THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS, AGRICULTURAL, MANUFACTURING, AND COMMERCIAL. BY HENRY C. CAREY, AUThOR OF "PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY," "THE PAS1, PIR NIET, AIM FUTUREB ETC. ETC. Mr. CAREY, the well-known statistical writer of America, has supplied us with ample materials for conducting such an inquiry; and we can safely recommend his remarkable work to all who wish to investigate the causes of the progress and decline of industrial oxmmunities." —Blackwood's Magazine. Second Edition. NEW-YORK: MYRON FINCH, 122 NASSAU STREET. 07rlCZ O THE FLUUGB, TIH LOOM) AND TUN &EVIL. 1856. ENTERED, ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONORESS, IN THE TEAR 1852. inY MYRON FINCH, IN THE OLERK'S OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRIOT OF NEW-YORK. PREFACE. 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 doctrines 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 the 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 foundation of the system, discordant interests, and this discord is found in every succeeding 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 faster than can grow the food that is to nourish them; and the poverty, vice, and crime that everywhere exist, are regarded as necessary consequences of this great law, emanating from an all-wise, all-powerful, and all merciful 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 growth 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 stockholder 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, and 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. Amon, the consequences of this great law of discords, promulgated by Malthus and Ricatdo, is found the idea that, if men would prosper, they must live apart 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 possessed 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 iv PREFACE. flourish, he must seek to locate himself in the place where the raw materials were grown, and 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 ma came thus together, there arose a general harmony of interests, each prcifiilg his neighbor, and profiting by that neighbor's success, whereas the tendency of commercial centralization was toward poverty and discord, abroad and at home. The object of protection 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 The Wealth of i[ti-ns, vwhile aiding in the annihilation of a system that has ruined Ireland, 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 TIE ONLY MEANS OF ATTAINING PERFECT FREEDOM OF TRADE, is to be found in 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. ADVANTAGE of bringing machinery to the cot- Coffee, consumption of, 28, 38. ton, page 145..........abolition of duties on, 30. African cotton, attempts to raise, 174. Colonial system presents combination of acAgricultural labour in England, 155. tion, 95. Americans responsible for the wars of Eng-.......... system depresses the price of cotton, 99. land, 197.......... manufactures, object of prohibiting, 131. BALTIMORE and Ohio railroad tolls, 24. Colonies of England, their consumption of cot-........ and Ohio railroad tolls, diagram of, ton, 110. 35. Colonization, British system of, 64. Brazil, supply of cotton from, 170. Combination diminished by emigration, 94. British commerce ruinous to Ireland and In-......... impossible in a state of poverty, 87. dia, 71.......... increases population, 88.......... efforts to underwork all other nations,......... increases value of labour, 86. 54......... needed in this country, 52.......... imports and exports, 56......... of labour, strikes, &c., 161.......... legislation upon imports and exports, Commercial policy, review of our, 10. 53. Commerce decreases under free trade, 73.......... slave history disgraceful, 169......... definition of, 67.......... system and protection contrasted, 72......... increases under protection, 72.......... causes poverty in the producer, 101......... internal, 23.......... endeavours to maintain monopoly of......... power to maintain external, 39. machinery, 101.......... power to maintain internal, 39. Bullion and specie should be included in Ta-.......... tends to produce equality of condition, riff tables, 7. 153. Communism among nations produced by poCANADA and Cuba, objections to their annexa- licy of England, 154. tion, 62. Compromise Act, 3......... form of its commerce, 99......... its operation, 5.......... ruined by free trade, 99. Concentration needed to make labour producCanadian desire for annexation, 62. tive, 89.......... desire for annexation, its cause, 99. Condition of English people, 154.......... exports, 91.......... of'man improved by increase of pro-......... independence would stop immigration ductive power, 78. in the United States, 73. Consumer should live near the farmer, 96.......... produce sent to England, 22. Consumption equals production, 45. Capital and labour wasted in transportation,......... grows with power of production, 23. 146......... of foreign products decreases under........ who suffers by its waste, 192. free trade, 42. Capitalist, how affected by protection, 141.......... not arrested by high prices, 116.......... small, ruined by fluctuations occasioned......... power of, decreases as the producers by the British system, 199. are more and more distant from marCheap labour, 130. ket, 87. China, manufacture of, 26. Conversion and exchange, doctrine of, 40. Chinese system of trade, 134......... how maintained in England, 61. Clothing, power to obtain, in exchange for......... increases man's necessities, and dilabour, 16, 40. minishes his powers, 1S3,......... power to obtain, increases under pro...... tends to destroy labour and capital, tection, 16. 150.......... price of, is really very high, 111. Cotton, comparative consumprion of, under proCoal, consumption of, 13, 33. tection and free *wade, 110, 114.......... rate of its consumption under the Tariff......... comparative prics of crop and cotton of 1828, 85. goods in Lf-erpool, from 1843 to........ price of, reduced with increased pro- 1847, 137, duction, 14......... decrease its cultivation, 103....... production and consumption of, in-.........decreas n its price, 114. crease and diminish together, 14......... diagrfn of imports of foreign, 3& Vi INDEX. Cotton, does not increase in supply for want of English free trade disastrous to other nations, a market, 121. 132.......... fluctuations in price of, 116.......... market for our cotton does not grow....... production of the world, 59. with its production, 180......... Prussian imports of, before the Zollve-....... school, its doctrines, 29. rein, 107.......... teaching of its opponents, 30..........return for, consumed in England, 58. Exchanges, how affected by protection, 198.......... statement of crop and consumption of Exchangers, influence on pauperism, 81. American, 106.......... producers make sacrifices to the, 101.......... speculation in India a failure, 11. Expenditure, public, 30, 38.......... supply of, to Britain falling off, 179. Exportation of food, 81, 92.......... trade between the United States and Exports, value of, 36. England, 114.......... weekly consumption of, in Great Bri- FARMER can get most clothing for his produce tain, 175. when the power of producing cloth is......... where the best is raised, 105. greatest, 21......... goods, 110......... exhausted by free trade, 73......... goods and yarn exported to India from......... how he may get the highest prices in England, 103. foreign markets, 98......... and twist, prices from 1844 to 1848,......... profit by emigration only under pro117. tection, 98.......... consumption of, 15, 33......... sells in the cheapest market, and buys......... consumption of, under free trade, and in the dearest, 81. under protection, 16........ suffers by non-production of iron, 80........... dearest when cotton is lowest, 117. Flax, manufacture of, 26, 37......... import of, 15. Flour consumed in English cotton factories,111......... imported into Canada from England, Food, product, export, and import of, 21. 99.......... power to obtain in exchange for laCredit, public, 31, 39. bour, 40. ~Cultivator, his gradual operations with the........ why supply of, increases faster than land, 123. the demand, 97. Currency, how affected by protection, 185.......... why scarce in England, 57. Freedom of man increases with wealth and DEBT created by importations, 26. population, 162.......... foreign, 37. Free trade among states, 3.......... publc, 31, 38.......... approach to, creates debt, 23. Dependence on England a cause of non-con-......... approach to, is progress downward, 160. sumption of iron, 83......... based on cheap labour, 130. Depopulation, present tendency to, 20......... doctrines about rights of man, 128.......... diagram of, 34......... impoverishes the masses, 74. Disasters of 1836 to 1842, how produced, 188.......... real, beneficial to all, 135......... present tendency to, 189......... results, if introduced in the United Duties of the.United States, 227. States, 132. Duty affects amount of importation slightly, Freights should be included in valuation of 26. exports, 8. French consumption of cotton, 122. EARTH, a machine to be fashioned to man's......... productions, 139. purposes, 123........ productions imported into the United......... the only producer, 124. States, 27, 37. Earthenware manufacture, 26. Friendship unknown in trade, 205. East Indies, British supply of cotton from, 176. Fuel necessary to obtain iron, 78. Effects of putting a factory or furnace in operation, 43. GIBRALTAR, its use, 112........ of establishing manufactures in the God and silver contribute little to man's noSouth, 50. cessities, 190. Egypt, British supply of cotton from, 170. Government, how affected by protection, 221. Emigration from cotton states, 121. Grain dearer in coal regions than in Philadel-........ from Eastern states, 87. phia, 98.......... should be stopped, 121......... price of, would increase under proteo-......... westward, 20, 87. tion, 98. Englana in distress by reason of the dispro-......... production of, 21, 35. Portion of consumers to producers, 65.......... conaution of inhabitants of, 109, 154. HARMONY of interests, 41.......... fixes tr- price of products of the far-........ perfect throughout the whole union, 117. mer, 141........ between planter, manufacturer, and......... real wealth qf, 63. ship-owner, 119.......... result of dependence on, 60.......... between land-owners and labourers of English colonies continually want annexation, the world, 131. 113. Home markets make highest prices, 16.......... consumers and prociacers, 95.......... consumption of cotton, 107. IMriGRATION affected slowly by change in Ta-....... consumption of cotton cuth, 117. riff, 19. INDEX. vi Immigration decreases under free trade, 28. Land, public, 220.......... diagram of, 34......... quantity of, sold, 20.......... diminishing at present, 20......... value of, depends on cost of transporta......... effect on consumption, 130. tion, 127.......... effect on price of wheat, 96. Land-owners in England, 129.......... should be encouraged, 121......... in India, Ireland, &c., 129.......... stops with decreased combination of......... in Parliament, 132. action, 94......... remedy for their grievances, 13D.......... results of, had it continued at the same Lead, consumption of, 31. rate as in 1834, 115......... production of, 18......... table of, 17. Linens, importation of, 27.......... would raise price of man abroad, 116. Louisville and Portland canal, trade on, 35. Importation diminishes under free trade, 28.......... means of, 90. MACHINERY, increased facility of procuring,......... of men and merchandise, 90. causes increased production of food,......... of men reduces shipping prices, 93. 21.......... of labour and iron, 81.......... must be brought to the cotton, 144.......... under different tariffs, 9......... object of, 78. Independence of England, advantages of, 97.......... of three kinds, 151. India, commerce of, 103........ power to obtain in aid of labour, 40.......... attempts to raise cotton in, 103, 117,......... required to render labour productive, 133. 151.......... commerce of, 103. Man the most valuable commodity, 94.......... cotton exported from, to England, 104. Manufacture of small articles in the West, 51......... ruined by dependence on England, 61, Manufacturer's true interest, 136. 103. Markets, the best for products are those made Individual credit, how affected by protection, at home, 45, 139. 213.......... wanted for prodacers, 122. Intellectual condition of man, how affected by Marriage regardeoas a luxury in Europe, 128. protection, 209. Merchants are agents of the producers, 80. Internal commerce, 23......... get the benefit of the producer's toil, Ireland, exports of, 91. 81......... importation of cotton into, 109. lission, true, of the United States, 227......... ruined by dependence on England, 61 Monopoly of machinery cause of the planters 103. poverty, 76. Iron, abounding in America, 78........... of machinery, effects of abolishing the,......... associated with production 25. 136.......... chief constituent of nmery, 78. Morality, how affected by protection, 202......... consumption of, 1 2 79......... cost of, in la, 12, NATION, how affected by protection, 223.......... domestic notuction of, 11. National credit, how affected by protection,........ fluctgudon in price of, 82. 218.......... foundation of civilization, 78. Necessity for producers and consumers to live....... non-production of, injures the producer near each other, 96. of food, 80. New England, wages in, will rise when they......... power of importing, greatest under increase in the South, and West, 153. protection, 13. New Orleans, trade of, 25.......... production of, quadrupled by protec-.......... diagram of produce received at, 36. tion, 83. New York canal tolls, 24, 35.......... quantity of, imported since 1821, 10,......... diagram of houses built in, 36. 11.......... growth of, 25. Non-production of iron injures the producer of LABOUR and capital wasted in transportation, food, 80. 149.......... best rewarded under protection, 28. ORE and fuel in Ohio and the West, 78.......... gives value to land, 124. Over-population, general pretext for the evils......... has smallest return where machinery of a vicious system, 65. of transportation is most needed, 153......... wrongly complained of in Europe, 129.......... power of, to obtain food, clothing, and Over-production and under-consumption, 103. the aid of machinery, 40....... saved in New England, 48. PAUPERISM increases in free-trade countries,....... tends to produce equality of condition, 128. 155.......... results from the English colonial sys-......... wasted in the Southern states, 49. tem, 195. Labourer, how affected by protection, 151. Pennsylvania canal tolls, 24, 35. Labourers' common interest, 130. Philadelphia, growth of, 25. Lake tonnage, 24, 36. Philadelphia, ratio of growth of, to the popuLand, a great saving fund, acquiring value lation of the Union, 36. from labour, 122. Planters' advantages, if possessing their own......... effect of sales of, on immigration, 20. machinery, 143.......... more valuable in the United States......... advantage to, arising from the anthan in Canada, 129. nexation of Canada, 99. viii INDEX. Planters benefited by consumption of cotton at Rothschild, his system of accumulating wealth, home, 116. 75.......... impoverished by the speculations of Russia wastes food for want of a market, 131. exchangers, 76. Russian exports, 91.......... need machinery to convert their own......... system of commerce, 91. crops, 138.......... oppose their own interests, 169. SAVING-FUNDS found in mills furnaces, and......... tobacco and cotton, relative returns for coal mines, 46. their products, 119. Settlers' life and experience, 126.......... true policy to break down English mo- Silver and gold contribute little to man's nenopoly of machinery, and bring Eng- cessities, 191. lish machinery to the cotton field, Ship-owner's true interest, 136. 185. Shipping affected slowly by changes in tariff,......... why they receive small returns for their 19. capital, 143......... built to replace vessels sent to CaliforPopulation, diagram of, 33. nia, 19.......... of Philadelphia, 36......... built, tables of, 19, 34. Portugal, causes of its poverty, 112.......... increases with protection, 90. Powers of man increase as hit necessities Slavery agitation, how best ended, 165. diminish, 192.......... would be abolished by making a marPrices highest when a nation buys and sells ket on the land in the South, 164. at home, 14. Slave-history of England disgraceful to that Producer's returns in cotton cloth, 112. nation, 169. Production of food and iron unequal, 70. Slaves have been well kept in the United......... relation of, to commerce, 68. States, 169. Productive power, diminution of, brings dis-......... Northern men cannot afford to raise, cord and intcrnal disorder, 194. 163. Proportion of producers to consumers in Eng- Smuggling as regarded by British authorities, land, 55. 112. Protection, how it affects morals, 202. Soils, poorest, first cultivated, 29......... public credit, 217. South Carolina, her inability to produce cotton......... revenue and expenditure, 42,219. in competition with her neighbours,......... the capitalist, 141. 166.......... consumption of cotton, 108. bSpcie and bullion should be included in Ta.......... currency, 185. riff tables, 7.......... exchanges, 198......... n..orted and exported, 1829 to 1849,......... friends of peace, 193. 9........ government, 221. Steamboat tonnae, 24, 34.......... growth of new states, 88. Sugar, production, ".portation, and consump-......... intellectual condition, 209. tion of, 23, 35, a9o.......... nation, 223......... returns for, 120.......... political condition, 213. Swords and muskets hinder returns to labour,......... power to import, 42. 193.......... price of cotton, 114.......... slave and his master, 161. TARIFFS, outline history of, 3.......... value of labour, 66.......... merits of, require time for develop......... woman, 200. ment, 6.......... increases immigration and the number......... principal features of that of 1816, 5. of consumers, 98................... 1824, 5.......... raises the value of man, 130................... 1828, 5.......... raises the value of land, 133................... 1832, 5.......... reduces prices, and increases the power.................. 1833, 5. of consumption, 41................... 1842, 5.......... saves cost of transportation, 141................... 1846, 5.......... why required, 51.......... of 1846, effects of maintaining it, 67. Public credit, 31, 38......... 1828, effects that would have resulted......... debt, 31, 38. from its continuance, 115.......... expenditure, 30, 38. Taxation of the sugar planter, 76.......... increased by pauperism, 76. RAILROADS do not lessen the number of horses, Tea, abolition of duty on, 30. 127.......... consumption of, 28, 37.......... increase production, 127. Tendency to produce only the finest cotton Return freights, 93. fabrics in England, 179. Returns for products, 43. Tolls on internal commerce, 24, 35. Revenue from customs, diagram, 38. Tonnage, increase and diminution of, 19.......... from imports, 28......... lake, 24, 36........ decreases under free trade, 28.......... steamboat 24, 36.......... how affected by different tariffs, 29. Tobacco, consumption of, 119......... how affected by protection, 219. Tobacco trade, 118. Road from the Mississippi to the Pacific, 90. Trade of New Orleans, 24.......... to be productive, must go through rich......... New York, 25. countries, 89......... Philadelphia, 25. INDEX. ix Trading with a poor people tends to reduce Variations in prices caused by dependence on our wages to a level with theirs, 77. England, 83. Transportation, costs of, reduce the value of land, 127. WAGES, fall under free trade, 28......... capital employed in, 143.......... of labourers in England, 93.......... of labourers in Ireland, 94. UNITED STATES, British supply of cotton from......... process of reducing, 75. the, 171. War, causes of recent, 193.......... exports of cotton from, to England,........ on the labour and capital of the world 106. prepared in England, 95......... exports of grain from, to England,......... on what the power to make it depends, 95. 194......... importation of men into the, 92. Wars of England, Americans responsible for......... present policy of the, 134. the, 197.......... receipts of cloth and iron from Eng- Western steamboat tonnage, 36. land, 113. Woman, how protection affects, 200.......... true mission of the, 227. Wool trade, 102.......... wealth of, in land, coal, and metals, Woollens, consumption of, 33. 128.......... importations of, 16, 37. Union between producers and consumers most profitable when made at home, 51. ZOLLVEREIN, cotton trade flourishing under its auspices, 107. VALUE of exports, 25.......... imports into Prussia before and after......... of imports, 10. its formation, 107. THE 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 perfect 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 carefil 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 per cent. per annum for twenty years, at the end of which time all necessity for customhouses 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 4 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. and the duties had scarcely touched the point of 20 per cent. before they were raised to 30, 50, 60, or more, by the passage of the tariff of 1842. With the election of 1844, 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 proposed 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 produces 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 few 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 capita!," and that by compelling the application of both to pursuits that would otherwise be unproductive, the amount of necessaries, comforts, and conveniences of life obtainable by the labourer is diminished. The other insists that by 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 one's, and thus it is that the inquirer after truth is embarrassed.t 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 systems, 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 to consume 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, 1847. t A person employed in the preparation of government statistics inquired, on being asked to prepare some tables, what was to be the policy to be proved. ]' Why," said the other, could you prove both sides." "Equally well," said he. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 5 truth of the one and the falsehood of the other. To accomplish 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 cloths were carefully protected. Iron itself was well protected, but almost all manufactures of iron, the commodities for the production 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 manufactured articles generally, paid only from 20 to 30 percent. Coal paid 5 cents per bushel, but the commodities in the manufacture of which 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 protective 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 were fixed permanently at 25 per cent. Finer ones were to rise gradually until they reached 33' 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 30 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 tariff thoroughly protective, and so intended to be, 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, &c., 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 tariff. Tea and coffee 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 Act, 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 effect December, 1833, with a further similar reduction every two years until 1841, when one-half of the remaining 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 from each other so little that it is unnecessary to separate the years falling under them, whereas the early years of the Compromise differ so essentially 6 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, October, 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 revenue tarif 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 protection is given to the makers of cloth and iron, mills and furnaces are not built in a day, nor are they abandoned as soon as protection is withdrawn. Had it been possible, I would have pursued 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 become 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 people. 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 the difference TIHE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 7 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, and 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, 1846, 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 presented. In the tables that I shall now offer for consideration, I have pursued, 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 prevent 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 is no reason whatever why they should not be treated precisely as are coffee, wines, brandy, and other foreign commodities. When they are imporled 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 reexported. 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 to sell, not what we get for them. They represent, too, the prices minus the earnings of the machinery employed in performing the work of transportation, 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 general 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 r our exports constitutes their precise value, and to ascertain what is that amount we should take the value of merchandise imported, deducting therefrom 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 exports 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 $110,000,000 as the true value of the produce and merchandise exported. The freights are thus included. To carry this fully into practice in the following tables would be impracticable, but it may be done in part. It is generally understood that the amount of American stocks, public and private, held in Europe in 1841 exceeded $200,000,000, and there is reason to believe that they exceeded 8 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. by $170,000,000 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 shipping 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 off, except perhaps in 1825, in which a considerable amount of European debt was created. The amount, however, is so uncertain that I have not thought it worth while to make any correction therefor; although 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, concealing nothing. If, then, those who have arrived at conclusions different from mine, and are in possession of other facts, will put them together as I now do, we may by degrees 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, 18475.... 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 Palmer, page 106. t Page 68. $ 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. 13,377,415 1844-'45. 19,525,749 1831-'32. 13,698,665 1845-'46. 20,017,165 1832-'33. 14,119,915 1846-'47. 20,508,582 1.833-'34. 14,541,165 1847-'48 21,000,000 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 9 The amount of foreign merchandise, specie included,* retained in these several periods, has been as follows:Total. Annual Average. Pr.head. 1821 to 1829.... $508,000,000 56,400,000 $5-00 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..... 103,000,000 708 1835 to 1841.. 854,000,000 Deduct debt incurred 170,000,000 684,000,000 97,700,000 6-02 1842 to 1843 (21 months,endingJune 30,) 145,000,000 82,000,000 4*48 1843-'44..... 96,000,000 503 1844-'45..... 101000,000 516 1845-'46... 110,000,000 Add debt and back interest paid. 5,000,000 115,000,000 5'75 1846-'47... 