgh, apparently not stopping to calculate at what price and what yield per acre that becomes a losing game, and appa- rently not reflecting, that while they pay 25 cents for transporting one dollar's worth of wheat they could transport the same weight, or fifteen dollars' worth of wool — or $1 50 of cheese, or $18 worth of live beef— at the same cost!" — Ibid. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 145 the same labour, send yarn to market instead of cotton, he and his neigh hours would be great gainers by the operation. Having done this, let him look to the price at which he sells his corn, and see what would be the difference to him if he had a market on the ground in consequence of the conversion of some of his neighbours into mechanics, mill operatives, &c. Instead of remaining poor on the produce of little pieces of land, they would obtain good wages, and consume double their present quantity, while producing none. He would at once save much of the cost of transportation. He would sell food at home instead of having to buy it, with cost of commissions and transportation from his own neigh- bourhood added to it to increase its price, at Manchester or Lowell, and all would be great gainers by the operation. Let him then look to his cleared land, and study what would be its value if all the manure yielded by his hay, and oats, and corn, and fodder, went back upon the land, instead of being wasted on the road, and if all of that yielded by his wheat and corn remained upon the ground instead of going to Lowell or Manchester, and see if he would not be a gainer by the operation. Let him then look to his uncleared land, and calculate how much it would cost him to destroy the timber. Let him then calculate the value of the timber, if the factory were near him, and if the blacksmith and the shoe- maker, the hatter, and the tanner, the bricklayer and the carpenter, needed houses ; and if a town were growing up around the mill, and its inhabitants wanting pork and meal, and milk, and beef, and flour, and potatoes, and mutton, and see if he would not be a gainer by the operation. Let him look to the quantity of land upon which this timber stands, and on which he is paying, or losing, interest. Let him then look to the quality of that land, and compare it with that which he now cultivates. Let him calcu- late how many bushels of potatoes it would yield, and compare their value, when consumed upon the ground, with that of the 300 pounds of cotton now yielded by an acre, and see if he would not be a gainer by the operation. Let him add all these things together, and see if he would not save all the freights and commissions ; even although he obtained no more for his cotton, and paid as much for his cloth. Let him see if he would not obtain the full value of his cotton, instead of, as now, obtaining hot one- third of it. The great cities and towns of the world are built up out of the spoils of the farmer and planter. Looking around in New York, or in Philadelphia, or Boston, it is not possible to avoid being struck with the number of per- sons who live by merely exchanging — passing from the producer to the consumer — producing nothing themselves. Wagons and wagoners, carts and cartmen, boats and boatmen, ships and sailors, are everywhere carrying about cotton, and wool, and corn, and wheat, and flour, as if for the pleasure of doing it. The man of Tennessee sends his cotton to Manchester to be twisted. His corn goes along with it, to feed the man who twists it. It leaves him worth twenty cents. By the time it is consumed by the Man- chester spinner, it is worth, perhaps a dollar. The labourer buys it at thnt price. The manufacturer gives him a dollar to pay for it, and he charges it to the cloth at $1 10. The corn and cotton become cloth, and the Ten- nessee man buys it back, paying ^i'6 bales for one.' He can sometimes send his corn, but he can never send his potatoes, and the reason why he cannot is, that they are of the class of commodities of which the earth yields 80 largely that they will not pay freight. The only things he can raise for market are those of which the earth yields little, and that will therefore pay 19 146 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. freight. He raises three hundred pounds of cotton, all of which goes to market, bringing him back but sixty fashioned into cloth ; returning nothing to the land of what it drew out of the land, whereas, if he had consumers near him, he would raise almost as many bushels of potatoes, the manure for which would go upon the land to enrich it, and make himself rich. He could then afford to clear, and ditch, and drain, and cultivate the richest land, now covered with timber, or with water. Why does he not do these things? Why does he not convert the un- profitable consumers, every vvhere around him, into profitable ones?* Why does he continue, year after year, to send his grain, or cotton, to the distant mill, instead of bringing, once and for ever, the mill to him ? The reason maybe found in the newspapers every day. Two years since, cotton manufac- turers, wool manufacturers, and iron manufacturers were prosperous. Now they are all stopping work. Many are already ruined, and many more are likely so to be. Why is this? Does it arise out of any change in our own affairs? It does not. It arises out of changes abroad. Two years since, England made railroads, and consumption then was large. This year she does not make roads, and consumption is small. Two years since, we built factories and furnaces. This year, manufacturers and furnace-builders are ruined. All of them would be ruined, had they not a Tariff of pro- tection, inadequate as is that of 1846, to give them that protection that is needed to secure them against such changes. Prosperous they would now be, had the tariff of 1842 remained unaltered; and the thousands em- ployed in them would have remained profitable customers for the farmers, instead of being driven over the country to become the rivals of the fanner, increasing the quantity of provisions, of which there is already a redun- dance. The capital employed in the transport of cotton is more than would build mills to convert the whole crop into cloth. The mill is saved labour. The transportation is labour lost, never to be regained. The mills once built, the whole of that labour might be applied to the work of production, for • The following picture of some of these unprofitable consumers is from a letter to the correspondent of " The New York Herald :" — " I travelled yesterday over a public road twenty miles, and stopped at nearly every house. ' They were occupied by what are called 'the poor white people.' I found fifty log-houses on my route. Yon pass through a forest and come to cleared land. You see on one side of the road a field of corn, say five to ten acres ; off a few rods back from the road, amid this corn stands a log cabin, the smoke curling up in blue wreaths even in these hot days. There is a wicket gate opening from the road, through which you pass and follow a footpath until you reach the entrance of the cabin. There is a stone for a step, and you enter. The woman is spinning. She asks you to a seat, which is made of nickory, both uprights and the seat. There are two or three more like it. In the corner of the room is a bed ; the fire-place is very large, and the chimney is built of mud outside the hut. There are some nails for hats and clothes. There is a rifle on wooden pins; a shelf, with a few articles upon it. consisting of a broken comb, a Bible printed by the American Bible Society, and a case-knife. In a corner is a barrel. Look into it, and you will find a half bushel of corn meal inside, and over it, on a string, is a j)iece of bacon. There is a cupboard in the corner; open that, and perhaps you will find a cup and saucer and a plate, and perhaps you won't. This a picture from the life. You ask for the family — ' My man is pulling fodder.' < How many children have you?' ' Six ;' and by and by you will see the whole half dozen flaxy-headed children peeping in through the crevices of the hut, for in the summer season, as there are no windows, the filling in be- tween the logs is taken out for air. You wonder how people can live in such a one-room den. Yet they do live, and get on very well. They keep a cow sometimes, a few pigs tt) make ham and bacon, and they raise corn, wheat, and oats. The cabin is worth twenty dollars, if it was to be bought." THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 147 the lost labour of the hands upon the plantation, and of the "poor white people," everywhere throughout the South, is more than would be required for the work of conversion. Protection seeks to enable the planter to save this labour and accumulate capital. It is said to be "a war upon labcur and capital ;" but it would here cer- tainly seem to be, what its name denotes, protection to the producer of food and wool against a system which compels him to give the use of fifteen dollars of capital in exchange for the use of one. Its object is that of promoting con- centi^ation. That of the system falsely called free-trade is to promote dis- persion. The last twelve months have witnessed the expulsion of many thousands of men, and many millions of capital to California, not one-tenth of which will ever return. One of the papers of the day states that " Considerable excitement lias been created here (NewYork) among those who have made shipment* of merchandise to California, by the receipt of letters from commission houses in San Francisco, containing account of sales. It appears that the charges have, in several instances, used up entirely the proceeds of the sales. We hear it stated in dry-good cir- cles, that one of our largest auction-houses sent out over two hundred thousand dollars' worth of dry-goods last winter, for which, up to this time, they liave received no proceeds." Hundreds of ships are now in the Pacific, doing nothing and earning nothing, when they might be carrying cotton, and we are now building other ships to replace them. The capital now invested in those ships and in California would have built mills for the conversion of half the cotton of the South, and furnaces for the production of as much iron as is produced in Great Britain. For all this waste of capital the farmer and planter pay, for the harmony of interests is so perfect that the losses of the ship-owner and manufacturer are invariably borne, in largest proportion, by them.* • The following estimate of the quantity of labour and capital lost by ourselves and wasted in California, is from the New York Herald, and is not far from the truth : — " It is estimated that about 500 vessels had, up to the 1st of November, arrived at San Francisco, from the United States an(i Europe, and that at least 100,000 people were, at that time, in California. Tlie average cost of outfit for each person cannot be less tlian $200, whicli makes an aggregate of $-20,000,000. It will cost an average of at least $300 per annum for each to live. This amounts to $30,000,000. This makes a total of $50,000,000, for the bare outfit and provisions for one year. The 500 vessels which had arrived, at the latest date, and the 500 on the way, are worth, on an average, about $10,000 each, which amounts to $10,000,000. The time of each individual we estimate to be worth, on an average, $200 — total, $20,000,000. Grand total of outfit, cost of living one year, cost of vessels engaged in the trade, and value of time one year, $80,000,01(0. This is a moderate calculation, as the actual outlay and absorption of capital, up to this time, will probably amount to full $100,000,000. As an offset to this we have thus far received about six millions of dollars ($6,000,000) in gold dust, from California and the whole Pacific coast. It will be perceived that there is still an enormous balance against California, and that it will be a long time, at the rate already realized, before we shall receive even the sum expended, to say nothing about profits. It is our impression that most of those engaged in the trade would be satisfied with merely the cost of their ship- ments. Most of them have abandoned all idea of profits, and many of them will never realize a cent : the charges, such as freight, storage, &c., will eat up every mill of first cost. The only product of California, to pay for this immense amount of property, is gold. At present it has no other resource, and we know of none but its minerals. It is now a little more than twelve months since the emigration to California commenced, and there has never been known, in the history of the world, such a movement as has been pre- sented in this. Independent of the hundreds of vessels which have departed from all parts of the world for California, we have nearly a dozen of the finest steatnshii)s in the world, regularly employed in carrying passengers and the mail between this port and San Francisco, via Chagres and Panama. Several large steamers are now on the way round, to take their place in the line from Panama to San Francisco, and in a short time we shall have two or three more on the line between this city and Chagres.' 148 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. The landowners of the world are the great capitalists. The exchangers are the soiall ones, and yet they and their machinery absorb the chief part of the products of the land, which therefore yields but small return to the labour employed in its preparation for production. Almost everywhere throughout this country it is of small value, rarely exceeding the cost of fencing and buildings. That it may be otherwise, and that lando\ATiers may grow rich, it is required that they bring the loom to the cotton, and the anvil to the food, instead of sending the mass of cotton and food, year after year. in search of the loom and the anvil. How rapidly their capital is capable of accumulating is a lesson that the mass of the farmers and planters of the Union have yet to learn. The first settlement of land involves a large amount of labour; but here, as in many other cases, it is the first step that is the most costly. The land cleared, the farm enclosed, the house built, and the road made, the cost of transporta- tion still absorbs so large a portion of the product that the whole has little value. The making of a railroad doubles it, but the quantity of cloth or iron that can be obtained for wheat or cotton is yet so small that the land has still but little value. To bring the furnace or the cotton mill to the spot, and thus to make a market on the land for the products of the land, requires an amount of labour that is absolutely insignificant compared with the amount already expended, and yet it doubles the value of all around. The sole cause of the difference in the value of land anywhere — quality being equal — is to be found in the proximity to, or distance from, market. Let us now suppose that during the last twenty years we had annually appropriated a small part of the labour that has been wasted on the road, and a small portion of the food and cotton that have been lost in distant mar- kets, to the building of furnaces and the erection of cotton mills, and that the Southern States now possessed a hundred of the former, each capable of producing 5000 tons of iron, and rolling mills to convert it into bars, and the latter capable of converting into cloth 500,000 bales of cotton, and that the spare labour of their hands had been employed in grading roads upon which they had been for years laying the bars produced in their own fur- naces and mills, and see what would be the result. Throughout the whole South there would have been a market at hand for a large portion of their products, while every part would be enjoying facilities for transporting its surplus food or cotton to distant markets at one-fifth of the present cost, and thus the land of every part would have been acquiring value, to an extent almost incalculable. The planting States have 400,000,000 of acres, and the addition of ten dollars an acre to the present value would amount to four thousand millions of dollars, while the cost of building furnaces, rolling- mills, and all other of the machinery necessary to have covered those States with roads, and filled them with machinery to enable them to convert into cloth as much cotton as would free them from all dependence on the move- ments of distant markets, making them independent, would not have been fifty millions, and yet, large as it may seem, the return would have been an augmentation of capital counting by thousands of millions. An addition of one dollar an acre in the annual value, or rent, of a plan- tation, would add more than ten dollars an acre to its value. The farmer now sends his corn to market and brings back twenty cents, yet the con- sumer pays fifty. He brings back iron that costs him 300 bushels per ton, yet the producer of that iron obtains but 25. Had the iron and cotton manufactures been allowed to develope themselves throughout Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, and other of the Southern States, 60 bushels of corn or half a bale of cotton, would this day pay for a ton of iron, and if that were the case, what would now be the value of land? Would it not be greater THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 149 than at present by more than twenty dollars an acre ? If so, would not that amount to eight thousand millions of dollars ? It is almost inconceivable how trivial is the amount of capital required to double, treble, or quadruple the value of land, after the first and most expensive process, that of the first occupation, has been performed. Let us now look to the state of things in England. The great field of employment for capital is the land. The number of acres in the United Kingdom is sixty-four millions. An expenditure of labour to the extent of only twenty shillings j)er acre would absorb the enormous sum of three hundred millions of dollars, and an average of three guineas per acre would absorb one thousand millions ; whereas the whole capital employed in the cotton manufacture is but thirty-four millions of pounds,* or about one hun- dred and sixty miUions of dollars, and that invested in shipping is but little more. Now, if we suppose one-half of the cotton machinery to be for the domestic trade, and the other half for the foreign, and one-half of the navigation to be for home purposes, including the procuring of tea, coffee, sugar, silk, &c., for the home market — rand the other half to be for other purposes, the result will be that the market for capital provided by the fo- reign trade is but one-sixth of what would be required for agriculture, at only three pounds per acre. If we take the average duration of ships and machinery to be ten years, we have an annual demand by the foreign trade for three millions only, being equal to less than one shilling per acre an- nually invested in the improvement of land. No one who is familiar with the condition of Irish agriculture, and of a large portion of that of Eng- land and Scotland, can doubt that the expenaiture of twenty times that amount in the gradual improvement of cultivation, and in the improvement of com- munications would be attended with a large return. Land, however, is (jverywhere centralized in the hands of great owners, and cultivated by great farmers ; and the consequence is, that capital does not find employ- ment in its improvement, and has to seek a vent in manufactures and com- merce, which, together, afford a field so small, that competition is great and the rate of profit is very low. The savings of Ireland are forced into England, because of the absence of all modes of local investment. From 1821 to 1833, no less than ten millions of pounds were thus transferred; and later statements show that the course of events from that time to the present has been nearly the same. Of the deposits in the Scottish banks, a large portion is habitually invested in the funds; and thus, local investment being prevented, there is a constant pressure upon the centre, which deprives the capitalists, great and small, of remuneration. The natural consequence of this absence of facilities for applying capital at the places at which it is owned, is the accumulation of large quantities in London, for which a market is to be sought at low rates of interest. Foreigners are then invited to borrow money — that is to say, to buy cloth and iron on credit — and then when by this process the unemployed capital has been scattered to different parts of the earth, there comes a crisis, and the debts are called in, with bankruptcy to the debtors of England, and wide-spread ruin among the merchants of England. Such is the his- tory of the period from 1835 to 1842, ending in bankruptcy and repudia- tion. Such is the history, so far, of the tariff' of '40. We have bought from thirty to forty millions of dollars of goods on credit, and the day of payment must come. By a succession of operations of this kind all the customers of England • McCullocli's Statistics, Vol. I. p. 78. 150 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. had been ruined, and there remained, in 1S42, no foreign country that could be trusted. Capital appeared superabundant. Interest was very low, and there appeared no prospect of improvement. Every thing was prepared for a trreat home speculation, and the railruad soon became the hobby of the day. It'was a great lottery, in which peers and paupers, bankers and half-pay officers, clergymen and pickpockets, bought tickets, all certain of drawing prizes. Five thousand miles of road have been made, at a nominal cost of £148,000,000,* but the larger portion of this vast sum has been merely a transfer from the pocket of one gambler into that of another, as may be seen from the following statement. The mere Parliamentary expenses! of the Blackwall railway amounted to, . . . . per mile, $70,000 Those of the Manchester and Birmingham to . . " 25,000 And those of the Eastern Counties' road to . . " 23,000 The amount allowed for land by the Manchester and Birmingham, was ......." 80,000 Eastern counties ......." 75,000 In this manner, the cost of the works executed was swelled to $250,000, $300,000, $400,000, and in one case to $1,400,000 per mile, the conse- quence of which has been that while the designing k\v have been enriched, the many have been ruined, and England is covered with the wrecks of this disastrous speculation, which owed its existence to the fact that the whole policy of the country tended to force capital into commerce and manufactures, which afford the smallest field for its employment, and to drive it from agri- culture, the only one that affords a field constantly enlarging, and in which an almost unlimited amount of labour and capital might be employed at a constantly increasing rate of return. The manner in which the system operates upon the moneyed capitalist here is now to be examined. In 1835,as we have seen, the natural outlets forcapital were closed. We ceased to build mills, furnaces, or rolling-mills, and the building of ships and houses was diminished. The necessary consequence of this "blocking up of capital was, that the price of dividend-paying stocks rose, and this produced a desire to create new stocks with the then idle ca- pital. Roads and canals were commenced at the west and south-west, banks were created, and the capitalist was led to believe that he was to obtain ten or fifteen per cent, per annum for the use of the means that he thus placed under the control of stranoers. The day of settlement, however, arrived. England claimed payment for the cloth and iron ; but the means by which she might have been paid were scattered to the four winds of heaven, invested in unproductive roads, and in banks that were ruined by the failure of their debtors ; and thus were wasted as many millions as would have built furnaces to produce quadruple the iron we ever yet have used, and con- verted into cloth all of the cotton ice then produced. The mass of smaller capitalists were ruined, but the iew were made rich. We are now moving in the same direction. Money is said to be cheap ; that is, there is much in bank at the credit of depositors, for which they are receiving no interest. The papers of the day informs us that Western city stocks and bonds are coming into demand; and here we have the beginning of a movement similar to that of 1836. In a httle time it will be judged expedient to create banks at a distance, and then a little while and England will claim payment for the cloth and iron we are now buying on credit, and then will be re-enacted the scenes of 1842. • Herapatli's Railway Journal, quoted in North British Review, August, 1849. j-The Parliamentary expenses of 1845, '6, and 7, were upwards of £10,000,000, or ^50,000,000.— /Wd. THE HARMONY OF IXTERESTS. 