138,000,000 Do... 5,000,000 143,000,000 7 1847-'48... 131,600,000 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 largely increased during the existence of the tariff of 1828. Second. That the amount so received diminished greatly after the Compromise Bill began to become operative. Third. That the amount so received from foreign nations was still further 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. $9,000,000 Deducted from the merchandise imported. 1830 to 1834, Excess import. 25,000,000 Added thereto. 1835 to 1841, " " 27,900,000 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. 2 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 determined 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 commodities, 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 commodities 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 previous period, and then paid for by the cancelling of certificates of debt. Those of 1848 will have the mark of minus one-seventh, to show the amount paid for 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...... 5,900,000 46 " " 1831. 7,200,000 54 " u 1832..... 8,800,000 64 " 1833..... 7,700,000 55 " " 1834.....8,500,000 59 " " 1835 to 1841. $10,000,000-,. 8,000,000 49 " 1842 to June 30, 1843, average.. 5,500,000 30 ".June 20, 1844. 5,700,000 30 " " 1845.... 9,000,000 46, " 146... $5,830,000+'. 6,120,000 31 c" 1847.. + 9,000,000 44 " " 1848.. 12,500,000-. 10,800,000 50 4' " 1849... 13,833,094-. 11,500,000 53 See page 9. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 11 We see here, that the value imported arid paid for, largely increased from from 1830 to 1834, under 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 obvious, 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. tons. tons. lbs. 1821 to 1829, average, 1550 - 5400 1500 1200 26,000 35,650 7 1830,....... 1129 - 6449 1038 1223 30,693 40,532 7 1831,....... 6448 -- 17,245 2532 1710 23,308 51,243 8f 1832,.......10,151 - 20.387* 2853 2146 38,150 73,687 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 — 8800 640 36,000* 2600 2150 24,000 74,190 10 1842-3, average,... 14,500 500 46,000t 2900 2400 14,750 81,05010 1844...... 26,050 5770 46,000 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 10] 1848,..... --- 44,000 5700 70,000 8300 5850 17,000 150,850 16 1849.,.....- 88,000 8000 145,C00 10,000 9,000 260,000 27 The quantitypaidfor 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. DOMESTIC PRODUCTION OF IRON. In 1810, the whole number of furnaces in the Union was 153, yielding 54,000 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 three years, about fifty per cent. 1832,,, 200,000, giving an increase in three years of above sixty per cent. 1840, the quantity given by the census 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. 1847, it was supposed to have reached the amount of not less than 800,000 tons. 1848, it became stationary. 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. t Duty re-imposed. 12 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Domestic product. Per head. Import. Total consumption. Per head. 1821 to 1829, average,. 90,000 18 7 25 1830...... 165,000 29 7 36 1831....... 191,000 33 8j 41j 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 1846....... 765,000 86 9 95 1847,...... 800000 88 - 10- 98{ 1848,... 800,000 86 19 105 Deduct from this the quantity imported in exchange for certificates of debt, and therefore remaining to be paid for at a future time,..... 3 There will remain. 102 If now we fiurther 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,)00, and the amount of debt incurred is $22,000,000, 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 difficulty 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, indicating 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.t It is obvious that the difficulty * Railroad iron, free of duty. -t Pennsylvania is the great iron-producing State of the Union, and we may form some idea of the accumulation of stock, 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 the opening of navigation to the first of September, 1848, amounted to 24,00U tons; wlereas, in the same period of 1849, it fell to little over 12,000 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 diminishing, with a tendency to still further diminution. The important facts to be derived from this examination are-first, the small increase of importation that results, even temporarily, from the abolition 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 three. 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-thirds 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 probably less per head than it had been at the commencement of the period. That, under the tariff of 1842, the average consumption increased 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, was 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 production, 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 6 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 50 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, having for its sole 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. 1000 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 case, 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 careful 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 consumption 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 prepared 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, mnarkets 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 COTTON. IMPORT OF COTTON MANUFACTURE. Years ending Per head. September 80, 1821 to 1829, average,.............. $9,454,000 84 cts. " 1830...................................... 7,862,000 61 1831,..................................... 16,090,000 1 21 " 1832,...................................... 10,399,000 76 76 av. " 1833.............................. 7,660,000 54 " 1834,...................................... 10,145,000 70 " 1835 to 1841,......... 12,000 —... 9,600,000 59 " 1842 to June 30, 1843, average....... 7,184,000 39 June 30, 1844,................................ 13,641,000 72 C' 1845,.................................... 13,863,000 71 it 1846,...................................... 13,600,000 67j " 1847,.................................... 16,071,000 78 i, 1848........... $18,412,000 —.. 15,582,000 74 " 1849............ 15,180,000 —... 12,650,000 56 The number of 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,.............................. 34,500,000 1845-6,.................................... 36,800,000 The differences here appear much more striking than 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 consumption. 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 Taken by Per head, Northern Southern domes- Per head. Total, Crop of manufacturers, manufactur's. tic. foreign. p. head. 1825-6 to 1829-30, average, bales 110,000...... 4 lbs. 1i lbs. 65 1830-31,.............................. 182,000...... 65 1 61 1831-32,.............................. 173,000...... f5 2 7I 1832-33,.............................. 194,000....... 5 I 1 61 1833-34,.............................. 196,000...... 5 0O 6f 1834-357............................. 216,000 S...... 5. 1i 7 1835-36, to 1841-42, average,... 263,000...... 6f 1 7f 1842-43,.............................. 325,000...... 7 0f 71 1843-44,.............................. 347,000...... 7i 1i 8 1844-45, ~............................. 389,000.. 8 hi 9f 1845-46,.............................. 423,000 30,000 90 if 10o 1846-47,............................. 428,000 40,000 9f 1i 10l 1847-48,............................. 531,000 75,000 12 1 13f 1848-49,.............................. 518,000 100,000 11 _ 1 12f 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 Compromise, consumption appears to have remained almost perfectly stationary, 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 -diminished; 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 cents s" 1830,. 5,766,000 45 " 1831,..... 12,627,000 95 " 1832,..... 9,992,000 75 " 1833,.... 13,262,000 93 t" 1834,... 11,879,000 82 r" 1835 to 1841, av., $13,950,000 — 11,160,000 69 d" 1842 to June 30, 1843,. 6,300,000 34 June 30, 1844... 9,475,000 50 " 1845,. 10,666,000 55 C" 1846,.. 10,089,090 50 " 1847,.. 10,570,000 51 t" 1848,.. 15,230,000 — 13,000,000 62 c4 1849,. 13,704,000 -a 11,400,000 53 * Within the last six months there have been been many failures among those engaged in the business; and, in these cases, the mills are not only closed, but likely so to remaa.. The import into Cincinnati may be taken as evidence of the course of affairs in this 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 has diminished. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 17 Prior 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. Thenceforward the number increased, and the crop of 1829, 1830 and 1831, was estimated at fifty millions of pounds, the produce of twenty millions 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 65 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 depression of 1841-2 was accompanied by the sacrifice of sheep to a considerable extent; yet so rapid was the subsequent change, that the number, in 1845, was estimated at twenty-five millions, t and in 1848 at twenty-eight millions. Ohio had, in 1846, only 2,065,000; but, in 1848, the number had risen to 3,677,000. The number in New York, in 1845, was 6,443,000, and, subsequently 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-t 1841,... 5,094,035 1845,... 13,267,609 1842,... 4,823,881 1846,... 12,269,537 1843,... 5,713,289 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 weight per head. Millions Pounds of Imports. Total, domestic er head. Average of of sheep. wool. Pounds. manufacture. dom. &for. 1821 to 1829,. 15 37,500,000 2,000,000 39,500,000 3.50 4-29 1830,... 20 50,000,000 669,000 50,669,000 3.90 4-35 1831....21 52,500,000 5,622,000 58,122,000 4-40 5-35 1832,... 22 55,000,000 4,042,000 59,062,000 4-40 5-15 1833....23 57,500,000 950,000 58,450,000 4-15 5 08 1834,.. 24 60,000,000 2,341,000 62,341,000 4.30 5-12 1835 to 1841,..22 55,)00,000 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,... 22 55,000,000 23,800,000 78,800,000 4'10 4-60 1845,... 24 60,000,000 28,800,000 88,800,000 4-50 5-05 1846,... 26 65,000,000 16,500,000 81,500,000 4-10 4-60 1847,....27 67,500,000 8,460,000 75,960,000 3-70 4-20 1848,... 28 70,000,000 11,380,000 81,380,000 3-90 4-52 1849,...... 17,860,000 By the tariff of 1846, the duty on many descriptions of foreign wool was raised, while that on cloths was lowered; which accounts for the great diminution in the quantity imported. That this is very incorrect there is no doubt; but it will enable us to make some comparison between the increase of imports as compared with the diminution of home production. From 1830 to 1834, the production * Pitkin's Statistics, p. 488. t Patent Office Report, 1847, p. 213. Merchant's Magazine, Vol. XXI., p. 217. 3 IS THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. grew, and the import was large. From 1835 to 1841, the former largely diminished in its 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 tariff 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 diminished with every approach to free trade. PRODUCTION OF LEAD. The arrivals at New Orleans have been as follows:Pigs. Pigs. Pigs. 1828-'29,* average, 164,000 1834,.. 202,000 1845,.. 732,000 1830,.. 254,000 1835 to 1841,. 298,000 1846,. 785,000 1831,... 151,000 1842,... 473,000 1847,.. 659,000 1832,.. 122,000 1843,.. 571,000 1848,. 606,000 1833,... 180,000 1844,... 639,000 1849,.. 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 pioduction 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 rapidly from 1843 to 1847, that it became stationary 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 combination. 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:IMIGRATION. 1821 to 1829,.. 12,000 1842-3,... 88,133 1830,.... 27,153 1844... 74,607 1831.... 23,074 1845,... 102,415 1832,... 45,287 1846,.... 147,051 1833,.... 56,547 1847,.. 234,742 1834,. 65,335 1848,.229,492 1835 to 1841,.. 67,520 1849,... 299,610 *These are the earliest years for which I have met with any accounts. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS 19 Total shipping built. Per thousand. Per million of tons. of population. Steamers built. population..821 to 1829, average, 90,000. 8 1823-29 35. 31 1830,.. 58,000. 45. 37. 3 1831,.. 85,000. 6-4. 34. 2-6 1832,.. 144,000. 10-5. 100. 7-2 1833,.. 161,000. 114. 65. 4-6 1834,.. 118,000. 8.1. 68. 4-7 1835 to 1841,. 108,000. 66. 92. 5.7 1842-3,.. 91,000. 5. 108. 5.8 1844, (nine months,) 103,000=137,000 7-2. 163=217 11-4 1845,.. 146,000. 75. 163. 8-5 1846,.. 188,000. 9-4. 225. 11-5 1847,.. 243,000. 118. 198. 97 1848, ~. 316,000. 15. 175. 8-3 1849,.. 258,000. 11-8. 208. 9'6 We 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 affected 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 labour-to raise or depress the price of menand 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 continued to rise until 1836-7, when it reached 78,083, after which it fell. In 1843-4, 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 commodities tends materially to increase. The increase of ship-building did not commence until 1832. It fell off in 1838. Thus far the movement is precisely the 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 off, 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 following table, in which the movements of both are shown:Immigration. Shipping 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.. 256,000 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.-t How far the immigration * Average of last two years only 71,000. t The reason for now building ships may be found in the fact stated in the following puragraph, which I take 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. 1848. 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:"EM1IGRATION TO EurOPxE.-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. Per head of Land sold. Per head of Acres. Immigration. Acres. Immigration. 1821-29, average, 825,000.. 69 1843,.. 1,605,000.. 21 1830,.. 1,244,000. 46 1844,. 1,754,000. 23 1831,... 1,929,000. 83.1845,.. 1,843,000.. 18 1832,.. 2,777,000. 61 1846,. 2,263,000. 15 1833,.. 2,462,000.. 44 1847,.. 2,521,000.. 11 1834,.. 4,658,000. 70 1848,. 2,747,000. 13 1835-41, average, 7,150,000. 105t 1849, I: t obtained... 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 weeks, 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 California, 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. the Atlantic ports, some of which have been anchored there for near four monthls, 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 lnany 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 difficult to negotiate engagemrents at present prices." A vast amount of capital has been locked up in ships that are idle, and others must now be built to take their place. If they were back again, ship-building would now be entirely suspended. t To this must bs added the occupation of Texas and Oregon. * To these must be added the occupation of California. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 21 PRODUCTION OF FOOD. The power to supply food to those who come to live amongst us, and also to send it abroad in 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 immigration. 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,.. 3,914,000 311,000] 1836,. 2,529,000 650,000 630 1837,.. 1,6100 4,000 105 1838,. 2,247,000 927,000 Texas and Oreon. 1839, 4,712,000 1840,. 11,198,000 72,000 1841,.. 8,447,000 J 1842,. 7,237,000 8 11 1843,.. 4,519,000 88,000 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 11 Mexico and 1848,. 12,631,000 369,000 229,000 13 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 manufactures and the power to obtain iron became stationary, the production of food so far dininished that the price rose to such a point as to render it profitable to import it; and it may be doubted if, notwithstanding the increase of numbers, the whole quantity produced between 1835 and 1840 was greater than in the five previous years. From 1843, we find it gradually 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 Office estimates for 1847:Wheat. Barley. Oats. Rye. Buckwh't. Ind. Corn. Totals. 1840,.. 84,823,000 4,161,000 123.071,000 18,645,000 7,291.000 377,531,000 615,522,000 1847,. 114,245,000 5,649,000 167,867,000 29,222,000 11,673,000 539,350,000 867,826,000 Increase, 29,422,000 1,488,000 44,797,000 0 10,577,000 4,382,000 161,819,000 252,304,000 WTe 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 in the one case, and 42 in the other; and thus we see that the increase in the facility 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,... -33 1830,... 47 1835 to 1841,. -25 1846,... -65 1831,... 71 1842-3,... -31 1847,... 128 1832... 32 1844,... -41 1848,... 60 1833,... 35 1849, -45 We see, thus, that with the exception of the year of the famine in Ireland, 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; and as we have receded 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 workmen. 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 numbers 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 foodSUGAR. Crop of Foreign. Louisiana. Total. Per head. 1821 to 1829.... 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 10t 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 —. 110,000,000 77,000,000 187,000,000 11l 1S42 and 1843... 114,000,000 115,000,000 229,000,000 121 1844..... 182,000,000 105,000,000 287,000,000 15 1845...... 114,000,000 200,000,000 314,000,000 16 1846..... 108,000,000 186,000,000 294,000,000 14l 1847.... 232,000,000 146,000,000 372,000,000 18 1848...... 244,000,000 240,000,000 484,000,000 23 1849...... 242,000,000 220,000,000 467,000,000 213 We see here a rapid increase of consumption from 1829 to 1834, and that it then diminished in actual amount until 1844, and that the average of 1846-7 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 far 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 proper to bear in mind that the receipts from immigrants from Europe, in the last two years, have been prodigious, notwithstanding 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 population. Should immigration continue to fall off, 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. Baltimore Tan'ge, New York Per 1000 of and Ohio Per 1000 of Penn. P. 1000 of L. & P. Canal. population. Railroad. population. Canals. population. Canal. 1826, $844,000 $73 1827, 880,000 74 1828, 829,000 68 1829, 815,000 65 1830, 1,042,000 81 1831, 748,000 56 $31,000 76,000 1832, 1,112,000 81 137,000 9.9 70,000 1833, 1,388,000 98 196,000 13.9 148,000 10-5 170,000 1834, 1,381,000 95 205,000 14-1 306,000 21-1 162,000 1835, 1,482,000 99 263,000 17-6 679,000 45-4 200,000 1836-41 1,655,000 102 349,000 21-5 1,020,000 60-7 223,000 1842, 1,749,000 97 426,000 23-6 903,000 50.0 172,000 1843, 2,081,000 112 575,000 31.0 1,014,000 55-0 232,000 1844, 2,446,000 128 658,000 34-6 1,164.000 61.5 304,000 1845, 2,646,000 135 718,000 37-7 1.154.000 59.1 318,000 1846, 2,756,000 138 881,000 44-0 1,357,000 68-0 341,000 1847, 3,635,000 177 1,101,000 54-0 1,587,000 78 307,000 1848, 3,252,000 155 1,213,000 60-0 1,550,000 73.3 341,000 1849, 3,266,000 150 1,241,000 57-2 1,580,000 72-4 The LAKE TONNAGE in 1834 was..... 28,521 tons. In 1841 it had risen to only..... 56,252 1846 it was........ 106,836 187,....... 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. l 1846-7, 8208 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 the previous year. We thus meet everywhere the same results. From 1835 to 1843, scarcely any increase; 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 IARMONY OF INTERESTS. 25 Total. Total. 1841-2,.... $45,716,045 1845-6,.... $77,193,464 1842-3,.... 53,782,084 1846-7,.... 90,033,000 1843-4,.... 60,094,716 1847-8,.... 70,779,000 1844-5,.... 57,166,122 1848-9,.... 81,889,000 The value doubled in six 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 earliest 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*. 58 1846,.. 1910. 95 1847, 1823 90 1842,.. 912.. 50 847 1823 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 PHILADELPIIA 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 decenhlial. The former returns give only the number of taxables, but by multiplying them by five the population was always found to be nearly obtained, 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 necessary to multiply by five and a half. How far that is the case will be determined by the census of next year. Ratio to population of the Union, in Per cent. thousands to milTaxables. Population. per annum. lions. 1821. State census.. 27,892. 139,460.. 15-3 1828. ". 37,313. 186,565 increase 4-9. 15-2 1830. U. S. "..... 188,958 6. 146 1835. State ".. 49,847. 249,235 " 6.6. 1C.7 1840. U. S. c"... 258,000 -8. 15.1 1842. State ".. 51,063. 255,315 decrease -5. 14-1'849. ".. 77,285. 386,425 increase 74. 17-7 * Of these the number built in 1835 and 1836, before the Compromise began to have much effect, was greater than in any three of the other years. 4 26 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. It appears obvious that the productive power of the country diminished front 1835 to 1841, and still more rapidly in the two following years; and therefore it was that the power to pay for foreign commodities diminished so much that consumption could he maintained only by obtaining goads on credit, to be paid for at some future time, and bearing interest until paid. The following table will show the VALUE OF EXPORTS, being the amount of merchandise received from abroad in payment for merchandise and freights. Value of exports, per head. Debt contracted. Debt paid off. 1821, to 1829, aver., $5.. * 1830,... 4-32 1831.... 6-10 1832,... 551. 1833,... 6-20 1834,... 7-08.. 1835 to 1841, aver., 6-02.. $170,000,000 1842-3,... 4-48. Interest unpaid. 1844,... 5.03..... Interest. 1845,... 5.16 1846,.. 5-75.... $5,000,000 1847,... 7..... 5,000,000 1848,... 5-88.. 8,000,000 1849,... 5'19.. 22,000,000 With each step in the diminution of the power to produce, there is diminished power of purchase, and hence the necessity for obtaining goods on credit. So it was from 1835 to 1841, and the result was almost universal bankruptcy. So is it at present, and the goal towards which we are moving would seem to be the same. The amount now required for the payment of interest is about $14,000,000 per annum, being $2,000,000 more than was required for the same purpose two years since. In the following table are given two species of articles, of one of which (flax) a large part was freed from duty by the Compromise tariff, and so continued until September, 1841, while the other was subject to the same provisions as manufactures of other kinds. It will be seen how small is the difference of movement, proving that the amount of importation depends upon the power to import, and is but slightly affected by the question of duty. Manufactures Per China and Per of flax. head. earthenware. head. Sept. 30, 1821-29, average,. $3,333,000 29.. 1,160,000 10." " 1830,... 3,011,000 23}... 1,259,000 10.. 1831,... 3,790,000 28-... 1,624,000 121 ( cc 1832,... 4,073,000 30... 2,024,000 15,' 1833,... 3,132,000 22... 1,818,000 13 " c; 1834,... 5,485,000 38... 1,591,000 11.. 1835-41,$6,350,000-0 —5,080,000 31 1,950,000- 1,560,000 91 1842 to June 30, 18432 t average, 29000 15... 1,300,000 7.. 1844,... 4,492,000 23}... 1,632,000 8} " 1845,.. 4,923,000 25 *. 2,166,000 11 "1846... 4,972,000 25... 2,201,000 11k, 1847,... 5,152,000 25... 2,320,000 11 ( " 1848, $6,600,000- -5,660,,000 27 2,600,0)0 —- 2,228,000 10. cc 1849, 5,700,000 —-4,750,000 22 2,231,000 — -— 1,860,000 83 * In 1S29, the debt of the Federal Government was $58,000,000. In the year 1833-4, it was re(1 tced( to $4-000,000, and in tlio following year to $37,000. As much of this was held abroad, the amount paid off in this period was probably equal to that of States and corporations transmitted abroad at the same time. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 27 We see here the importation of linens increasing under the tariff of 1828, diminishing from 1835 to 1841, and still further diminishing in the closing years of the Compromise tariff. Thenceforward it rises rapidly, notwithstanding the inc easing tendency to substitute manufactures of cotton for those of flax. In regard to China and earthenware, we see the same course of events. The importation rises under the tariff of 1828, diminishes under the Compromise, and still further diminishes in 1842-3, when it begins to rise under the tariff of 1842, but never attains the same height as in the previous period. FRENCH MERCHANDISE. Per head. 1822 to 1829, average,... 9,130,000 81 Silks subject to duty. 1830,...... 8,240,000 64 " 1831,....... 14,737,000 1.11 " 1832,...... 12,754,000 92 " 1833,..... 13,962,000 1-00 Silks free. 1834,..... 17,557,000 1-21 " 1835 to 1841, average 25,200,000- -, 20,160,000 1-24 " 1842 and 1843, average,... 14,500,000 80 Duties reimposed. 1844,.... 17,952,000 94 " 1845,...... 22,069,000 1-13 " 1846,...... 21,600,000 1-08 " 1847,....... 24,900,000 1-21 " 1848,... 28,000,000 -, 24,000,000 1-14 1849, 23,233,000 -4, 19,360,000 90 We have here the same results as elsewhere. The commodities we receive from France are almost altogether articles of luxury. In the period between 1829 and 1834, there is a gradual increase, until, in 1834, the consumption exceeds by fifty per cent. the average from 1821 to 1829. Thenceforward the amount remains almost precisely the same until we reach 1841. In the period ending June 30, 1843, it falls to the level of fifteen years before. In the following year, it begins to rise, and, by 1847, attains the level of 1834. In 1848 it falls to $1-14. In 1849, the amount, paid for, falls almost to the level of 1842-3. The remarkable part of this table is, the small increase produced by the abolition of duty upon silks, and the fact that the import rapidly increased after the duties had been reimposed. TEA AND COFFEE. The following table represents the quantities of tea and coffee retained for consumption rather than the actual consumption of the respective years, and the great irregularity of amount is more apparent than real. It is here shown, that the average consumption of tea in the years 1833 and 1834, the last two years in which the tariff of 1828 was in activity, was greater than that of the ensuing ten years, and that, notwithstanding the great increase of population, it did not rise above that quantity until 1845. Of coffee the consumption per head was little greater from 1835 to 1841 than the average of 1833-34. 28 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Tea. Per head. Coffee. Per head. 1821 to 1829, average, pounds, 6,000,000 -53 pounds, 24,000,000 2-13 1830,..... 6,800,000.53 38,300,000 3 00 1831.... 4,600,000 -35 75,000,000 5-60 1832,... 8,600,000 -63 36,000,000 2-60 1833,..(Duty free,) 12,900,000 -91 (Duty free,) 75,000,000 5-30 1834,. 