151 If we desire to know who are the persons from whom is derived the fH)\ver thus to derange the movements of the world, it is needed only to look at tlie [)rices of cotton and yarn between the periods uf 1844 and 1848, as .shown in a former chapter. The farmers and planters of the world first give away their products, then borrow a part of them in the forms of cloth and iron, and when ruined by the operation are denounced as bankrupts and swindlers. The well-understood interests of the capitalists of all nations are in perfect liaraiuny with each other. Whatever tends to diminish production in one, lends to diminish the return to capital in all. The Rritisli system is "a war upon the labour and capital of the world ;" upon her own as well as that of other nations. Its effect is to keep the return to the capitalist at a very low point, and often to deprive him altogether of return, and all because it tends to compel the labourer to underwork the Hindoo and the Russian, and to sink him to their level. Therefore it is that labourers and capitalists of ether nations are forced to resort to measures of protection. The immediate effect of the adoption of efficient and complete protection, as a national mea- sure, would be the transfer to this country of an immense body of capital in tlie form of machinery, followed by a gradual rise in the rate of profit abroad, which would tend to attain a level with our own. That capital, once here, could not be reclaimed. Like the men we import, it would stay, and the etiect that wouid f )llow necessarily from its transfer would be an increased import of men — of all, the most valuable species of capital, though now, in Europe, the most despised. To attain perfect freedom of trade, we need to raise the labourers and capitalists of Europe to a level with our own. The colonial system tends to depress and destroy both. CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE LABOURER. Whenever there is in market a surplus of any commodity, whether thai. surplus be the effect of natural or artificial causes, the price of the whole tends to fall to that at which the last portion can be sold — and whenever there is a deficiency, the price of the whole tends to rise to that point at which the last portion that is needed can be obtained. Labour is a com- modity, the owners of which seek to exchange with other persons, giving it in the form of sugar or cotton, and receiving it in the form of cloth and iron, and, being such, it is subject to the same laws as all other commodities. So long as there shall be a surplus of it anywhere, the price everywhere tends to fall to the lowest level. With the diminution of the surplus anywhere, the price everywhere will tend to rise to a level with the highest. Mere labour, unaided by machinery, can effect little. The man who has 1-0 axe cannot fell a tree, nor can he who has no spade dig the earth. The man who has no reaping-hook must pull up the grain, and he who has nc liorse or cart must transport his load upon his back. Such is the condition 'f the people of India, and such, nearly, is that of the people of Ireland. Jiiibour is con.sequently unproductive, and its price is low. To render labour ])roductive, men require machinery, which is of three kinds, to wit: First, ^lachinery of jj rod net ion, consisting of lands that are cleared, drained, and otherwise fitted for the work of cultivation. Second, Machinery of conversvni, as saw-mills, which convert logs into planks and boards ; grist-mills, which convert wheat into flour ; cotton and woollen- mills, which convert wool into cloth ; and furnaces, which convert lime, fuel, and ore into iron. Third, 3Juchinery of transportation, by aid of which the 152 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. man who raises food is enabled to place it where he can exchange it with the one who makes cloth or iron. The two latter descriptions make no addition to the quantity of food or wool that is to be consumed. The wheat or cotton that goes into the mill comes out flour or cloth. The barrel of flour that goes into the ship comes out a barrel of flour, neither more nor less, and it will feed no more people when it comes out than when it went in. The bushel of wheat that is sown comes out of the earth six, eight, or ten bushels, and the bushel of potatoes comes out twenty or thirty bushels. They have been placed in the machine of production, while the others have been placed in the machines of conversion or transportation. The more labour that can be applied to the machine of production, the larger will be the supply of food and wool, and the larger will be the quan- tity of both that will be deemed the equivalent of a day's labour. The nearer the place of conversion can be brought to the place of pro- duction, the less will be the necessity for transportation, the more steady will be the demand for labd'ur throughout the year, the larger will be the quantity that may be given to the work of production, the better will the labourer be fed and clothed, and the more rapid will be the accumulation of wealth in the form of machinery to be used in the further increase of production. Wealth tends to grow more rapidly than population, because better soils are -brought into cultivation ; and it does grow more rapidly whenever people abandon swords and muskets and take to spades and ploughs. Every increase in the ratio of wealth to population is attended with an increase in the power of the labourer as compared with that of landed or other capital. We all see that when ships are more abundant than passengers, the price of passage is low — and that when, on the contrary, passengers are more abundant than ships, the price is high. When ploughs and horses are more plenty than plough- men, the latter fix the wages, but when ploughmen are more abundant than ploughs, the owners of the latter determine the distribution of the product of labour. When wealth increases rapidly, new soils are brought into cultiva- tion, and more ploughmen are wanted. The demand for ploughs produces a demand for more men to mine coal and smelt iron ore, and the iron-master becomes a competitor for the employment of the labourer, who obtains a larger proportion of the constantly increasing return to labour. He wants clothes in greater abundance, and the manufacturer becomes a competitor with the iron-master and the farmer for his services. His proportion is again increased, and he wants sugar, and tea, and coffee, and now the ship-master competes with the manufacturer, the iron-master and the farmer; and thus with the growth of population and wealth there is produced a constantly in- creasing demand for labour, and its increased productiveness, and the con- sequently increased facility of accumulating wealth are followed necessarily and certainly by an increase of the labourer's proportion. His wages rise, and the projiortion of the capitalist falls, yet now the latter accumulates fortune more rapidly than ever, and thus his interest and that of the labourer are in perfect harmony with each other. If we desire evidence of this, it is shown in the constantly increasing amount of the rental of England, derived from the appropriation of a constantly decreasing proportion of the product of the land : and in the enormous amount of railroad tolls compared with those of the turnpike : yet the railroad transports the former's wheat to market, and brings back sugar and coffee, taking not one-fourth as large a proportion for doing the business as was claimed by the owner of the wagon and horses, and him of the turnpike. The labourer's product is increased, and the proportion that goes to the capitalist is decreased. The power of the first over the product of his labour has grown, while that of the latter has diminished. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 153 Look where we may, throughout this country, we shall fiud that where machiucry of transportation is most needed, the quantity of labour that can be given to production is least, and the return to labour — or wages of the labourer in food, clothing, and othtT of the necessaries and comf irts of life — is least: and that whei-e transportation is least needed, tlie (juantity of labour that can be given to production is greatest, and wages are highest: or in other words, that the nearer the consumer and the producer can be brought together the larger is the return to labour. For forty years past the cultivation of cotton in India has been gradually receding from the lower lands towards the hills, producing a constantly in- creasing necessity for the means of transportation, and a constant diminution in the quantity of labour that could be applied to production. With each such step labour has been becoming more and more surplus, and the reward of labour has been steadily diminishing. During a large portion of this period, such has been the case with Southern labour. It has been gradually receding from the lower lands of South Carolina and Georgia, producing a constant increase in the necessity for transportation, while the commodities to be transported would command in return a con- stantly decreasing measure of cloth, iron, and other of the necessaries of life. This tendency has been in some degree arrested by the large consumption at home, and by the power of applying labour to the culture of sugar ; but were we now to change our revenue system, establishing perfect freedom of trade, the home manufacture of cotton and the home production of sugar must cease, and cotton wool would then fall to three cents per pound, for the planter would then be reduced to that as the only thing he could cultivate for sale. Labour would become more and more surplus, with a constant diminu- tion of the power of the labourer to obtain either cloth or iron. So has it been, and so must it continue to be, with the sugar and coffee planters. Their products yield them a constantly diminishing quantity of either cloth or iron, with constantly increasing difficulty of obtaining clothing or machinery in exchange for labour. In New England, wages — /. e. the power to obtain food, clothing, and iron in exchange for labour — are high, but they tend to rise with every increase in the productiveness of Southern and Western labour, and so will they con- tinue to do as Southern and Western men become manufacturers, because the latter will then have more to oifer in exchange for labour. With any diminution in the productiveness of labour South or West, the wages of New England must fall, because there will then be less to offer them in exchange. In England, the power to obtain food, clothing, or iron, for labour, is small, and it tends to diminish with every increase in the proportion of the population dependent upon transportation, and every diminution in the pro- portion that applies itself to production, because with each such step there is a necessity for greater exertion to underwork and supplant the Hindoo, whose annual wages even now are but six dollars, out of which he finds him- self in food and clothing. With every step downwards, labour is more and more becoming surplus, as is seen from the growing anxiety to expel popula- tion, at almost any present sacrifice. Why it is so we may now inquire. The great object of England is commerce. Commerce among men tends to produce equality of condition, moral and physical. Whethc r it shall tend to raise or to depress the standard of con- dition, must depend upon the character of those w'*-h whom it is necessary that it should be maintained. The man wdio is compelled to associate with the idle, the dissolute, and the drunken, is likely to sink to the level of hi.? eompanions. So is it with labour. The necessity for depending on sommerce with men 20 1<31 THE HARMO^T OF INTERESTS amoT-.g wliom the staudard is low, tends to sink the labourer to the level of tlie lowest. Pliice half a dozen men on an island, two of whom are indus- trious and raise food, leaving it to the others, less disposed to work, to provide meat, fish, clothing, and shelter, and the industrious will be romjwUed to ex- change with the idle. Clothing and shelter are as necessary as bread, and those who i)lay will therefore profit by the labours of those who work. The latter, finding such to be the result, will cease to work with spirit, and by degrees all the members of the little community will become equally idle. Here lies the error of communi what you have stated your manner of living from week to week? — It is when I have work. And when you have not work, how is it with you? — In the winter months we hava sometimes scarcely a bit to put in our mouths. 158 THE HARMOXT OF INTERESTS. Such is the substance of the statement, as regards his own and his family's circum- stance's made to me by a labouring irifin in the receipt of the aveiage rate of wages for the last nine months in Wiltshire. Comment is scarcely needed, the facts speaking but too plainly for themselves. Had the family been smaller, or the wages a little higher, instead of a "taste,' they might have had a meal of bacon once a week. But even then it would be but once a week, potatoes and bread still constituting the staple of their diet, and even these not being Ijad by them in sufficient quantity. Besides, even if they hacl it more frequently, bacon is not the most nourishing food in die shape of butcher meat; It IS tat, and goes to fat. The little lean that is in it is almost destroyed by the process of curing. But it is greasy, and soon satisfies. "It fills us sooner than any other kind of meat," was the reply given to me when I asked why they preferred it to beef? But the fault is that it does not fill them ; it satiates, without filling them. Bulk is required as well as nutriment in food. The stomach has a meclianical as well as a chemical action to perform. A man could not live on cheese, nor could he exist on pills having in them the concentrated essence of beef They buy bacon because it goes a longer way than other meat — in truth, they buy it because it soon cloys them. Nor is it always that they have even a "taste'" of it once a week. I have seen several families who had not tasted butcher meat of any kind for weeks at a time. When French and English workmen came together during the construction of some of the French railways, it was found that the Englishman could perform far more work than his French competitor. This was universally attributed to the superiority of his diet, it being supposed but reasonable on all hands to expect more work from the man who fed on beef and porter than from him whose fare was bread and grapes. But the fare of the man who is expected by his labour to develope, year after year, the agricultural wealth of England, is, in a large pro- portion of cases, little better than bread and water — the fare of the condemned cell ! Contrast the condition of the English farm labourer with that of the farm labourer in Canada. In England he eats butcher-meat once a week, and not always that; in Canada he has as much of it as he wants once, at least, and frequently twice a day. Contrast his conditio'- even with that of the slave in the Southern States of America. In Virginia, the great slave State, it is seldom that a day passes without the slave eating butcher-meat of some kind or other. In addition to this, when he is old and infirm, he has a claim on his master for support. But the English labourer, if he has a family to sustain, has not, even during the days of his strength, when he can do, and does work, the same nutritious diet as the slave; while, when he is disabled, or loses his work, he must starve, or, as the alternative, become a vagrant, or the recipient of a formal and organized charity. In the words of one of themselves, "it is not a living, sir — it is a mere being we get;'" by which he intended to convey that their reward for their toil was their being barely enabled to exist. It may be said that the case put is an extreme one. It is the case, however, of nearly one-half of those who are dependent upon labour in the fields. But it may be said that I tiave omitted to take into account some little privileges which the labourer has, and which, when he avails himself of them, tend to enhance his comforts. He may keep a pig, for instance, and his employer will sometimes find him straw for it, which, in pro- cess of time, will serve as manure for his little garden. This looks very well on paper, but that is chiefly all. In the four counties under consideration the number of labourers keeping pigs is about one in twelve. It is also a striking illustration of the comlition of the labourers, that even such of them as do feed a pig seldom participate in the eating of it. Then we hear a great deal about the coal and clothing clubs, to which I shall here- after more particularly advert, and the chief merit of which is that they tend to rendei life not pleasant, but barely tolerable to the poor." The sleeping accommodations are thus described : — "These are above, and are gained by means of a few greasy and rickety steps, which lead through a species of natchway in the ceiling. Yes, there is but one room, and yet we counted nine in the family ! And such a room ! The small window in the roof ailmits just light enough to enable you to discern its character and dimensions. Tlie rafters, which are all exposed, spring from the very floor, so that it is only in the very centre of the apartment that you have any chance of standing erect. The thatch oozes through the wood-work which supports it. the whole being begrimed with smoke and dust, ai.il replete with vermin. There are no cobwebs, for the spider only spreads his net where flies are likely to be caught. You look in vain for a bedstead; there is none in the room. But there are their beds, lying side by side on the floor, almost in contact THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 159 with each other, ami orcupying; nearly the whole length of the apartment. The beds ars large sacks, filled with the chati" of oat<, which the labourer sometimes gets and at others purchases from his eniployi-r. The chntf of wheat and barley is used on the farm fur other purposes. The bed next the liatcliway is that of the father and mother, with whom sleeps the infant, born but a few moutlis ago in this very room. In the other beds sleep the children, the hoy< and girls together. The eldest girl is in her twelfth year, the eldest boy having nearly cfuupleted his eleventh; and they are likely to remain for years yet in the circumstances in which we now find them. With the exception of the younge-t •children, the family retire to rest about the same hour, generally undressing below, and then ascending and crawling over eacli other to their respective resting-places for the night. There are two blankets on the bed occupied by the parents, the others being covered with a very heterogeneous assemblage of materials. It not unfrequently happens that the clothes worn by the p;irents in the day time form the chief part of the covering of the children by night. Such is the dormitory in which, lying side by side, the nine whom we have just left below at their wretched meal will pass the night. The sole ventilation is through the small aperture occujjied by what is termed, by courtesy, a win- dow. In other words, there is scarcely any ventilation at all. What a den in the hour of sickne.ss or death ! What a den, indeeil, at any time ! And yet when the sable god- dess stretches forth her leaden sceiitre over the soft downy couch in Mayfair, such are the circumstances iu which, in our rural parishes, she leaves a portion of her slumbering domain. Let it not be said tliat this picture is overdrawn, or that it is a concentration, for eflect, into one point, of effects spread in reality over a large surface. As a type of the extrenje of domiciliary wretchedness in the rural districts, it is underdrawn. The cottage in question has two rooms. Some have only one, with as great a number of inmates to occupy it. Some of them, again, have three or four rooms, with a family occupying each room; the families so circumstanced amounting each, in some cases, to nine or ten indi- viduals. In some cottages, too, a lodger is accommodated, who occupies the same apart- ment as the family. Such, fortunately, is not the condition of all the labourers in the agricultural districts; but it is the condition of a very great number of Englishmen — not in the backwoods of a remote settlement, but in the heart of Anglo-Saxon civilization, in the year of grace 1849." Bad, however, as is all this, it is likely to be worse. Everywhere, notices are being given of a reduction of wages, and diminution in the number of persons to be employed. There is scarcely" says the writer, a district in any of these counties "where the work of reducing wages has not already com- menced." In one of them, as early as last June, there was a reduction from 8s. to 7s., and " apprehensions are everywhere entertained that they will be reduced to 6s. :=$l-44." " Is it any wonder," he adds, " that, with such a prospect before them, the agricultural labourers should brood over their cir- cumstances with the ominous sullenness of despair ? What is that prospect ? The winter is approaching — the season when most is required by us all to administer to our comforts. They are entering upon that season with here 8.S., there G.s-., and there again but S.s. a week for the support of their families. How far will these pitiful portions go in households of five, six, seven, eight, nine, or ten individuals? We cannot, in estimating a labourer's comforts at any given time, apply to them the test of his average wages. It is his wages for the time being that decide the measure of his condition. Had he at any time more than was neces.sary to carry him and his family up to the line of comfort, he might lay by the surplus for adverse times. But he never has what secures him perfect comfort, and is always more than tempted to spend all he gets. He therefore commences this winter, as he does every winter, without any reserve-fund to fall back upon ; and the fact is appalling that, iu this month of October, thou.sands of families in the very heart of England have no better prospect bcfire them than that of living on 8.s., 6.s-., and even 5.S. a week, in their cold, damp, cheerless, and unhealthy homes." The Canadian farmer is invited to contend in the market of England with the serf of Russia for the privilege of supplying with food men to whom a 160 THE HARMO^^^ OF IJs^TERESTS. morsel of bacon on a Sunday is a luxury, when by the simple process of annexation and protection he could bring to his side the same men and eon- Tort them into large and valuable customers. The planter is invited to con- tend in the market of England for the privilege of clothing men who want means to buy bread, when by an exercise of his will he could bring to his side, annually, millions of the same men, each of whom would then require tAventy pounds a year, two millions consuming half as much as was consumed in 1847 by almost thirty millions of the people of England and Wales. The system of England demands that with such people as these we shall establish a community of goods. Were it allowed free play — were the people of the world to establish what is called free trade, and thus unite their efforts for the maintenance of the monopoly system, wages universally would fall to the level of those of the poorest countries of the world, for with every step those of England would, of necessity, fall, because they must be kept at that point which would enable her people to underwork the world, and the tendency everywhere would be, as it has been in Ireland and India, downward. The adoption of perfect free trade by this country would, for a short time, produce some activity there, but a very short period would prove that we bought far less under free trade than we had done with protection, and in the mean time the disproportion of the English population would have largely increased, and the difficulty would be then far greater than it is now, great even as it is. We xiovf jiay for far less merchandise than we did three years since, and were it not that we are still able to buy on credit, we should make smaller demands on England than we have done at any period since 1842. The greater the amount of capital thus lent to us, the lower must fall the condition of the English labourer. Every step now being made by England is a step downwards, and if we would not have our labourers reduced to a level with hers we must, by protection, endeavour to raise hers to a level with ours, as it will do by relieving us from the necessity for dependence upon commerce with a people whose labour is lower in the scale than our own. It tends to raise the value of man abroad and at home, and to enable all to ob- tain more food, fuel, and clothing with less labour. Under it immigration has always increased, and it has declined with its diminution. That it must tend to raise wages abroad is obvious from the fact that so many hundreds of thousands of the population of Europe, held to be surplus, have sought our shores, thus diminishing the quantity of labour seeking there to be employed. With the approach to what is called freedom of trade, that system which tends to the maintenance of the monopoly of machinery in England, the value of labour here is falling towards the level of that of England. The present diminished production of coal and iron is maintained only by aid of a great diminution of wages. Labour is becoming surplus, ar d immigration is already falling off. This year will show a large diminution therein, and every step in that direction must be attended with a rise of freights tending to diminish the power to export either food or cotton. With the diminution of wages at the North, there is already a diminished power to consume either food or clothing, with increase in the surplus that is to be sent. Thus the same measures that increase the nccei^^ity for depending on machinery of trans- portation diminish the power to obtain it, to the deterioration of the condition of the whole body of the people, labourers and capitalists, farmers and planters, maimfacturers and ship-owners ; and the same which tend to di- minish our necessities for depending thereon, tend to increase our power to obtain it, to diminish the burden now pressing upon the land-owners and labourers of Europe, and to bring about that st per annum. United States say l,-20f),000 Brazil 200,000 India 250,000 Egypt 50,000 Our colonies 50,000 1,750,000 TUE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 175 This would allow us a supply of 33,500 bales a weelc. tho p.ppareni consumotioa of this year. For any addirioii to tJi's we must deuend on the increase of tne colonial sup- ply, or on that which a still higher range of prices will enfiiile us to vvn;.g out of India and Brazil. The conclusion from the whole clearly is, that, in order to secure such a supply ol' the raw material as is needed to meet oin- own present consamutinn. wf. must be prepared to pay a dccukdly higher range of pnces than hax of late years obtamea ; that, in fact, the average prices of the last live years have proved quite inadequate, m spite of large croiir in America, to draw to this country sutficient cotton to enable our actual machinery o work full time. Higher prices, therefore, nmst obtain in future ; nor snould spinntjrs and manufacturers wish it otherwise; for experience has fi'.'y shewn them that no cir- cumstances can cause them so great or so certain a loss as an inadequate »u-pply of the raw material, and higher prices can alone avert this supreme evil. So much as to the probable sufficiency of the supply of the raw material to this coun- try, on the supposition that the consumption is wtiai U appears to be, and mil continue what it is. But are we justified in these two assumptions * Let us put together a few facts which bear upon the question. And, first, let ns ascertain what the actual consumption has been during the last ten years. We know this with accuracy for nine years, and for the first ten months of this year. During these ten months, the deliveries to 'he trade have reached 1,495,000 bales. But we know that, during the latter portion of this period, manufacturers have been pur- chasing far more than they need lor actual use, and that, while the actual quantity worked up has, in consequence of a general tendency towards the production of finer fabrics, been decreasing since the beginning of June, the purchases of cotton have been increasing^ till, in October, they reached the unprecedented amount of 217,000 bales. A lull has now taken place, and we believe we shall not be far wrong in assuming that the pur- chases of the trade, during the last nine weeks of this year, will not exceed 205,000 bales ; and that, in that case, they will hold at the end of the year 50,000 bales more than usual in stock. This would give the consumption of the year at 1,650,000 bales. Our own impression is, that this estimate is rather over than under the mark, and that spinners hold a larger stock than we assume ; but, in any case we cannot be sulficiently wide of the truth to affect our conclusions. Weekly consumpti cotton in Great Br: 1840 .... 24,868 | 1845 . . , 30,120 Te 1841 1842 1843 1844 klr crnsumpticn of n In Great iintain. Tear. 24,868 1845 22,134 1846 22,949 1847 26,693 1848 27,439 1849 30,000 21,270 28,950 31,730 Now, we wish our readers to consider this table carefully, and notice the extraordinary fluctuations in the quantity of cotton worked up each year, in connection with the facts we are about to state. The weekly average fell nearly 3,000 bales from 1840 to 1841 ; then jumped up nearly 4,000 bales from 1842 to 1843; in 1845 and 1S4G, it remained sta- tionary at aiiigh figure; and (passing over for obvious reasons the anomalous year of 1847) it had again fallen in 1848, when the quantity only exceeded that of eight years previously by 4,000 bales. Yet, during the whole of this period, the machinery engaged in the cotton manufacture was constantly, though not regularly, increasing; and, except for a short period in 1842, (and in 1847, which last year we have thrown out of our calculation,) the mills were, we believe we are correct in stating, all at full work. Indeed, " short time" is attended with too tremendous a loss to the mill-owner ever to be resorted to, ex- cept under the direst pressure. During the last year, we see the consumption has in- creased nearly 3,000 bales a week, though the hours of labour have been reduced, by legislative enactment, from eleven to ten per diem. All these considerations point clearly to the conclusion, that our consumption of the raw- material is not a fixed, but a varying quantity, and is afl'ected by some other causes than either the amount of machinery in operation, or the hours during which it is employed. What this cause is, and the extent to which it is capable of operating, we can be at no loss to discover. The weight of raw cotton consumed by a given amount of machinery varies according to the nature of the article produced. We produce in England fabrics of which the raw material forms two-thirds of the value, and fabrics of which it forms not otiefftie/h of the value. We spin yarns of which the raw materials cost three-fourths, and yarns of which it costs one-twenti£th, of the finished price. We have spindles that produce two pounds ex yarn a week, and spindles that do not produce two pounds a quarter. But, witnoni 176 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. going to these extreme varieties, we will here copy a statement made by Messrs. Du Fay & Company in their monthly circular, the accuracy of which we can fully contirni. They say : 840 spiniiles, working '20"s twist, \vU\ consume 1,340 lbs. of cotton S4(J «' " ^ SO's '• '• " 840 « 840 " " 40's « " '• 5-'5 « 8411 '• «• 60"s " « '^ 2-24 « Now, though machinery accustomed to produce No. "iO's cannot produce No. 60's, yet it can, without material change or difficulty, produce No. 30"s; and machinery adapted for No. 30's can change to No. 40's, and so on. In fact, every mill has a range of at least ten numbers, by varying which it can reduce or augment its consumption of cotton easily from 25 to 50 per cent. The same may be said of weaving mills. In many mills, looms may be seen working side by side of the same constiuotion, some of which produce 60 lbs. a week, and otliers only 25 lbs. We could mention at least one mill where the amount of raw cotton worked up weekly varies, according to the fineness of the article produced, to meet the fiuetuating demands of the market, from 30,000 lbs. to 18,000 lbs.; and we find in the Manchester Guardian of last Saturday the following corroborative statement : " Some idea of what a change of numbers wil\ effect may be gathered from the fol- lowing instances; the names of the firms are before us : Previous weekly. RedLCtion. consumption. No. 1 lU,0U0 1bs.out of 40,UUiJlbs. No. 2 18,000 lbs. — 60,000 lbs. No. 3 25,000 lbs. — 115,000 lbs. No. 4 10,000 lbs. — 30,000 lbs. No. 5 10,000 lbs. — 30,000 lbs. No. 6 70 bis. — 120 bales. We have been informed by another very extensive spinner, that the reduction in his esta biishment is more than 40,000 lbs. per week." It is not easy to ascertain the extent to which this change from coarser to finer numbers is actually carried at any particular period. We know, however, that it does go on to a very great extent, and has done so, perhaps almost unprecedentedly, during tlie last six months; and, when we consider the immense proportion of the weight of cotton used in England, which is consumed by the makers of heavy cloths and coarse yarns, we- think we may safely affirm that a brisk demand for printers, shirtings, and India yarns on the one hand, with a dull demand for domestics, long-cloths, and German yarns on the other, or a reversal of these conditions of the market, if continued for any time, will make a difference of at least 25 per cent, in the weight of raw cotton consumed. Now, an advance in the price of cotton is much more strongly felt in the coarser yarns and the heavier cloths than in the finer ones. An advance, such as has taken place in the last twelve months, of nearly 3rf. per lb. on the raw material of a stout calico which ori'inarily sells in the finished state, at V>d. per lb. is nearly 40 per cent, on the manufac- tured article. On a printing cloth, or a fine shirting, which sells at 12rf. per lb. it is only 25 per cent. ; and on the piece whenprinted, it is far less than this — in fact a mere tiifle. Or, to put it in a still clearer light, an advance of 3rf. per lb. on a heavy domestic calico, will compel the purchaser to pay Ad. where he formerly only ])ald M. per yard. The same 3rf. per lb. will be ISc?. on a piece of printing cloth 30 yards in length, which, when printed, sells in the shops at about 12s. 6rf. ; in other words, it will raise the price to the customer from 5d. to 5^rf. per yard. Now, this advance, which is only ten per cent., is not sufficient materially or rapidly to check consumption ; the other advance, which is 40 per cent., is. It is clear, therefore, that an advance in the price of the raw material will check the demand for, and consequently the production of, heavy fabrics, much sooner and more decidedly than that of light ones. Accordingly, as the following table will show, the range of prices is more limited in the former than in the latter; and never keej)s pace with, or nearly so, that of tlie raw material : — Price per lb. of the following articles in November. Extrems 1845. 1848. 1847. 184S. 1849. laoM. rf. d. d d. d. d. Raw cotton, fair uplands . . . . 4A 6 5f 4 6^ 2i^ No. 20's water twist, good seconds . . 9 8} 7f 6^ 8^ 2| No. 40's mule twist, fair seconds . . 10 -pi 8^ 7 9J 3 Stout domestics, 18^ lbs. for 60 yds. . . 9^ 9} 9^ 8 8^ li Medium domesti.^s, 12 lbs. for 60 yds. . 11 J ll.V 9| 9^ 10 2A Printing cloths, 27 in. 72 reed, 5 lbs. 2 oz. . 13 L'H 12^ 10| 14^ 3^ I: is obvious from this table that while printing cloths have a range of price even exceeding that of raw cotton, and find no difficulty, where there is a reasonably brisk THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 177 trade, in following its fluctuations, the very reverse is the case with heavy domestics, into which a very disproportionate hulk of the raw material is worked up, when compared with the machinery employed. For these last-mentioned articles there is a very extensive demand at low prices ; but with any material advance, this demand immediately falls oft'. A great proportion of them is exported in the form of T cloths and long-cloths to Por- tugal, the Mediterranean, and the Levant, as long as prices range about Sd. a lb. — when it approaches 9d. this export is almost wholly suspended, and the manufacturers who ordinarily supply it, are compelled to turn their attention to other fabrics. Another cause contributes to this change. In unprotitable years, such as always occur when the raw material is deficient in quantity and has rapidly become enhanced in value, (as in the present year,) every manufacturer is of course anxious botli to minimize his loss, and to make his capital go as far, and last as long, as he caa. It is evident that this Mill be best effected by turning his machinery to the finest range of numbers it is fitted to produce, and working up (say) 20,000 lbs. instead of 30,000 lbs. of cotton weekly. Moreover, in years when trade is dull, and when manufacturers, from inability to sell, arc compelled to accumulate stocks, the same inducement to produce as fine fabrics as possible is still more strongly felt. A manufacturer with 500 looms on light printing cloths can afford to hold a stock of 50,000 pieces, or four months" production, but a manu- facttirer with 500 looms must have a much larger capital who can aftbrd to hold 25,000 pieces, or four months" productirm of heavy domestics. In round numbers, the first would have 12,000/. and die second 18,000/. locked up. From a combination of all the above considerations — from observing that this change from coarser to finer fabrics has often occurred in the past — from knowing how easily, and to what an extent, it may be effected — and from perceiving the vast inducement which such a rise in the value of cotton as has recently occurred offers to this change — we feel no doubt that such change has, during the last six months, been carried to a far greater extent than is generally estimated ; and we question whether the actual con- sumption is at this moment within 5000 bales per week of what it appeared to be in May last, nor within 3000 of what it actually was. We feel convinced, too, that with our present and future prospects as to the supjily and price of the raw material, as developed m the early part of this paper, our manufacture must run more than it has done of late years upon the finer yarns and fabrics, and consequently that our consumption of ootton (till the supply from miscellaneous quarters has been greatly augmented) must tend to decrease rather than otherwise, notwithstanding the increase and improvement of ma- cliinery ; that (to smn up tlie whoie) those speculators who refuse to believe in a diminished ,-0)t/ninipfimi, and t hose tnanufaciuTifrs who refuse to face the fact of an inadequate supply, will fnd themselves equally in error, and in danger. We particularly call the attention of the latter parties to the consideration that the better or worse accounts of the coming American crop in no degree affect our argument. We have assumed it at 2,350,000 bales — the highest estimate being 2,400,000 bales. There are yet other reflections which tend to corroborate this conclusion. We are not without indications that we have over-estimated and outrun the demand for the manufac- tured article from our existing markets, as much as we have outrun the supply of the raw material from existing sources. It is probable that the world's requirement of cotton goods about keeps pace with the world's growth of cotton wool. But unfortunately out machinery has increased faster than either. We can produce more calico than is wanted, and we can consume more cotton than is grown. We think that, in endeavouring to ascertain this, we may safely take the data of the last five years as our basis, since, though the demand for our manufactures has in that period been checked by a tremen- dous political and commercial convulsion, yet on the other hand it has been increased during a portion of that time by an unexampled expenditure among the working classes, (in the form of wages to railway labourers and others,) and the supply has been checked oy one of the most deficient cotton crops known for many years. We have constructed the following tables with the greatest care, and from the oe&t jiv formation we can obtain. We believe they will be found essentially correct — 1-75 . — — 1 — 0-33 No. 20 '« Water twist. Price of cotton Cost of workman- per lb. .hip and waste. Total cost. Selling prico. d. d. rf. rf. 1845 4-25 3 7 -'J 5 9 1846 6 3-25 . 9 25 8-25 1847 4-7 3-1 . 7-8 7-8 1848 3-6 3 0-6 6-25 1849 6-25 3-20 . 9-45 2S 8-45 178 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. No. 40's 3Iulc twist Costofworlim:.n. Price of cotton. ship and waste. Total cost. Sflling price. Profit. Um, d. d. rf. d. d d. 1845 4-5 4 85 10 1-5 1846 6 4-2 . 10-2 9-25 0-.f- inent and low prices of provisions combined, which was not also a year of very iarye domestic consumption of manufactured fabrics. This year labour has been in very brisic request, and food has never been so cheap and plentiful since 1830. Yet our expectation; THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 179 from these facts have not been fully answered. The sellers of printing cloths and me- dium shirtings report that their home demand has, on the whole, been good ; the sellers of domestics report, on the contrary, a decidedly dull business, worse than that of last year; but we believe all agree that the anticipations with which they began the year liave by no means been realized. We suspect the cause to be this : — The depreciation in railway property, the effects of the Irish famine, and the commercial crash in 1847, have impoverished all classes of the connnunity to a much greater extent than has been allowed for in the calculations of our tradesmen. We (juestion whether " the power of purchase," on the jiart of the British community, is nearly equal to what it was in 1845. One fact alone may enable us to guess at the degree to which its aggregate means of ex- penditure must have been reduced. In round numbers, the sum actually expended in rail- ways is 210 millions: their actual vabie at the prices of the day does not exceed 100 millions; and many of them pay little or no dividend. Let us now sum up the conclusions which our tables have solved :^ 1. Our supply of cotton has materially fallen off during the last ffew years, and will not increase except under the stimulus of much higher prices than have (till the last few months) obtained. 2. That under such ranges of prices our consumption will not maintain its present ap- parent rate, (or say 32,000 bales a week,) whatever be the increase or improvement of machinery. 3. That, except under the stimulus of low prices, our existing markets cannot take ofl as much as our machinery can produce. 4. That the practical deductions pointed to by these facts are two — -first, a permanent tendency towards the production of finer fabrics; and secondly, a check to the increase of mills and machinery — of our producing power — that is, till the increased supply of the raw material on the one hand, and an increased consumption of the manufactured pro- duct on the other, shall once more have restored the balance." It is here stated that the consumption of the last five years is greater by 3G00 bales per week than in the previous five, but it is not shown whence this cotton came. The whole quantity retained for consumption in the second period is less by 269,000 bales than in the first, and yet the consump- tion is said to have been greater by 187,000 per annum, or a total quantity of 935,000 bales, which added to the deficiency in the quantity retained, would make 1,200,000 bales. The stock of American on hand at the close of 1849 was less by 400,000 bales, and that of other descriptions may have been reduced 250,000 ; but even this leaves 550,000 to be accounted for. It is scarcely possible to examine the figures given in this paper without arriving at the conclusion that the consumption is exaggerated. Admitting, however, all that is claimed, I will now proceed to show how large a portion of this increase has resulted from the existence oi protection elsewhere. It has been shown* that our import of cotton goods in two years, ending June 30, 1843, the period of almost free trade, was very small, the average having been but $7,184,000. If, now, to this we add the increased import of the year ending June, 1844, we obtain an average of about . $9,000,000 From June, 1844, to June, 1849, the average was about . 16,000,000 During one-half of this period the tarifi" of 1842 was in existence, and during more than half of the balance, that of 1846 was almost altogether inopera- tive — and for the balance of the time the duty has been thirty per cent. Nevertheless, the amount imported^ has been almost double, and the excess is not less than three-fourths of a pound per head, making an average of about 35,000 bales per annum. • Page 394, ante. \ By reference to the tables in Chapters II. and III. it will be seen that much of these imports in the last two years was obtained in exchange for certificates of debt, and there- fore deducted from the amount of import as there given, the object in constructing those tables having been that of showing what was ihe power of consumption resulting from the power of production, not that which resulted from the impoverishing system of buying goods on credit. 180 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. The average import of yarn into the other protected country, the Zoll-verein, from 1837 to 1841, was 351,000 quintals. That of 1843 was 475,000, and the average from 1840 to 1844 was probably about 440,000. In 1845 it was 574,000. Taking that as the average from 1845 to 1849, as it appears to have been,* we have an excess of 134,000 cwts. of yarn, equal to 4*0,000 bales of raw cotton. The two together make 75,000, which, being deducted from the excess con- sumption alleged to have taken place, leave 112,000, and the account will now stand thus . . . 1840-44 annual average 1,290,000 1845-49 " « 1,402,000 showing an increase of little more than eiglit per cent., while the low prices of the second period have been lower than those of the first by tv:enty- fire per cent. It is obvious that the increase, trivial as it has been, among the unprotected 'consumers, has been obtained at the cost of the planter, and that the amount collected from the population of England and that of the world at large for his use, was greatly less in the second period than in the first. The consumption of American cotton in Great Britain, in the present year, is estimated at only about 1,100,000 bales, being little more than it was ten years since, when the average price was as high as at present. It is clear from this the market of England cannot be made to grow in such manner as to keep pace with our production. Why it cannot, and will not, may, I think, readily be shown by an examination of the operations of the past year, in which there has existed no railroad specu- lation, no famine, no potato-rot, and in which, on the contrary, every thing has tended to produce a perfect realization of the anticipations of the most sanguine friend of the existing system. The total value of exports of the kingdom for the ten months ending November 5, 1849, was £49,400,000 The total of grain, and flour and meal as grain, imported in the same period, was 10,300,000 quarters, which, at an average of 36s. per quarter, would amount to about £18,500,000, and with 43,000 tons of potatoes, to about . . . . 18,600,000 The number of oxen, bulls, cows, sheep, &c., 344,000, say 150,000 Of bacon, beef, pork, hams, butter, cheese^ and lard, 1,500,000 cwts., which at 30s. would be ... . 2,250,000 Grand total of commodities now imported, but with which the people of the United Kingdom supplied themselves almost entirely only a few years since . £21,000,000 Deducting these, the amount of exports remains . . 28,400,000 The exports of cotton manufactures and yarn (£5,833,000) amounted to £22,550,000, and if we estimate the cotton re- quired for their production at three-eighths of this amount, we obtain as its value 8,500,000 The wo61 imported to be manufactured and exported amount- * The export of yarn to the ports through which Germany is supplied, in four of tliose Tears was as follows : — Belgium, lbs. Holland « Hanse Towns, &c. 1845. 3,'9 17,000 . 21,556,000 . 40,315,000 . 64,788,000 1846. 5,359,000 24,662,000 45,041,000 75,062,000 1847. 3,520,000 16,206,000 36,123,000 1848. 3,168,000 18,877,000 32,910,000 Total lbs. 55,849,000 54,955,00f> THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 181 cd to nearly 60,000,000 of pounds, which, at a shilling a pound, would be 3,000,000 The flax imported was 1,553,000 cwts., and the average price being 32s., the amount is . . . . . . 2,500,000 If we now add for the hides, timber, copper ores, Swedish iron, block-tin, brimstone, indigo and other dye-stuffs, silk, sugar, gold, silver, quicksilver, and other foreign materials included in this vast amount of manufactures exported only . 2,500,000 "We obtain as the total of foreign raw materials exported . £16,500,000 leaving as the value of the products of the labour and land of England exported in ten months ..... £11,900,000 or per annum £14,280,000 being at the rate of 9/6 = §2-28 per head, to be applied to the purchase of cotton, sugar, coffee, tea, silks, dying materials, timber, and all other articles of necessity or of luxury required for domestic consumption, grain, potatoes, live animals, and cured provisions alone excepted. If the reader will now compare this statement with those of other years before given,"*^ he will, I think, have no difficulty in satisfying himself that " the power of purchase" of the people of Great Britain is in a state of rapid diminution, and that to that fact is due the distress existing among her people. It will be said, however, that she does consume much more than this amount. She does, and how she is enabled to do it, I propose now to show. Thus far, however, the accounts of the various periods are made out precisely alike, and answer for the purpose of comparing the present with the past. It will be seen that the prices of all the articles I have particularized would be low even here. Of the grain, nearly three-fourths are wheat or wheat flour, and the price is but 4s. or 88 cents per bushel, delivered in England. The bacon, beef, pork, lard, and butter are at 6 J cents per pound, also delivered in England. The flax is at seven cents per pound. The wool is at a shilling, and the cotton supposed to be about bid. per pound. These are prices at which we should not desire to deliver the same commodities at New York or Philadelphia, on their way to Liverpool. Nevertheless, Great Britain obtains all these, and immense quantities of other commodities in addi- tion, and yet hrings us largely in debt on the year's, business. She uses sugar valued at £5,000,000. Large quantities of cotton, silk, hemp, and hides, are consumed at home. Her consumption of tea is 40 millions of pounds. Of timber she consumes a million of loads, and the price of Canada red pine is £3 per load. How does she acquire the power to do all these things ? The cotton that comes from Bombay, as stated above, frequently yields to the shipper at that place but a penny per pound, which will not defray the cost of transportation from the place of production to the place of shipment, leaving nothing whatever for the cost of production, and yet the poor pro- ducer pays to the Company heavy taxes for the use of that land, which taxes are remitted to England for the payment of expenses, pensions, dividends, &c. The sugar from the Mauritius sells for 22s. per cwt., or 2ld. per pound, a price that cannot yield the shipper much, if any thing, more than a penny per pound. The producer receives almost nothing. It was shown by the accounts of several large houses, owners of real estate in that island, that for years the estates received nothing whatever. So is it with Canada, and her lumber. • See page 57. 182 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. The charges upon all commodities that pass into England are immense, and they cannot be otherwise. The producers are few, and the consumers are many, and the latter must be supported by the former. Wherever four families must eat and but one raises food, the share that falls to the former must be small, and therefore it is that the farmers and planters of the world are kept so poor. With every step downward the operation of the system tends to become more severe. A penny taken out of a pound of cotton that sells for a shil- ling, is a trifle, but a penny out of Sd. falls heavily. When cotton is high, it sells rapidly and the charges are few. When the crop is large and it sells slowly, the charges are numerous. So is it with sugar, tobacco, rice, and all other of the products of the earth. With the diminishing power of consump- tion prices universally have diminished, while the necessity for advances, storage, &c., has increased, giving to the exchanger power to take for himself not only a larger proportion, but a larger quantity than before. Hence it is that Great Britain is enabled to consume so much while producing so little. Diminish her power of taxing the planters and farmers of the world, and it will speedily be seen that the power of consumption that even now exists results from the ability to throw upon others the burden that she should bear alone. The Economist, a journal not to be suspected of exaggerating the evils of the present state of things, expresses its belief that " the power of purchase" on the part of the British community is not nearly equal to what it was in 1845.* That such is the case there can be no doubt, and that the * This same journal but a fortnight before assured its readers that "ever since there had been a reduction of the duties of the sUding scale, and a probability that the corn laws would be abolished, the farmers have steadily improved their cultivation and produced more." If production has increased, how is it that the power of purchase has decreased? If the power of purchase has decreased, how are the people enabled to purchase all this supposed increased domestic product, and the enormous quantity that is imported? The power of consumption and that of production go hand in hand with each other, and if " the power of purchase'' has diminished, as it unquestionably has, it is because the power of producing things unth irhich to purchase has declined. Much of the diminution in the " power of purchase" is ascribed to the railroad specu- lation, but it is difficult to see how that should liave produced any such effect. Under it much property changed hands, but the actual expenditure was merely the cost of grading and laying the roads, and it cannot be doubted that the labour that has been saved by means of the use of the roads has been quite equal to the amount expended. The price paid for land, and the fees to parliamentary agents, &c., were merely transfers from the pocket of one man to that of another, and could not have impaired the '• power of pur- chase." The railroad speculation produced the roads, and existing as they do, they tend to increase the power of production and consumption. It is necessary, therefore, to look elsewhere for the causes of the state of things now existing in England. They are to be found in the necessity fov competing with the lowest priced and most worthless labour of the world. The results of that necessity are exhibited in the following facts, which will not only account for the present diminution in " the power of purchase," but relieve us from difficulty in accounting for future diminutions. " It appears from a parliamentary return, that the holders of farms, who in 1845 were 310,000 over the Emerald Isle, have in 1848 sunk to 108,000. Two hundred and two thousand adtivators of land have disappeared in three years, and with them at least half of the capital by means of which the land was made to produce any thing." — Blackwood's Magazine, December, 1849. The bank-note circulation of Ireland, which in August, 1846, was £7,500,000, had fallen in August, 1849, to £3,833,000. — Ibid. The poor rate of Ireland, which in 1840 was £-200,000, has risen to £1,900,000. That of Scotland has risen in three years from £185,000 to £560,000. In Glasgow, anterior to 1846, it was £30,000. In 1848-9, it was £20C,000. The number of paupers in 1845-6, was 7,454. in 1847-8, 51,852, The railroad tolls of 1845 averaged £2,640 per mile. Li 1849, £1,780.— J6td. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 183 power of purchase must continue to diminish with further diminution in the power of production, is quite certain. Wo see that, notwithstanding low prices for grain, the imports are im- mense, averaging more than nine millions of our bushels per month. Will this continue ? In answer, the domestic crop of this year has not failed, nor have there been any reasons why the export from the grain-producing coun- tries of the world should be larger than usual. We are assured that Russia can supply fifty millions of quarters annually, and that much of it is now wasted for want of a market. She has now a market, and no long as a bushel of wheat will yield to the producer the price of a yard' of cotton cloth, he will accept even that rather than waste it. We are assured that he cannot afford to raise it at any such price, but what else can he do ? Deprived of other em- ployment for his time, he must raise food for himself, and with the sur- plus purchase clothing, even if he have to starve himself to obtain the little that he wears. The error of English wi'iters consists in assuming that there is such a thing as a necessary price. The poor labourer in India, we are assured by this same writer, obtains for his cotton no more than the mere rent of his land, leaving nothing for his labour, yet he still cultivates cotton to exchange for the yard of cloth with which he covers his loins. The people of England first inflicted upon themselves a necessity for com- peting with the " cheap" labour of India in the manufacture of cottons. That produced a necessity for competition with the " cheap" labour of Russia iu the production of food, the consequences of which are thus described in the recent quarterly report of the Registrar-general : — " The population of England has suffered, died, and decreased, during the quarter, to a degree of which there is no example in the present century." Emigration has gone on so rapidly, and so much in advance of immigration, that " England has now less inhabitants by several thousand than were within her shores at mid- summer." The system tends to increase man's necessities and to diminish his, power. It is here shown how enormous was the difference in the prices of cotton in the two periods, and we may now look to see whether the price of cloth and iron changed therewith. From 1840 to 1844, the average price of a piece of gray cotton cloth was '6s. Id.; from 1845 to 1849, it was above 6s. Hero is a reduction of ten per cent, to set off against changes of 40 per cent. The average price of iron in 1845, 1846, and 1847, was 50 per cent, higher than that of the four previous years ; and thus, while the cotton was lower than before, the thing which, of all other.s, the producer of cotton desires to use, was vastly higher. He was steadily giving more and receiving less, and it is no mutter of surprise that his power of production diminished and his condition steadily deteriorated. To this it is due that the power to pay for cotton cloth on the part of the people subjected to the system is steadily diminishing, an(jlute want of food for several successive days, but it is not the less certain that thousands upon thousands are annually cut off, whose lives havy been greatly shortened by excess of labour and deficiency of nourishment. • " It is a rare thing for a hard-working artisan to arrive at a gooii old age ; almost al become prematurely old, and die long before the natural term of life." — Combes Philosophy of Di^eatixm, 204 THE HARMOXY OF IXTERESTS. the unnatural policy of England, and thus relieve the law-makers of that country from all charge of mis-government. He studied, too, before Mr. Ricardo had invented a theory of rent, for the maintenance of which it was necessary to prove that the poor cultivator, beginning the work of settlement, always commenced upon the rich soils — the swamps and river-bottoms — and that with the progress of population he had recourse to the poor soils of the hills, yielding a constantly diminishing return to laboui* — and therefore it was that he thought for himself. ^lodern financiers have blindly adopted the English system, based on the theories of Malthus and Ricardo, and the- per- fection of civilization is now held to be found in that system which shall most rapidly build up great cities, and most widely separate the manufacturer from the agriculturist. The more perfect the centralization, the greater, according to them, will be the tendency towards improvement. Mr. Jefferson was in favour of combined action, as being that which would most tend to promote human improvement, physical, moral, intellectual, and political. That it does so, would seem to be obvious, as it is where com- bination of action most exists that men live bett and are best instructed — ^, commit least crimes, and think most for themselves. There, too, there exists the strongest desire to have protection. A recent traveller* in the United States, says that "the facility with which every people conscientiously accommodate their speculative opinions to their local and individual interests, is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact, that the several States and sections of States, " as they successively embark in the manufacture, whether of iron, cotton, or other articles, become imme- diately converts to protectionist views, against which they had previously declaimed." It is here supposed that the desire for protection results from a selfish desire to tax others, but the persons exclusively devoted to manufactures of any kind are too few in number to affect the elections, and yet wherever mills or furnaces are established, the majority of the people become advocates of the doctrine of protection, and that majority mainly consists of agriculturists, — farmers and planters. Why it is so, may be found in the fact that they ex- perience the benefits resulting from making a market on the land for the products of the land, and desire that their neighbours may do the same. Ignorant selfishness would induce them to desire to retain for themselves the advantage they had gained. Enlightened selfishness would induce them to teach others that which they themselves had learned. Ignorant selfishness is the characteristic of the savage. It disappears as men acquire the habit of association with their neighbour men. The pro- claimed object of the monopoly system is that of producing a necessity for scattering ourselves over large surfaces, and thus increasing the difficulty of association, and the object is attained. " The prospect of heaven itself," says Cooper, in one of his novels, "would have no charm for an American of the backwoods, if he thought there was any place further west." Such is the common impression. It is believed that men separate from each other because of something in their composition that tends to produce a desire for flying to wild lands, there probably to perish of fever, brought on by exposure, and certainly to leave behind them all that tends to make life desirable. Such is not the character of man anywhere. He is everywhere disposed to remain at home, when he can, and if the farmers and planters of the Union can be brought to understand their true interests, at home he will remain, and doing so, his condition and that of all around him, will be im- Sir Charles Lyell. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS, 205 proved. The habit of association is necessary to the improvement of man. "With it comes the k^ve of the good and the beautiful. " I wish," says the author of a recent agricultural address, *' that we could create a general ]ia.ssion for gardening and horticulture. We want," he continues, '•more beauty about our houses. The scenes of childhood arc the memories of our future years. Let our dwellings be beautified with plants and flowers. Flow- ers are, in the language of a late cultivator, ' the playthings of childhood and the ornaments of the grave ; they raise smiling looks to man and grateful ones to God.' " We do want more beauty about our houses, and not only about our houses but about our minds, and that it may be obtained, we must rid ourselves of a system which makes the producer the servant of the exchanger. Such is the o1)ject of protection. It is most truly said that "there is no friendship in trade." As now carried ou, it certainly does not tend to promote kindly feelings among the human race, nor can it do so while the system remains unchanged. The great object of traders appears to be the production of discord. By so doing, England has obtained the supreme control of India. Her journals are un- ceasingly engaged in sowing discord among the various portions of this Union, and the eiFort would be successful were it not that there is no real dis- cordance in their true interests. It is time that the peojjle of Great Britain should open their eyes to the fact that their progress is in the same direction in which have gone the com- munities of Athens, and Rome, and every other that has desired to support itself by the labour of othei's. It is time that they should awake to the fact that the numerous and splendid gin-shops, the perpetual recurrence of child- murder for the purpose of plundering burial societies, and the enormous in- crease of crime* and pauperism, are but the natural consequence of a system that tends to drive capital from the land, to be employed in spindles and • " Humanity cries to us from the depths. If we will not answer her, it were better a millstone were tied about our necks, and that we were cast into tlie sea. Have we no sense of the precipice on which we stand ? Have not die books of the prophetess been one by one burnt before our eyes — and does not the sybil even now knock at our doors to offer us her final volume, ere she turn from us and leave us to the Furies ? Crime, not stealing, but striding onward. Murders, poisonings, becoming almost a domestic institu- tion among our villages — husband, children, parents, drugged to their final home for the sakf! of the burial fees. Vice within the law, keeping pace with offence without. Incest winked at by our magistracy from its fearful frequency in our squalid peasant dwellings. Taxation reaching beyond the [)oint at which resources can meet it, so that, at increasingly shorter intervals, we have to borrow from ourselves to make expenditure square with income. Poor Laws extended to Scotland and Ireland, where they were never known before, and new Poor Laws failing in England to check the advance of rates, and tho growth of inveterate beggary, until property threatens to be swallowed up by the pro- pertyless, and a terrible communism to be realized among us by a legalized division of the goods of those who have, among those who have not — the fearfuUest socialism, the equal republic of beggary. ' Speak ! strike ! redress !' Three millions and a half of the houseless and homeless, the desperate, the broken, the lost, plead to you in a small sti.U voice, yet louder than the mouthing theories of constitution-mongers. Man, abused, in suited, degraded, shows to you his social scars, his broken members, his maimed carcass, blurred in the conflict of a selfish and abused community. " We say it must no longer be. We are a spectacle to gods and men — ' a by-word and a hissing to the nations.' Savages grow up in the inidi-t of our feather-head civilization, wilder, more forlorn, more forgotten, and neglected than the Camanches, or tho earih- eaters of New Holland. Ragged foundlings, deserted infant wretchedness, paupers here- ditary, boasting a beggar pedigree older than many of our nobles, grow uf) from year to year, generation to generation, eat with brazen front into tlie substance of struggling industry.'' — The Mother Country, by Sydney Smith. 206 THE HARMONY OF IXTERESTS. ships, and labour from the healthful and inspiring pursuits of the country, to seek employment in Liverpool and Manchester, where severe labour in the effort to underwork the poor Hindoo, and drive him from his loom, is re- warded with just sufficient to keep the labourer from starving in the lanes and cellars with which those cities so much abound. That " there is no friendship in trade," is most true, and yet trade is the deity worshipped in this school. In it " commerce is king," and yet to com- merce we owe much of the existing demoralization of the world. The anx- iety to sell cheap induces the manufiicturer to substitute cotton for silk, and flour for cotton, and leads to frauds and adulterations of every description. Bankruptcy and loss of honour follow in the train of its perpetual revulsions. To obtain intelligence an hour beforehand of an approaching famine, and thus to be enabled to buy corn at less than it is worth, or to hear in advance of the prospect of good harvests, and to sell it at more than it is worth, is but an evidence of superior sagacity. To buy your coat in the cheapest market, careless what are the sufferings of the poor tailor, and sell your grain in the dearest, though your neighbour may be starving, is the cardinal principle of this school. A very slight examination will suffice to convince the reader that, as has been already shown, these frauds and overreachings increase in the ratio of the distance between the consumer and the producer. The food that has travelled far is dear, and worthy to be mixed with beans. The cotton pro- duced in remote lands is dear, and it is proiitable to mix it with flour. The shoemaker who supplies the auctions uses poor leather, and employs poor workmen.* The object of protection is that of bringing the consumer of food to the side of its producer, there to eat plenty of good and nourish- ing food; the consumer of cotton to the side of its producer that he may not need to wear a mixture of wool and paste ; and the shoemaker to the side of the farmer and planter, that the latter may be supplied with "custom-work," and not " slop-work." By this he gains doubly. He gives less food, and gets better clothing in return. By so doing, his own physical condition and the moral condition of the shoemaker are both improved. The whole tendency of the system is to the production of a gambling spirit. In England, it makes railroad kings, ending in railroad bankrupts, like Henry Hudson. If we could trace the effect of the great speculation of which this man was the father, we should find thousands and tens of thou- sands of husbands and wives, parents and children, utterly beggared to build up the fortunes of the few, and thus increase the inequality of social condi- tion which lies at the root of all evil. If we examine it here, we see it send- ing tens of thousands to California, eager for gold,there to lose both health and life.f It is sending thousands of boys and girls to our cities — the former • Take, as an illustration in the system, the fraud in carpets, such as are usually sold at auction. "The head end of the piece is woven firmly for a few yards, when the web is 1,'radually slackened, so that the inside of the piece bears no comparison with the out- side. This is done so adroitly that it is impossible for any, but the best judges to tell in what the cheat consists. There is a double evil in this imposture, for the fabric not only grows poorer and thinner as the piece is unrolled, but the figures, containing of course the same number of threads throughout, will not match, their size being increased wivJi the slackness in weaving. This is not only a positive cheat, but it greatly interferes with the honest dealer, whose goods being alike throughout, cannot of course compete in price. It is incredible to what an extent this practice is carried, and it is high time there was somr legal remedy.'" — Dry Goods Reporter. ■j- ''This is one of the strangest places in Christendom. I know many men, who were niodols of piety, morality, and all that sort of thing, when they first arrived here, ai\d Vol. Ill- -1 J THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 207 to become shopmen, and the latter prostitutes, while luirjdreds of thousandg arc at the same time making their way to the "West, there to begin the work of cultivation, while millions upon millions of acres in the old States remain untouched. With every step of our progress in that direction, social ine- quality tends to increase. The skilful speculator realizes a fortune by the same operation that ruins hundreds around him, and adds to his fortune by buying their property under the hammer of the sheriff. The wealthy manu- facturer is unmoved by revulsions in the British market which sweep away his competitors, and, when the storm blows over, he is enabled to double, treble, or quadruple, his already overgrown fortune. The consequence is, that great manufacturing towns spring up in one quarter of the Union, while al- most ever}" eflbrt to localir.e manufactures (thus bringing the loom and the anvil really to the side of the plough and the harrow) is followed by ruin. The system tends to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The coal miner of the present year works for half wages, but the coal speculator ob- tains double profits, and thus is it ever — the producer is sacrificed to the ex- changer. "With the growth of the exchanging class, great cities rise up, filled with shops, at which men can cheaply become intoxicated. New York has 4567 places at which liquor is sold, and the Five-Points are peopled with the men who make Astor-j)lace riots. Single merchants employ 160 clerks, while thousands of those who are forced into our cities and seek to obtain a living by trade are ruined. Opera singers receive large salaries paid by the contributions of men whose shirts are made by women whose wages scarcely enable them to live. The whole system of trade, as at present conducted, and as it must con- tinue to be conducted if the colonial system be permitted longer to exist, is one of mere gambling, and of all qualities, that which most distinguishes the gambler is ignorant selfishness. He ruins his friends and wastes his win- nings on a running-horse, or on a prostitute. To what extent this has been the characteristic of the men who have figured most largely in the walks of commerce, might be determined by those who are fomiliar with the concerns of many of the persons described in the following passage, which I take from one of the journals of the day : "The great mercliants of this great mercantile city, who were looked up to with reve- rence by the rnatnrnon-worshipping crowd twenty years ago — where are they? Ask Ste- phen Whitney and those few who have with him survived the sliock of tliirty years' changes, and they will tell you, in commercial language, that 'J3 or 95 per cent, of their con- temporaries at that date have since become bankrupt, and that the widows of most of those deceased are either " keeping boarding-houses" or have left friendless orphans to " die ten- der mercies" of a commercial world. '• Look at the ephemeral creatures of this and last year's accidents, who now figure largely in the great world of New York, whether in the wholesale or retail line — whether in commerce, fashion, theatricals or religion — and ask where and what they or their children are likely to be twenty-years hence. The answer will be such as none of those most deeply in it will be apt to give with precise or probable correctness. ' They shall heap up riches and know not who shall gather them;' ' they shall build houses and know not who shall inhabit them;' 'they shall plant vineyards and shall not eat the fruit of them;" they shall 'call their lands after their own names,' and a generation shall rise up and possess them who shall laugh those names into a contempt from which the oblivion that shall succeed will seem a happy deliverance." — N. Y. Herald. who are now most desperate gamblers and drunkards." — Extract from a letter dated San Francisco, July 30. " American Lottery — Class No, 1 — $10,000 in actual prizes, sixty-six numbers, twelve drawn ballots. Whole tickets, $10; half do. $.'). This lottery will be drawn at the Public Institute in San Francisco, on the third day of October, '49, at twelve o'clock, M., under the superintendence of the managers." — Pacific News. 208 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. As a necessary consequence of the system, money becomes more and more an object of consideration in the contraction of the important engagement of matrimony, and marriage settlements begin to appear among us. The newspapers of the day inform us of the recent execution of one foi" §200,000. If we look westward, it is the same. Centralization produces depopula- tion, and that is followed by poverty and crime. London grows upon the system that ruins India and fills it with bands of plunderers. The West and South-west are filled with gamblers, and land-pirates abound. The late war has brought into existence a new species of fraud, in the counterfeiting of land-warrants, and this is but one of the many evils resulting from that measure. If we look back but a few years, we may see that the period between 1835 and 1843 was remarkable for the existence of crime, and it was that one in which the tendency to dispersion most existed. If we now look to the period between 1843 and 1847, we can see that there was a gradual tendency to the restoration of order and quiet and morality throughout the Union. In the last year, we may see the reverse. It was marked by turnouts, insub- ordination and violence of various kinds in country and in city. Such is the direct consequence of a diminution in the productiveness of labour. The employer must pay less, and the employed is unwilling to receive less than that to which he has been accustomed. The tendency of the colonial system is to increase the number of wagons and wagoners, ships and sailors, merchants and traders, the men who neces- sarily spend much time in hotels and taverns, living by exchanging the pro- ducts of others. The tendency of protection is to increase the number of pro- ducers — of the class that lives at home, surrounded by wives, children, and friends. The one builds up the city at the expense of the country ; the other causes both to grow together. Cities are rivals for trade, and when the farmer desires a new road to mar- ket he is opposed, lest it should enable him to go more cheaply to Charles- ton than Savannah; to New York more readily than to Philadelphia. London is jealous of Liverpool, and Liverpool of London. Discord is everywhere, and the smaller the amount of production, the greater must it necessarily be. Protection seeks to increase production, and thus establish harmony. It is asserted that protection tends to increase smuggling, and therefore to deteriorate morals. To determine this question, it would be required only to ascertain what description of men transact business at our custom-houses. From 1830 to 1834, the chief part was done by men who had homes occu- pied by wives and families, for whose sake reputation was dear, but from 1835 to 1842, it passed almost entirely into the hands of men who lived in hotels and boarding-houses, and who had neither wives nor families to maintain. From 1843 to 1847, it went back to the former class. It has now returned al- most entirely into the hands of agents — men whose business is trade, and who swear to a false invoice for a commission. The honest man, who desires to perform his duties to his wife and children, to society, to his country, and to Lis Creator, cannot import foreign merchandise. The system is a premium on immorality and fraud. The object of protection is the establishment of perfect free trade, by the annexation of men and of nations. Every man brought here increases the domain of free trade, and diminishes the necessity for custom-houses. Every man brought here consumes four, six, ten, or twelve pounds of cotton for one that he could consume at home, and every one is a customer to the farmer for bushels instead of gills. Between the honest and intelligent man who desires to see the establishment of real free-trade, the Christian who desires to see an improvement in the standard of morality, the planter who desires an in- THE HARMONY OF IXTERESTS. • 209 creased market for his cotton, the fiirmer who desires larger returns to his labour, the landowner who desires to see an increase in the value of his land, and the labourer who desires to sell his labour at the highest price, there is perfect harmony of interest. CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS INTELLECTUAL CON'DITION. The higher the degree of intellect applied to the work of production, the larger will be the return to labour, and the more rapid will be the accumu- lation of capital. If protection be " a war upon labour and capital," it must tend to prevent the growth of intellect. The more men are enabled to combine their efforts, and the greater the tendency to association, the larger is the return to labour, and the more readily can they obtain books and newspapers for themselves, and schools for their children. The object of the monopoly system is that of compelling men to scatter themselves over large surfaces, and into distant colonies, and thus to diminish the power of obtaining books, newspapers and schools. The object of protection is the correction of this error, and to enable men to combine their efforts for mental as well as physical improvement. The greater the tendency to association, the greater is the facility for the dissemination of new ideas in regard to modes of thought or action, and for obtaining aid in carrying them into practical effect. The object of the EiujUsli monopoly i^ystcm is that of separating men from each other, and depriving them of this advantage. The object of protection is to enable them to come together, and being so, it would seem to be the real friend to both labourer and capitalist. If we look throughout the world we shall see intellect increasing as men live more and more in communion with each other, and diminishing as they are compelled to separate. The man who is distant from market spends much of his time in taverns, where he obtains little tending to the improve- ment of mind or morals. The man who has a market at his door, may obtain books and newspapers, and he is surrounded by skilful farmers, from whom he obtains information. Not being compelled to spend his time on the road, he is enabled to give both time and mind to the improvement of his land, to which he returns the refuse in the form of manure, and thus it is that he himself grows rich. Of all the pursuits of man, agriculture — the work of production — is the one that most tends to the expansion of intellect. It is the great pursuit of man. There is none " in which so many of the laws of nature must be con- sulted and understood as in the cultivation of the earth. Every change of the season, every change even of the winds, every fall of rain, must aiftct some of the manifold operations of the farmer. In the improvement of our various domestic animals, some of the most abstruse principles of physiology mu.st be consulted. Is it to be supposed that men thus called upon to study, or to observe the lawp of nature, and labour in conjunction with its powers, require less of the light of the highest science than the merchant or the manufacturer?"