13,100,000 90 44,000,000 3 00 1835 to 1841, 12,600,000-, 10,080,000 -62 89,000,000-1, 71,200,000 4-40 1842-1843, " 13,000,000 -71 107,000,000 5-60 1844,, 13,000,000 -68 149,000,000 7-85 1845, " 17,100,000 -88 94,000,000 4-82 1846, " 16,800,000 -84 124,000,000 6-20 1847, " 14,200,000.70 152,000,000 7-25 1848, 21,000,000 1-00 145,000,000 6-90 1849 13,213,000 -61 151,000,000 7-00 The great question to be settled is-" Which is the system under which the labourer is enabled to obtain the largest quantity of food, fuel, clothing, machinery of production and transportation-protection or free trade?" The former is denounced as a "war upon labour and capital," and yet it seems clear that the power to consume all those things for which men are willing to labour, and in the production of which other men are willing to invest capital, was greater under the two protective tariffs than at any other period, and that it is now gradually, but certainly, diminishing. Wages are falling, and the result is, a diminution of immigration, and an increasing tendency to emigration, both accompanied by a decrease of productive power, to be followed by a futher decline of wages, and a further increase of emigration. Shipping has grown with immigration, and freights have fallen, but, with diminution in the former, the latter must rise, and many of the commodities that we have recently exported will have to remain at home, and thus there will be a diminished power of importation, accompanied by a diminution of the public revenue, the improvement of which was one of the objects proposed in the adoption of the policy of 1846. How the different systems have thus far operated upon the receipts from import duties will be seen by an examination of the following table. CUSTOMS REVENUE, Derived from the import of lMerchandisepaid for with our Exports. Per head. 1821 to 1829, average,..... 18,500,090 1-69 1830 to 1834,....... 24,000,000 1-75 1835 to 1841, average,... $17,170,000 Less one-fifth, for goods bought in exchange for certificates of debt,. 3,404,300 13,736,000 0-841 1842 and 1843,...... 16,400,000 0-90 1843-4,........ 26,183,000 1-38 1844-5,....... 27,528,000 1-41 1845-6,. 26,712,000 Add duty on $5,000,000 of debts redeemed,.... 1,500,000 28,212,000 1-41 1846-7,.... 23,747,000 Add duty on $5,000,000 of debts redeemed,.... 1,500,000 25,247,000 1-23 1847-8,...... 31,757,000 Deduct duty on the amount of debt created, say $8,000,000,.. 2,400,000 29,357,000 1-40 1848-9,...... 28,346,000 Debt created, $22,000,000-duty,. 6,600,000 21,746,000 1-00 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 29 It is here seen, that the importation of duty-paying articles increased so much under the tariff of 1828, that the revenue per head was greater than in the previous period, although the duty on railroad iron and on tea and coffee was abolished in 1832. The case would, however, appear much stronger were allowance made for the movements of specie. The period from 1821 to 1829 was one of great exhaustion, and the exports of specie exceeded the imports by an average of almost one million a year; whereas, the imports of the following period exceeded the exports by an average of five millions a year. The total difference is therefore six millions a year. Had this been imported, as in the previous period, in the form of duty-paying articles, and had the duties on tea and coffee been retained, the revenue would have exceeded two dollars per head. With the next period, we find a great decrease in the revenue, indicating a diminished power to pay for foreign merchandise, resulting from diminished productiveness in the application of labour at home. With 1842-3, there is a trifling increase, resulting from the action of the tariff of 1842, which was in operation during the last nine months of this short period. From June, 1843, to June, 1846, the amount rises to an average of $1-40, and maintains itself during the first three years of the period. The passage of the act of August, 1846, connected with the warehousing system, tended to reduce the amount received into the treasury in the last year of this period. With 1848, we find the average maintained, without, however, the increase that might naturally have been looked for in consequence of the great demand for breadstuffs, consequent upon the failure of the potato-crop in Ireland. In the last year (1848-9), being the second in which the tariff of 1846 was in action, the amount of revenue derived from merchandise paid for by our exports has greatly declined. In comparing the receipts under the tariff of 1842 with those of that of 1828, it is necessary to bear in mind, that, in the latter period, before merchandise could be purchased, there was a sum of ten millions of dollars to be provided for payment of interest on the debt incurred in the free trade one. At thirty per cent., that would have given three millions of dollars, or about fifteen cents per head. The total amount of interest now to be paid is about fourteen millions of dollars, and this claim must be discharged by our exports before merchandise can be purchased: the consequence of which must be, a great deficiency in future revenue. WTith these facts before us, we may now examine the different revenue systems that have been presented for consideration and adoption. By the English school it is held that, as cultivation first commences on the richest soils, agricultural labour is then largely paid, and the diversion of any portion of the population to mechanical pursuits is attended with loss. Observation, however, shows that the first cultivator commences, invariably, on the poorer soils, and that the rich lands of river bottoms, the underlying beds of marl, limestone, &c., are only brought into cultivation at a later period. The English school holds that mechanical labour must necessarily, because of the abundance of fertile land and consequent profitable application of labour, be dearer in a new than in an old country, and that competition can be maintained only by aid of laws restricting importation. It holds that double loss results fiom such restriction, labour being withdrawn from the profitable pursuit of agriculture to be given to the comparatively unprofitable one of converting agricultural products into the 30 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. various commodities required for the use of man: also, that these persons, thus unprofitably employed, are maintained out of taxes imposed upon the consumers of their commodities, and that every dollar paid to the government on the import of articles, in part manufactured at home, is accompanied by the payment of five, ten, fifteen, or twenty dollars paid to a selected class, thus living by taxation imposed on their neighbours for their support. This idea may be found fully carried out in a report of the late Secretary of the Treasury, for 1846. It is there shown, that all the coal consumed in the Union costs the consumer $1-60 more than it would do under a system of free trade, although the average price of all the coal sold at Pittsburgh, Wilkesbarre, Mauch Chunk and Pottsville did not, at that moment, exceed $1.50. To relieve the consumer from this double taxation, the English school holds that all duties for revenue should be imposed upon articles that cannot be produced in the country, such as tea, coffee, &c., and that all those that can be produced in it, should be admitted free. Such is the theory that dictated the tariff of 1846, and the subsequent efforts to amend it by the imposition of a duty on tea and coffee. The other school holds that articles which can be produced at home should be protected, while those which cannot should be admitted free of all duty, and such was the view which prompted the abolition of all duties on tea and coffee, by the act of 1832. By the working of the two systems, their value is to be judged. In the first eighteen months of the tariff of 1832, tea and coffee were admitted free of duty, with a loss to the revenue of nearly three and a half millions of dollars per annum, to which was to be added a great loss of duty on silky also free; but the protection of manufactures generally was maintained, and the consumption of foreign merchandise liable to duty continued so great, that the revenue increased more rapidly than the population. In the succeeding period, protection gradually diminished, with a certainty of its total disappearance as the Compromise bill should come fully into action, and the productiveness of labour became so far diminished, that the payment into the Treasury for duties on foreign merchandise fell to an average of less than one-half of what it had been from 1829 to 1834. With the tariff of 1842, it rose gradually, and with a steady upward tendency; while, as that of 1846 comes into operation, there is a movement directly the reverse. PUBLIC EXPENDITURE. When men live in connection with each other, they are enabled to protect themselves, and have little need of fleets or armies for their protection. A few officers can then perform the duties incident to the maintenance of government. They then exercise, in a high degree, the power of selfgovernment. When they are widely separated from each other, they are unable tc protect themselves, and have need of fleets and armies for their protection. Many officers are then required for the performance of the duties of government, and the power of self-government is diminished. With the increase of fleets and armies, and of government officials, the cost of government is increased. The policy of 1828, and that of 1842, tended, as we have seen, to concentration of population and combination of exertion, and, therefore, to increase in the power of self-government. That of 1833 tended, and that of 1846 tends, as has been seen, to dispersion of population and diminution in the power of combination, and, consequently, to diminution in the power of self THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 31 government. What has been the effect of the two systems on the public expenditure I propose now to show. The true " war upon labour and capital," is that which increases the cost of government, and thus diminishes the power to accumulate capital, to be used in aid of labour. Every step towards diminution in the expenditure for that purpose tends to raise wages; and every one tending towards its increase, tends equally towards diminution in the power of both labourer and capitalist to command the necessaries, conveniences, or luxuries of life. From 1821 to 1829, the total expenditure of the government, exclusive of payments on account of debts previously existing, was $117,000,000, being an average of.. $13,000,000 From October, 1829, to October, 1834, the period of the tariff of 1828, the total expenditure, exclusive of such payments, was 84,000,000, being an average of. 16,800,000 From October, 1834, to October, 1841, the period of the Compromise, during which we colonized Texas and Oregon, the total expenditure was $223,000,000. In this period there were no payments on account of the old debt, the whole having been extinguished at the close of 1834. The average of this period of dispersion was.... 31,700,000 From October, 1841, to June 30, 1843, was a period of exhaustion, and the wants of the government were such as precluded expenditure. The average was.... 20,400,000 That of 1843-4 was....... 20,600,000 That of 1844-5,........ 21,400,000 With 1845-6, we recommence the system of dispersion. The occupation of Texas had brought with it war with Mexico, and the expenditure rose to.. -... 26,800,000 In 1846-7, dispersion increased, and large armies were sent to Mexico for the purpose of compelling the cession of California, the consequence of which was that the expenditure rose to........ 59,400,000 In 1847-8, it was........ 45,000,000 And a large amount remained unsettled. In 1848-9,......... 46,798,000 As a necessary consequence of this system, the public debt, which was extinguished under the system of concentration, grew rapidly under that of dispersion, to be again diminished under that of concentration, and now again increased under that of dispersion. PUBLIC DEBT. 1821, $89,987,428 1829, 58,421,414 Decrease in eight years, $31,566,014 1834, 4,760,082 ~" five years, 53,661,332 1834-5, 37,733 Extinguished. 1841, 6,737,398 Increase in five years, 6,737,398 June 30, 1843, 26,898,958 4 two years, 20,161,560 " 1845, 17,093,794 Decrease in two years, 9,805,164 " 1848, 48,526,379 Increase in three years, 31,433,585 " 1849, 64,704,693 " one year, 16,178,314 CREDIT. With every step in the diminution of debt, credit grows; with every one in the increase thereof, credit diminishes. The policy of 1828 increased production and raised wages. The power to 32 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. pay for foreign commodities was great, and the revenue was large, the consequence of which was the extinction of the public debt, at the close of 1834. Credit was therefore high. The policy of 1832-3 diminished production and lowered wages. Credit was high, and we obtained cloth and iron in exchange for certificates of debt; the consequence of which was, that, at the close of 1841, the foreign debt was two hundred millions, much of the interest of which we were unable to pay. Under the Revenue tariff of 1841-2, public and private revenue almost disappeared, and bankruptcy and repudiation were the necessary consequence. Under the tariff of 1842, production increased and wages rose. The power to pay for foreign commodities increased, public and private revenue grew, and we commenced to diminish our debt, the consequence of which was the perfect re-establishment of credit. Under the tariff, of 1846, production diminishes and wages have fallen. The power to pay for foreign commodities is diminishing, and we are again buying cloth and iron, and settling for them with certificates of debt, the amount of which transmitted to Europe in the two years ending June 30, 1849, is estimated at thirty millions of dollars; all of which we have, in that time eaten and drunk, and used, but have yet to pay for. With a view to present at a glance the results obtained by this examination of the policy of the Union, I give the following diagrams, in which the movement under the various systems is distinctly shown. No. I. gives the nine years from 1821 to 1829, when the tariff of 1828 came into operation. No. II.-The years of the protective tariff of 1828, from 1829 to 1834. No. III.-Those of the Compromise tariff, from 1834 to 1841. In this case, it will be observed that I have in all cases deducted from the consumption of imported commodities one-fifth, that being the quantity obtained in exchange for certificates of debt. No. IV.-This represents the movement under the strictly revenue clauses of the Compromise tariff. In some cases, as wil4 be seen, one year, and in others two years are included in this period. The returns for coal, railroad and canal tolls, &c., are made from the civil year, whereas those connected with commerce are made for the fiscal year ending June 30. The effect of taking one year, is to throw into No. III., the period of the Compromise, onehalf portion of this period, and the other portion into No. V., the period of the tariff of 1842. No. V.-The tariff of 1842. No. VI.-That of 1846. In the diagrams representing the movements of iron, coal, cottons and woollens, the consumption is given in two sets of lines; one representing the domestic products consumed, and the other the total quantity. An examination of them will show, that the amount of consumption is dependent upon that of domestic production, and that any deficiency therein is never compensated by increase of importation, as it should be, if the theory were true upon which the tariff of 1846 is based. I. H.II. I X. V. VI. CONSUMPTION OF IRON, FOREIGN, Average. vAverae. Av. v AND DOMESTIC, in pounds per El head of the population. (See IE page 11.) 60 * ~f Tota Domestic, 10 Railroad iron was exempted from duty in the third year of the second period, and from that time consumption ceased to increase. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 33 I. ]I. III. IV. V. VT. CONSUMPTION OF COAL, FOREIGN 160 A verge I. lvera AND DOMESTIC, in tons per 50 thousand of population. (See 3 page 13.) 1o IC CONSUMPTION OF COTTON 13 Ave-a..e. I Average. GOODS, FOREIGN AND DOI _. in pounds per head of the 109 population. (See page 15). 8 Total,: Domestic, 4 CONSUMPTION OF WOOLLENS, verage. Averae. Av. FOREIGN & DOM., in lbs. per headofpuoklation. (Seep. 17.) 4i Total, Donestic, 3% PRODUCTION OF LEAD, in thou- 700 _ sands of pigs. (See page 18.) 600 400m l 300 200 POPULATION, as shown~ in the 29 erage Age. increase of immigration, in. 2s(I' thousands. (See page 18.) 260 n24, 230 i20 210 2~0 190 180 170 160 150 140 130 120 80'0 60' 40 I0 10 34 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. I. III.. IV. V. TX. SHIPPING BUILT, in tons, per 16 Ag I Averae. i,Av. page 19.) i COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE 332O M0eaIge. * * Av.lAmVe.ag*l MOVEMENT OF IMMIGRATION 300 EE EEE Ef AND SHIPPING, in thousands. 2S0,0 (See page 19.) 260 i I II *mw1u1 240 *E1U U ii 230 Nis MIN 1001INN 220 mm*EtE EEEE EEEP1 100 1, ~E I1 190 hpg 1180 *flflflfl*I), als iuutEIIfain nim 70 tin u lU ~160 ill'lro o150 *lJJ* OBIl I Ent!EUUfIT 140 IiUEiiii 130 Shipping, 0 sol m _WI_ 10 on _ _ _ _ V NUMBER OF STEAMERS BUILT, 12 Average. t v rerage. jAv.1 per million of population. (See o E page 19.) p3la*( Average. Average. I DEPOPULATION, as shown in the 150oc oml2ation of PUBLIc LANDS, 140 as coUiJwa2'c l qcijth; lin uJrar125 tionz. (See page 20.) 110 100 90 40 30 20 to THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 35 I. II. III. IV. V. VI. PRODUCTION OF GRAIN, in bush- 43Aea Ae els per head ofpopulation. (See 4 page 21.) 40" 34 32 30 24 PRODUCTION AND CONSUMP-4 Average. E p1 Average. AviEU TION OF SUGAR FOREIGN 23 U5| | - |X g AND DOMESTIC, in poun1ds 22 i IEI L E minuin per head ofpopulation. (See 20 *11 *i* uP pagte 23.)!9 * r'E!11l TOLLS ON BTHE NEW YJIORK a j|o Averaae U. l1 CANALSOAn d olla 7rs per thou- 17f0 sand of pop tlation. (See *a* * ** page 24.) 20 17 25 11 page224.) TOLLS ON BATE I ORE A Oi Average2.i AILROAD, dollars p....r ou-170 sand of populaton. (See 2 l0 page 224. 200 150 15o'24.) ~i~~~~~~~~~~0 36 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. I. IL mII. IV. V. vr. LAKE TONNAGE, in thousands! ~mm0uii aimmm._iu of tons. (See page 24.) WESTERN STEAMBOAT TONNAGE, 2-*6 m in thousands of tons. (See 180 200 VALUE OF PRODUCE RECEIVED T, EE mmmmmmmms IAT NEW thORLENSand millionss 9o of dollars. (See page 25.) 6 15 i{ umm'm i: per milliono/2opulation. (See' 0,. UHIA, in thousands. tommilm- itlj{ 00 U MEVN malnEI UU3i!U i j 5 ummlj{:mmU JJJJ RATIO OF PHILADELPHIA TO l -oUNION in. thozsands to miL- it NOME mmBIl WIN lions. (See page 25.),/ BLggmlm!m g VALUE OF EXPORTS, _per head I -.4;'........ I~Wl -'..I~~ Popfoulation, indollars. (Sce jjj page 25.) THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 37 I.. I. V.. V. VI. IMPRT 220' —:...:FOREIGN DEBT, in millions of 10 dollars. (See page 25.) 190 180 - 170,160 150 710 ~'[::-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 140 _ 130 120 10 60 60 40 I. II. III. IV. V. VI. IMPORTS OF FOREIGN WOOLLENS,'_1L A mWt U paidfor by our exports, in cents f80l per head of the population. Go (See page 16.) 40l IMPORTS OF FOREIGN COTTON so Aev. A; so GOODS, paid/or by our exports, 70 in cents per head qf the popula- 50 tiodn. (See page 15.) 34 Of the four next following, the first two, French Merchandise and Manufactures 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 Coffee, 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. FRENCI MERCHTANDISE, paid for,1 in cents per head of the popu- 120 110 lation. (See page 26.) loo 70 50 MANUFACTURES OF FLAX, i i.Aage. A ve cents per head of the popula- so tion. (See page 26.) CONSUMPTION OF TEA, in hun- 1lo Average A dredths of pounds per head of 90 the population. (See page 70 27.) 5' 38 THIE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. I. I. nI I. V. vr. CONSUMPTION OF COFFEE, in 8 Average. verage. A pounds per head of thepp- 7po lation. (See page 27.) REVENUE FROM CUSTOM3S, ij Average verage. cents per head of tie pola- 170 tion. (See page 28.) 150 140 i20 100 90 s o _a_..a... Aver A____a2:_lI',_: _co PUBLIC EXPENDITURE, in millionsof dollars. (See page 30.) 25 90 PUBLIC DEBt, in, millions of 60 50 40 30 20 10 I9O 170 160 150 140 NATIONAL MeMr kt CREDIT. Average. 1AN;WlB~~ti Average-Il lt i J POWER1AlvWErage. I ItolJl~~fffi~~~ i - VAILUE SMPPINGO EXPORTS. AND UM1QUE.TION. a GROWT JJJJJ COJMMERCnE. J[~~L~J.. ~i~J~J~..J~IOF -NEW YORK. TOLLS P OWER ONr e - LAKE AXTE.INT.gAT-,N NEW JYom IPORK. KiEE dIMv MlEPQ fa l (7&AN~' NIA E -m..... TOT,~~~~~~~~ LS~~~ P O W _'EMl.... ON~~~~~~~~asarl~~p T O ia~e~~ LAK Cnr~~~arw 1~~~~8~~s~~S~~~~~~~filt~~~a;W~~~~~r~~~;:~~~J-~~.~[ C'rZ~ ~.YINI A IN~~t~~i~~~ POWER,WOOLLENS. TO COTTONS. OBTAIN FOOD AND CLOTHING IN SUGAR. EXCHANGE GRAIN. FOR LABOUR. POWER TO OBTAIN MACHINERY COAL. IN AID OF LABOUR. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 41 _ --, II- -.... CHAPTER FOURTH. HIOW PROTECTION TENDS TO INCREASE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. Two systems are before the world: on the one hand, that which is denominated protection, and on the other that which is denominated free-trade. Each claims to be the one under which the labourer receives the largest reward for his exertions, and it is for the purpose of testing the validity of those claims that I have given the numerous tables contained in the last chapter, by aid of which I now propose to examine this question in its bearings on the various portions of society. It is the great one for the Union, for in it are included all others. The discord now existing between the North and the South has its origin in the diminished value of the returns to slave labour. If it can be shown that by one and the same system the interests of the North and the South, the free and the enslaved, can be promoted, harmony may take the place of discord. The differences in regard to internal improvements by aid of the general government have their origin in a necessity for scattering ourselves prematurely over large surfaces. If it can be shown that by one and the same system the North, the South, the East, and the West, can be enriched, and all enabled to make roads for themselves, harmony may be restored. The discords so frequently existing between the employer and the employed, the capitalist and the labourer, the banker and his customers, may all, as I think, be traced to one and the same cause, and if that can be removed, harmony and good feeling may be restored and maintained. Every question affecting the peace and tranquillity of the Union, or the people of the Union, will be settled whenever we shall have determined for ourselves the one great question — Which is the system under which the labourer obtains the largest reward for his labour?" When that shall come to be done, it will be seen that there is a perfect harmony of interests throughout the Union, and among all its people. Before proceeding further, I would urge upon the reader a careful examination of those tables, bearing always in mind the precise position of the question that is to be discussed. It is admitted by all that protection tends to increase the domestic production of the commodity protected. That, therefore, does not require to be proved. It is asserted that protection tends to raise the price of the protected article and to diminish the power of consuming it, whereas the removal of protection diminishes its cost and increases the power of consumption. That is denied, and that it is whi1ch requires to be proved. If this assertion be true, then the power of consumption must diminish with protection. We see, however, that the consumption of iron., of coal, of cotton, and of wool, increased with great rapidity in the years between 1830 and 1834, and in those from 1843 to 1847. If it be true, the quantity of men and things passing on the roads and canals, and the number of exchanges to be performed in our cities, should diminish with protection, 6 42 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. whereas they increased with great rapidity in both of the above-named periods. If it be true, then it must reduce the wages of labour, and thus diminish the inducements for foreigners to come among us and occupy our vacant lands, whereas immigration increased with great rapidity under both protective tariffs. If it be true, then it must diminish our power to trade with foreign nations, and the inducements to build ships, whereas shipping grew with great rapidity in both those periods. If, now, we examine the period between 1834 and 1843, it is impossible to avoid being struck with the fiet that the power to consume foreign products not only did not increase as domestic production diminished with the approach to free trade, but that it was actually less in quantity than undei the system of protection. The building of furnaces and rolling-mills was stopped, yet we consumed less foreign iron than before. So was it with cotton goods, the import of which fell from above fifty millions of yards down to eigtlt millions. We killed off our sheep, but the importation of foreign cloth diminished. We prevented increase in the domestic consumption of cotton, but shipping did not grow with the increased necessity for depending on foreign markets. We adopted a course that we were assured would raise the wages of labour, but immigration ceased to grow. So is it now. The building of cotton-mills is stopped, but our whole import of last year, in which we incurred a debt of twenty-two millioms, but little exceeded a pound per head. We have closed furnaces and rolling-mills, but we consume far less iron than before. We have abolished the system that was regarded as "a war upon labour and capital," yet immigration is diminishing and there is no demand for capital. Steam-engines are idle, and there is no demand for new ones, except for a few steamn-vessels. Railroad tolls are diminishing, and steamboats on the Western waters are idle. Iron is low in price, but it is not wanted. So is coal. So are cottons and woollens. So is almost every description of 1mrchandise. The power of consumption is diminishing, because the demand for labour and capital has largely diminished. The power of the people to pay taxes for the support of government is dependent upon their power to consume commodities that are taxed, and if protection diminished wages, it must of course diminish revenue; but when we examine the facts, it is shown that, notwithstanding a great increase of the free-lisi;, -he revenue increased under the tariff of 1828, and fell off so much afterwards that the government was compelled almost to beg for loans in the markets of Europe. With the tariff of 1842 it grew rapidly, but with that of 1846 it is diminishing in actual amount per head, notwithstanding the purchase of more than twenty millions of goods on credit in a single year. If that debt were now called for, the revenue of the current year would not exceed that of 1842. The question to be settled is-" IDoes the power to import grow with the diminution in the power to produce that follows the withdrawal of protection?" If it does, the facts must prove it. There is no question that the power to produce iron and cloth grows with protection. That is, as I have already said, admitted by all. Were it not, the facts prove it. The burden of proof lies, then, with the opponents of protection. To establish their system they must show that the power of production and consumption grows now as it grew three years since, and that it grew from 1835 to 1843 as it grew from 1830 to 1834. The first thing that must strike all who examine the tables in the last chapter is the univel sally diminutive amount of foreign products received in exchange for the vast bulk of cotton, grain, provisions, &e., sent to foreign countries. Thus in 1842-'43 the import of cotton cloth was much less than a yard per head of the population, and less probably than one-fourth of a THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 43 pound of cotton. In other years we see that it has varied from two to four yards, but in no single year has our consumption of cotton that has passed through foreign looms materially exceeded a pound per head. The returns from Europe received for all our products may be summed up nearly as follows: fifty cents' worth of iron, half a pound of wool, about as much flax, one or two ounces of silk, and China and earthenware equivalent to a tolerable cup and saucer, to which may be added the tcwisti2ng and weaving of a pound and a half of cotton, per head. To obtain all this we give a lairge portion of the land and labour of the cotton-growing States, and of those employed in raising tobacco and rice, together with as much food as would feed men, women, and children who could twist and weave five times the cotton, wool, silk, and flax we import, and the use of more capital in horses, wangons, railroads, engines and cars, steam and canal boats, ships, wharves and warehouses, than would be necessary for machinery to convert all our cotton into cloth, and make more iron than has ever been made in Britain, and almost as much labour as would do the work-and withal, we are brought in debt. It is certainly using great means for the accomplishment of small ends. Every portion of the tables tends to prove that while the amount of foreign commodities received in payment for our exports increased in the period fiom 1829 to 1834, it diminished in that from 1835 to 1841-still further diminished in the years 1842 and 1843, and then rose rapidly from 1814 to 1847, since which time it has declined. These facts seem to warrant the conclusion that the ability to consume foreign products, by both labourer and capitalist, increased under the two tariffs of protection, and declined with every approach to free trade. If, now, we desire to understand how such should be the case, it may be useful to examine how it is with individuals, and, doing so, we shall find that the man who produces most largely of the articles of prime necessity is always the one who can indulge most freely in the luxuries of life; and vice versa, that the farmer who obtains from his land the least food, is the one who can least indulge in clothing, coffee, tea, or books. What is further to be remarked is, that any material increase in the consumption of foreign products, consequent upon the approach to freedom of trade, has appeared to be followed by exhaustion and bankruptcy, while every increase in production at home, consequent upon protection, has been but the preparation for a new and larger increase-sometimes so great as to cause a feeling of apprehension that it was unnatural, and could not be maintained. To what extent this could be carried has never been ascertained, for the only two periods of perfect protection have each been limited to four years. To understand the cause of this, it would be well for the inquirer to examine for himself the facts that become obvious to sight, whenever and wherever a factory or furnace has recently been set in operation. Those presented at Graniteville, S. C., are thus described by a highly intelligent correspondent of "The New York Herald:" The effect of the erection of this manufactory in the neighbourhood is almost magical. Hundreds have found employment among the poor of the white inhabitants, who were, before, almost destitute. A Methodist and a Baptist church have been erected. A free school has been opened, and about 70 pupils attend. There is a large and convenient hotel, where I am writing this letter. The town is laid out in streets, and already over 80 dwelling-houses, very neat and comfortable, with gardens attached, have been put up, which rent from $16 to $25 per annum. The girls in the factory are, some of them, very pretty, and are well dressed; and, from what I can learn, the change in their appearance is extraordinary. The superintendent, Mr. George Kelly, who came out here and placed the factory in operation, went with me through the manufactory and town. He informed me that he only brought with him four or five experienced persons from the 44 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. North-all the rest in the factory, about 300, men, women, and children, are from the Sand Hills and immediate vicinity, where they, one year ago, were earning nothing. They make now from four to five dollars, (mlales.) females from three to four dollars, and children one to two dollars per week. Some of tie girls, who are now well dressed and appear very intelligent, a year ago were at work in the field, hoeing corn, or ploughing with a horse; others were idle; now they reside in comfortable boarding-hotnses, where they pay $1-50 per week for board, and can lay up money. Their education is attended to, and they are on the road to become useful and productive citizens. In fact, since Christmas, over forty marriages have taken place between the young male and female operatives in the factory. They were brought together in it, became attached, and got married. In such a case, the wife generally leaves the factory to attend to the housekeeping arrangements of the new couple, and the husband continues in the factory, which gives them an independent support. "4 The grounds around the factory are laid out with a great deal of taste, and I have not seen, in a long while, a more prosperous and thriving place. New houses are going up every week. The applications for work are double what they can possibly employ. They could obtain, in the district, 400 male and female operators, who are without any work, if they could give them employment.' The following account by Mr. Bryant, Editor of " The Evening Post," is descriptive of facts presented by a mill recently erected in Barnwell District, S. C.:(( The girls of various ages, who are employed at the spindles, had, for the most part, a sallow, sickly complexion, and in many of their faces I remarked that look of mingled distrust and dejection which often accompanies the condition of extreme, hopeless poverty. These poor girls,' said one of our party, think themselves extremely fortunate to be employed here, and accept work gladly. They come from the most barren parts of Carolina and Georgia, where their families live wretchedly, for hitherto there has been no mantual occupation provided for them, from which they do not shrink as disgraceful, on account of its being the occupation of slaves. In these factories, negroes are not employed as operatives, and this gives the calling of the factory girl a certain dignity. You would be surprised to see the change which a short time effects in these poor people. They come bare-footed, dirty, and in rags; they are scoured, put into shoes and stockings, set at work, and sent regularly to Sunday-school, where they are taught what none of them have been taught before-to read and write. In a short time, they become expert at their work; they lose their sullen shyness, and their physiognomy becomes comparatively open and cheerful. Their families are relieved from the temptations to theft and other shameful courses which accompany the condition of poverty without occupation.'" He adds that "at Graniteville, in South Carolina, about ten miles from the Savannah river, a little manufacturing village has lately been built up, where the families of the crackers, as they are called, reclaimed fromn their idle lives in the woods, are settled and white labour only is employed. The enterprise is said to be in a most prosperous condition."," The buildings are erected here more cheaply," he continued; "there is far less expense in fuel, and the wages of the work-people are less. At first, the boys and girls of the' cracker' families were engaged for little more than their board; their wages are now better, but they are still low. I am about to go to the North, and I shall do my best to persuade some of my friends, who have been almost ruined by this Southern competition, to come to Augusta and set up cotton mills." The labour employed in building these mills was clear profit. The men and their families were there, and they had to be supported by somebody, whether they worked or not. All the labour employed in working the mills is profit. The people have begun to produce. From unproductive consumers they have become productive consumers. In their former condition they could consume scarcely any clothing, or utensils requiring iron for their manufacture, or furniture, or books, or newspapersscarcely any thing, indeed, but food. Having become productive, the whole surplus may go to the purchase of other things than food, and thus is made a market for cloth and iron and other commodities, that before had no existence. Every producer is a consumer to the whole extent of his production, and by enabling these poor people to produce more, the planter THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 45 makes a market on the land for the products of the land, to the extent of the whole excess of production. The more that is produced, the more must be consumed. This assertion may at first appear to be one of doubtful truth, yet a little examination will, I think, suffice to establish its perfect correctness. The man who earns six dollars a week, lays by one of them, which he carries to the saving-fund, which lends it and other similar dollars to some one who desires to build a house. He pays it out to workmen who purchase with it f)od and clothing, and thus is that surplus dollar consumed. The capitalist, with his savings, builds houses, or ships, or factories, and the workmen whom he employs purchase food and clothing, and the use of houses, with his money. The average consumption of a year always is and mIust be equal to the average production, and if we desire to know the extent of the one we have but to ascertain that of the other. In 1839 we imported forty-three millions of yards of cotton cloths of various kinds, the consumers of which were customers to the planter to the extent of eleven millions of pounds of cotton, or less than 28,000 bales, being as much as would be worked up by twenty-eight mills of moderate size, or fourteen of larger size. To produce those mills in any single cotton-growing State would require no effort whatsoever, and when produced it would be found that they would be all profit, for it would be attended with not the slightest diminution in the amount of agricultural production. The labourers are there, and a large portion of their time is absolutely waste. The horses and wagons are there, to a great extent unemployed. The timber is there, encumbering the best lands of the plantation. The men and the horses must be fed, and the wagons must be kept in order. Make a market for this waste labour, and the labourers will consume more food, but the chief increase of expenditures will be in clothing, thus making a market for cotton-in houses, making a market for stone and lumber-in furniture, for which lumber will be required-in books and newspapers, making a market for rags-and the cloth-makers, and carpenters, and masons, and cabinetmakers, and paper-makers, and printers, will want cloth, and shoes, and houses, making a further market for cotton and leather, and lumber and stone. Exchanging thus on the spot, each and every man would be a producer, whereas when exchanges are made at great distances, the transporters and exchangers are more numerous than the producers, and as consumption must go to the extent of production, and can go no further, we may now see why it is that consumption tends to increase so rapidly when men work in combination with each other. In four years we erected mills that worked up 300,000 bales of cotton, or eleven times as much as was contained in all the cloth imported in 1839. To have created treble that number would have required no effort, nor would it have been attended with any less of agricultural products, for the labour was being wasted in every county of the South and West: and to carry them on would now be attended with no diminution in the product of food or cotton, for treble the labour required for a factory is now being wasted in almost every county of the Union, and in every one south of New England. To the labour-power of men and horses, and women and children, now absolutely unemployed, let us add the quantity that is wasted cn the road, and to that let us add the manure now wasted on the road, and then we may form an estimate, but even then a very insufficient cne, of the increased product that would have resulted from the creation of these mills. Let us then reflect that all these people are now fed, and that their surplus earnings would be applicable tothe purchase of other things than food, and we may then see what would be the extent of the market thus made on the land for the products of the land. 46 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. A great error exists in the impression now very commonly entertained in regard to national division of labour, and which owes its origin to the English school of political economists, whose system is throughout based upon the idea of making England "the workshop of the world," than which nothing zould be less natural. By that school it is taught that some nations are fitted for manufactures and others for the labours of agriculture, and that the latter are largely benefited by being compelled to employ themselves in the one pursuit, making all their exchanges at a distance, thus contributing their share to the maintenance of the system of "( ships, colonies, and commerce." The whole basis of their system is conversion and exchange, and not production, yet neither makes any addition to the amount of things to be exchanged. It is the great boast of their system that the exchangers are so numerous and the producers so few,* and the more rapid the increase in the proportion which tle former bear to the latter, the more rapid is supposed to be the advance towards perfect prosperity. Converters and exchangers, however, must live, and they must live out of the labour of others: and if three, five, or ten persons are to live on the product of one, it must follow that all will obtain but a small allowance of the necessaries or comforts of life, as is seen to be the case. The agricultural labourer of England often receives but seven shillings a week, being the price of a bushel and a half of wheat. Were it asserted that some nations were fitted to be growers of wheat and others grinders of it, or that some were fitted for cutting down trees and others for sawing them into lumber, it would be regarded as the height of absurdity, yet it would not be more absurd than that which is daily asserted in regard to the conversion of cotton into cloth, and implicitly believed by tens of thousands even of our countrymen. The loom is as appropriate and necessary an aid to the labours of the planter as is the grist-mill to those of the farmer. The furnace is as necessary and as appropriate an aid to the labours of both planter and farmer as is the saw-mill, and those who are compelled to dispense with the proximity of the producer of iron, labour to as much disadvantage as do those who are unable to obtain the aid of the saw-mill and the miller. The loom and the anvil are, like the plough and the harrow, but small machines, naturally attracted by the great machine, the earth, and when so attracted all work together in harmony, and men become rich, and prosperous, and happy. When, on the contrary, from any disturbing cause, the attraction is in the opposite direction, and the small machines are enabled to compel the products of the great machine to follow them, the land invariably becomes poor, and men become poor and miserable, as is the case with Ireland. To those who doubt the extent of the loss resulting from this unnatural division of labour, I would recommend a visit to any farm at a distance of thirty or forty miles from a furnace or a factory, that they may there, on the ground, satisfy themselves of the fact. They will there see days perpetually wasted for want of means of occupation-and other days on the road carrying to market small amounts of produce-and general listlessness resulting from the want of stimulus to activity, on the part of the men, while children, male and female, are totally unemployed, and the schoolmaster remains abroad for want of means to pay him when at home. As a general rule, L: "Out of 3,400,000 families in Great Britain in 1831, but 960,000 were engaged in agriculture, the work of production. Between 1S31 and 1841 the number of adult males increased 630,000, but the ir nlbcr of those employed in agriculture diminished 19,000. The town population, that which lives by the work of conversion and exchange, is steadily increasing in its ratio to the producing population, and as a necessary consequence there is a steady increase of poverty, vice, and crime. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 47 our farmers attach scarcely any value to time. They go to a distant market in preference to selling at a nearer one, when the difference of price to be obtained upon their few pounds of butter, or baskets of vegetables, appears utterly insignificant compared with the loss of time and labour, and they do this because labour is to so great an extent totally valueless. Let the inquirer look to these things for himself, and let him then add the enormous proportion of the labour that is misemployed in badly cultivating large surfaces instead of small ones-in keeping up fences and roads entirely disproportioned to the product of the land-and finally let him add the waste of intellect from the want of proper instruction and frequent communication with their neighbour men-and then let him determine if the loss is notfive times over as great as would pay for all the cloth and iron-raw material included-consumed upon the farm. Place the mill there, and all this is saved. The farmer and his horses and wagon are employed in hauling stone and timber for the mill and for houses, and his children find employment in the mill, or in the production of things that can be used by those who work in the mill, and all their extra earnings may go for cloth and iron,forfood they had before. I say all, for with the mill come improved roads, and the facility of sending to market the many things for which a market on the land cannot as yet be made. The mill and furnace, and the coal mine, are saving-funds, in which the people of the neighbourhood deposit the labour and the things which otherwise would be waste, and where these depositories exist, farmers and planters become rich. Where they do not, they remain poor. To those who desire to understand the wonderful effect of the daily deposit of small quantities of labour, I would recommend an examination of the saving-fund system of Europe and this country. They will there see how much can be accumulated from small savings when a safe place of deposit is offered, and thence can form a judgment of how much is liable to be wasted for want of such institutions. The people of New England have saving-funds in which they deposit what would be otherwise the waste labour of themselves, their horses and wagons, their sons and their daughters, and much of the produce that would otherwise be wasted, making by the very act a market on the land for the products of the land, and thus are enabled to save the manure, and they grow rich because of these economies. The people of other States waste labour, and water-power, and produce of various kinds, and then they destroy their timber for want of a market for it, and they waste their manure, and thus it is that they remain poor because of this extravagance. One cent per day for each person of the nation is almost eighty millions of dollars in a year. Is there not wasted, for want of a demand for it, labour to quintuple that sum per head? If so, the amount is four hundred millions of dollars, or forty times the price-raw material included-of all the cotton cloths we can afford to buy from abroad. Were all this saved, it would make a market for four hundred millions of dollars of cottons and woollens, of linens, iron, hardware, agricultural implements, coal, and all of the thousand other things required for the comfort and enjoyment of life. I say four hundred millions of those things, for food they had before, and as they are all consumers to the whole extent of their production, they must expend almost the whole extra production in other things than food. To the extent of these four hundred millions they would be customers to the land and its owner, for the earth is the sole producer. Should the inquirer desire to view the effect of this waste of labour, on a large scale, he could not now do better than visit the valley of the Schuylkill. Doing so, he would find there all the labour and all the machinepower requisite for the production at market of 60,000 tons of coal per week, 48 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. worth about $240,000. The quantity that will go to market this year will be about 30,000 tons per week, worth $120,000. Here is a diminution in the article of coal alone, to the extent of six millions of dollars, and if we were to add the loss froln iron it would increase greatly the amount. Having ascertained this, if he should then inquire what was being produced to make amends for this, he would find it literally nothing. The men are there, and their cives and families are there, and they must have food, and that they may obtain it hundreds and thousands are cultivating potato patches; but the whole value produced to take the place of the coal and iron not produced, is so small as scarcely to be worth the slightest notice. The labour-power now being wasted in that valley is more than would pay for all the iron and coal we have imported, and for which we have to pay in wheat or cotton. If, now, we follow this six millions, we can find it everywhere diminishing the power of the labourer and the miner to consume food or cloth, to the loss of both farmer and planter-diminishing the demand for the labour, and consequently the reward of the labourer and of the mechanic-diminishing the power of railroad owners to construct new roads, and thus again diminishing the demand for labour, and the power to pay for cloth or food: and thus may it be traced, step by step, throughout the whole nation, every interest taking its share of the loss. Let the inquirer next visit a factory of any kind, and he will see that the whole value of the labour there employed is a creation that owes its existence to the fact that the mill has been built to be a saving-fund in which each family may deposit the labour, physical and mental, that would otherwise lbe wasted, receiving in exchange the cloth, the hats and coats, the shoes and stockings, the books and newspapers, that could not otherwise have been obtained. Let him then trace these savings, and he wvill find them producing an increased demand for food-and belter food-a demand for cotton, and wool, and iron, and fuel, and all other of the products of the earth, to the benefit of every owner or cultivator of land, whether farmer or planter. The people of New England save labour, and doing so they grow rich, and are enabled to make roads by which they travel rapidly to market, and they save the refuse of their products, which goes back upon the land, and that also grows rich. The people of the South and West, for want of such labour-saving-funds, waste more time than would pay many times over for all the cloth and iron they can consume; and then they are unable to make roads, the consequence of which is that the conveyance to market is costly. They have to go to a distance for the performance of every exchange, however small. Their necessities for making roads are great, but their power to make roads is small. They waste all the refuse of their land, which is exhausted, and then they run away to other lands, increasing their necessities and diminishing theirpower. But, it is asked, cannot too much coal and iron, cotton, wheat, and other of the good things of the world be produced-more than can be consumed? Those who ask this question do not recollect that every man is a consumer to the whole extent of his production. The more coal and iron are produced, the more wheat and cotton are consumed. The more wheat and cotton are produced, the more coal and iron are consumed. Consumption and production go hand in hand, and when there is a glut of any thing it is the result of error in the system that requires to be corrected. Coal is now superabundant. The market is overloaded with a quantity smaller than that which was readily consumed two years since, and less by one-third than would be now required, had the power of consumption increased at the same rate as during the period from 1834 to 1847. The friends of the existing system point to the trivial import of foreign coal, and THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 49 say that the cause of diminished product cannot there be found. They are right, but in so saying they condemn the system. The duty on coal was reduced in order that the labourer might obtain fuel more readily, but it has become so much more difficult to procure it that the consumption is already sensibly diminished, with every prospect of a further diminution. The total import of iron, and of cotton cloth, is as nothing compared with the growth of the product in the years from 1813 to 1847, and thus we see that the supply diminishes instead of increasing in its ratio to population, under a system that was to enable the labourer, and the farmer and planter, more readily to obtain cloth and iron. It is not so much that coal needs protection for itself-or that iron or cotton need it for themselves-but that each needs it for the other. The producer of coal suffers because the furnace is closed, and the producer of iron suffers because the factories are no longer built, and the maker of cloth suffers because labour is everywhere being wasted, and the power to buy cloth is diminished. The harmony of interests-agricultural and manufacturingis as perfect as is that of the movements of a watch, and no one can suffer without producing injury among all around. The grower of cotton suffers when the operatives in cotton factories and the workers in mines and furnaces are unemployed, and the latter suffer when adverse circumstances diminish the return to the labour of the farmer and planter. There are more labour and the products of labour wasted in the States south of Mason and Dixon's line, than would, tea times over, convert into cloth all the cotton they produce, and more in the States north of it, than would, ten times over, produce all the iron made in Great Britain. This may appear a large statement, yet it is less than the truth, as will be clearly seen on examination. If evidence of this be desired, look to the fact that the manufacture of cottons and woollens doubled in five yearsand that of iron, which In 1843 was under 250,000 tons, reached nearly 800,000 in 1847. Pid this diminish the products of agriculture? Was not, on the contrary; the supply greater than was ever before known? We added at least two hundred millions in manufactures, not only without diminution elsewhere, but with a larger increase than had ever before taken place, and it was precisely when the home consumption had become so immense that the assertion was made that we had three hundred millions of bushels of food for which we needed a market. All this labour was saved labour, and much of the things employed would otherwise have been wasted. Look next to the other fact, that it was precisely when the growth of manufactures was arrested, from 1835 to 1839, that the supply of food became so short that, notwithstanding diminished consumption consequent upon high prices, we were compelled to import wheat to the amount of more than four millions of dollars in a single year, and it will be seen if the experience of the two periods-1835-'41, and 1844-'47-does not prove conclusively that the nearer the loom and the anvil are brought to the plough, the larger is the return to the labours of the ploughman. Could it be otherwise? The nearer the place of exchange, the less of labour and manure are wasted on the road, and the more uninterruptedly is labour applied, upon a machine constantly increasing in its powers. The demand for lumber enables the farmer to sell his trees, and with the product he drains his land, and thus is enabled to cultivate more and better land. The more distant the loom and the anvil, the more labour and manure are wasted on the road, the less of both can be given to the land, and the best lands necessarily remain encumbered with trees that are valueless, because the labour of clearing them is more than they are worth when cleared. That the reward of the labourer advances under the protective system is 7 50 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. obvious from the fact that immigration increases. Men go from low wages to seek high ones. From 1829 to 1834 immigration grew. Thence to 1843 it was almost stationary. Thence to the present time it has increased with vast rapidity. Henceforward, if the existing system be maintained, it must diminish, for the power to obtain food and clothing, fuel and houseroom, wages, has declined. That the productiveness of labour increases is obvious from the rapid growth of canal and railroad tolls, and their stationary condition with every approach to the policy that tends to the separation of the loom and the anvil from the plough and the harrow. So again with the growth of steamboats, and of vessels generally. The more there is produced, the more can be consumed, and the more will go to market. There is, as it appears to me, no single point of view from which we regard the facts now passing before our eyes, in which we shall not find confirmatior of the correctness of these views. Were all the machinery now used in Lowell and Providence, for the manufacture of coarse cloths, taken out and replacte by that fitted for making fine cloths, and muslins, and silks, the product would be ten times as much as we now import, with little increase in the quantty of labour employed. Were all that coarse machinery then distributed throughout the South, it would enable the people of Southern Slates to convert into cloth three hundred thousand additional bales of cotton, not only without diminution in the agricultural export, but with an increase, for labour would then be more advantageously applied. To accomplish all this, by building mills and making machinery, would require an amount of labour equal to but avery small portion of that which is now wasted in a single year, and not as much as is this year wasted in Pennsylvania alone. The people of the North would then have called into action a higher degree of intellect than is now required, and wagez would rise, and the consumption of woollen and cotton cloth, of silks, and of sugar, and tea, and coffee, would grow rapidly. The people of the South wo-ild find the same effects. Their own consumption of cotton would bequintupled, while they would consume more and better food than now. They would need better houses, and the demand for timber and stone would clear their i-nd, and wealth and population would give them better roads, and the tmen who Came to make roads would eat food and wear coarse cottons, and thus the planters themselves would be enabled to become large customers for the fine ones produced in the North. Consuming more tea and coffee, the producers of those articles would be able to purchase more cotton, and thus the planters' market would grow on every hand. The demand for machinery, for furniture, and for thousands of other things, would produce new improvements in manufactures, and the producers of tea and coffee, sugar and cotton, would be enabled to consume more largely of them, while the makers of machinery and furniture would need more iron, more lumber, and more cotton.