* It is not. It is the science that requires the greatest knowledge, and the one that pays best for it : and yet England has dni'ea man, and wealth, and mind, jnto the less profitable pursuits of fashioning and exchanging the products of other lands : and has expended thousands of millions on fleets and armies to enable her to drive with foreign nations the poor trade, when her own soil offered her the richer one that tends to produce • Wadsworth's Address to the New York Agricultural Society 27 210 . THE HARMOXY OF INTERESTS. that increase of wealth and concentration of population which have in all times and in all ages given the self-j^rotective power that requires neither fleets, nor armies, nor tax-gatherers. In her efforts to force this trade, she has driven the people of the United States to extend themselves over vast tracts of inferior land when they might more advantageously have concen- trated themselves on rich ones : and she has thus delayed the progress of civilization abroad and at home. She has made it necessary for the people of grain-growing countries to rejoice in the deficiencies of her harvests, as affording them the outlet for surplus food that they could not consume, and that was sometimes abandoned on the field as not worth the cost of har- vesting; instead of being enabled to rejoice in the knowledge that others were likely to be fed as abundantly as themselves. Her internal system was unsound, and her wealth gave her power to make that unsoundness a cause of disturbance to the world ; and hence she has appeared to be everywhere regarded as a sort of common enemy. To this unsound system we are indebted for the very unsound ideas that exist in regard to the division of labour. Men are crowded into large towns and cities, to labour in great shops, where the only idea ever acquired is the pointing of a needle, and that is acquired at the cost of health and life. The necessary consequence is the general inferiority of physical, moral, and mental condition, that is observable in all classes of English workmen. Of all machines, the most costly to produce is Man, and yet ihe duration of this expensive and beautiful machine is reduced to an average of twenty- five or thirty years, under the vain idea that by so doing pins and needles may be obtained at less cost of labour. The principle is the same that is said to govern the planter of Cuba when he stocks his estate exclusively with males, deeming it cheaper to buy slaves than to raise them. As a necessary consequence, the duration of life is there short, and so is it in the crowded facto- ries of the great " workshop of the world." The idea is vain. Pins and needles would be obtained at far less cost of labour were the workshops of Sheffield and of Birmingham scattered throughout the kingdom, thereby enabling the producers of pins to take their places by the side of the producers of food, and enabling all to enjoy the pure air and pure water of the village, instead of being compelled, after breathing the foul atmosphere of the work- shop during the day, to retire at night to rest in the filthy cellar of the un- drained street. Were the ore of Ireland converted into axes and railroad bars by aid of the coal and the labour of Ireland, the cellars of Manchester and Birmingham would not be filled with starving Irishmen, flying by hun- dreds of thousands from pestilence and famine, and compelling the labourers of England to fly to the United States, Canada, or Australia. The English school of political economy treats man as a mere machine, placed on the earth for the purpose of producing food, cloth, iron, pins, or needles, and takes no account of him as a being capable of intellectual and moral improvement. It looks for physical power in connection with igno- rance and immorality, and the result is disappointment.* The workman of • The coromissioners for inquiring into the state of education in Wales, describe a state of mental condition perfectly in keeping with the following account of their physical cci- dition : — "The houses and cottages of the people are wretchedly bad, and akin to Irish hovels. Brick chimneys are very unusual in these cottages ; those which exist are usually in the shape of large coves, the top being of basket-work. In few cottages is there more than one room, which serves for the purpose of living and sleeping." Hence it is that there is so universal a want of chastity, resulting, say the commissioners, •' from the re- volting habit of herding married and unmarried people of both sexes, often unconnected by relationship, in the same sleeping r»x)ms,and often in adjoining beds, without partition or curtain." [See Westminster Review, H" '"'"Vll THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 211 this country is infinitely the superior of the workman of Manchester, and the reason is, that he is not treated as a mere machine. The object of what is called free trade is to degrade the one to the level of the other. The object of protection is that of enabling the poor artisan of Manchester or Leeds, Birmingham or Sheffield, to transfer himself to a country in which he will not be so treated, and in which he may have books and newspapers, and hid children may be educated. The colonial system involves an expenditure for ships of war, soldiers, and sailors, greater than would be required for giving to every child in the king- dom an education of the highest order ; and those ships and men are sup- ported out of the proceeds of taxes paid by poor mechanics and agricultural labourers, whose children grow up destitute even of the knowledge that there is a God. The object of protection is to do away with the necessity for such ships and men, and to raise the value of labour to such a point as will enable the people of England to provide schools for themselves. In the colonies, the perpetual exhaustion of the land and its owner has for- bidden, as it now forbids, the idea of intellectual improvement. To the West Indies no Englishmen went to remain. The plantations were managed by agents, and the poor blacks, under their agency, died so fast as to 'ren- der necessary an annual importation merely to keep up the number. In India, where education was from the earliest period an object of interest to the government, and where every well-regulated village had its public school and its schoolmaster, in which information was so well and so cheaply taught as to furnish the idea of the Lancaster system, it has almost disappeared. In the thana of Nattore, containing 184,509 inhabitants, there were, a few years since, but 27 schools, with 262 scholars. The teachers were simple-minded and ignorant, with salaries of $2-50 per month, and the scholars were without books. The number who could read and write was 6000. Such was the state of education in one of the best portions of Bengal. In the Bombay presidency, with a population of six and a half millions, there were 25 government schools, with 1315 scholars, and 1680 village schools, with 33,838 scholars. In the Madras presidency, out of 13 millions, there were 355,000 male and 8000 female scholars, and the in- struction was of the worst kind. In Upper Canada, in 1848, the number of children, male and female, under fourteen years of age, was 326,050, of whom but 80,461 attended school.* So far the state -of things is better than in other colonies ; but when we come to look further, the difference is not very great. The intellect of man is to be quickened by communion with his fellow-man, of which there can be but little where the loom is widely distant from the plough, and men are distant from each other, all engaged in the single pursuit of agriculture. How slow has been the growth of concentration in that province, may be seen from the following facts. Numerous small woollen mills furnish 584,008 yards of flannel and other inferior cloths, working up the produce of perhaps 250,000 sheep. Fulling mills exist, at which about 2,000,000 pounds of woollen cloths of household manufacture are fulled. Further, there are — 1 rope-walk. 11 pail factories. 1 ship-yard. 1 vinegar factory. 1 candle factory. 1 last factory. 1 trip hammer. 5 chair factories. 1 cement mill. 4 oil mills. 2 paper mills,making 2 brick-yards. 1 sal-eratus factory. 3 tobacco factories. 1900 reams each. 1 axe factory, prod uc- 8 soap factories. 2 steam-engine facto- 3 potteries. ing 5000 per annum, 3 nail factories. ries. 1 comb factory. 6 plaster mills, f And these constitute the whole of the manufacturing establishments of • Appendix to first Report of Board of Registration. \ Ibid. 212 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. that great district of countrj^, much of it so long settled. There is, conse- quently, little or no employment for mind, and the consequence is, that all who desire to engage in other pursuits than those of agriculture fly to the South. There are now within the Union, it is said, not less than 200,000 Canadians, and with every day the tendency to emigration increases.* If we look to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, it is the same. There is there no demand for intellect, and any man possessing it flies southward. Forty years since it was asked, '' Who reads an American book ?" That question has loiig since been answered ; but it may now be repeated in reference to all the British provinces. "Who reads a Canadian, a Nova-Scotian, or a New Brunswick book ? Upper Canada has two paper-mills capable of producing about ten reams of paper per day, being, perhaps, a tenth of what is re- quired to supply the newspapers of Cincinnati. Forty years since, the ques- tion might have been asked, Who uses an American machine ?" and yet the machine shops of Austria and Russia are now directed by our countrymen, and the latest improvements in machinery for the conversion of wool into cloth are of American invention. The British provinces have had the ad' vantage of perfect free trade with England, the consequence of which is, that they are almost destitute of paper-mills and printing-ofiices, and machine shops are unknown, while the Union has been a, prey to the protective sys- tem, that '' war upon labour and capital," the consequence of which is, that paper-mills and printing-offices abound to an extent unknown in the world, and almost equal in number and power to those of the whole world,"!" and machine shops exist almost everywhere. These difi'erences are not due to any difference in the abundance or quality of land, for that of Upper Canada is yet to a great extent unoccupied, and is in quality inferior to none on the continent. They are not due to difference in other natural advantages, for New Brunswick has every advantage possessed by Maine and New Hamp- shire, and Nova Scotia has coal and iron ore more advantageously situated than any in the Union. They are not due to diff"erence of taxation, for Great Britain has paid almost all the expenses of government. To what, then, can they be attributed, but to the fact that those provinces have been subject to the monopoly systevi, and compelled to waste their own labour while giving t^icvc products in exchange for the services of English men, wo- men, and children, employed in doing for them what they could have better done themselves, and losing four-fifths of their products in the transit between the producer and the consumer ? Place the colony within the Union — give it protection — and in a dozjn years its paper-mills and its printing-offices will become numerous, and many will then read Canadian books. In Enprland, a large portion of the people can neither read nor write, and there is scarcely an effort to give them education. The colonial system looks to low wages, necessarily followed by an inability to devote time to intel- lectual imp"rovement. Protection looks to the high wages that enable the labourer to improve his mind, and educate his children. The English child, transferred to this country, becomes an educated and responsible being. If he remain at home, he remains in bnitish ignorance. To increase the * " I do not exaggerate when I say that there are no less than 200,000 Canadians in the United States; and, unless efficacious means are taken to stop this frightful erni;';rati()ii, before ten years two hundred thousand more of our compatriots will have carried to the American Union their arms, their intelligence, and their hearts." — Lelter of Rev. Jlrthvr Chiniquy. •j" The whole quantity of paper required to supply the newspaper press of Great Britain and Ireland is 170,000 reams; while that required for the supply oi four papers priiitetl in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, is about 110,000. and the whole number o( newspapers is about 2400. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 213 productiveness of bbour, education is necessary. Protection tends to the diffusion of education, and the elevation of the condition of the labourer. At no period of our history has the demand for books and pictures, or the compensation of authors or artists, been less than in the period of 1842-43 At none have they grown so rapidly as from 1844 to 1847. Th{>y now tend downward, notwithstanding a demand that is still maintained by the power that yet exists of obtaining merchandise in exchange for certi^cates of debt. When that shall pass away, we shall see a recurrence of the events of tke free trade period. If we desire to raise the intellectual standard of man throughout the world, our object can be accomplished only by raising the value of man, as a ma- chine, throughout the world. Every man brought here is raised, and every man so brought tends to diminish the supposed surplus of men elsewhere. Men come when the reward of labour is high, as they did between 1844 and 1848. They return disappointed when the reward of labour is small, as is now the case. Protection tends to increase the reward of labour, and to im- prove the intellectual condition of man. CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE POLITICAL CONDITION OP MAN. The larger the return to labour, the greater will be the power to accumu- late capital. The larger the proportion which capital seeking to be employed bears to the labourers who are to employ it, the larger will be the wages of labour, the greater the power of the labourer to accumulate for himself, and the more perfect will be his control over the disposition of his labour and the application of its proceeds, whether to private or to public purposes. The freeman chooses his employer, sells his labour, and disposes of the proceeds at his pleasure. The slave does none of these things. His master takes the produce of his labour, and returns him such portion as suits his pleasure. Throughout the world, and in all ages, freedom has advanced with every increase in the ratio of wealth to population. When the people of England were poor, they were enslaved, but with growing wealth they have become more free. So has it been in Belgium and in France. So is it now in Russia and Germany, and so must it everywhere be. India is poor, and the many are slaves to the few. So is it in Ireland. Freedom is there unknown. The poor Irishman, limited to the labours of agriculture, desires a bit of land, and he gives the chief part of the product of his year's labour for permission to starve upon the balance, happy to be permitted to remain on payment of this enormous rent. He is the slave of the land-owner, without even the slave's right to claim of him support in case of sickness, or if, es- caping from famine, he should survive to an age that deprives him of the power of labouring for' his support. England employs fleets, paid for out of taxes imposed on starving Irishmen, to prevent the people of Brazil from hn'i/intj black men, and women, and children, on the coast of Africa, while holding herself ready to give white men, and women, and children, to any who will carry them from her shores, and even to add thereto a portion of the cost of their transportation ; and this she does without requiring the transporter to produce even the slightest evidence that they have been delivered at their destined port in '' good order and well-conditioned." When Ireland shall become rich, labour will become valuable, and man will become free. When Italy was filled with prosperous communities, labour ■was productive, and it was in demand ; and then men who had it to sell fixed the price at which it should be sold. With growing poverty, labour 214 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. ceased to be in demand, and the buyer fixed the price. The labourer then became a slave. If we follow the history of Tuscany, we can find men becoming enslaved as poverty succeeded wealth ; and again may we trace them becoming more and more free, as wealth has grown with continued peace. So has it been in Egypt, and Sicily, and Spain. Everywhere poverty, or a deficiency of those aids to labour which constitute wealth, is, and has invariably been, the companion of slavery ; and everywhere wealth, or an abundance of ploughs, and harrows, and horses, and cows, and oxen, end cultivated lands, and houses, and mills, is, and has invariably been the companion, and the cause, of freedom. If protection be a " war upon labour and capital," it must tend to prevent the growth of wealth, and thus to deteriorate the political condition of man. The farmer who exchanges his food with the man who produces iron by means of horses, wagons, canal-boats, merchants, ships, and sailors, gives much food for little iron. The iron man, who exchanges his products for food through the instrumentality of the same machinery, gives much iron for little food. The chief part of the product is swallowed up by the men who stand between, and grow rich while the producers remain poor. The growth of wealth is thus prevented, and inequality of political condition is maintained. The farmer who exchanges directly with the producer of iron gives labour for labour. Both thus grow rich, because the class that desires to stand be- tween has no opportunity of enriching themselves at their expense. Equality of condition is thus promoted. The oljject of protection is that of bringing the consumer of food to take his place by the side of the producer of food, and thus promoting the growth of wealth and the improvement of political condition. That it doets pi'oduce that effect, is obvious from the fact that, in periods of protection, such vast numbers seek our shores, and that immigration becomes stationary, or diminishes, with every approach towards that system which is usually deno- minated free trade. The colonial system is based upon cheap labour. Protection seeks to in- crease the reward of labour. The one fills factories with children of tender years, and expels men to Canada and Australia ; the other unites the men and sends the children to school. The Irishman at home is a slave. He prays for permission to remain and pay in pounds sterling for quarters of acres, and his request is refused. Transfer him here and he becomes a freeman, choosing his employer and fixing the price of his labour. The Highlander is a slave that would gladly remain at home ; but he is expelled to make room for sheep. One-ninth of the population of England are slaves to the parish beadle, eating the bread of enforced charity, and a large portion of the remaining eight-ninths are slaves to the policy which produces a constant recurrence of chills and fevers — over- work at small wages at one time, and no work at any wages at another. Transfer them here and they become freemen, selecting their employers and fixing the hours and the reward of labour. The Hindoo is a slave. His landlord's officers fix the quantity of land that he must cultivate, and the rent he must pay. He is not allowed, on payment even of the high survey assessment fixed on each field, to cultivate only those fields to which he gives the preference ; his task is assigned to him, and he is constrained to occupy all such fields as are allotted to him by the revenue ofiicers, and whether he cultivates them or not, he is saddled with the rent of all. If driven by these oppressious to fly and seek a subsistence elsewhere, he is followed wherever he goes and oppressed at discretion, or deprived of the advantages he might expect from a change of residence. If he work for wages, he is paid in money when grain is high, and in grain when it is low. He, there- THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 215 fore, has no power to determine the price of his labour. Could he be trans- ferrrd here, he would be found an efficient labourer, and would consume more cott'>n in a week than he now docs in u year, and by the cliange his political conilition would be greatly improved. Protection looks to the improvement of tlic political condition of the human race. To accomplish that object, it is needed that the value of man be raised, and that men should everywhere be placed in a condition to sell their labour tit the highest bidder — to the man who will give in return the largest quan- titv of food, clothing, shelter, and other of the comf jrts of life. To enable the Hindoo to sell his labour and to fix its price, it is necessary to raise the price of his chief product, cotton. That is to be done by increasing the consumption, and that object is to be attained by diminishing the waste of labour attendant upon its transit between the producer and the consumer. Fill this country with furnaces and mills, and railroads will be made in every direction, and the consumption of cotton will speedily rise to twenty pounds per head, while millions of European labourers, mechanics, farmers, and capitalists will cross the Atlantic, and every million will be a customer for one-fourth as much as was consumed by the people of Great Britain and Ireland in 1847. The harmony of the interests of the cotton-growers throughout the world is perfect, and all the discord comes from the power of the exchangers to produce apparent discord. It is asserted, however, that protection tends to build up a body of capi- talists at the expense of the consumer, and thus produce inequality of condi- tion. That such is the effect of inadequate protection is not to be doubted. So long as we continue under a necessity for seeking in England a market for ';"ur surplus products, her markets will fix the price for the world, and so king as we shall continue to be under a necessity for seeking there a small supply of cloth or iron, so long will the prices in her markets fix the price of all, and the domestic producer of cloth and iron will profit by the difi"ercnce of freight both out and home. With this profit he takes the risk of ruin, which is of perpetual occurrence among the men of small capitals. Those who are already wealthy have but to stop their furnaces or mills until prices rise, and then they have the markets to themselves, for their poorer competitors have been ruined. Such is the history of many of the large fortunes accumulated by the manufacture of cloth and iron in this country, and such the almost universal history of every efi'ort to establish manufactures south and west of New England. Inadequate and uncertain protection benefits the farmer and planter little, while the uncertainty attending it tends to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, thus producing social and political inequality. Adequate and certain protection, on the contrary, tends to the production of equality — first, because by its aid \\iQ necessity for depending on foreigi; markets for the sale of O'lr products, or the supply of our wants, will bo brought to an end, and thenceforth the prices, being fixed at home, will be steady, and then the smaller capitalist will be enabled to maintain competi- tion with the larger one, with great advantage to the consumers — farmers, planters, and labourers ; and, second, because its benefits will be, as they always have been, felt chiefly by the many with whom the price of labour constitutes the sole fund out of which they are to be maintained. If we take the labour that is employed in the factories of the country, from one extremity to the other, it will be found that nearly the whole of it would be waste, if not so employed. If we take that which is employed in getting out the timber and the stone for building factories and furnaces, it will be found that a large portion of it would otherwise be waste. If we inquire into the operations of the farmer, we find that the vicinity of a factory, or 216 THE HARMONY OF INTEEESTS. furnace, enables him to save much of the labour of transportation, and to sell many things that would otherwise be waste. Thus far, the advantage wroduction , to the extent of almost seven millions. If the power to buy on credit were now to cease, the amount collected would fall to twenty-two millions. Were the debt con- tracted last year now to be paid, it would fall to fifteen millions, and a large addition would have to be made to the public debt, as in 1841—42. How long a time is to elapse before such will be the state of things, it is not for me to predict ; but if we make this year a further addition of twenty millions to our foreign debt, and close as many furnaces as we did in the last one, the day for it cannot be fixr distant. The power to contribute towards the maintenance of government depends upon the power of production, and every circumstance tending to diminish the one tends equally to the diminution of the other. The power of pro- duction is now rapidly diminishing, and must continue so to do. Such likewise is the case in England. From year to year the payment of taxes is becoming more and more onerous, notwithstanding so large a portion of them is thrown upon the farmers and planters of the earth, by aid of the system under which they are compelled to give more food, cotton, tobacco, and sugar, for less and less cloth and iron ; and yet from year to year the expenditures have been increasing. Poverty produced rebellion in Ireland, and chartism in England, and thus increased the necessity for soldiers and sailors. The exhaustion of the older provinces of India led to a desire for Aff'ghanistan, Scinde, and the Punjaub; and the failure of a market for labour in the form of cotton, drove the Hindoo to opium, which led to a war in China, and thus was made a demand for fleets and armies. The poverty of Canada led to rebellion, and to the building of forts and ships. The anxiety to secure foreign markets has led to immense expenses for steam- ships and mail steamers, and thus the more the system tends to fail, the greater is the expenditure for its maintenance, and the less the ability of the people of England, and the farmers and planters of the world, to contribute thereto. Let us now look to the other source of our national revenue — the public lands. The higher the value of labour, the more of it will be brought here for sale. The more people come here, the more laud will be required. The larger and more valuable the freights homeward, the less will be the cost uf freight outward, and the more numerous will be the commodities that can be exported to pay for those we may choose to import. Were we now importing a million of men annually, the sales of land would suon reach ten millions of acres per annum. That point we should now reach in five years of perfect and fixed protection, and but few more years would be required to double both the importation of men and the sales of public lands. Here is a vast source of public revenue. Perfect protection would, by degrees, diminish the import of cottons, iron, THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 221 and othiT duty-paying goods, but we should consume treble or quadruple the quantity of coflFee, tea, and the raw material? for the production of which the soil or climate of the country is not suited, and thus should we raise the value of labour employed in agriculture throughout tiie world. It is asked, "If we converted all our cotton into cloth, what would Europe ];roiiice to pay us for it ?" In answer, it may be said that the object of pro- tection is that of enabling the consumer of food to take his place by the side of the producer of food, not to separate them. It is to our interest that the people of England should supply themselves with clothing made by men who cat the food of England, and that such should be the case with those of Ger- many and Russia, Spain and Italy, and with every step in their progress they would need more cotton. To pay for it, they would employ their labour in tlie production of thousands of articles of taste and luxury, of which we should then consume immense (juantities, and therewith there would be improvement of taste, retiuement of feeling, elevation of character, and increase of indi- vidual and national strength, of which now we can form no conception. Upon such commodities the duties would be moderate, and, as the imports of the more bulky of the duty-paying articles diminished, the customs' revenue would gradually decline, until at length the necessity for custom-houses would pass away, the poicer to maintain government with the land revenue having grown to take its place, and thus might be realized the wonderful idea of the government of an immense nation maintained without the neces- fiity for a single man employed in the collection of taxes. It Avould thus appear that between the interests of the treasury and the people, the farmer, planter, manufacturer, and merchant, the great and little trader and the shipowner, the slave and his master, the landowners and la- bourers of the Union and the world, the free trader and the advocate of protection, there is perfect harmony of interests, and that the way to the ?