* * I take the following from The Cincinnati Gazette, as evidence of the vast amoun o. smaller articles, composed of tllings that would be wasted, and prepared, much of it, by labour that would be wasted but for the proximity of a market:"What our larger manufactures for the South are, is well understood, especially by persons familiar with the machinery of sugar plantations. Our small manuflacttres, consisting of bagging, buckets, tubs, ploughs, &c., are less known. The exports of some of these for four seasons, will serve to show uoth the requirements of the South in this:respect, and our ability to supply them. TIlE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 51 On the other hand, let us suppose the cotton mills closed, and the supply of cloth diminished to the extent of all that is produced from 600,000 bales of cotton-the furnaces closed, and the supply of iron diminished to the extent of 800,000 tons-and the coal mines closed, and the supply of fuel diminished to the extent of three millions of tons-could we import and pay for the deficiency? Would the whole cotton crop then bring more than we now obtain for three-fourths of it? It wvould not. Our power to import foreign cloth and iron, and fuel, would not only not be increased, but it would be dimntiished, and we should consume one pound of cotton per head instead of ten or twelve.'The power to pay for all the cotton and iron produced at home, results from tile saving of labour, and with the disappearance of the power to save that labour would disappear the power to consume what are now its products. Union between the producer and the consumer at home, would. therefore, appear to be more profitable than union with people abroad and disunion among those at home. CHAPTER FIFTH. WIIY IS IT THAT PROTECTION IS REQUIRED? IF all the labour employed in converting food and cotton into cloth, and food, ore, and fuel into iron, be really saved labour-if the whole result be really profit-why is it that men should require protection to enable them to produce cloth and iron? The question is a natural one, and should be fully answered. It is because it is saved labour, and because the loom and the anvil are merely subsidiary to the plough and the harrow that protection is required. The first and great object of man is, to obtain food and the materials of clothing for himself and family. Neither is fit for use in the form in which it is yielded by the earth-the great machine of production. The grain requires to be ground, and the wool to be spun and woven. He pounds the one and his wife endeavours to convert the other into cloth of some description, however rude. They work with bad machinery, and they lose much time, and vet the loss is less than would be the case were they to carry the grain to the distant flour-mill, or the wool to the yet more distant woollens-mill. By degrees population increases,and the blacksmith comes to exchange horse-shoes for food. The carpenter comes to exchange labour for food. The saw-miller comes to exchange the labour of himself and his 1845-'46. 1846-'47. 1847-'48. 1848-'49. Alcohol, bbls.... 1,615 1,844 1,771 3,022 Brooms, doz..1,584 5,108 3,760 3,333 Bagging, pieces... 8,867 12,632 15,900 Candles, boxes.. 6,757 16,622 29,180 3,640 Cooperage, pieces.. 18,388 41,121 36,924 05,617 Lard oil, bbls. 1..690 6,199 8,277 9,550 Linseed oil, bbls.. 455 6,032 3,878 3.020 Soap, boxes... 2,708 10,080 11,295 11,308 Starch, boxes.. 2,499 5,826 8.179 7,904 White lead, kegs....... 29,417 Sundry manufactures, packages 7,957 22,251 42,418 94,934 "These small manufactures are too often overlooked by persons from abroad who survey this populous city, and wonder how it came and what it is doing out here in the heart of what was nothing but a wilderness half a century ago. But they really constitute, as every one familiar with them knows, one of the main elements of our prosperity. And behind them lie many others, contributing their share to our comforts and our growth, which as yet enter only slightly into oar export trade, and consequently are not included in our commercial tables." 52 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. machine for food. In all these cases we see combination of action, and with its growth men obtain horse-shoes and houses more readily than before. Next the little grist-mill comes, and the miller gives the labour of grinding in exchange for food to eat. Again, the little woollens-mill comes, and the miller gives his labour to the carpenter and saw-miller for labour and lumber, to the blacksmith for his iron work, and to the farmer for food and wool. Next the little furnace comes, and the furnace man, in like manner, exchanges with his neighbours, and with the progress of combination of action men obtain, at every step, food, fuel, clothing, iron, furniture, and houses, with increased facility. The first and great desire of man is that of association with his fellow-man, and it is so, because he feels that improvement of his condition, physical, moral, me.ntal and political, is its uniform accompaniment. Throughout this country, there is a want of combination. Men are perpetually flying from each other, scattering themselves over large surfaces, and wasting the labour that if saved would make them rich. This inability to combine their exertions is the result of artificial causes; and the adoption of the protective system has been produced by an instinctive effort to obtain by its aid that which, had those causes not existed, would have come naturally and without effort. If we now look to the early history of these provinces, we shall see the gradual tendency towards the establishment of furnaces, woollen-millh, &c. for the purpose of enabling men to combine their exertions for obtaining iron, cloth, and other of the necessaries of life with the least loss of labour in the work of transportation, whereby they might be enabled to economize their own labour to be employed in the work of production, while their sons and daughters were obtaining wages in the conversion of wool into cotton, or ore into iron. The object of the colonial system was that of " raising up a nation of customers," a project "fit only," says Adam Smith, "for a nation of shopkeepers." He was, however, inclined to think, that even for them it was unfit, although " extremely fit for a nation whose government was influenced by shopkeepers." As early as the period immediately following the Revolution of 1688, we find the shopkeeping influence exerted for the "discouragement" of the woollens manufacture of Ireland; and while the people of that unfortunate country were thus prevented from converting their own wool into cloth, they were by other laws prevented from making any exchanges with their fellow-subjects in other colonies, unless through the medium of English ports and English " shopkeepers." Such being the case, it was little likely that any efforts at combination of exertion aniong distant colonists, for rendering labour more productive of the conveniences and comforts of life, should escape the jealous eyes of men whose shopkeeping instincts had prompted them to the adoption of such measures in regard to nearer ones. The first attempt at manufacturing any species of cloth in the American provinces was followed by interference on the part of the British legislature. In 1710, the House of Commons declared, " that the erecting of manufactories in the colonies had a tendency to lessen their dependence upon Great Britain." Soon afterwards complaints were made to Parliament, that the colonists were setting up manufactories for themselves, and the House of Commons ordered the Board of Trade to report upon the subject, which was done at great length. In 1732, the exportation of hats fromn province to province was prohibited, and the number of apprentices to be taken by hatters was limited. In 1760, the erection of any mill or other engine for splitting or rolling iron was prohibited; but pig-iron was allowed to be imported into England duty THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 53 free, that it might then be manufactured and sent back again. At a later period, Lord Chatham declared, that he would not allow the colonists to make even a hob-nail for themselves. Such is a specimen of the system,withregard to these colonies. That in relation to the world at large shall now be given. By the act, 5 George III. [1765,] the exportation of artisans was prohibited under a heavy penalty. By thatof 21 George III.[1781,] the exportation of utensils required for the manufacture of woollens or silk was likewise prohibited. By that of 22 George III. [1782,] the prohibition was extended to artificers in printing calicoes, cottons, muslins or linens, or in making blocks and implements to be used in their manufacture. By that of 25 George III. [1785,] it was extended to tools used in the iron and steel manufactures, and to the workmen employed therein. By that of 39 George III. [1799,] it was extended to colliers. These laws continued in full force until the year 1824, when the prohibition as to the export of artisans was abolished, and all those relating to the export of machinery so far relaxed that "permission may now be had for the exportation of all the more common articles of machinery," discretion having been given to the Board of Trade, which decides upon each application, "according to the merits of the case." But little difficulty is now, it is said, experienced by merchants, who generally know as to what machines "the indulgence will be extended, and from what it will be withheld," almost as certainly as if it had been settled by act of Parliament; yet, it is deemed advantageous to have it left discretionary with the Board, that they may have "the power of regulating the matter, according to the changing interests of commerce."* Under this system, the whole quantity of machinery exported in the eleven years, from 1824 to 1835, averaged but two hundred thousand pounds per annum.t We see thus, that the whole legislation of Great Britain, on this subject, has been directed to the one great object of preventing the people of her colonies, and those of independent nations, from obtaining the machinery necessary to enable them to combine their exertions for the purpose of obtaining cloth or iron, and thus compelling them to bring to her their raw materials, that she might convert them into the forms that fitted them for consumption, and then return to the producers a portion of them, burdened with great cost for transportation, and heavy charges for the work of conversion. We see, too, that notwithstanding the revocation of a part of the system, it is still discretionary with the Board of Trade, whether or not they will permit the export of machinery of any description. I-lad it not been that there was a natural tendency to have the producer of iron and cloth, and hats, to take his place by the side of the producer of food and wool, there could never have arisen any necessity for such laws as those passed in relation to Ireland and the colonies, and had that tendency not existed, the laws prohibiting the export of machinery would never have been required. It did exist, and it does everywhere exist, and.t was for the purpose of preventing the gradual development of a natural state of things, and bringing about an unnatural one, whereby Great Britain might be made "the work-shop of the world," that those laws were passed. The object of protection has been, and is, to restore the natural one. The effect of those laws has been that of bringing about an unnatural division of her population. The loom and the anvil,in that country, instead of being second to the plough, have become first, with great deterioration in * Porter's Progress of the Nation, Vol. I. p. 320. t-Ibid. p. 323. 54 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. the condition of both labourer and capitalist. For a long period, the few engaged in manufactures made vast fortunes; while the owners of land were enabled to obtain enormous rents, because the consumers of food increased more rapidly than the producers of food. Land gradually consolidated itself in fewer hands, and the little occupant of a few acres gradually gave way to the great farmer, who cultivated hundreds of acres by aid of hired-labour. The few became richer, and the many went to the poor-house. The value of labour, in food, was diminished, and the value of capital was also diminished, because both were, as they still are, shut out from employment on land, the only employment in which both can be used to an indefinite extent, with constant increase in the return to labour. By degrees, however, machinery was smuggled out of England, and artisans escaped therefrom; and at length there arose a necessity for legalizing the export of both, and from that time it is that manufactures on the continent of Europe have made great progress. The people there, however, have, like ourselves, laboured under great disadvantages. England had monopolized machinery for so long a time that she had acquired skill that could not readily be rivalled; while she had, by this improper division of her population, kept the price of labour and capital at a lower point-proportioned to the advantage with which they might have been applied-than among her neighbours. Her establishments were gigantic, and always ready to sink those who might undertake competition; while the unceasing changes in her monetary arrangements, the necessary consequences of the colonial system, were of themselves sufficient to spread ruin among all the nations connected with her. Our own experience has been that of all the world. The necessary consequence of the existence of such a state of things, was resistance by the various independent nations of the world, in the form of tariffs of protection; one of the first results of which was the modification of the law prohibiting the export of machinery. From that period to the present, she has been engaged in an effort to under-work other nations, despite their efforts to shut her out, and with each stage of her progress the condition of her operatives, as well as that of her farm labourers, has deteriorated. Women have been substituted for men, and children of the most immature years for women, and the hours of labour have been so far extended as to render Parliamentary interference absolutely necessary. That interference was opposed, on the ground that all the profit of the machinery resulted from the running of an additional hour. In the mining department of her trade, the system is the same, and it is impossible to read the Parliamentary Reports on the condition of her manufacturing and mining labourers, without being horrified at the awful consequences that have resulted from this effort to tax the world by monopolizing machinery. The moral effects are as bad as the physical ones. Frauds of every kind have become almost universal. Flour is substituted for cotton, in the making up of cotton cloths, to such an extent that, fifteen years since, the consumption for this purpose was estimated at forty-two millions of pounds.* The quality of iron, and of all other commodities, is uniformly reduced to the point that is required for preventing other nations from producin( such commodities for themselves. By the census of 1831, it was shown that the number of families in England and WTales was 3,303,504, of which 1,170,000 were those of agricultural occupants, or of agricultural and mining labourers, producers of things to be * These goods are generally smoother and more evenly made than American fabrics of the same cost; but they Irust be used in their dry state, as in washing their appearance is very much changed.'"-Dry Goods Reporter, Nov. 1849. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 55 converted or exchanged; leaving 2,133,000 for the converters and exchangers, and for the money-spending classes-paupers on one hand, and state annuitants, noblemen and gentlemen, on the other. Thus the products of one labourer had to be divided among three. By the census of 1841, it was shown that, notwithstanding an increase in the last ten years of 630,003 in the number of adult males, there had been an actual diminution of 19,000 in the number employed in agriculture, and thus we have almost four persons to consume the products of one. Since that date, the tendency has been in the same direction. The transporters, converters, and exchangers have been steadily and rapidly increasing in their proportion to the producers. With each step in her progress, she thus becomes less a producer, and more and more a mere exchanger, dependent upon the profits of converting and exchanging the products of other nations. This steadily increasing disproportion between the producers and the exchangers, brought about the state of things that led to the repeal of the corn laws, since the date of which there is an evident increase in the tendency to become a mere exchanger of the works of other mren's hands. The amount of her trade does not grow with the (growth required by this change. The farmer may live and maintain his family out of a crop of five hundred bushels, or even less. The shopkeeper, to live as well, must pass through his hands five thousand bushels; and what is true of the individual shopkeeper is equally true of a nation of shopkeepers, as I will now show. The man who raises his own food, and sells of it to the amount of $100, has that sum to be applied to the purchase of clothing and other of the comforts of life. He is selling the product of his own labour. The rnan who buys food to the extent of $100, and sells his products for $200, has but 8100 to be applied to the purchase of other things than food. To the extent of one-half he is selling_ the produce of the labour of others. The man who buys food and leather, each to the extent of $100, must sell $300 worth of shoes to give him $100 to be applied to the purchase of other things than food. To the extent of two-thirds he is selling the labour of others. So is it with nations. When they sell their own products, their power to purchase from others is equal to the whole amount sold. When they sell the products of cthers, whether in the same or any other form, their power of purchase is only to the extent of the difference between the price paid and the price received. The bale of cotton exported as yarn, is but the bale imported as wool, and, to the extent of the cost of the wool, represents no part of the power to purchase for consumption. The barrel of American flour exported in the form of cloth or iron, is but the barrel of flour imported, and represents no part of the power to purchase coffee, tea, or sugar. The actual or declared value of the exports of the produce and manufactures of Great Britain and Ireland, was, From 1815 to 1819, annual average,.. ~44,000,000 " 1827 to 18:34, " ".. 38,000,000 " 1845 to 1848, " ".. 50,500,000 From these sums is to be deducted, in all cases, the cost of the raw material required to produce the commodities exported. The quantity of cotton manufactured in the first period amounted to 100,000,000 of pounds per annum, and the average price was 19 pence,* M McCulloch's Corn. Diet., art. Cotton. 56 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. making the whole cost about ~8,000,000. The value of cotton goods exported was ~16,500,000, 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 exceeded ~12,000,000, leaving ~32,00),000 as the value of domestic products and labour exported by a population of 21,000,000, being equal to about ~1'10 per head, or 87'20, 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 fiom ~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 exported 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 purpose, in the year 1846, was estimated at about,. ~8,500000 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 indigo 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 these 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 what may be taken as an average of future years. TIlE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 57 If, now, we add fGr 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...... 25,800,000 To be deducted from the gross amount of exports, and leaving only....... 24,700,000 as the value of the export of the products and labour of the twenty-seven and a half millions composing the population of the United Kingdom, being about 18.. or $4132 per head, to be applied to the purchase of sugar, tea, coflte, 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 manufacture of clothing used at home. We have here a constantly diminishing quantity to be applied to the purchase of various descriptions of food that from luxuries have become necessaries cf life, and that of the materials of clothing. It follows, of course, that as fold is the article of prime necessity, the amount that each expends of cl othing is very small indeed; the consequence of which is, that the people of England, engaged 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 amount that can be expended for that purpose tending rather to decrease. Whenever a good cr )p 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 absorb the surplus that cannot be exported; and when the crop is short, the consumpltion 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 nt to vary greatly from 2s. per head, sufficient to purchase three pounds at 81., or six pounds at 4d. This will be seen by an examination of the following table: * By reference to the report of the Assistant Commissioner charged with the inquiry into the con:litioo of women and children employed in agriculture, it will be seen that a change of clotlles seems to be out of the questioti. Tlie upper parts of tile under-clothes of womenei at work, eveni their stays, quickly becolire wet with perspiration, wl'ilte lhe lower parts cannot escape getting eilqually'wet in nearly every kind of wXork in which they are employ(d, except in the driest weatlier. It not unfrequently happens tlhat a woman, ont retrllning fromn work, is obliged to go to bed for an hour or two to allow ler clothes to be (lried. It is also I)y no means uncommon for her, if she does not (lo tills, to put them on again the next miorning nearly as wet as when she took tlelt olf. Th1e evi!ece laid before Parliamlent in regard to tle situation of the operatives in coal nliies, sIrowed that menl an:d womilen, boys an(l girls, were accustomed to work togetherli t a,tate of'absoluite and entire nudity. The sloxwvess wit whllichl the power of consuming other articles than clothing has grown is remarkable. In 1S03, tltat of paper was....... 31,699,537 pounds. 1841, itl al oinest d(ou1ble the population, only.. 97,103,548 The great diminiution in tlle cost of cotton and linen cloth had been attendled with a correspolllinlg redtllction ill tlJe cost of rags, wliile there hadl been great implrovements in the nmole of lrinitifacttire. The quantity of labour that could be exchanged against paper had evidlen!tly diitinished. The conlsuinption of candles in 1801, was.. 66,999,080 pounds. In 183) it was.... 116,851,305 having little imore than kept pace with the. population. 8 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Average cost of Cotton in England. Home consumption. Money price, per head. d. s. d. 1845. 4.. 170 millions. about 2 41846.. 5.. 155 ". 2 3 1847.. 6.. 80'. " 1 7 1848.. 42.. 170 ". " 2 3 We see, thus, that she clothes her people at the cost 6f the cotton planter. She has a certain quantity 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 2,000,000 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 bcon h:g-, w lile rrices abroad would haxv fallen to a lower point than has ever yet been reached. Instead of applying her labour to the cultivation of her own soil, she pursues 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 producer 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 conversion, 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 be spun and woven, and that she may take tell 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:1.815 to 1819. 1827-1834. 1845 —1846. Cotton consunme(t, lbs.. 100,000,000 275,000,000 59000,)UO,00 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* 7/6t 6/7 A ton of nrchliant-bar iron 1.. 