*l*j lishment of universal peace and universal free trade, is to be found in tlie adoption of measures tending to the destruction of the monopohj of ma- chinery, and the location of the loom and the anvil in the vicinity of the plough and the harrow. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE GOVERNMENT. The man whose labour is productive, and whose habits are economical, injoys the confidence of the world ; while he whose labour is unproductive, and whose habits are wasteful, is looked upon with distrust. With the one, each day is marked by an increase of strength ; while with the other it is marked by an increase of weakness. So is it with communities. The peaceful and industrious grow rich and strong. The warlike and wasteful become poor and weak. If protection be " a war upon the labour and capital of the world," it must tend to cause diminution of wealth and strength, and the monoj)oli/ system of England must tend to the augmentation of both. At no anterior period had the wealth and strength of this country grown with the rapidity with which it grew from 1830 to 1835. The nation was at peace and all were employed. At no period has decline been so obvious, cr the descent more complete than in the period which followed. The nation was at war, and production declined until in many departments of industry it almost ceased. The name of America became almost a by-word fur weak- ness and want of faith. In the four succeeding years, the recovery was such as to be almost marvellous, and then it was that the power of the nation first began to be admitted. That period has been followed by one of war and waste, 222 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. and largely increased expenditure, rendering necessary the collection of large revenues, while production is diminishing. The people and the government are now living on borrowed money, and how long they can continue to borrow is uncertain. The revenue from customs in the vear ending in June last was ." . . §28,4.36,000 Of which there was collected on goods purchased with certifi- cates of debt 6,600,000 To meet the demands of the government for the present year, the whole sum of §28,000,000 would be required, and, if we should cease to be able to purchase merchandise on credit, the government would be driven again to the raising of money by means of loans, and if at the same time the debts now being created were sent back upon us for payment, the present year might witness a repetition of the troubles of 1841 and 1842. During the existence of the tariff of 1842, the government paid its way, and therefore it was strong. It is now carried on on credit, and therefore it is becoming weak. To the extent of the foreign debt created, the country has eaten and drunk and used that for which it has yet to pay, and the govern- ment has had its thirty per cent. ; but a demand for payment would at once reduce the imports as much below the exports as they now exceed them, and the government would find its revenue decreased to the full extent of the present excess. The contrast presented, on a review of the history of Great Britain and this country, is most instructive. Sixty years since, the former was rich and populous, while the latter was poor and its population was small and widely scattered. In wealth, the Union already exceeds her competitor, and in population it will do so at the close of the next decennial period.. The reason of this is to be found in the fact, that the policy of the one has tended to the separation of the consumer from the producer, while that of the other has, to some extent, tended towards bringing them together. The English system is based upon " ships, colonies, and commerce," and, in carry- ing it out, her colonies have been in succession exhausted. Ireland now lies prostrate and helpless — a burden upon her hands — an encumbrance rather than an advantage. Poverty and distress are coming gradually nearer and nearer home, while she is encumbered with an enormous debt, no part of which can she pay, and the interest upon which is yet paid only by aid of a series of repudiations quite as discreditable as those with which she is accustomed to charge upon Mississippi and Florida.* The American system is based upon agriculture, the work of production, and its object has been that of producing prosperous agriculture, by bringing the consumer to take his place by the side of the producer, and thus es- tablishing that great commerce which is performed without the aid of ships or wagons. By aid of that system the original thirteen States have planted numerous colonies, all of which have grown and thriven, giving and receiving strength, while those of England, so long the subjects of immense taxation, are now everywhere a cause of weakness. All desire to abandon her, wliilo all would desire to unite with us, and were they at liberty to exercise their * The great expansion of the Bank of England in 1S39. was followed by the destruo- tion of confidence among individuals to so great an extent that the three per cents went up to par, and the government availed itself of the opportunity to compel the holders of the four and a half per cents to take in exchange new certificates, bearing three and a half per cent. Shortly after the threes fell to eighty. The last expansion has brought about a similar state of things. Confidence is destroyed, and trade is paralyzed, and tiie threes are again almost at par ; and it is now suggested that a new arrangement may be made by which the government may be enabled to repudiate a further portion of the inte. rest on the debt. THE HARMONY OF IXTERESTS, 223 inclinations, the sway of the Queen of Great Britain would, probably, at tbo close of the present year, be limited to tbat island alone, with its twenty or twenty-two millions of inhabitants. The free, trade of England consists in the maintenance of monopolij, and therefore is it repulsive. The protective system of this country looks to the breaking down of monopoly, and the establishment of perfect free tracle, and therefore is it atti-active. The one looks to " cheap" labour, and thei-efore does it expel individuals as well as communities. The other looks to raising the value of labour, and therefore does it attract both individuals and communities. Protection tends to the maintenance of peace, and the increase of wealth and power. The colonial system tends to the production of causes of war, and the diminution and ultimate destruction of both wealth and power. Between the views of those who would desire to see their government strong for defending them in the enjoyment of all their rights in relation to the other communities of the world, and those of others who desire to see the government peacefully and economically administered, there is therefore perfect harmony. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE NATION. The man whose labour is productive, exercises the power of self-govern- ment, which increases with every increase in the productiveness of his labour. With every diminution in his power of production, he loses more and more the power of self-government, and ultimately becomes a slave.* So is it with nations. With every increase in the productiveness of their labour, they are more enabled to determine for themselves their own course of action, uninfluenced by that of surrounding nations. With every diminution therein, they are more and more compelled to shape their course of action by that of others, losing the power of self-government. With the diminished necessiti/ for combination with their neighbours, there is an increased poioer for voluntary combination, (annexation,) tending still further to increase the return to labour. With increased necessity for com- bination, there is diminished poitrer for voluntary combination, with diminished return to labour-. If protection be " a war upon labour and capital," it must diminish the power of voluntary union, and increase the necessity for uniting our efforts with those of distant nations. If the English monopoly system tend to in- crease the value of labour and capital, it must tend to increase the power of voluntary union, and diminish the necessity for involuntary union. Of all the nations of the world, there is, at the present time, not one that exercises in a less degree the power of self-government than that of Great Britain, For the last thirty years, her policy has been dictated by others. The repeal of the laws prohibiting the export of machinery was a matter of necessity, and so have been., in succession, all the laws relative to duties on imports. The duty on cotton was abolished because other nations had ob- tained machinery. Slave-grown cotton was admitted duty free, while slave- grown sugar was subjected to heavy duties, because a supply of co-tton was • "The transition from absolute freedom to a state of slavory is now in progress among the Arabs of Mesopotamia, owing to diminished power of ol)taining the means of sub- sistence by the modes heretofore pursued. The poor and the weak aie enslaved b/ those who are stronger and more weahhy.'" — Spectator, March, 1840. 224 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. matter of necessity. The restrictions on slave-grown sugar were abandoue(?, because the abandonment was necessary. The navigation laws have, step by step, been abandoned, as matter of necessity. The corn laws were repealed because it was deemed necessary to conciliate the growers of corn into be- coming large purchasers of cloth and iron. With each step in her progi-ess, pauperism and crime increase, and the necessity for places of banishment for criminals increases, and with each there is increased difficulty in finding places willing to receive them. Having exhausted Yan Diemen's land,* and Norfolk Island, the Cape was recently selected for the purpose, but the colonists have set an example of successful resistance that will be elsewhere followed. Canada is now to be set free, and Ireland is to be retained, neither of them of choice, but both as matters of necessity. The nation has lost the power of self-government. Its policy is being dictated to it by the other nations of the world. The tendency to voluntary union has ceased to exist, and each day brings with it new evidence that the dissolution of the British empire is at hand. - If such is the case with the owners of the loom and the anvil, how is it with their subjects who hold the plough and follow the harrow ? Ireland has no power of self-government. She is a mere machine in the bauds of those who perform the duties of government. Poor-laws are inflicted upon her to such an extent as almost to amount to a confiscation of property, and then other laws are passed to authorize commissioners to take possession of, and sell, a large portion of the property of the kingdom, thus encumbered. The West Indies were gradually exhausted under the system, and their people despoiled of their property by virtue of laws passed by men who paid no portion of the enormous loss thus inflicted upon their fellow-subject.s. The people of Canada have had new systems inflicted upon them with a view to the maintenance of peace, but peace there is none. All desire to obtain the right of self-government, the first step in which wiU be resistance to the monopoly system. Of all the colonies of England, the only one that has prospered is this Union, and it has so done, because it has, in a certain degree, exercised the power of self-government, manifested by a determination to bring the loom and the anvil to take their natural places by the side of the plougli and the harrow. Hence it is that every colony of Great Britain, Ireland included, desires annexation to us and separation from her. The tendency to voluntary union exists in a degree exceeding any thing that the world has yet seen. Nevertheless, we are yet but little more than a colony. Our people have no control over their own actions. They are almost as dependent upon the will of those who now desire, though vainly, to guide the movements of England, as are those of Canada. If the people of that country determine to make railroads, iron rises in price, and we build furnaces and open coal mines, and import people to make iron and mine coal. If they cease to make roads, we shut up our furnaces • "Thither nearly the whole convict population of Great Britain and Ireland, about 3500 annually in number, were sent for several years • • The consequence was, that ere long /Aree-yi/ifAsof the inhabitants of the colony were convicts. * * The morals of the settlement, thus having a majority of convicts, were essentially injured. Crimes unut- terable were committed ; the hideous inerjuality of the sexes imluced its usual and frightful disorders; the police, how severe and vigilant soever, became unable to coerce the rapidly increasing multitude of criminals: the most daring fled to the woods, where they became bush-rangers; life became insecure, and property sank to half its former value.'' — Blackwood's Magazine, November, 1 8 19. " At present, there are, or at least should be, above 5000 criminals annually transported from the British Islands."' — Ibid. THE HARMON i' OF INTERESTS. and mines, and then the iron men and the coal men have to endeavour to raise f.iod. If they ask a high price fur chifh,we build mills. If emj)loymeut he- cume scarce with them, and their people cease to cousiime cloth, wc close our mills, and our operatives are condemned to idleness. If tho Bank of Engianid make money cheap, we buy iron and cloth on credit; if it make it dear, we ai'e called upon for payment, and then we break. If employment for capital be denied at home, our houses and lands rise in price ; if capital become scarce, our houses and lands fall in value. If we build mills and furnaces, our people stay at home ; if we close them, they scatter abroad. If money be cheap in England, our government obtains a large revenue from duties ou the goods that are bought on credit ; if it be dear, the revenue falls off, and the government begs for loans in Europe. The value of every thing, and the movement of every thing, in this country, are settled by the movement of the Bank of England, of all the large institutions of the world the one in the government of which there is manifested the least cajjacity; and the one, Ciiusequently, that jjossesses in the smallest degree the power of self- government. Four times in thirty years has it been ou the verge of bank- ruptcy, and yet to its car and that of the government of England, now floundering in a sea of troubles, is this Union attached by aid of the system now known by the name of free trade. For thus relinquishing the power of self-government, there should be a large consideration ; yet all that we receive from Europe in return for all we send her is fifty cents' worth of iron, half a pound of wool, as much flax, an ounce or two of silk, a cup and saucer, and the weaving and twisting of a pound and a half of cotton, per head, all of which could be produced or performed here by fewer people than have come here in a single year, when we have made a market for their labour. Half a million of people would produce treble the flax, the wool, the silk, and the iron, the china-ware, and spin and weave treble the quantity of silk, wool, flax, and cotton, that we receive from Europe in re- turn for all the land and labour employed in producing the cotton, tobacco, rice, grain, butter, cheese, pork, and other commodities that we send to that quar- ter of the world; and that half million would consume almost as much cot- ton as is now consumed by all the people of Ireland, besides being cus- tomers to the farmer for fifty millions of dollars' worth of food, timber, and other of the products of the soil. We thns relinquish the power of self- government, not only without receiving an equivalent, but we give our pro- perty without an equivalent, and therefore it is that the farmers and planters of the Union remain poor when they might become rich. liich they would grow, for the people thus imported would require a vast amount of shipping, and cotton, rice, and tobacco would go cheaply abroad, while a vast consumption at home would maintain the price, and both farmer and planter would be enabled to consume mure largely of coffee, tea, silks, books, pictures, gold, silver, and all other articles of necessity or luxury not produced at home, and the producers of those commodities would consume more cloth and iron, both of which we should then produce so cheaply that we could send them abroad, and thus would come wealth and prosperity, happiness and independence. To the consciousness of the necessity for protection against the monopoly system was due the state of feeling that led to the Revolution. Resistance to oppression led, on various occasions, to non-importation resolutions, and the people were everywhere urged to endeavour to clothe themselves. The necessity for protection was recognised by the early Congresses, and its im- portance urged upim them by every administration. Fifty years since, power changed hands; but with the accession of Mr. 2'J 226 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Jefferson came no change of policy. He thought " the manufacturer should take his place by the side of the agriculturist." From that time, for a period of thirty -six years, every chief magistrate, elected hy the people, was from the planting States of the Union, and all of them elected by the same party that elected Mr. Jefferson, and each and every one of them was an advocate of the system which tended to bring the loom to the neighbourhood of the plough, and thus to make a market on the laud for the products of the land. By the last of these, his views on this subject were forcibly expressed in a letter that has frequently been published, and from which the following is an extract : " I will ask, what is the real situation of the agriculturist ? Where has the American farmer a market for his surplus protliice? Except for cotton, he has neither a foreign nor home market. Does not this clearly prove, when there is no market either at home or abroad, that there is too much labour employed in agriculture, and that the channels for labour should be multiplied ? Common sense points out at once the remedy ; draw from agriculture this superabundant labour, employ it in mechanism and manufactures, thereby creating a home market for your breadstufTs, and distributing labour to the most profitable account, and benefits to the country will result. Take from agriculture in the United States six hundred thousand men, women, and children, and you will at once give a home market for more breadstufTs than all Europe now furnishes us. In short, sir, we liave been too long subject to the policy of British merchants. It is true that we should become a little more Americanized, and, instead of feeding the paupers and labourers of England, [as we do by sending there for her manufactures,] feed our own ; or else, in a short time, by continuing our present [free trade] policy, we shall all be rendered paupers ourselves.'"^ — President Jackson. At the close of that period there was a change of policy. Elected Ity the same party that had elected his predecessor, Mr. Van Buren adopted the policy which tends to the separation of the consumer from the producer, to the impoverishment of the land and its owner, and the maintenance of th j monopoly system by which England had acquired the control of the move- ments of the world. The effects were disastrous, as may be seen by all who study the diagrams given in the third chapter, and the consequence was a po- litical revolution. For the first time in forty years, a president was elected by the people not being of the party generally known as that of the Demo crats. Democracy had changed sides, and the people did not go with it The consequence of this was, nearly two years later, a return to the polic} of protection and a restoration of prosperity, and with prosperity the party that had so long controlled the movements of the country was again restored to power. Unwilling, however, to acknowledge that the revolution of 1840 had been the consequence of an error of policy, they ascribed it to various minor and insignificant causes, and proceeded to the enaction of the tariff of 184G, and the consequence was another revolution by which the party of protec- tion was again restored to power. Like the former, that revolution is now ascribed to minor causes ; but those who will study the diagrams to which I have above referred can scarcely fail to see that it was due to the fact that the party styled Democratic had espoused a course of policy that tended to diminish the value of labour, to degrade the labourer, to de- press the democracy at home, and to maintain the aristocracy abroad; nor can they, as I think, fail to arrive at the belief that no party adverse to protection can again hold power in this country. Such being the case, the interest of both parties, if actuated solely by purely selfish consi- derations, would lead to the advocacy of the same course of policy — the one in power desiring that it might not be adopted, and that thus they might profit by the agitation of the question for maintaining themselves in autho- rity, and the one out of power, that it might be settled, and the agitation of thi question brought to a close. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. CONCLUSION. Much is said of " the mission" of the people of these United Stares, and most of it is said by persons who appear to limit themselves to the considera- tion of the j^cncers of the nation, and rarely to think of its dvties. By such men the grandeur of the national position is held to be greatly increased by having expended sixty or eighty millions upon a war with a weak neighbour, and having thus acquired the power to purchase, at a high price, a vast body of wild land that would, in the natural course of events, have been brought within the Union, in reasonable time, without the cost of a dollar or a life. By such men, the fitting out of expeditions for the purpose of producing civil war among our neighbours of Cuba, is held to be another evidence of gran- deur. Others would have us to mix ourselves up with all the revolutionists of Europe ; while a fourth and last set sigh at the reflection that our fleets and armies are too small for the magnificence of our position. By some it is supposed that our '' mission" is that of monopolizing the commerce of the world, and the time is anxiously looked for when we shall have " diplomatic relations" with " vast regions of the East," Persia, Corea, Cochin-China, Burmah and Japan, with whom " nothing but the steam-ship can successfully introduce our commerce." By " persevering and successful efi"orts," it is thought we may secure the '' commerce of Japan." That done, « New York." it is thought, "would become the depot and storehouse and entrepots of the world, the centre of business and exchanges, the clearing house of international traik- and business, the place where assorted cargoes of our own prochicts and manufactures, as well as those of all foreign countries, would be sold and reshipped, and the point to v\liich specie and bullion would flow, as the great creditor city of the world for the adjustment of balances, as the factor of all nations and' the point whence this specie would flow into the interior of our country through all the great channels of international trade and inter- course. With these great events accomplished, and with abundant facilities for the ware- housing of foreign and domestic goods at New York, it must eventually surpass in wealtlv in commerce, and population, any European emporium, whilst, as a necessary consequence, all our other cities and every portion of the Union and all our great interests, would de rive corresponding advantages.'" — Treasury Report, Deremher, 1848. The cost of a mission to Japan would build half a dozen furnaces that would add more to the wealth of the nation in five years than the commerce of that country would do in half a century. The amount we have expended on the mission to Austria, in search of a market for tobacco, would bring here as many Germans as would consume almost as much of our tobacco as is now consumed in the empire, and those tobacco consumers would do more for the growth of New York than either Japan or Austria. The English doctrine of " ships, colonies, and commerce" is thus reproduced on this si(J« of the Atlantic, and its adoption by the nation would be fal- lowed by effects similar to those which have been already described as exist- ing in England. There, for a time, it gave the power to tax the world for the maintenance of fleets and armies, as had before been done by Athens and by Rome, and there it is now producing the same rcstdts that have elsewhere resulted from the same system, poverty, depopulation, exhaustion, and weak- ness. But little study of our history is required to satisfy the inquirer that the power of the Union, and its magnificent pcsition among the nations of the earth, are due to the fact that we have to so great an extent abstained from measures requiring the maintenance of fleets and armies. The consequence has been that taxes have been light, capital has accumulated rapidly, labour 22S ' THE HARMON Y OF IKTERESTS. has been productive, and the labourer has received wages that have enabled him to feed, clothe, and educate his children, and the nation has thus per- formed its true " mission" in elevating the condition of man. If we desire to find exceptions to this, we must look to those periods in which the policy of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson, was departed from, and when the government adopted measures tending to the maintenance of the English monopoly of machinery, and there we shall find taxes more heavy, capital accumulating more slowly, labour more unproductive, and the wages of labour so much depressed that the labourer finds it difficult to feed or clothe his children, and still more difficult to educate them. Two systems are befor«e the world ; the one looks to increasing the propor- tion of persons and of capital engaged in trade and transportation, and therefore to diminishing the proportion engaged in producing commodities with which to trade, with necessarzYy diminished return to the labour of all ; while the other looks to increasing the proportion engaged in the work of production, and diminishing that engaged in trade and transportation, with increased return to all, giving to the labourer good wages, and to the owner of capital good profits. One looks to increasing the quantity of raw materials to be exported, and diminishing the inducements to the import of men, thus impoverishing both farmer and planter by throwing on them the burden of freight; while the other looks to increasing the import of men, and diminishing the export of raw materials, thereby enriching both planter and farmer by relieving them from the pay- ment of freight. One looks to giving the j^'oducts of millions of acres of land and of the labour of millions of men for the servicea of hundreds of thousands of distant men ; the other to bringing the distant men to consume on the land the products of the laud, exchanging day's labour for day's la- bour. One looks to compelling the farmers and planters of the Union to continue their contributions for the support of the fleets and the armies, the paupers, the nobles, and the sovereigns of Europe ; the other to enabling our- selves to apply the same means to the moral and intellectual improvement of the sovereigns of America.