11 ~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 the last period were, at three cents per pound, on 496,000,000 of pounds. say $15,000,000. For this the planter would receive, in Liverpool, 470,000 additional tons of iron, the value of which, in Liverpool, at the present moment, would be about $11,000,000, 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 him 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 * McCnllocl's Statistics, Vol. II. p. 70. tThis is the average of the years from 1831 to 1834, as given in Burns's Commercial Glance, an(l cop)ied in the Merchants' Magazine, Vol. XIX. p. 277. Average of 1817 to 1819-Merchants' Magazine, Vol. XX. p. 337. TIlE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 93 obtain three and a half times the cloth that he could have had in the firstand six times the quantity to obtain a smaller quantiy of iron. A more admirable mode of taxing the world was certainly never de-vised. The result of the system is, that the productiveness of agricultural labour 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 clothirn; after this follow the conveniences and luxuries of life. If 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 producers of it was estimated at $40,000,0)0. From 1827 to 1834, both inclusive, the crops of the United States averaged 915,000 bales, and the home consumption about 145,030, leaving 800.000 for export. The average price was about $40 per bale, and the product $32,03)',009. 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, Egipt, Africa, Mexico, and elsewhere; and the total product, exclusive of that of the United States, was estitlmated at 450,000,000 of pounds, or about one-fifth more than thnt of the Union. Averaning the whole at the same price, we should now o(btain an annual expenditure, exc!ud'g our own, for cotton wool, of $7f,fOO 00.OO. From 1842 to lb4h, both inclusive, the crop averaged 2,()OO,(),0 bales, and the home consumption about 400,030, leaving 1,660,000 for export. Two hundred thousand of these may be given to the Z:sll-verein, and other countries of Europe that have protected themnselves against the system, not as the increased quantity actually taken under low prices, b,:t as that 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, i$5',000,00. 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 production, outside of the Union, is now more than one half (-of what it was thirty years since; but, at the utmost, it cannct exceed 270,000,001); 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,.. 20,00),000 $70,000,000 Showing a large reduction, notwithstandin( the increase in the number of 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 io 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 receive 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 millions of dollars more than they did sixty years since. A similar examination of the movement in regard tosugar, coffee, wool, and other articles, would yield the same results, for the exhaustion is everywhere 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 worldto 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 live 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 purchased. 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 work or not; and thus is one of the conditions of slavery re-established in that unhappy country. From being a great exporter ol food, she has now become a large importer. The great market for ndiar 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 population 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 cats, averaged 10 bushels (of 70 pounds) per head, while that of potatoes was 561 pounds per head. The cattle amounted to 2,591,000, or less than one to three persons of the population; 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 domestic, was not materially greater than at that date. If so, it follows that the whole amount of labour 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 ~5,890,000, THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 61 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 Ireland, we should find the growth to be absolutely terrific. As a full answer to this, the English economist would point to the increased consumption of certain commodities; but that increase is maintained, as we have seen, by the oppression and ruin of the agriculturist everywhere. The whole system has for its object an increase in the number of persons that are to intervene between the producer and the consumerliving on the product of the land and labour of others, diminishing the power 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 required to produce, thrice over, all the iron, and convert into cloth all the cotton and wool mnanufactured in England. The poverty of producers exists nearly in the ratio in which they 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 surprise of those of the people of England who are familiar with its vast advantages, and who do not understand 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 whichli-in climate, soil, and population-it presents to the commerce of Great Britain. At first sight, it seems to offer every thing that could be devised, in order to ind(luce to a commercial intercourse almost without limit. There is scarcely one important article of tropical produce wliichi is consumed in tils country, either as the raw material of our mannfactires, or as an article of (laily use, for the production of which India is not as well, or better, adapted than any other country; while its dense and industrious population would seern to offer an illimitable demand for our manufactures. Nor are there opposed to these natural and flattering elements of commerce any fiscal restrictions to counteract their beneficial results. Indian produce has long entered into consumption in the home markets on tile most favourable terms; while, 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.lost important articles of Indian produce show to fall off, and from tie stagnant, or rather de!lining, state of the export of our manufactures to those markets-and, perlaps, still rnor so, fromi the extremely unprofitable and unsatisfactory result which has attended both tie export and import trade with India for some time past,-that there exist somne great a1il serious impediments to the realization of the just and fair hopes entertained with rega-d 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 Catch, which once supplied cotton to half the world, have almost ceased to nroduce it. The growth and manufacture of cotton have disappeared from Bengal, which once gave to the world the Dacca muslins, the finest in the vorld. Cotton fields have everywhere relapsed into junfrle. Year after year we are told of efforts being made to increase the product 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 uader 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 perishes of starvation, the consequence cf the system-and while that policy was maintained its cultivation made some progress, but since the abolition of the restrictions 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 annexation, 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-line, 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. They 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 milkbut 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 nust 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 i- that of preventing the spinner and weaver from combining their efforts witA those *"For many years they [Messrs. Arbuthnot & Co., of Madras] have been the most extensive manufacturers of sugar in Southern India, converting to the exten: of thousands of tons annually the coarse jaggery made by the ryots into the fine prodact 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 successfill. Planters were brought from the West Indies at liberal salaries to direct the cultivation, and machinery of the most complete and extensive chateter 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 exysting system with the West Indies and the countries in which slave labour prevails mast rest for fiture consideration. At present we have arrived at the important conclusion. that, under the most favourable circumstances, we cannot hope to alter the present mode of cultivating the sugar-cane in Southern India."'-.lthenaum. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 6 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 Canadians 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 tax 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 herself will become fully obvious. It will then be seen that the wealth of that country is really, 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 invested in buildings, machinery, &c. for the cotton manufacture, in 1'3!1, was estimated at twenty millions of pounds sterlingt 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 road 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 production 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 enrichment of the few, and hence there results a show of wealth far, very far, beyond 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 followed by the Ricardo doctrine of Rent, which accounted for the scarcity of food by asserting, as a fact, that men always commenced the work of cultivation on rich soils, and that as population increased they were obliged to resort 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 Progress of the Nation, Vol. iii. p. 354. j McCulloch's Statistics, Vol. 2, page 75. 64 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 number of persons that now constitute the population of England obtain even onehalf 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 policy when abroad is to devote all their labour to the cultivation of those rich soils, sending the produce 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 emigration 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 establishment of her independence, 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 manifested 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. Throug-hout the world, and at all periods of time, men have commenced the work of cultivation 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 to subject 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 producer. 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 returning 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 diminishing 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 productive in the world, and although the people of Ireland are conpelled to waste more labour than would pay, many times over, for all the cloth and iron they consume.t The wretchedness of Scotland is charged to over* For a fall examination of this question I must refer to my book, ", The Past, the Present, and the Future." t Of single counties, Mayo, with a population of 389,000, and a rental of only 300,0001., has an area of 1,364,000 acres, of which 800,000 arc 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 433,0001., 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 redundant 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 abominatior or 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 circular advertise THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 65 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 obtaining 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 system, 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 terminate 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 years it has more than trebled. Now, let us suppose that the system of 1828 had been maintained, and that the mining of coal, the smelting and rolling of iron, and the manufacture of cotton and woollen cloths, &c. had gone on uninterruptedly, producing a great demand for labour to be employed in the various branches of manufacture, in the making of roads, the clearing of lands and the building of houses, and that the inducements for emigration to this country had been constantly increasing to such an extent as to cause the ment for tenants, " is at the rate of only one family to 230 acres; so that if but one head of a family were employed to every 230 acres, there need not be a single pauper in the entire district; a proof," he adds, "THAT NOTHING BUT EMPLOYMENT IS WANTING TO SET THIS COUNTRY TO RIGHTS!" In which opinion we fully coincide.- Hestminster Review. * Poulett Scrope, a member of the British Parliament, has inserted in the London Morning Chronicle seven letters of Notes of a Tour in the United Kingdom, with a viw to ascertain whether the labouring population be really redundant. His general conc'asion is expressed in these terms:-" I have selected striking illustrations in support of tBe view I have always entertained, and which is at length obtaining very general acoQiescence: namely, that the population of the United Kingdom is not really in excess; ilat the land is everywhere-even in the most seemingly over-peopled and pauperihed districts of Ireland-amply capable of repaying the employment of additional lIbour to an indefinite extent, if only judicious use be made of it by those whom the la,' has intrusted with its ownership, and that the law itself be so modified as to encourage, instead of discouraging, improvement, to secure to industry its due reward, and to neglect and mismanagement its fitting punishment." The notes on Ireland, afford a frightful picture of one of thr many evils with which that country is afflicted: " In Galway Union, recent accounts declared the numLer of poor evicted, and their homes levelled within the last two years, to equal the nvi-bers in Kilrush-4,000 families and 20,000 human beings are said to have been here also thrown upon the road, houseless and homeless. I can readily believe the st'ement, for to me some parts of the country appeared like an enormous graveyard —the numerous gables of the unroofed dwellings seemed to be gigantic tombstones. ~hey were, indeed, records of decay and death far more melancholy than the grave,an show. Looking on them, the doubt rose in my mind, am I in a civilized countryr Have we really a free constitution? Can such scenes be paralleled in Siberia or:affraria?" 9 66 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. ratio of increase from 1830 to 1834 to be maintained, and see what would have been the result. By the year 1839 it would have reached 300,000, and five years after it would have exceeded a million, and the growth would every year have been more rapid, for the demand for labour would have increased faster than the supply. Before this time, the flight from Great Britain and Ireland alone would have far exceeded half a million per annum, and what would be the effect of such a state of things may be conceived by those who read the following article which I take from the London Times. The flight of a quarter of a million inhabitants of these islands to distant quarters of the world in 1847, was one of the most marvellous events in the annals of human migration. The miserable circumstances under which the majority left their homes, the element traversed in quest of a refuge, the thousands of miles over which the dreary pilgrimage was protracted, the fearful casualties of the voyage by shipwreck, by famine and by fever, constituted a fact which we believe to be entirely without precedent, and compared with which the irruption of the northern races into southern Europe became mere summers excursions; but, perhaps the marvel of the event is surpassed this year. The impetus, or rather the combination of impelling causes, no longer exists. It might be supposed that so extensive a drain had exhausted the migratory elements of the nation. It might also be expected that the countries which last year could not receive the fugitive masses without much difficulty and complaint, would have offered vehement protests against an immediate renewal of the hungry invasion. It is, nevertheless, the fact that the migration of this year is nearly equal to that of the last. The grand total from all the Briti h ports for the first eleven months of last year was 244,251; for the first eleven months of this year, 220,053. Nor do these figures represent the whole truth of the case. They are merely the numbers of those who embarked at ports where there are government emigration officers, and who have passed under official review. Some thousands of the better class of emigrants are not included in the census. There can, therefore, be no doubt that in these two years more than half a million natives of these islands have fled to other shores. The annual migration, it appears, is now approaching the annual increase of our population, which is vulgarly magnified into a thousand a day, but in fact is not more than about 290,000 in the year. Now, it is not to be imagined for a moment that Great Britain, at all events, has reached the limit of its population. The capital, the stock and the "c plant" of the island are continually increasing and have lately increased more ra pidly than ever. They also demand more and more hands for their further development. Under ordinary circumstances, therefore, we should be justified in dreading a T-igration which left the population stationary; and which, with a view to the growing tratC and resources of the country, was rather a depopulation than anything else. At all events the fact suggests that a spontaneous movement of so gigantic a character may well be left t, itself, and requires no artificial stimulus. The matter certainly has come to that pass Chich makes caution the first duty of the state. It is from -reland that we draw our rough labour. The Celt-and we are bound to give him credit for it-is the hewer of wood and drawer of water to the Saxon. Can we spare that growGing mine of untaught but teachable toil? The great works of this country depend on cheap labour. The movement now in progress bids fair to affect that condition of the nqtional prosperity. The United States gain what we lose. Protection is a measure of necessary defence against a system that tends to lessen everywhere \he value of labour, and if applied effectually, the correction will be speedy, nd thenceforward trade may everywhere be free. To those who doubt this, iwould recommend an examination of the effects that would now result from tte abolition of the tariff, and the substitution of free trade for the present impeyfct protection. They could not but see that it would close every mill and furtice in the Union, cutting off a demand for 600,000 bales of cotton, and a sululy of 700,000 tons of iron. Where then should we sell the one, or where buy the other? The labourer in fac. tories and furnaces would then grow foot, but the market abroad for food is THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 67 now almost closed*-or cotton, and the market for cotton is already ruined whenever the crop touches the point of two millions and a half of bales. Protection is right or wrong. Free trade is right or wrong. If protection is right, it should be complete and fixed, until no longer needed. If free trade is right, custom-houses should be abolished. Halfway measures are always wrong. The direct effect of the maintenance of the present system, that of 1846, is to cause renewed efforts on the part of England for engrossing the market of this country, whereas a return to that of 1842, were it made with the approbation and consent of all parts of the Union, would be followed by results that would compel a change of policy. The direct effect of a thorough and complete change in our system would be, that of teaching the whole people of England that if they " expect to be prosperous and happy, they must seek those blessings in the steady pursuit of a British policy-in cultivating domestic resources-in protecting domestic interests-in drawing closely the bonds of concord, strengthened by the ties of mutual dependence among themselves, and abandoning the shadowy and delusive expectation of finding compensation in foreign commerte for the destruction of the springs of domestic consumption." The harmony of all real interests among nations is perfect. The system of England is rotten and unsound-injurious to herself and to the world. It is the cause of pauperism and wretchedness at home and abroad, and the more effective the measures that may be adopted for the purpose of compelling its abandonment, the better will it be for her and for ourselves. The road to absolute freedom of trade lies through perfect protection. CHAPTER SIXTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS COMMERCE. COMMERCE is an exchange of equivalents. The greater the number of commodities produced, the greater, other things being equal, will be the number of exchanges. Commerce tends, therefore, to grow with the increase of production. The machine of production is the earth. The instrument by aid of which it is made to produce is man. To induce man to labour, he must feel confident of obtaining an equivalent; and the larger that equivalent, the stronger will be the inducement to exertion. The more advantageously his powers are applied, the larger will be the production, and the larger the equivalent of a given quantity of labour. One man raises grain and another sugar. Each desires to exchange with the other, giving labour for labour. * The present price of flour in England varies little from $5. What is likely soon to be the price of pork, may be judged of from the following, which I take from the papers of the day. A London letter, under date of Oct. 12, from a mercantile house extensively engaged in the trade, says: i" We have the pleasure to hand you annexed our price current, in which you will see the comparative imports for the last three years; the present year showing an excess of 25,000 packages of American bacon more than the last. The general expectation with us is that prices must be very low the approaching season, from the increase of hogs in Ireland and Germany, and the very great production of hogs and all kinds of meat in this country more than usual. We incline to the opinion that should the same quantity and quality of American come to this market the next, as during the past season, one-half of it will have to be sold for soap purposes. You will have heard that our government contract for pork was taken at 10/ per cwt. less than last year, which we think is a pretty fair criterion of the market." 68 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. The quantity of grain that must be given for sugar is dependent upon the quantity of both produced. If the season be favourable for the first, the crop will be large. If unfavourable for the second, the crop will be small. Much grain will then be given for little sugar, and vice versa, if the season be favourable for sugar and unfavourable for grain, much sugar will be given for little grain. In either case both parties suffer, and commerce is diminished. Each is therefore directly interested in doing whatever may be in his power to increase the returns to the labour of his neighbour, and thus increase the extent of commerce. To increase production is, then, to increase commerce. By ascertaining the circumstances which tend to limit the one, we shall ascertain those which tend to limit the other. To do so, it is needed only to call to our aid a few simple laws that may be found in any treatise of natural philosophy. They are these:First. The greater the power, other circumstances being equal, the greater will be the effect. The producer of food labours every day and all day. The producer of sugar labours but three days in the week. The quantity of food produced is large and that of sugar small. The food-producer gives much food for little sugar-much labour for little labour. What is true of individuals is equally true of communities. If the community of food-producers work every day, and that of sugar-producers but three days in the week, the whole of the first will be taxed because of the indolence of the last, and commerce will be diminished. If the whole community of food-producers work every day, and one half of that of iron-producers do not work-or if they apply their labour to other works than those of production-the quantity of iron produced will be small, and much food will be given for little iron. If the food-producing community could induce the workers in iron to labour every day and all day, there would be more iron to be given for food, commerce would be increased, and all would profit thereby. By what means could this be accomplished? To ascertain this, we must inquire the causes of their working so little. Doing so, we might find that among them there was a large proportion perfectly able to labour productively, but unwilling so to do; that some of them employed themselves in carrying muskets, casting cannon, building forts and palaces, constructing ships of war and sailing in them; and that others did nothing except so far as they were employed in devising modes of enabling them, out of the labour of others, to support themselves and those employed in the various operations to which I have referred; and that hosts of others were employed in carrying back and forth the products of the lands of others, and keeping accounts of what they did, and that thus one half of the community produced nothing, while consuming much. The other half we might find to consist of men who were sometimes willing to work but not able, having no work to do, and at others able but not willing, because of the small equivalent obtained, by reason of the necessity for contributing so large a portion of their earnings to the support of those who carried the muskets, built the ships and kept the accounts; and the result might be, that we should find that, although the food-producers gave much, the iron-producers received little, the principal part being swallowed up by the intermediate men, who consumed much while producing nothing. It is obvious that if all worked, there would be three times as much iron produced, that commerce would be increased, and that the producer of food would obtain far more iron as the equivalent of far less food. The food-producing community is therefore contributing largely towards the support of those of the iron-producing one who are able to work and not willing to do so; and their condition will be improved if they can induce those who are able THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 69 and willing to work to come forth from among those who are neither able nor willing, leaving the latter class to produce food and iron for themselves. The amount of power to be applied will be increased, and the product will be greater, while there will be fewer among whom to divide it. The return to labour will be larger, and the power of accumulation will be increased. Second. The more directly power is applied, the greater is its effect. The producers of food and iron are distant from each other, and the labour required for effecting their exchanges is great. The one obtains his iron by the indirect process of raising food for distant men. The other obtains his food by that of making iron for distant men, and many horses and wagons, ships and men, stand between them. The friction is great and production is small. The equivalents to be exchanged are few in number, and commerce is limited. The equivalent of a day's labour in either food or iron is small. If the producer of iron could draw near to the producer of food, the number of horses and wagons, ships and men, standing between them, would be diminished, and the number of producers would be increased. The equivalents to be exchanged would increase in number, commerce would grow, and the equivalent of a day's labour would be greater. Third. The more steadily power is applied, the greater is its effect. At one moment the wind blows a gale, while at another there is a calm. The steam-engine works every day and all day, and although the amount of power applied is less, the voyage is made in shorter time. To secure the steady application of