* One looks to the continuance of that bastard freedoui of trade which denies the principle of protection, yet doles it out as revenue duties ; the other to extending the area of legitimate free trade by the establishment of perfect protection, followed by the annexation of individuals and communities, and ultimately by the abo- lition of custom-houses. One looks to exporting men to occupy desert tracts, the sovereignty of which is obtained by aid of diplomacy or war; the other to increasing the value of an immense extent of vacant laiid by importing men by millions for their occupation. One looks to the centrali- zation of wealth and power in a great commercial city that shall rival tlie great cities of modern times, which have been and are being supported by aid of contributions which have exhausted every nation subjected to them ; the other to concentration, by aid of which a market shall be made upon the land for the products of the land, and the farmer and planter be ennched. One looks to increasing the necessity for commerce ; the other to increasing the power to maintain it. One looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sink- ing the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of mai; throughout the world to our level. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, de- population, and barbarism ; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace. One is the English system ; the other \Wi • Rujsia is now raising by loan five millions of pounds sterling fo pay the expenses c\ tiie war in Hungary. The farmers and planters of the Union are tlie chief contri- butors to *iiis loan THE IIAKMONY OF INTERESTS. 229 may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever de- vised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout tlie world. Such is the true missK)N of the people of these United States. To them has been granted a |>riviK'ge never before granted to man, that of the exer- cise of the right of perfect self-government; but, as rights and duties are inseparable, with the grant of the former came the obligation to perform the latter. Happily their performance is pleasant and protitable, and involves no sacrifice. To raise the value of labour throughout the world, we need only to raise the value of our own. To raise the value of laud throughout the world, it is needed only that we adopt measures that shall raise the value of our own. To diffuse intelligence and to promote the cause of morality throughout the world, we are required only to pursue the course that shall diffuse education throughout our own land, and shall enable every man more readily to acquire property, and with it respect for the rights of property. To improve the political condition of man throughout the world, it is needed that we ourselves shouM remain at peace, avoid taxation for the maintenance of fleets and armies, and become rich and prosperous. To raise the condition of woman throughout the world, it is required of us only that we pursue that course that enables men to remain at home and marry, that they ma}' surround themselves with happy children and grand-children. To substitute true Christianity for the detestable system known as the Malthusian, it is needed that we prove to the world that it is population that makes the food come from the rich soils, and that food tends to increase more rapidly than popula- tion, thus vindicating the policy of God to man. Doing these things, the addition to our population by immigration will speedily rise to millions, and with each and every year the desire for that perfect freedom of trade which results from incorporation within the Union, will be seen to spread and to increase in its intensity, leading gradiuilly to the establishment of an emj)ire the most extensive and magnificent the world has yet seen, based upon the prin- ciples of maintaining peace itself, and strong enough to insist upon the mainte- nance of peace by others, yet carried on without the aid of fleets, or armies, or taxes, the sales of public lands alone sufficing to pay the expenses of government. To establish such an empire — to prove that among the people of the world, whether agriculturists, manufacturers, or merchants, there is perfect harmony of interests, and that the happiness of individuals, as well as the grandeur of nations, is to be promoted by perfect obedience to that greatest of all commands, " Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you," — is the object and will be the result of that mission. Whether that result shall be speedily attained, or whether it shall be postponed to a distant perioJ, will depend greatly upon the men who are charged with the perfornuuice of the duties of government. If their movements be governed by that enlight- ened self-interest which induces man to seek his happiness in the promoiiou of that of his fellow-man, it will come soon. If, on the contrary, they be governed by that ignorant selfishness which leads to the belief that indivi- duals, party, or national interests, are to be promoted by measures tending to the deterioration of the condition of r^thers, it will be late. TIIF END. CATALOGUE OF PRACTICAL AND SCIENTIFIC BOOKS, PCBLISHED BT HENRY CAREY BAIRD, INDUSTRIAL PUBLISHER, PHILADELPHIA. ' Any of the Books comprised in this Catalogue will be sent by mail free of postage, at the publication price. This Catalogue will be sent, free of postage, to any one who will furnish the publisher with his address. A RMENGAUD, AMOTJROTJX, AND JOHNSON.— THE PEACTICAL •^ DRAUGHTSMAN'S BOOK OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, AND MACHINIST'S AND ENGINEER'S DRAWING COMPANION: Forming a complete course of Mechanical Engineering and Architectural Drawing, From the French of M. Armengaud the elder, Prof, of Design in the Conservatoire of Arts and Industry, Paris, and MM. Armengaud the younger and Amou- roux, Civil Engineers. Rewritten and arranged, with addi- tional matter and plates, selections from and examples of the most useful and generally employed mechanism of the day. By William Johnson, Assoc. Inst. C. E., Editor of "The Practical Mechanic's Journal." Illustrated by 50 folio steel plates and 50 wood-cuts. A new edition, 4to. . $10 00 A RROWSMITH.—PAPER-HANGER'S COMPANION : A Treatise in which the Practical Operations of the Trade are Systematically laid down: with Copious Directions Prepara- tory to Papering; Preventives against the Effect of Damp on Walls; the Various Cements and Pastes adapted to the Seve- ral Purposes of the Trade; Observations and Directions for the Panelling and Ornamenting of Rooms, &c. By Jamks Arrowsmith, Author of "Analysis of Drapery," &c. 12mo , cloth , . . . igl 25 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. ■pAIRD.— THE AMERICAN COTTON SPINNER, AND MANA- ■^ GER'S AND CARDER'S GUIDE: A Practical Treatise on Cotton Spinning ; giving the Dimen- sions and Speed of Machinery, Draught and Twist Calcula- tions, etc. ; Tvith notices of recent Improvements : together ■with Rules and Examples for making changes in the sizes and numbers of Roving and Yarn. Compiled from the papers of the late Robert H. Baied. 12mo. . . . §1 50 TDAKER.— LONG-SPAN RAILWAY BRIDGES : Comprising Investigations of the Comparative Theoretical and Practical Advantages of the various Adopted or Proposed Type Systems of Construction; with numerous Formulae and Ta- bles. By B. Baker. 12mo §2 00 ■pAKEWELL,— A MANUAL OF ELECTRICITY— PRACTICAL AND ■^ THEORETICAL : By F. C. Bakewell, Inventor of the Copying Telegraph. Se~ cond Edition. Revised and enlarged. Illustrated by nume- rous engravings. 12mo. Cloth . . . . $2 00 "DEANS —A TREATISE ON RAILROAD CURVES AND THE LO- ■^ CATION OF RAILROADS : By E. W. Beans, C. E. 12mo. (In press.) ■DLENKARN.— PRACTICAL SPECIFICATIONS OF WORKS EXE- ^ CUTED IN ARCHITECTURE, CIVIL AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, AND IN ROAD MAKING AND SEWER- ING: To which are added a series of practically useful Agreements and Reports. By John Blenkarn. Illustrated by fifteen large folding plates. 8vo $9 00 ■pLINN,— A PRACTICAL WORKSHOP COMPANION FOR TIN, ■^ SHEET-IRON, AND COPPER-PLATE WORKERS : Containing Rules for Describing various kinds of Patterns used by Tin, Sheet-iron, and Copper-plate Workers ; Practical Geometry; Mensuration of Surfaces and Solids; Tables of the "Weight of Metals, Lead Pipe, etc. ; Tables of Areas and Cir- cumferences of Circles ; Japans, Varnishes, Lackers, Cement?, Compositions, etc. etc. By Lekot J. Blinn, Master Me- chanic. "With over One Hundred Illustrations. 12mo. $2 60 HE^tRY CARET BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 3 pOOTH.— MARBLE WORKER'S MANUAL: Containing Practical Information respecting Marbles in gene- ral, their Cutting, Working, and Polishing ; Veneering of Marble ; Mosaics ; Composition and Use of Artificial Marble, Stuccos, Cements, Receipts, Secrets, etc. etc. Translated from the French by M. L. Booth. With an Appendix con- cerning American ^larbles. 12mo., cloth . . $1 50 •pOOTH AND MOEFIT.— THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CHEMISTRY, ^ PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL : Embracing its application to the Arts, Metallurgy, Mineralogy, Geology, Medicine, and Pharmacy. By James C. Booth, Melter and Refiner in the United States Mint, Professor of Applied Chemistry in the Franklin Institute, etc., assisted by Campbell Morfit, author of "Chemical Manipulations," etc. Seventh edition. Complete in one volume, royal 8vo., 978 pages, with numerous wood-cuts and other illustrations. $5 00 pOWDITCH.— ANALYSIS, TECHNICAL VALUATION, PURIFI- ^ CATION, AND USE OP COAL GAS : By Rev. W. R. Bowditcii. Illustrated with wood engrav- ings. 8vo $6 50 •pox— PRACTICAL HYDRAULICS: A Series of Rules and Tables for the use of Engineers, etc. By Thomas Box. 12mo. $2 00 ■pUCZMASTER.— THE ELEMENTS OF MECHANICAL PHYSICS : By J. C. BucKMASTER, late Student in the Government School of Mines ; Certified Teacher of Science by the Department of Science and Art; Examiner in Chemistry and Physics in the Royal College of Preceptors; and late Lecturer in Chemistry and Physics of the Royal Polytechnic Institute. Illustrated with numerous engravings. In one vol. 12mo. , $1 50 pULLOCK.— THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER : A Series of Designs, Plans, and Specifications, from $200 to to ^20,000 for Homes for the People ; together with Warm- ing, Ventilation, Drainage, Painting, and Landscape Garden- ing. By John Bcllock, Architect, Civil Engineer, Mechani- cian, and Editor of " The Rudiments of Architecture and Building," etc. Illustrated by 75 engravings. In one vol. 8to §3 50 HENRY CAREY BATRD'S CATALOGUE. TDTJLLOCK. — THE RUDIMENTS OF AECHITECIUEE AKD ^ BUILDING: For the use of Architects, Builders, Draughtsmen, Machin- ists, Engineers, and Mechanics. Edited by John Bullock, author of " The American Cottage Builder." Illustrated by 250 engravings. In one volume 8vo. . . . $3 50 ■pURGH.— PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF LAND AND MA- ^ RINE ENGINES : Showing in detail the Modern ImproTements of High and Low Pressure, Surface Condensation, and Super-heating, together with Land and Marine Boilers. By N. P. Biiegh, Engineer. Illustrated by twenty plates, double elephant folio, with text. $21 00 •pURGH.— PRACTICAL RULES FOR THE PROPORTIONS OF ^ MODERN ENGINES AND BOILERS FOR LAND AND MA- RINE PURPOSES. By N. P. Burgh, Engineer. 12mo. . . . $2 GO ■pURGH.— THE SLIDE-VALVE PRACTICALLY CONSIDERED : By N. P. Burgh, author of " A Treatise on Sugar Machinery," " Practical Illustrations of Land and Marine Engines," " A Pocket-Book of Practical Rules for Designing Land and Ma- rine Engines, Boilers," etc. etc. etc. Completely illustrated. 12mo $2 00 ■pYRN.— THE COMPLETE PRACTICAL BREWER : Or, Plain, Accurate, and Thorough Instructions in the Art of Brewing Beer, Ale, Porter, including the Process of making Bavarian Beer, all the Small Beers, such as Root-beer, Ginger- pop, Sarsaparilla-beer, Mead, Spruce beer, etc. etc. Adapted to the use of Public Brewers and Private Families. By M. La Fayette Btkn, M. D. With illustrations. 12mo. $1 25 ■pYRN.— THE COMPLETE PRACTICAL DISTILLER : Comprising the most perfect and exact Theoretical and Prac- tical Description of the Art of Distillation and Rectification , including all of the most recent improvements in distilling apparatus; instructions for preparing spirits from the nume- rous vegetables, fruits, etc. ; directions for the distillation and preparation of all kinds of brandies and other spirits, spiritu- ous and other compounds, etc. etc. ; all of which is so simpli- fied that it is adapted not only to the use of extensive distil- lers, but for every farmer, or others who may wish to engage in the art of distilling By M. La Fatette Btkn, M. D. With numerous engravings. In one volume, 12mo. $1 50 ilEXRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE 5 DYRNE.— POCKET BOOK FOE RAILROAD AND CIVIL ENGl ■" NEERS: Contaiuiug New, Exact, and Concise Methods for Laying out Railroad Curves, Switclies, Frog Angles and Crossings; the Staking out of -work; Levelling; the Calculation of Cut- tings; Embankments; Earth-work, etc. By Ohvea Byrxe. Illustrated, ISiuo., full bound $1 75 DYRNE.— THE HANDBOOK FOR THE ARTISAN, MECHANIC, ■^ AND ENGINEER : By Oliver Bvkne. Illustrated by 1S5 Wood Engravings. Svn. $5 00 ■pYRNE.— THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF PRACTICAL ME- •" CHANICS : For Engineering Students, based on the Principle of Work. By Oliver Bybne. Illustrated by Numerous Wood Engrav- ings, 12mo. . . $3 63 BYRNE.— THE PRACTICAL METAL-WORKER'S ASSISTANT : Comprising Metallurgic Chemistry ; the Arts of Working all Metals and Alloys ; Forging of Iron and Steel ; Hardening and Tempering; Melting and Mixing; Casting and Founding; Works in Sheet Metal ; the Processes Dependent on the Ductility of the Metals ; Soldering ; and the most Improved Processes and Tools employed by Metal- Workers. With the Application of the Art of Electro-Metallurgy to Manufactu- ring Processes ; collected from Original Sources, and from the W^orks of Holtzapffel, Bergeron, Leupold, Plumier, Napier, and others. By Oliver Byrne. A New, Revised, and improved Edition, with Additions by John ScofiFern, M. B , William Clay, Wm. Fairbairn, F. R. S., and James Napier. With Five Hun- dred and Ninety-two Engravings ; Illustrating every Branch of the Subject. In one volume, 8vo. 652 pages . $7 00 •DYRNE.— THE PRACTICAL MODEL CALCULATOR: For the Engineer, Mechanic, Manufacturer of Engine Work, Naval Architect, Miner, and Millwright. By Oliver Byrne. 1 volume, 8vo., nearly 600 pages . . . . !i;4 50 gEMROSE.— MANUAL OF WOOD CARVING : With Practical II- lustcation? for Learners of the Art, and Original and Selected de- signs. By M'lLLiAM Bemkuse, Jr. With an Introduction by Llewelly.v Jewitt, F. S. A., etc. With 128 Illustrations. 4to., $3 00 cloth HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. "DAIRD.— PROTECTION OF HOME LABOR AND HOME PRO- ■^ DTJCTIONS NECESSARY TO THE PROSPERITY OF THE AMERICAN FARMER : By Henry Carey Baird. 8vo., paper . . • • • 10 •DAIRD.— STANDARD WAGES COMPUTING TABLES: An Improvement in all former Methods of Computation, so ar- ranged that wages for days, hours, or fractions of hours, at a spe- cified rate per day or hour, may be ascertained at a glance. By T. Spangler Baird. Oblong folio $5 00 •DISHOP.— A HISTORY OF AMERICAN MANUFACTURES: Prom 1608 to 1866 : exhibiting the Origin and Growth of the Prin- cipal Mechanic Arts and Manufactures, from the Earliest Colonial Period to the Present Time ; with a Notice of the Important In- ventions, Tariffs, and the Results of each Decennial Census. By J. Leander Bishop, M. D. ; to which are added Notes on the Principal Manufacturing Centres and Remarkable Manufactories. By Edward Young and Edwin T. Freedley. In three vols. 8vo $10 00 B OX.— A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON HEAT AS APPLIED TO THE USEFUL ARTS : For the use of Engineers, Architects, etc. By Thomas Box, au- thor of "Practical Hydraulics." Illustrated by 14 plates, con- taining 114 figures. 12mo $4 25 QABINET MAKER'S ALBUM OF FURNITURE : Comprising a Collection of Designs for the Newest and Most Elegant Styles of Furniture. Illustrated by Forty-eight Large and Beautifully Engraved Plates. In one volume, oblong $5 00 QHAPMAN.— A TREATISE ON ROPE-MAKING : As practised in private and public Rope-yards, with a Description of the Manufacture, Rules, Tables of Weights, etc., adapted to the Trade ; Shipping, Mining, Railways, Builders, etc. By Robert Chapman. 24mo $1 50 pALVERT.— LECTURES ON COAL-TAR COLORS AND ON RE- ^ CENT IMPROVEMENTS AND PROGRESS IN DYEING AND CALICO PRINTING. Embodying Copious Notes taken at the last London International Exhibition, and Illtistrated with Numero^is Tatterns of Aniline a7id other Colors. By F. Grace Calvert, F. R. S., F. C. S. 8vo., cloth $1 50 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. pRAIZ.— THE PRACTICAL AMERICAN MILLWRIGHT AND ^ MILLER. Comprising the Elementary Principles of Jleclianics, Me- chanism, and Motive Power, Hydraulics and Hydraulic Motors, Mill-dams, Saw Mills, Grist Mills, the Oat Meal Jlill, the Barley Mill, Wool Carding, and Cloth Fulling and Dress- ing, Wind Mills, Steam Power, &c. By David Ckaik, Mill- wright. Illustrated by numerous wood engravings, and five folding plates. 1 vol. 8vo. . . . . $5 00 n AMPIN. —A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON MECHANICAL EN- ^ GINEERING: Comprising Metallurgy, Moulding, Casting, Forging, Tools, Workshop Machinery, Mechanical Manipulation, Manufacture of Steam-engines, etc. etc. With an Appendix on the Ana- lysis of Iron and Iron Ores. By Francis Campin, C. E. To which are added. Observations on the Construction of Steam Boilers, and Remarks upon Furnaces used for Smoke Preven- \ tion; with a Chapter on Explosions. By R. Armstrong, C. E., and John Bourne. Rules for Calculating the Change Wheels for Screws on a Turning Lathe, and for a Wheel-cutting Machine. By J. La Nicca. Management of Steel, including Forging, Hardening, Tempering, Annealing, Shrinking, and Expansion. And the Case-hardening of Iron. By G. Ede. 8vo. Illustrated with 29 plates and 100 wood engravings. $G 00 pAMPIN.— THE PRACTICE OF HAND-TURNING IN WOOD, ^ IVORY, SHELL, ETC. : With Instructions for Turning such works in Metal as may be required in the Practice of Turning Wood, Ivory, etc. Also an Appendix on Ornamental Turning. By Francis Campin , with Numerous Illustrations, 12mo., cloth . . $3 00 pAPRON DE DOLE.— DUSSAUCE.— BLUES AND CARMINES G? ^ INDIGO. A Practical Treatise on the Fabrication of every Commercial Product derived from Indigo. By Felicien Capron he Dolk Translated, with important additions, by Professor H. Dis sauce. 12mo. $2 CO HENRY CARET BAIRB'S CATALOGUE. pAREY.— THE WORKS OF HENRY C. CAREY : CONTRACTION OR EXPANSION? REPUDIATION OR RE- SUMPTION? Letters to Hon. Hugli McCuUoch. 8vo. 38 FINANCIAL CRISES, their Causes and Effects. 8vo. paper 25 HARMONY OF INTERESTS; Agricultural, Manufacturing, and Commercial. 8vo., paper $1 00 Do. do. cloth . . . $1 50 LETTERS TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Paper $1 00 MANUAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. Condensed from Carey's " Principles of Social Science." By Kate McKean. 1 vol. 12mo $2 25 MISCELLANEOUS WORKS: comprising "Harmony of Inter- ests," "Money," "Letters to the President," "French and American Tariffs," "Financial Crises," "The Way to Outdo England without Fighting Her," "Resources of the Union," "The Public Debt," " Contraction or Expansion," "Review of the Decade 1857 — 'G7," "Reconstruction," etc. etc. 1 vol. 8vo., cloth . $4 50 MONEY: A LECTURE before the N. Y. Geographical and Sta- tistical Society. 8vo., paper 25 PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 8vo. . . . $2 60 PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 3 volumes 8vo., cloth $10 00 REVIEW OF THE DECADE 1857— '67. Svo., paper 50 RECONSTRUCTION: INDUSTRIAL, FINANCIAL, AND PO- LITICAL. Letters to the Hon. Henry Wilson, U. S. S. 8vo paper . . 50 THE PUBLIC DEBT, LOCAL AND NATIONAL. How to provide for its discharge while lessening the burden of Taxa- tion. Letter to David A. Wells, Esq., U. S. Revenue Commis- sion. 8vo., paper . 25 THE RESOURCES OF THE UNION. A Lecture read, Dec. 1865, before the American Geographical and Statistical So- ciety, N. Y., and before the American Association for the Ad- vancement of Social Science, Boston ... 50 THE SLAVE TRADE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN; Why it Exists, and How it may be Extinguished. 12mo., cloth $150 HEXRY CAREY BATRD'S CATALOGUE. THE WAY TO OUTDO ENGLAND WITHOUT FIGHTING HER. Letters to the Hon. Schuyler Colfax. 8vo., paper $1 00 QAMUS.— A TREATISE ON THE TEETH OF WHEELS: Deiuonstratino; the best forms which can be given to them for the purposes of Machjnery, such as Mill-work and Clo'-k-work. Trans- lated from the French of M. Camus. By Jchn I. Hawkins. Illustrated by 40 plates. 8vo $3 00 pLOUGH.— THE CONTRACTOR'S MANUAL AND BUILDER'S ^ PRICE-BOOK : Designed to elucidate the method of ascertaining, correctly, the value and Quantity of every description of Work and Ma- terials used in the Art of Building, from their Prime Cost in any part of the United States, collected from extensive expe- rience and observation in Building and Designing; to which are added a large variety of Tables, Memoranda, etc., indis- pensable to all engaged or concerned in erecting buildings of any kind. By A. B. Clocgh, Architect, 24mo., cloth 75 nOLBURN.— THE GAS-WORKS OF LONDON: Comprising a sketch of the Gas-works of the city. Process of Manufacture, Quantity Produced, Cost, Profit, etc. By Zeeah CoLBURN. 8vo,, cloth 75 nOLBURN.— THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE : Including a Description of its Structure, Rules for Estimat- ing its Capabilities, and Practical Observations on its Construc- tion and ^lanagement. By Zerah Colbttrn. Illustrated. A new edition. 12mo. $1 25 nOLBURN AND MAW.— THE WATER-WORKS OF LONDON : Together with a Series of Articles on various other Water- works. By Zeuah Colburn and W. Maw. Reprinted from "Engineering." In one volume, 8vo. . . $4 00 ■HAGUERREOTYPIST AND PHOTOGRAPHER'S COMPANION : iL'mo., cloth $1 25 FjUPLAIS,— A COMPLETE TREATISE ON THE DISTILLATION ^ AND PREPARATION OF ALCOHOLIC AND OTHER LIQ- UORS: From the French of M. Duplais. Translated and Edited by M. McKe.v.vie, M. D. Illustrated. 8vo. (Li press.) 10 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. ■niRCKS.— PEEPETTIAL MOTION : Or Search for Self-Motive Power during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Illustrated from various authentic sources in Papers, Essays, Letters, Paragraphs, and numerous Patent Specifications, with an Introductory Essay by Henrt Dikcks, C. E. Illustrated by numerous engravings of machines. 12mo., cloth $3 50 TjIXON.— THE PKACTICAL MULWRIGHT'S AND ENGINEEK'S -^ GUIDE: Or Tables for Finding the Diameter and Power of Cogwheels ; Diameter, Weight, and Power of Shafts ; Diameter and Strength of Bolts, etc. etc. By Thomas Dixon. 12mo., cloth. $1 50 ■nTINCAN.— PRACTICAL SURVEYOR'S GUIDE ; Containing the necessary information to make any person, of common capacity, a finished land surveyor without the aid of a teacher. By Andrew Duncan. Illustrated. 12mo., cloth. $1 25 TJUSSAUCE.— A NEW AND COMPLETE TREATISE ON THE ARTS OF TANNING, CURRYING, AND LEATHER DRESS- ING : Comprising all the Discoveries and Improvements made in France, Great Britain, and the United States. Edited from Notes and Documents of Messrs. Sallerou, Grouvelle, Duval, Dessables, Labarraque, Payen, Ren6, De Fontenelle, Mala- peyre, etc. etc. By Prof. H. Dussauce, Chemist. Illustrated by 212 wood engravings. 8vo $10 00 TjUSSAUCE.— A GENERAL TREATISE ON THE MANUFACTURE ^ OF SOAP, THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL: Comprising the Chemistry of the Art, a Description of all the Raw Materials and their Uses. Directions for the Establishment of a Soap Factory, with the necessary Apparatus, Instructions in the Manufacture of every variety of Soap, the Assay and Determination of the Value of Alkalies, Fatty Substances, Soaps, etc. etc. By Professor H. Dussauce. With an Appendix, containing Ex- tracts from the Reports of the International Jury on Soaps, as exhibited in the Paris Universal Exposition, 1867, numerous Tables, etc. etc. Illustrated by engravings. In one volume 8vo. of over 800 pages $10 00 HENRY CARET BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. •nUSSAUCS.— A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR THE PERFUMER: Being a New Treatise on Terfumcry the mos^t favorable to the Beauty without being injurious to the Health, comprising a Description of the substances used in Perfumery, the Form- ulae of more than one thousand Preparations, such as Cosme- tics, Perfumed Oils, Tooth Powders, Waters, Extracts, Tinc- tures, Infusions, Vinaigres, Essential Oils, Pastels, Creams, Soaps, and many new Hygienic Products not hitherto described. Edited from Notea and Documents of INIessrs. Debay, Lunel, etc. Withadditions by Professor H. DussAucE, Chemist. ]2mo. $3 00 TjUSSAUCE.— PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE FABRICATION -*-' OF MATCHES, GUN COTTON, AND FULMINATING POW- DERS. r.y Professor H. Dussauce. 12mo. . . . $3 00 ■nUSSAUCE.— A GENERAL TREATISE ON THE MAiniFACTUEE ^ OF VINEGAR, THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL. domprising the various methods, by the slow and the quick pro- cesses, with Alcohol, Wine, Grain, Cider, and Molasses, as well as the Fabrication of Wood Vinegar, etc. By Prof. H. Dussauce. i2mo. (I/i press) TjE GRAFF.— THE GEOMETRICAL STAIR-BUILDERS' GUIDE : Being a Plain Practical System of Hand-Railing, embracing all its necessary Details, and Geometrically Illustrated by 22 Steel Engravings ; together with the use of the most approved princi- ples of Practical Geometry. By Simox De Geafp, Architect. 4to $5 00 -nYER AlTD COLOR-MAKER'S COMPANION : Containing upwards of two hundred Receipts for making Co- lors, on the most approved principles, for all the various styles and fabrics now in existence; with the Scouring Process, and plain Directions for Preparing, Washing-off, and Finishing the Goods. In one vol. 12mo $1 25 ■pASTON.— A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON STREET OR HORSE- •" POWER RAILWAYS : Their Location, Construction, and Management ; with General Plans and Rules for their Organization and Operation; toge- ther with Examinations as to their Comparative Advantages over the Omnibus System, and Inquiries as to their Value for Investment; including Copies of ^Municipal Ordinances relat- ing thereto. By Alexander Easton, C. E. Illustrated by 23 plates, 8vo., cloth $2 00 12 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. pORSYTH.— BOOK OF DESIGNS FOR HEAD-STONES, MURAL, ^ AND OTHER MONUMENTS : Containing 78 Elaborate and Esquisite Designs. By Forsyth. 4to. (hi press ) pAIRBAIRN.— THE PRINCIPLES OF MECHANISM AND MA- ^ CHINERT OF TRANSMISSION : Comprising the Principles of Mechanism, AYheels, and Pulleys, Strength and Proportions of Shafts, Couplings of Shafts, and Engaging and Disengaging Gear. By AVilliam Fairbairn, Esq., C. E., LL. D., F. R. S., F. G. S., Corresponding Member of the National Institute of France, and of the Royal Academy of Turin ; Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, etc. etc. Beau- tifully illustrated by over 150 wood-cuts. In one volume 12mo. $2 50 miRBAIRN.— PRIME-MOVERS : Comprising the Accumulation of Water-power; the Construc- tion of Water-wheels and Turbines; the Properties of Steam; the Varieties of Steam-engines and Boilers and Wind-mills. By WiLLi.oi Faiebaikn, C. E., LL. U., F. R. S., F. G. S. Au- thor of "Principles of Mechanism and the Machinery of Trans- mission." With Numerous Illustrations. In one volume. (In press.) ■pLAMM.— A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO TSLE CONSTRUCTION OF ■•- ECONOMICAL HEATING APPLICATIONS FOR SOLID AND GASEOUS FUELS : With the Application of Concentrated Heat, and on Waste Heat, for the Use of Engineers, Architects, Stove and Furnace Makers, ^lanufacturers of Fire Brick, Zinc, Porcelain, Glass, Earthenware, Steel, Chemical Products, Sugar Refiners, Me- tallurgists, and all others employing Heat. By M. Pierre Flamm, Manufacturer. Illustrated. Translated from tha French. One volume, 12mo. (In press.) ILBART.— A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON BANKING: By James William Gilbart. To which is added: The Na- tional Bank Act as kow ik force. 8vo. . . $4 50 ESNER.— A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON COAI, PETROLEUM, AND OTHER DISTILLED OILS. By Abraham Gesner, M. D., F. G. S. Second edition, revised and enlarged. By George "Weltden Gesner, Consulting Chemist and Engineer. Illustrated. 8vo. . . $3 50 G G ^E^^lY caret baird's catalogue. nOTHIC ALBUM FOR CABINET MAKERS: Comprisiug a Collectiou of Designs for Gothic Furniture. Il- lustrated by twenty-three large and beautifully engraved plates. Oblong $3 00 n RANT.— BEET-ROOT SUGAR AND CULTIVATION OF TH2 ^ BEET : By E. B. Grant. 12mo. §1 25 pREGORY.— MATHEMATICS FOR PRACTICAL MEN : Adapted to the Pursuits of Surveyors, Architects, Mechanics, and Civil Engineers. By Olinthus Gregory. 8vo., plates, cloth $3 00 pRIS WOLD. —RAILROAD ENGINEER'S POCKET COMPANION. Comprising Rules for Calculating Deflection Distances and Angles, Tangential Distances and Angles, and all Necessary Tables for Engineers; also the art of Levelling from Prelimi- nary Survey to the Construction of Railroads, intended Ex- pressly for the Young Engineer, together ■with Numerous Valu- able Rules and Examples. By W. Griswold. 12mo., tucks. $1 75 pUETTIER.— METALLIC ALLOYS : Being a Practical Guide to their Chemical and Physical Pro- perties, their Preparation, Composition, and Uses. Translated from the French of A. Guettier, Engineer and Director of Founderies, author of " La Fouderie en France," etc. etc. By A. A. Fesqtjet, Chemist and Engineer. In one volume, 12mo. (In press, shortly to be published. ) TIATS AND FELTING: A Practical Treatise on their Manufacture. By a Practical Hatter. Illustrated by Drawings of Machinery, &c., 8vo. $1 25 TAY.- THE INTERIOR DECORATOR : The Laws of Harmonious Coloring adapted to Interior Decora- tions: with a Practical Treatise on House-Painting. By D. R. Hat, House-Painter and Decorator. Illustrated by a Dia- gram of the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Colors. 12mo. $2 25 rrUGHES.— AMERICAN MILLER AND MILLWRIGHT'S AS- •^ SISTANT : By Wm. Carter Hughes. A new edition. In one volume, 12mo . . . . $i iiij H' r4 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. TrUNT.— THE PKACTICE OF PHOTOGRAPHY. By Robert Hunt, Vice-President of the Photographic Society, London, with numerous illustrations. 12mo., cloth . 75 TITJEST.— A HAND-BOOK FOR ARCHITECTURAL SURVEYORS : Comprising Formulae useful in Designing Builder's work. Table of Weights, of the materials used in Building, Memoranda connected with Builders' work, Mensuration, the Practice of Builders' Measurement, Contracts of Labor, Valuation of Pro- perty, Summary of the Practice in Dilapidation, etc. etc. By J. F. HuKST, C. E. 2d edition, pocket-book form, full bound $2 50 TERVIS.— RAILWAY PROPERTY : A Treatise on the Construction and Management of Railways ; designed to afford useful knowledge, in the popular style, to the holders of this class of property; as well as Railway Mana- gers, Officers, and Agents, By John B. Jervis, late Chief Engineer of the Hudson River Railroad, Croton Aqueduct, &c. One vol. 12mo., cloth $2 00 JOHNSON.— A REPORT TO THE NAVY DEPARTMENT OF THE " UNITED STATES ON AMERICAN COALS : Applicable to Steam Navigation and to other purposes. By Walter R. Johnson. With numerous illustrations. 607 pp. 8vo., half morocco JOHNSON.— THE COAL TRADE OF BRITISH AMERICA : With Researches on the Characters and Practical Values of American and Foreign Coals. By Walter R. Johnson, Civil and Mining Engineer and Chemist. 8vo. . JOHNSTON.— INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF SOILS, " LIMESTONES, AND MANURES. By J. W. F. Johnston. 12mo 3S TTEENE.— A HAND-BOOK OF PRACTICAL GAUGING, For the Use of Beginners, to which is added A Chapter on Dis- tillation, describing the process in operation at the Custom House for ascertaining the strength of wines. By James B. Keene, of H. M. Customs. 8vo $1 25 rT-ENTISH— A TREATISE ON A BOX OF INSTRUMENTS, •^ And the Slide Rule ; with the Theory of Trigonometry and Lo- garithms, including Practical Geometry, Surveying, Measur- ing of Timber, Cask and Malt Gauging, Heights, and Distances. By Thomas Kentish. In one volume. 12mo. . $1 25 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. •gOBELL.— EKNI.— jIINERALOGY SIMPLIFIED : A short method of Determining and Classifying Minerals, by means of simple Chemical Experiments in tlie Wet Way. Translated from the last German Edition of F. Von Kobell, with an Introduction to Blowpipe Analysis and other addi- tions. By Henri Euni, M. D., Chief Chemist, Department of Agriculture, author of "Coal Oil and Petroleum." In one volume, 12mo. $2 50 TAFFINEUR.— A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO HYDRAULICS FOR ■'-' TOWN AND COUNTRY; Or a Complete Treatise on the Building of Conduits for Water for Cities, Towns, Farms, Country Residences, Workshops, etc. Comprising the means necessary for obtaining at all times abundant supplies of Drinkable Water. Translated from the French of M. Jules Laffineuk, C. E. Illustrated. (In press.) T ANDRIN— A TREATISE ON STEEL: Comprising its Theory, Metallurgy, Properties, Practical Work- ing, and Use. By M. H. C. Landrin, Jr., Civil Engineer. Translated from the French, with Notes, by A. A. Fesquet, Che- mist and Engineer. With an Appendix on the Bessemer and the Martin Processes for Manufacturing Steel, from the Report of Abram S. Hewitt, United States Commissioner to the Universal Exposition, Paris, 1867. 12mo $,3 00 T ARKIN.— THE PRACTICAL BRASS AND IRON FOUNDER'S •^ GUIDE : A Concise Treatise on Brass Founding, Moulding, the Metalg and their Alloys, etc. ; to which are added Recent Improve- ments in the Manufacture of Iron, Steel by the Bessemer Pro- cess, etc. etc. By James Lakkin, late Conductor of the Brass Foundry Department in Reany, Neafie & Co.'s Penn Works, Philadelphia. Fifth edition, revised, with Extensive adili- tions. In one volume, 12mo. . . . . . ijiJ 25 HENRY CARET BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. TEAVITT.— FACTS ABOUT PEAT AS Ali AETICLE OF FUEL: With Remarks upon its Origin and Composition, the Localities an which it is found, the Methods of Preparation and Manu- facture, and the various Uses to which it is applicable ; toge- ther with many other matters of Practical and Scientific Int^ rest. To which is added a chapter on the Utilization of Coal' Dust with Peat for the Production of an Excellent Fuel at Moderate Cost, especially adapted for Steam Service. By H. T. Leavitt. Third edition. 12nio. . . . §1 75 TEROUX— A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE MANUFAC- ■^ TURii OF WORSTEDS AND CARDED YARNS: Translated from the French of Charles Leroux, Mechanical Engineer, and Superintendent of a Spinning Mill. By Dr H. Painb, and A. A. Fesquet. Illustrated by 12 large plates. In one volume 8vo. . . . . . , . . $5 00 TESLIE (MISS).— COMPLETE COOKERY: Directions for Cookery in its Various Branches. By Miss Leslie. 60th edition. Thoroughly revised, with the addi- tion of New Receipts. In 1 vol. 12mo., cloth . . $1 50 T ESLIE (MISS). LADIES' HOUSE BOOK : a Manual of Domestic Economy. 20th revised edition. 12mo., cloth $1 25 TESLIE (MISS).— TWO HUNDRED RECEIPTS IN FEENCH ^ COOKERY. 12rao 50 T lEBER.— ASSAYER'S GUIDE : Or, Practical Directions to Assayers, Miners, and Smelters, for the Tests and Assays, by Heat and by Wet Processes, for the Ores of all the principal Metals, of Gold and Silver Coins and Alloys, and of Coal, etc. By Oscar M. Lieber. 12mo., cloth $1 25 T OVE.— THE ART OF DYEING, CLEANING, SCOURING, AND •'-' FINISHING : On the most approved English and French methods ; being Practical Instructions in Dyeing Silks, Woollens, and Cottons, Feathers, Chips, Straw, etc.; Scouring and Cleaning Bed and Window Curtains, Carpets, Rugs, etc.; French and English Cleaning, etc. By Thomas Love. Second American Edition, to which are added General Instructions for the Use of Aniline Colors. 8vo 5 00 M M M M W M' M' N IIEXRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 17 AIN AND BEOWN.— QUESTIONS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE MARINE STEAM-ENGINE : And Examination Papers; with Hints for their Solution. By Tno«AS J. M.viv, Professor of Mnthematios, Royal Naval College, ami Thomas Brows, Chief Engineer, R.N. 12mo., cloth $1 50 AIN AND BROWN.— THE INDICATOR AND DYNAMOMETEP.: With their Practical Applications to the Steam-Engine. By Thomas J. Main, M. A.F. R., A.^s't Prof. Royal N.aval College, Portsmouth, and Thomas Brown, Assoc. Inst. C. E., Chief En- gineer, R. N., attached to the R. N. College. Illustrated. From the Fourth London Edition. 8ro. . . , . $1 50 AIN AND BROWN —THE MARINE STEAM-ENGINE. By Thomas J. Main, F. R. Ass't S. Mathematical Professor at Royal Naval College, and Thomas Brown, Assoc. Inst. C. E. Chief Engineer, R. N. Attached to the Royal Naval College. Authors of "Questions Connected with the Marine Steam-En- gine," and the " Indicator and Dynamometer." With numerous Illustrations. In one volume 8vo $5 GO ARTIN.— SCREW-CUTTING TABLES, FOE THE USE OF ME- CHANICAL ENGINEERS : Showing the Proper Arrangement of Wheels for Cutting the Threads of Screws of any required Pitch ; with a Tahle for Making the Universal Gas-Pipe Thread and Taps. By W. A. Martin, Engineer. 8vo 50 LES— A PLAIN TREATISE ON HORSE-SHOEING. With Illustrations. By William Miles, author of " The Horse's Foot" $1 00 OLESWORTH.— POCKET-BOOK OF USEFUL FORMULA AND MEMORANDA FOR CIVIL AND MECHANICAL EN3INEERS. By Guilford L. Moleswouth, Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Chief Resident Engineer of the Ceylon Railway. Second American from the Tenth London Edition. In one volume, full bound in pocket-book form . . . . $2 00 OORE.— THE INVENTOR'S GUIDE : Patent Office and Patent Laws : or, a Guide to Inventors, and a Book of Reference for Judges, Lawyers, Magistrates, and others. By J G. Moore. 12mo., cloth $125 APIER.— A MANUAL OF ELECTRO-METALLURGY : Including the Application of the Art to Manufacturing Processes. By -Tames Napier. Fourth American, from the Fourth London edition, revised and enlarged. Illustrated by engravings. In one volume, 8vo $2 00 18 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. "M-APIEE.— A SYSTEM OF CHEMISTRY APPLIED TO DYEIN3 : -^ Bv James Napier, F. C. S. A New and Thoroughly Revised Edition, completely brought up to the present state of the Science, including the Chemistry of Coal Tar Colors. By A. A. Fesquet, -Chemist and Engineer. "With an Appendix on Dyeing and Calico Printing, as shown at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1867, from the Reports of the International Jury, etc. Illus- trated. In one volume 8vo., 400 pages . . . . $5 00 ■M-EWBERY. — GLEANINGS FROM ORNAMENTAL ART OF ^^ EVERY STYLE; Drawn from Examples in the British, South Kensington, Indian, Crystal Palace, and other Museums, the Exhibitions of 1861 and 1862, and the best English and Foreign works. In a series of one hundred exquisitely drawn Plates, containing many hundred ex- amples. By Robert Newbery. 4to $15 00 JTICHOLSON.— A MANUAL OF THE ART OF BOOK-BINDING : Containing full instructions in the different Branches of Forward- ing, Gilding, and Finishing. Also, the Art of Marbling Book- edges and Paper. By James B. Nicholson. Illustrated. 12mo. cloth .... ..... $2 25 ■M-ORRIS.— A HAND-BOOK FOE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS AND ^^ MACHINISTS: Comprising the Proportions and Calculations for Constructing Locomotives ; Manner of Setting Valves ; Tables of Squares, Cubes, Areas, etc. etc. By Septimus Norris, Civil and Me- chanical Engineer. New edition. Illustrated, 12mo., cloth $2 00 TO-YSTEOM. — ON TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION AND THE •^' CONSTRUCTION OF SHIPS AND SCREW PROPELLERS: For Naval and Marine Engineers. By John W. Nystrom, late Acting Chief Engineer U. S. N. Second edition, revised with additional matter. Illustrated by seven engravings. 12mo. $2 60 n'NEILL.— A DICTIONARY OF DYEING AND CALICO PRINT- ^ ING: Containing a brief account of all the Substances and Processes in use in the Art of Dyeing and Printing Textile Fabrics : with Prac- tical Receipts and Scientific Information. By Charles O'Neill, Analytical Chemist; Fellow of the Chemical Society of London; Member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester ; Author of " Chemistry of Calico Printing and Dyeing." To which is added An Essay on Coal Tar Colors and their Application to HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 19 Dyeing and Calico Printing. By A. A. Fesquet, Chemist and Engineer. With an Appendix on Dyeing and Calico Printing, as shown at the Exposition of ]Sf)7, from the Reports' of the Interna, tional Jury, etc. In one volume 8vo., 401 pages . . $<\ 00 QSBORN.— THE METALLURGY OF IRON AND STEEL : Theoretical and Practical : In all its Branches ; With Special Re- ference to American Materials and Processes. By 11. S. Oshorn, LL. D., Professor of Mining and Metallurgy in Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. Illustrated by 2.30 Engravings on Wood, and 6 Folding Plates. 8vo., 972 pages $10 00 nSBORN.— AMERICAN MINES AND MINING ; ^ Theoretically and Practically Considered. By Prof H. S. Os- BORX, Illustrated bj' numerous engravings. Svo. {In jireparatioii.) pAINTER, GILDER, AND VARNISHER'S COMPANION : Containing Rules and Regulations in everything relating to the Arts of Painting, Gilding, Varnishing, and Glass Staining, with numerous useful and valuable Receipts; Tests for the Detection of Adulterations in Oils and Colors, and a statement of the Dis- eases and Accidents to which Painters, Gilders, and Varnishers are particularly liable, with the simplest methods of Prevention and Remedy. With Directions for Graining, Marbling, Sign Writ- ing, and Gilding on Glass. To which are added Complete Instruc- tions FOR Coach Painting and Varnishing. 12mo., cloth, $1 50 pALLETT.— THE MILLER'S, MILLWP.IGHT'S, AND ENGI- ■'■ NEER'S GUIDE. By Henry Pallett. Illustrated. In one vol. 12mo. . $3 00 pERKINS.— GAS AND VENTILATION. Practical Treatise on Gas and Ventilation. With Special Relation to Illuminating, Heating, and Cooking by Gas. Including Scien- tific Helps to Engineer-students and others. With illustrated Diagrams. By E. E. Perkins. 12mo., cloth . . . $1 25 pERKINS AND STOWE.— A NEW GUIDE TO THE SHEET-IRON ^ AND BOILER PLATE ROLLER: Containing a Series of Tables showing the Weight of Slabs and Piles to Produce Boiler Plates, and of the Weight of Piles and the Sizes of Bars to Produce Sheet-iron ; the Thickness of the Bar Gauge in Decimals ; the Weight per foot, and the Thickness on the Bar or Wire Gauge of the fractional parts of an inch; the Weight per sheet, and the Thickness on the Wire Gauge of Sheet- iron of various dimensions to weigh 112 lbs. per bundle; and the conver^ic.n of Short Weight into Long Weight, and Long Weight into Short. Estimated and collected by G. H. Perkins and J. G- Stowe $2 iO 20 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. pHILLIPS AND DAELINGTON.— EKCOEDS OF MINING AND •*• METALLURGY : Or, Facts and Memoranda for the use of the Mine Af^ent and Smelter. By J. Arthur Phillips, Mining Engineer, Graduate of the Imperial School of Mines, France, etc., and John Darlington. IlhistrateJ by numerous engravings. In one vol. 12mo. . $2 00 pRADAL, MALEPEYRE, AND DUSSATJCE. — A COMPLETE ■^ TREATISE ON PERFUMERY: Containing notices of the Raw Material used in the Ait, and the Best FormulaB. According to the most approved Methods followed in France, England, and the United States. By M. P. Pradal, Perfumer-Chemist, and M. F. Malepeyre. Translated from the French, with extensive additions, by Prof H. Dussauce. 8vo. $10 pROTEATIX.— PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR THE MANUFACTURE -*• OF PAPER AND BOARDS. By A. Proteaux, Civil Engineer, and Graduate of the School of Arts and Manufactures, Director of Thiers's Paper Mill, 'Puy-de- Dome. With additions, by L. S. Le Normand. Translated from the French, with Notes, by Horatio Paine, A. B., M. D. To which is added a Chapter on the Manufacture of Paper from Wood in the United States, by Henry T. Beown, of the "American Artisan." Illustrated by six plates, containing Drawings of Raw Materials, Machinery, Plans of Paper-Mills, etc. etc. 8vo. $5 00 •DEGNAULT.— ELEMENTS OF CHEMISTRY. "*■" By M. V. Regnault. Translated from the French by T. For- EEST Benton, M. D., and edited, with notes, by James C. Booth, Melter and Refiner U. S. Mint, and Wm. L. Fabeu, Metallurgist and Mining Engineer. Illustrated by nearly 700 wood engravings. Comprising nearly 1500 pages. In two vols. 8vo., cloth $10 00 pEID.— A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE MANUFACTURE OF ■"' PORTLAND CEMENT: By Henry Reid, C. E. To which is added a Translation of M. A. Lipowitz's Work, describing anew method adopted in Germany of Manufacturing that Cement. By W. F. Reid. Illustrated by plates and wood engravings. 8vo $7 00 piFPAULT, VERGNAUD, AND TOUSSAINT.-A PRACTICAL ^ TREATISE ON THE MANUFACTURE OF COLORS FOR PAINTING: Containing the best Formulae and the Processes the Newest and in most General Use. By MM. RiFFArLT, Vergnauk, andTous- SAiST. Revised and Edited by M. F. Malepeyre and Dr. Emil WiNCKLER. Illustrated by Engravings, In one vol, Svo. {Itt 2)reparatio}i .) HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 21 pIFFAULr, VEEGNAUD, AND TOUSSAIlfT.— A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE MANUFACTURE OF VARNISHES: By MM. RiFFAULT, Vf.ugsaud, and Toussaint. Revised and Edited by M. F. Malepeyub and Dr. Emil Winckleb. Illus- trated. In one vol. 8vo. (Tu jtreparation.) OHUNX— A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON RAILWAY CURVES " AND LOCATION, FOR YOUNG ENGINEERS. By Wm- F. Shuxk, Civil Engineer. 12mo., tucks . . $2 00 OMEATON.— BUILDER'S POCKET COMPANION: Containing the Elements of Building, Surveying, and Architec. ture ; with Practical Rules and Instructions connected with the sub- ject. By A. C. Smeatos, Civil Engineer, etc. In one volume, 12mo $1 50 gMITH.— THE DYER'S INSTRUCTOR: Comprising Practical Instructions in the Art of Dyeing Silk, Cot- ton, Wool, and Worsted, and Woollen Goods : containing nearly 800 Receipts. To which is added a Treatise on the Art of Pad- ding; and the Printing of Silk Warps, Skeins, and Handkerchiefs, and the various Mordants and Colors for the different styles of such work. By David Smith, Pattern Dyer, 12mo., cloth $3 00 aMITH.-THE PRACTICAL DYER'S GUIDE: Comprising Practical Instructions in the Dyeing of Shot Cobourgs, Silk Striped Orleans, Colored Orleans from Black Warps, ditto from White Warps, Colored Cobourgs from White Warps, Merinos, Yarns, Woollen Cloths, etc. Containing nearly 300 Receipts, to most of which a Dyed Pattern is annexed. Also, a Treatise on the Art of Padding. By David Smith. In one vol. 8vo. $25 00 CHAW.— CIVIL ARCHITECTURE: Being a Complete Theoretical and Practical System of Building, containing the Fundamental Principles of the Art. By Edward Shaw, Architect. To which is added a Treatise on Gothic Archi- tecture, &c. By Thomas W. Silloway and George M. Hard- IXG , Architects. The whole illustrated by 102 quarto plates finely engraved on copper. Eleventh Edition. 4to. Cloth. $10 00 CLOAN.— AMERICAN HOUSES: A variety of Original Designs for Rural Buildings. Illustrated by 26 colored Engravings, with Descriptive References. By Samuel Si-OA>', Architect, authorof the " Model Architect," etc. etc. 8vo. $2 50 22 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. OMITH— PARKS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS : Or, Practical Notes on Country Residences, Villas, Public Parks, and Gardens. By Charles H. J. Smith, Landscape Gardener and Garden Architect, etc. etc. 12mo $2 25 HTOKES.— CABINET-MAZER'S AND UPHOLSTERER'S COMPA- ^ NION: Comprising the Rudiments and Principles of Cabinet-making and Upholstery, with Familiar Instructions, Illustrated by Examples for attaining a Proficiency in the Art of Drawing, as applicable to Cabinet-work ; The Processes of Veneering, Inlaying, and Buhl-work ; the Art of Dyeing and Staining Wood, Bone, Tortoise Shell, etc. Directions for Lackering, Japanning, and Varnishing ; to make French Polish j to prepare the Best Glues, Cements, and Compositions, and a number of Receipts, particularly for workmen generally. By J. Stokes. In one vol. 12mo. With illustrations $1 25 OTRENGTH AND OTHER PROPERTIES OF METALS. Reports of Experiments on the Strength and other Properties of Metals for Cannon. With a Description of the Machines for Test- ing Metals, and of the Classification of Cannon in service. By Officers of the Ordnance Department U. S. Army. By authority of the Secretary of War. Illustrated by 25 large steel plates. In 1 vol. quarto . $10 00 rpABLES SHOWING THE WEIGHT OF ROUND, SQUARE, AND ■*• FLAT BAR IRON, STEEL, ETC. By Measurement. Cloth rpAYLOR.— STATISTICS OF COAL: Including Mineral Bituminous Substances employed in Arts and Manufactures ; with their Geographical, Geological, and Commer- cial Distribution and amount of Production and Consumption on the American Continent. With Incidental Statistics of the Iron Manufacture. By R. C. Taylor. Second edition, revised by S. S. HALDEjrAN. Illustrated by five Maps and many wood engrav- ings. 8vo., cloth . $6 00 mEMPLETON.— THE PRACTICAL EXAMINATOR ON STEAM ■*• AND THE STEAM-ENGINE : With Instructive References relative thereto, for the Use of Engi- neers, Students, and others. By Wm. Templeton, Engineer 12mo. $1 25 rpHOMAS.— THE MODERN PRACTICE OF PHOTOGRAPHY. ■*• By R. W. Thomas, F. C. S. 8vo., cloth . ... 75 HENHY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. •JiHOMSON.— FEEIGHT CHAEGIS CALCULATOR. By Andrew Thomson, Freight Agent . *. . . $1 25 rriTRNm G : SPECIMENS OF FANCY TURNING EXECUTED ON ■*■ THE HAND OR FOOT LATHE : With Geometric, Oval, and Eccentric Chucks, and Elliptical Cut- ting Frame. By an Amateur. Illustrated by 30 exquisite Pho- tographs. 4to $3 00 rpURNER'S (THE) COMPANION: Containing Instructions in Concentric, Elliptic, and Eccentric Turning; also various Plates of Chucks, Tools, and Instru- ments; and Directions for using the Eccentric Cutter, Drill, Vertical Cutter, and Circular Re.H ; with Patterns and Instruc- tions for working them. A new edition in 1 vol. 12mo. $1 50 TpBIN — BRULL. — A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR PUDDLING ^ IRON AND STEEL. By Ed. Urbin, Engineer of Arts and Manufactures. A Prize Essay read before the Association of Engineers, Graduate of the School of Mines, of Liege, Belgium, at the Meeting of 1805-6. To which is added a Comparison of the Resisting Properties OF Iron and Steel. By A. Brull. Translated from the French by A. A. Fesquet, Chemist and Engineer. In one volume, 8vo. $1 00 WARN.— THE SHEET METAL WORKER'S INSTRUCTOR, FOR ZINC, SHEET-IRON, COPPER AND TIN PLATE WORK- ERS, &c. By Reuben Henry Warn, Practical Tin Plate Worker. I lus- trated by 32 plates and 37 wood engravings. 8vo. . . $.3 ( ■yn-ATSON — A MANUAL OF THE HAND-LATHE. By Egbert P. Watson, Late of the " Scientific Americnn," Au- thor of "Modern Pnietice of American Machinists iind Engi- neers," In one volume, 12mo. $1 50 WATSON.— THE MODERN PRACTICE OF AMERICAN MA- ** CHIinSTS AND ENGINEERS: Including the Construction, Application, and Use of Drills, Lathe Tc.ols, Cutter.x for Boring Cylinders, and Hollow Work Generally, with the most Economical Speed of tke same, the Results verified by Actual Practice at the Lathe, the Vice, and on the Floor. Together with Workshop management, Economy of Manufacture, the Steam-Engine, Boilers, Gears, Belting, etc. etc. By Egbert P. Watson, late of the "Scientific American." Illustrated l.y eighty-sLx engravings. I2mo. $2 50 24 HENRY CARET BAIRD'S CATALOGTIE. •m-ATSON.— THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE ART OF *'' WEAVING BY HAND AND POWER: With Calculations and Tables for the use of those connected with the Trade. By John AVatson, Manufttcturer and Practical Machine Maker. Illustrated by large drawings of the best Power-Looms. 8vo. $10 00 nrrEATHERLY.— TREATISE ON .THE ART OF BOILING STJ- *'' GAR, CRYSTALLIZING, LOZENGE-MAKING, COMFITS, GUM GOODS, And other processes for Confectionery, »tc. In which are ex- plained, in an easy and familiar manner, the various Methods of Manufacturing every description of Raw and Refined Sugar Goods, as sold by Confectioners and others . . . $2 00 WILL.— TABLES FOR QUALITATIVE CHEMICAL ANALYSIS. By Prof. Heinkich Will, of Giessen, Germany. Seventh edi- tion. Translated by Charles F. Himes, Ph. D., Professor of Natural Science, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. . . $1 25 WILLIAMS.— ON HEAT AND STEAM: EmbracingNew Views of Vaporization, Condensation, and Expan- sion. By Chaeles Wye Williams, A. I. C. E. Illustrated. 8vo. $3 50 OHLER.— A PR.A.CTICAL TREATISE ON ANALYTICAL CHE- MISTRY. By F. Wb'hler. With additions by Gkandeai: and Teoost. Edited by H. B. Nason, Professor of Chemistry, Rensselaer In- stitute, Troy, N. Y. With numerous Illustrations. (I/i^ress.) ORSSAM.— ON MECHANICAL SAWS : From the Transactions of the Society of Engineers, 1867. By S. W. WoRSSAM, Jr. Illustrated by 18 large folding plates. 8vo. $5 00 ARLOT.— A COMPLETE GUIDE FOR COACH PAINTERS. Translated from the French of M. Aelot, Coach Painter ; lats Master Painter for eleven years with M. Ehrler, Coach Manufac- turer, Paris. With important American additions. {I ii press.) YOGDES.— THE ARCHITECT'S AND BUILDER'S POCKET COM- * PANION. By F. W. VoQDES, Architect. Illustrated. Full bound in pocket- book form. (In press. > w w 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subjea to immediate recall. JAN 1 S 19ffl *v^»?>*— ^ JAN 12 -68 -7 PM LOA'^'! r^'— 7-r -Do«> ^c^SBO* ^^^mm~o'4 m^ f^lx^^U s Due ^^ of SUN4a/ER F Eubjecj- to recall evt sr'cd JUL 8 'T3 7 7 OCT 10 1973 ^p — ^ 107^; I 1 JUL 8 1 9 7 4 ^ t) a te, pg^ JUL I'M NOV ' J n& 'iuG la '75 LD 2lA-60m-2.'67 (H241slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley U.C PFRKFIFYLinRARlES <:D4iamT77 i