power, the air-chamber is provided, and the force produced by the action of the piston-rod is by its aid distributed over the whole period intervening between the strokes. The producer of food is often idle. At other times he is moderately employed. In harvest times he is hurried, and he loses part of his crop for want of aid. If he could have the equivalent of an air-chamber, by aid of which his efforts could be divided over the year, the return obtained for his labours would be largely increased. The producer of iron may labour at all seasons, but a large portion of his work-the mining of coal and ore-may be done in advance, and when he has a stock on hand he can suspend his operations for a season. If the producer of food could induce him to come and labour in his vicinity, he could at one period of the year help him to mine or transport ore and fuel, and the other could, at another period, aid him in gathering his crop. The first could then cultivate more land, and the equivalent of labour, in both food and iron, would be increased, and commerce would grow in extent with the increase of equivalents to be exchanged. Fourth. The more perfect the machinery the smaller will be the quantity required, the less will be the friction, and the greater will be the effect. The iron wheels of the engine encounter little friction in passing on the iron rail, and the force of a man's hand moves tons, where, if applied to a cartwheel, it could not move a hundred. The producer of food obtains from the distant iron man small supplies of iron as the equivalent of large quantities of food. He is therefore obliged to use wood where he would desire to use iron. The friction is great, and labour is unproductive. The equivalent of a day's labour is small. If he could induce the iron man to come near him, the equivalent of labour would be largely increased, and he could use iron in place of wood. Fifth. The more enduring the machinery, the smaller will be the quantity of labour required for its reproduction, and the greater will be the quantity that may be given to the production of further machinery. The wooden post rots, and must be replaced. The iron one endures almost for ever. The producer of food, distant from the producer of iron, builds ships, and 70 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. fences his land with wooden posts. Much of his time is occupied in repairing and renewing them. If he could induce the producer of iron to live near him, he would assist in building furnaces, and might then use iron posts; and then labour that would otherwise be employed in renewing old, might be given to creating new machinery of other kinds, to aid in the work of production, and the equivalent of a day's labour would be increased. We see, thus, that the larger the quantity of labour, and the more directly and steadily it is applied, and the more perfect and enduring the machinery by which it is aided, the larger is the return to labour, and the greater the number of equivalents to be exchanged. Let us now suppose, first, that one community has it in its power to monopolize the production of iron, and that of its members many spend all their time in idleness, while others are but occasionally employed-that many spend their time in carrying muskets on their shoulders, while very many are dissolute and drunken-and that the result is, that the quantity of iron produced is but one half or one-third of what it would otherwise be. Commerce is but an exchange of equivalents, and the quantity of food that must be given for a ton of iron is double what it would otherwise be. It is obvious that the food-producing community is taxed for the support of the idle and worthless members of the iron-producing community. Second. That, in addition to all this, the iron-producing community is thus enabled to compel the food-producing community to be idle, when their labours are not needed on the farm, and to lose their crops for want of aid in harvest. It is obvious that here is a second tax imposed for the support of the non-workers among the producers of iron. Third. That the scarcity of iron compels the food-producing community to use wagons and common roads when they might have railroads, and to give to the work of transportation ten days' labour instead of one. Here, again, we have a tax imposed for the support of the non-workers among the producers of iron. The food-producers are compelled to transport their products to a distance, and deprived of the power to make roads by which to do it. Fourth. That the producers of food are compelled to employ more labour in building ships and wagons, and other perishable machinery, than would have been sufficient to build the furnaces and rolling mills, enduring machinery, required to give them all the iron they consumed. Here we have a fourth tax imposed for the support of the non-workers among the producers of iron. Each one of these operations tends to diminish the number of equivalents that may be exchanged, the number of exchanges made, and the equivalent of a day's labour, in food, iron, or other of the comforts or conveniences of life, and the result is, that the product of labour is scarcely one-fifth of what it would be, were all productively employed. These things premised, we may now examine the working of the colonial system. Colonists are men who work. Of those who remain behind, a large portion do not work. Some live in poor-houses, and others in palaces. Some dance and sing, and others carry muskets. Some build ships of war, and others sail in them. The producers are few. The non-producers are many; yet they must eat, drink, wear clothing, and have houses, and these things must be provided for them by those who work. If all worked, the quantity of iron produced would be large, and those who produced food would get much iron in exchange. As few desire to work, and all must eat, the colonial system was invented for the purpose of compelling colonists to give much food and wool for little iron. The consequence has been everywhere the same. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 71 While thus taxed for the maintenance of the money-spending classes, the colonists everywhere have been compelled to waste much labour, to work with poor machinery, and to give more of the products of labour for the use of that which is perishable than would have produced that which would endure almost for ever. Production is small. The equivalents to be exchanged are diminishing in number. Commerce is perishing. The Irishman is compelled to waste much labour.* He works with poor machinery. He gives half the product of his labour for the use of wagons and ships. He eats his crop of potatoes, and goes in rags. He has nothing to exchange.t He flies to America, and the number of exchanges to be made in Ireland, and from Ireland, is thus diminished. The Hindoo flies from the valleys and plains to the hills, that he may escape from the system. Arrived at the hills, he finds no demand for his labour but in the cultivation of his little piece of land. He works with poor machinery, and his miserable product of fifty pounds of cotton to the acre is transported to Manchester, thence to be returned to him in the form of cloth, getting one pound for ten; and thus giving nine-tenths of his labour for the use of ships and wagons, perishable machinery, when one-fifth would have done the work at hore, could he have had permanent machinery. He flies again, or he dies of famine and pestilence, or he sells himself as a slave, to go to Demerara; and thus is the number of the exchanges of India, and from India, diminished. Men are everywhere flying from British commerce, which everywhere pursues them. Having exhausted the people of the lower lands of India, it follows them as they retreat towards the fastnesses of the Himalaya. Affghanistan is attempted, while Scinde and the Punjaub are subjugated. Siamese provinces are added to the empire of free trade, and war and desolation are carried into China, in order that the Chinese may be compelled to pay for the use of ships, instead of making looms. The Irishman flies to Canada; but there the system follows him, and he feels himself insecure until within this Union. The Englishman and the Scotchman try Southern Africa, and thence they fly to the more distant New Holland, Van Diemen's Land, or New Zealand. The farther they fly, the more they must use ships and other perishable machinery, the less steadily can their efforts be applied, the less must be the power of production, and the fewer must be the equivalents to be exchanged, and yet in the growth of ships, caused by such circumstances, we are told to look for evidence of prosperous commerce! The British system is built upon cheap labour, by which is meant low * In 1842, three years before the potato rot, Ireland was thus described by an English traveller: " Throughout the south and west of Ireland, the traveller is haunted by the face of the popular starvation. It is not the exception-it is the condition of the people. In this fairest and richest of countries, men are suffering and starving by millions. There are thousands of them, at this minute, stretched in the sunshine at their cabin doors with no work, scarcely any food, no hope seemingly. Strong countrymen are lying in bed, cfor the hunger'-because a man lying on his back does not need so much food as a person a-foot. Many of them have torn up the unripe potatoes from their little gardens, and to exist now must look to winter, when they shall have to suffer starvation and cold too."-Thackaray. Irish Sketch Book. t People with whom starvation is the condition" of life, consume little of that clothing which England furnishes in exchange for so much labour. ( Everywhere, throughout all parts, even in the best towns, and in Dublin itself, you will meet men and boys-not dressed, not covered-but hung round with a collection of rags of unrivalled variety, squalidity, and filth-walking dunghills. * * * No one ever saw in English scarecrow with such rags."-Quarterly Review. Transferred to this country, every one of these men would become a large consumer ot food and cotton, and thus commerce would be increased. 72 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. priced and worthless labour.* Its effect is to cause it to become from day to day more low priced and worthless, and thus to destroy production upon which commerce must be based. The object of protection is to produce dear labour, that is, high-priced and valuable labour, and its effect is to cause it to increase in value from day to day, and to increase the equivalents to be exchanged, to the great increase of commerce. The object of what is now called free-trade is that of securing to the people of England the further existence of the monopoly of machinery, by aid of which Ireland and India have been ruined, and commerce prostrated. Protection seeks to break down this monopoly, and to cause the loom and the anvil to take their natural places by the side of the food and the cotton, that production may be increased, and that commerce may revive. How far it has tended here to produce that effect we may now examine. Prior to the passage of the tariff of 1828, our exchanges of iron amounted to only 25 pounds per head. By 1832 they had increased to 46 pounds per head. Commerce thus had grown. From 1834 to 1841, they averaged 45 pounds per head. Commerce was stationary. In 1841 and'42, it fell to 38 pounds. Commerce had fallen with what was called free-trade. From 1844 to 1847, the equivalents of iron to be exchanged had increased to 97 pounds per head. Commerce had grown with protection. They are now 73 pounds per head. Commerce has fallen with the diminution of protection. If we turn now to coal, cotton, woollens, ships, or railroads, similar facts meet us everywhere. The number of exchanges grows with the system that looks to the elevation of the labourer. It diminishes with that which looks for its growth to the depression of the labourer. The interests of commerce are therefore in perfect harmony with those of manufactures and agriculture. The one system repels population. The other attracts it, and hence it l The poor silk weaver described in the following paragraph, which I take from the London Spectator, is the type of the system. He works so' cheap' that he starves the poor Hindoo, and then starves himself. i" His case wouldnot be cured by protection." What he needs is the transfer of his labour from what is here called,"production," but what is really only the conversion of the products of others, to that only thing which can be called production, and which consists in an increase of the quantity of commodities to be consumed. He merely changes their form from silk to silken cloth. Were his labours employed on any of the many millions of rich yet waste land within the kingdom, he would obtain more and better food, at less cost of labour. He could then feed better, and have more to offer in exchange. Commerce would then grow. "Nearer to us, in the outlying parts of the metropolis, the traveller of' The Morning Chronicle' describes regions where the people are hopelessly contending with a system of industry that is fostered by commerce, because it yields'profit,' and is peopled, because it sometimes yields subsistence-the means of keeping body and soul together, though not always that. We know that the describer does not exaggerate. Many and many a man toils, with others of his family, from dark before the dawn until far into the next night, as long as human endurance will last, and then the produce of their industry falls short of subsistence. You say,'it is a decaying trade.' It is not a decaying trade: read'The Morning Chronicle,' and see how the workman makes silk which, in spite of free trade, not only beats the Frenchman out of the market, it is so good and so'cheap,' but is further cheapened to bribe customers with reductions of prices filched from the wages of the miserable workman. Protection would not cure that man's case. Go round the district, stranger to you than Brussels, Lyons, or Genoa, and survey the dull, level aspect of poverty over all-poor workpeople, poor small tradesmen-a town of back streets. See the number of shops dealing in articles at second hand-not merely pawn-shops, but small clothesdealers, traders in shop-marked stationery, dealers in apples that have seen better years in happier regions; the very grocery looks window-stained. Production, production, in a ceaseless round, but not enough subsistence for that sad nation; many things made and sold, and resold, but too few of them things to eat." THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 73 is that we see the whole people of Europe anxious to reach our shores. Abolish protection and immigration will cease, and commerce will diminish, for there will be less cloth and iron to be exchanged against labour. Make protection perfect and permanent, and immigration will increase rapidly, for there will be more cloth and iron to be exchanged against labour. Were Ireland this day free, she would establish protection and thus arrest emigration. Food, and cloth, and iron, would become more abundant, and commerce would grow. Were Canada independent, she would establish protection, and then she would retain the immigrant coming from Ireland or England. Were India independent, she too would establish protection, and then the culture of cotton would be resumed on the rich lands of Bengal. In all these cases production would be increased, and the power to maintain commerce would grow. The people of the United States are the best customers to the people of England, because they are in some degree protected against the exhaustion consequent upon the existence of their system. Ireland cannot buy, and she is reduced to beg. Were she independent she would make iron, and then she could buy fine cloths, silks, books and pictures. The well-understood interests of all nations are in perfect harmony with each other. The object of free trade is proclaimed to be the increase of commerce, but commerce withers under it. Ireland now consumes a pound of cotton per head. Transfer an Irishman here, and he will consume a dozen pounds, and 700,000 of her people would make more trade between the producers and consumers of cotton than is now maintained with the whole eight millions of Ireland. Were she free, she would adopt protection, and trade would grow, for she would then need six pounds per head. The commerce of the Zollverein has grown with protection. The people of Germany now consume two pounds of cotton where before they consumed but one. The commerce of India diminishes with every approach to what is called free trade. The producers of cotton on the lower lands of Bengal could have, as the equivalent of a day's labour, quadruple the iron that can be obtained now that the cultivator of that commodity has been driven to seek the high and poor lands. The free trader, so called, says to the farmer, "You can have English iron in New York for thirty bushels of wheat, but you must hand over to the Treasury ten bushels for permission to make the exchange. If you take a ton of American iron, you must give to the producer of it forty bushels, and thus are you taxed ten bushels for the support of the iron man." Abolish protection and we shall have more food to sell abroad and more iron to buy abroad, and will need more wagons and ships, and it will then take sixty bushels of wheat-perhaps even one hundred-to pay for a ton of iron. The quantity to be exchanged will then fall to 20 pounds per head, and commerce will be diminished. The farmer has his choice between giving thirty bushels for the support of the people who dance and sing and live in palaces, and that of those who carry muskets, or ten for the maintenance of the government under which he lives. The more he gives to the first, the more and the longer he must continue to give, the poorer he must grow, and the less will be the power to maintain commerce. That such is the case will be obvious from an examination of facts given in the last chapter. In the years from 1827 to 1834, 275,000,000 pounds of cotton would have purchased 1,250,000 tons of iron. In 1845-6, 600,000,000 were required to pay for 1,200,000 tons. What became of the difference? Were the English miners better clothed? On the contrary, it was but little before that time that it 10 74 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. was made known to the world that males and. females worked together in the mines, absolutely naked. Was the condition of the people better? On the contrary, Ireland was fast becoming a great poor-house, and the poorrates of England were fast advancing to the point they have now attained, that of ~8,000,000 per annum. What then went with the difference? The question may be answered by pointing to the vast increase of public expenditure in the last fifteen years, during which the number of men who carry muskets and build ships of war has been so largely increased; to the innumerable and expensive commissions for ascertaining the causes of distress and pauperism; to the great fortunes of bankers and successful speculators; to men like Hudson, the rail-road king; to the large number who have in the late railroad speculation realized immense fortunes, as engineers, solicitors, counsellors and parliamentary agents, and to the host of others who fatten on the people. The productive power is diminishing, and the few become greater as the many become less. With every step in the progress of the latter, the power to maintain commerce diminishes, for the people become poorer, and the power to produce commodities to be given in exchange becomes more and more limited. Whatever the occurrence that tends to diminish production, whether wars or revolutions, the increase of armies and fleets without the actual occurrence of war, or the increase of inequality, the few becoming richer and the many poorer, the effect is to impose a tax upon the consumers of the commodity the production of which is thus restrained. Under a system of real freedom of trade the chief portion of this tax would be paid by the actors themselves, for the immediate effect of such occurrences would be that of stimulating other nations to increased exertions to fill the vacuum that had been created. Under the system which gives to one nation a monopoly of the machinery for converting the products of other nations, a large portion of the tax may be, and is thrown upon them, and thus are they made to contribute largely towards the maintenance of all that class, poor and rich, who prefer to live by the labour of others. We have seen that the quantity of cotton consumed in 1845 and'46 averaged 596,000,000 pounds, that the price of gray cloth was 6s. 7d., and that 34,700,000 pieces delivered in Liverpool would have been required to pay for the cotton also delivered in Liverpool-all freights, charges, &c., being thus left for the planter to pay. The average work of operatives in this country would be the conversion of 4000 pounds of cotton into cloth of this description. In England, we may set it down at 3000, and this would require 200,000 to convert the whole quantity. Allowing them to average even ~30 each,* the wages would amount to X6,000,000, and the product would be 92,000,000 of pieces, 35,000,000 of which would pay for the cotton, leaving 57,000,000 Worth...... 19,000,000 From which deduct the labour performed, say, 6,000,000t And there remain for interest, profits, &c.,. ~13,000,000 In order that large profits be realized, it is necessary that the price of the raw material be kept low; a state of things which results necessarily from the quantity requiring to be converted bearing a large proportion to the machinery prepared for its conversion. The mode of accomplishing this is simple. The first indication of a tendency to rise in the price is met by * The result of careful inquiry, in 1833, gave 10s. 5d. as the average of operatives, male and female, mechanics, engineers, &c. This would be ~27, Is. Sd. for the year. t This is 22d. per pound, which is much more than the truth. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 75 working short hours, the effect of which is to diminish the wages of labour to a point so near the cost of food and rent, and taxes on both, that the power of purchasing clothing is almost destroyed; and therefore it is that we see such prodigious changes in home consumption whenever a small rise of prices takes place. The stock begins to accumulate, and with its accumulation the price falls. Mills again run full time, and so they continue until another rise takes place, when the same operation is performed, as is at this moment being the case. The exchanger, owner of machinery, thus stands between the labourer who produces, and the labourer who consumes the cotton, fixing the price for both, and taking for himself the largest share; and thus it is that men accumulate colossal fortunes, while surrounded by men, women, and children living in poverty and clothed in rags.* Of the burden thus thrown upon " Rothschild may be taken as the type of the whole system, and the following notice of him and of his modes of taxing those by whom he was surrounded, furnishes a picture of the speculators of every kind, in England, who live at the cost of the labourers of the world:": The name of Nathan Meyer Rothschild was in the mouths of all city men as a prodigy of success. Cautiously, however, did the capitalist proceed, until he had made a fortune as great as his future reputation. He revived all the arts of an older period. He employed brokers to depress or raise the market for his benefit, and is said in one day to have purchased to the extent of four millions. The name of Rothschild as contractor for an English loan made its first public appearance in 1819. But the twelve millions for which he then became responsible went to a discount. It was said, however, that Mr. Rothschild had relieved himself from all liability before the calamity could reach him. From this year his transactions pervaded the entire globe. The Old and the New World alike bore witness to his skill; and with the profits of a single loan he purchased an estate which cost ~150,000. Minor capitalists, like parasitical plants, clung to him, and were always ready to advance their money in speculations at his bidding. Nothing seemed too gigantic for his grasp; nothing too minute for his notice. His mind was as capable of calculating a loan for millions as of calculating the lowest possible amount on zwhich a clerk could exist. Like too many great merchants, whose profits were counted by thousands, he paid his assistants the smallest amountfor which he couldprocure them. He became the high-priest of the temple of Janus, and the coupons raised by the capitalist for a despotic state were more than a match for the cannon of the revolutionist. "From most of the speculations of 1824 and 1825, Mr. Rothschild kept wisely aloof. The Alliance Life and Fire Assurance Company, which owes its origin to this period, was, however, produced under his auspices, and its great success is a proof of his forethought. None of the loans with which he was connected were ever repudiated; and when the crash of that sad period came, the great Hebrew looked coldly and calmly on, and congratulated himself on his caution. At his counting-house, a fair price might be procured for any amount of stock, which, at a critical time, would have depressed the public market; and it was no uncommon circumstance for brokers to apply at the office of Mr. Rothschiid, instead of going in the Stock Exchange. He has, however, beel occasionally surpassed in cunning; and on one occasion a great banker lent Rothschild a million and a half on the security of consols, the price of which was then 84. The terms on which the money was lent were simple. If the price reached 74, the banker might claim the stock at 70; but Rothschild felt satisfied that, with so large a sum out of the market, the bargain was tolerably safe. The banker, however, as much a Jew as Rothschild, had a plan of his own. 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 himself, 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 Bank of England. Mr. Rothschild was in want of bullion, and went to the governor to procure on loan a portion of the superfluous store. His wishes were met; the terms were agreed on; the period was named for its return; and the affiir finished for the time. The gold was used by the financier; his end was answered, and the day arrived on which hie was to return the borrowed metal. Punctual to the time appointed, Mr. Rothschild enteret d and those who remember his personal appearance may imagine til 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 government, which taxes every note, bill or bond- servants, horses, carriages, &c. &c. Vast sums go to the maintenance of lawyers 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 labour 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 may be 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 transportation 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 ~1, 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 comcunning twinkle of his small, quick eye, as, ushered into the presence of the governor, he handed the borrowed amount in bank notes. He was reminded of his agreement, and 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. 7d. required to produce it about 6- pounds of cotton The price was thus almost exactly a shilling per pound. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 77 pelling those who desire to purchase labour to give for it the proper equivalent 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 1845-6 than from 1827 to'34. In opposition to this unquestionable fact, the late Secretary of the Treasury asserted that, "experience proves that from improved machinery, 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 producer 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."t 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 exchange." 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 maintain 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 ourselves tends to reduce the wages of our labour to a level with theirs, and to diminish commerce. That which should give us power to trade with nations 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 civilization, 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, 1848. t 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 accomplished 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 appropriated to the purchase of clothing, to the education of his family, to the enlargement 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 improvement 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 civilization. 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, obtainable 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 cultivator 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 with 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 commodities 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 rapidlyto 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 obtained-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 abundance. Limestone abounds close to the great Schuylkill region, and it may be obtained with as little labour as anywhere 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 reduction, cannot fail to be of immense sources of wealth. 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. Briggs closes his report on iron ore as follows:-" A very low calculation of the amount of good iron ore in the region which has this season been explored, is equal to a solid, unbroken stratum, sixty miles in length, sixty miles in width, and three feet in thickness. A square mile of this 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 counties alone, will yield annually, for 2700 years, 400,000 tons of iron-more than equai 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 pleasure 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 contains from 75 to 90 per cent. of pure iron, and metal made from it by the Jackson Company 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. Such 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 1828, 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 description, 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 may be found in the fact that up to the Revolution, the manufacture of iron, even that of horse-shoe nails, was prohibited, and there existed no inducement to erect works for the smelting 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 7A per cent. and gradually rising until they had attained, before the war of 1812, 17' 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 $60, 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 $30 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 $6 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 although 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 produce, 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 upon them, the producers of all we consume, 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 valuewheat 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 return 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 exchanges. The farmer who is compelled to resort to the distant mill employs 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 work. 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, to 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, &c., when not needed on the farm. The man of Tennessee sends to market 300 bushels of corn, for which he receives in return one ton of iron, the money-cost of which is $60, but the labour-cost of which is the cultivation of ten acres of land. If he could follow his corn, he would find that the men who get out his iron receive but 30 or 40 bushels, and that the remaining 260 or 270 are swallowed up by the numerous transporters and exchangers that stand between himself and the men whom he thus 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 tr enable the holders to find purchasers, and so long as we shall continue to have a surplus of food for export, the price of the whole must continue to be regulated by that which can be obtained for the trivial quantity sepe 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 farnmer 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 production of forty bushels of corn, and yet he gives for it three hundred, because of the quantity of labour wasted i, transporting the one to the man who produces the other. The prices of labour and iron aee both higher than in Europe, and therefore we import both. The Rpic of food is lower than in Europe, and therefore we export it. Whe.iever 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 expert 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, embracing the six years which followed the passage of the act of 1824, the consumption 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 46 pounds for the next nine years. Under the strictly revenue clauses of the tariff it fell to 38 pounds, being less than the consumption of eleven years before. By 1846, 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 82 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, diminishing 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 exchanges; 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 resulting 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 merchant-bar iron are thus given:~. ~ s. ~. ~ s. ~ s. ~ s. 1816-11 0 8 15 1827- 9 10( 8 15 1837-10 5@ 6 15 1817- 8 10(@13 0 1828- 9 0 7 15 1838- 9 10@ 9 15 1818 —1 0@10 0 1829- 7 10@ 6 12 1839-10 5 9 10 1819-11 19 11 0 1830- 6 15@ 6 5 1840- 9 0@ 8 0 1820-1100 @ 910 1831- 6 5 517 1841- 7 15 0 0 1821- 9 10@ 8 15 1832- 6 5 5 10 1842- 6 10 5 5 1822- 8 10S b 0 1833- 6 15 @ 7 15 1843- 5 0 4 10 1824-13 0( 8 15 1834-6 10)@ 712 1844- 6 6@ 5 0 1825-15 0@11 10 1835- 8 5@ 6 5 1845- 6 10@ 9 0 1826-11 0@ 9 10 136 —11 10 @ 10 5 1846- 9 0 We have here R4 10=( 21 60, and 15=-$72, and every price between. Why should these enormous variations take place? It costs no more labour to make iron at one time thah at another. The man who mined a ton of ore or coal in 1832, when the price was ~510, could mine more than a ton in 1846, because machinery had beer greatly improved, and yet the price was then ~9. The season may be adverse for the growth of grain or cotton, and the rot may destroy 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 ftaard 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 wars 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 was 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 important 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. p. 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 rapidly, as our furnaces are being closed and their owners ruined. The power to consume declines 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 iron-making is like buying lottery tickets, and the blanks are more numerous than the prizes. That time arrived, pig iron may be again $40 and bars $80 per ton. So 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 consumption of this important article, and 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 hone 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 believing that it will 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 transporters, 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 far increased that consumption would fall to the point at which it stood in 1821. Perfect protection would soon quadruple our production, and vast nuinbers 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 mot;re for investing in furnaces 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 to inquire what would have been the result, had the production gone on to increase at the rate of only 15 per cert. 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 J. 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 building packet 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 behind. 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 production. 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 required 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 consuming all the commodities necessary for the convenience and comfort of man. In other words, there would have been a great increase in the profits 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 additin would have given them roads by which to go to market at half the present cost. Their necessity for going to distant markets would have diminished, while their power so to do would have increased, 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 advantage 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 surplus would have been appropriated to the purchase of books and newspapers, 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 increasing 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 by 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 Pennsylvania, 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 produced 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 allowed 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 1816 to 1824, but neither grew, because the iron manufacture, the cotton and the woollen manufactures, did not grow; and so would it now be, were iron and coal protected at the cost of cotton and wool. All wax and wane together, and the 86 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. man who would protect himself at the cost 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 foundery, the machine-shop, the cutler'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 discords. 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, however, 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 neighbourhood 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 new 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 difficulty 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 home, 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 distance 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 without 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 five weeks, bringing emigrants from Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, 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 persons 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 30,000 to 50,000 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 prevailing 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 demand 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 300,000; and thus 900,000 * Burlington (Iowa) Gazette. 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 Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia, benefits all those who are already in Wisconsin and Iowa. They profit by free-trade and would be injured by protection. 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 1832-3, Iowa, Wisconsin, &c., would now be populous States, as I propose-now to show. From 1821 to 1825, there existed no inducement for emigration from Europe to this country. Wages here were low, and the difficulty of obtaining employment was great. The average number of immigrants was but 7138, 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 number 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 obtaining the things for which men are willing to labour; offering new attractions for the labourer, and producing a further increased tendency in the same direction. In a former chapter, I have supposed that it might bythis time have reached 1,000,000 per annum, and that it would have done had it doubled but once in four years. A duplication 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 6,000,000, 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 by 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 steamboats 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 extdnded 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 immigration of the present year would probably far exceed even half-a-million; whereas, there is every reason to believe that there will be a great diminution. 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 not make them of themselves, and none would trust them individually with the means necessary for their construction. 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 consequence of which was, that immigration ceased to increase; and it was precisely 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 themselves 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 government 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 productive, they must pass through countries where men consume on the land a good portion of the products of the land, and 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 purchases 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 compact, 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 manufactures, 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 shipping. 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 calculated upon. The rise of freights will, as a matter of course, diminish the number of articles that will bear exportation, and the quantity of merchandise 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. Whatever tends to increase the bulk of the commodities imported tends equally to diminish the cost of transportation, and to increase the export of the products of the farmer and planter. If we imported raw silk, we should import Frenchmen to manufacture it, and coffee for them to drink, and the ships that imported the silk, the men, and the coffee, 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 commerce 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 shipping 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 persons, 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 first exports both food and population. The bulk of her trade is altogether outward, and the food 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 depopulation. The second exports food and lumber, and imports some population for h1orre 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 free, 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 employed, 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 50,000,000 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 intelligence. Large armies and hosts of officials are maintained out of her heavy taxes, paid from the earnings of the producing classes, while the existence of serfdom, and the necessity for giving so large a portion of the lives of the healthiest and best-formed of the population to the business of carrying sabres and muskets, tends to prevent the existence of any hope of improvement; and without hope there can be little disposition for exertion. Nevertheless, as we see, the Russian has food to waste, while Irishmen perish by tens of thousands of starvation. In this country the system of protection exists. 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 point. 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 consumption 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 of twenty millions 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 as in Liverpool, and now even higher. The produce of Russia has to bear all the charges out and home, and the consequence 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 transporting wheat and flour from our side of the line is so much lower than from the other, that both now pass through New York on their way to Liverpool.* 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 bonding 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 much 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' estimates, and I think with tolerable accuracy, that our farmers will this year lose $1,500,000, from a want of having free access for their produce to your markets. The Convention of Delegates from each 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 Brunswick, 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 soma 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 perfect 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 bd 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 labour when employed, 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 advantage 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. 6d.-$1-80 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 whom England has 800,000, without work for one-third of the number,t consume little food or cotton. Transfer them 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 five 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 transferred 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 of 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 valuable return freight, he need pay scarcely any portion of the cost. To California, we must 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, and the consequence is, that every emigrant to that country is a customer lost to the 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, the richer that country will 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 exporting to the West, to Texas, Oregon, and California, this most valuable of all commodities, receiving' London Economist, Vol. VI. p. 259. t Edinburgh Review, October, 1849. t 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 lesolated 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 infinding a population to welcome the monarch on the beautiful but now desolate shores of Loch Long and Loch Atwe. 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 Laggan."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 States retain scarcely any of them. All must go West, 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 manufacturing state, nothing remains but to beat or be beaten."* These losses are of perpetual recurrence. They are a natural consequence 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 last 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 5,062,000 226,000 6' 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 probably 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 will continue 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 idea here that it is not improbable the United States may become an importing country for grain, as on some previous occasion about ten or twelve years ago. We regard this as highly improbable ourselves, although Sturges allude to it in their commercial circular to-day. It is said Mark Lane governs the world's grain prices: and, if so, the European range may certainly be expected to be very low, for the fall here is fully 5s. to 6s. per quarter, one-sixth of the entire value, within the last month. Oats are down t 16s. per quarter."-London Correspondent of the National Intelligencer. The shipments of both wheat and flour have already fallen off in a most extraordinary degree, since freights have somewhat advanced. In September, flour was carried to Liverpool for 6d. a barrel, and sometimes even less. The lapse of two months has brought the charge up to 18d., 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 November: 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 diminution, 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 California 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 roadt will 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 wheat 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 1842t. 101,000.. 112.. 5.74 1843. 75,000.. 75.. 4.47 1844. 74,000.. 89.. 4-70 New York Herald. t c" Your receipts of beef from Missouri will be very moderate this winter, in consequence of the great demand for cattle to carry emigrants to California."-_Corresponden of the Tribune. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 97 Years. Immigration. Price of Wheat in Philad. Price of Flour in N. Y. 1845. 102,000.. 86*. 4-52* 1846. 147,000.. 1-04.. 5-23 1847. 234,000.. 1 33.. 5-96 [potato rot.] 1848. 229,000.. 1-19. about 5-25 1849. 299,000 5'00 If we convert into iron delivered back upon the farm, free of duty, all the food that 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 in commodities of which the earth yields by tons, as potatoes or hay-or in straw that would otherwise be wasted-or in labour not requiredon the farm, and then estimate how many tons might have been obtainedlby the producers of this grain, had they made a market on the land for tJe products of the land. Let us now suppose that instead of closing oldfurnaces we had built fifty new ones, each capable of making 5000 ton,'with rolling-mills to convert the product into bars, and had thus applie44he labour of some of those immigrants; and that we were now maieg, as we might readily be doing, 250,000 tons of iron more than w amade last year, would not that alone have made a permanent market pdthe land for as much of the products of the farmer as we have exporte/to England? Would not that have reduced the cost of iron? Would itXot have raised the price of labour? Would it not have promoted immi gdtion? Would it not have promoted the building of ships and the reducton 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 would 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 he 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 not import consumers enough; and, Second: of those whom we do import too many are forced to become producers of food, in consequence of tAe difficulty attendant upon employing themselves in other pursuits vfere they would be consumers of food. The man who works in a coa mine earns $300 a year, and perhaps more. Much of this goes obr food, * Some of these variations are, of course, attributable to the extent of 9e crop. The yield of wheat in the West in this year was larger than in any since 180. t Offers have been made to transport coal to France at little mor 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 consumer to the full extent of his 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 $12,000,000, which is far more than we can expect to export in future years. We 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 20,000working-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 existence 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 hamv to go abroad. In the one case, they obtain nearly as much more than the price in distant markets as the cost of transportationfrom those markets, whereas, when they have to go abroad, hey obtain as much less than the price in those markets as the cost of transprtation to those markets, and the price of the whole is regulated by that wheich can be obtainedfor the trivial surplus. GCain 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, receiving 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 mechanics 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 produce. Such, then, must be the case with other countries. We know that under the protective system miners and mechanics 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 expot 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 protective system, and the result has been to increase the consumers and diminish t'e producers; and if all the world could follow our example, the supply of fotd now pouring into "the great grain market of the world" would be so har diminished that the price would rise. This, however, is THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 99 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 already 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 extension 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 of the Union, and of the world. Let us next examine the working of the system in Canada, in which there being, almost 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 articles is so great that the consumption of them is small. The whole export of cotton cloth from Great Britain to her North American possessions, 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 line 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 cormmodities 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 grain-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. Instead 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 ad vantage of the planter. The farmer of Illinois might then safely admit of free trade with 100 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. his Canadian neighbours, because with increased home consumption they would experience 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 free, 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 thefarm and the plantation into cloth and iron, closing the factories and furnaces of Russia, Germany, and the United States, and compelling the people who work in them to seek other modes of employment, 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 whole 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 occurrence of perpetual convulsions, producing devastation and ruin throughout the world, whenever her artificial system becomes deranged. A review of her operations, during the past thirty years, shows her, at every interval of four or six years, holding out to the world the strongest inducements to send her all they could spare of sugar, and coffee, and cotton, and agricultural produce of every description. About the close of the second year of this movement, when the machinery of importation had got into full operation, 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, speculation, 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 Pennsylvania 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 way of New York; and the cotton-grower of South 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 Pittsburgh; yet such is precisely the object of the colonial system. The wheat of Michigan travels to Liverpool 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 misfortune 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 consume, 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 cloth and iron. That it did produce that effect is obvious from the immense increase in the consumption of both in the period between 1843 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 exportation. 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 exterminated their flocks; the consequence of which is, that we have less than 30,000,000, when, if the policy adopted in 1828 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. There are few commodities that can be more easily raised, none that can be converted 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 population of the world; yet, notwithstanding the exceeding smallness of this quantity, the power of consumption throughout the world is so small that the THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 103 producers are contending with each other for the possession of the markets; and the competition is so great that whenever the crop of this country reaches 1000,000,000 pounds, it is sold at a price less than the actual cost of production. Some of the countries that formerly exported it to a considerable extent, 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 been 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, unless 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 distribution. 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 consume 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-state them, it is because, from the great importance of a proper understanding 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, indigo 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 combination; and she now therefore exports men to occupy the places recently occupied 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 supplied cotton goods to a large portion of the world. England had then, however, invented machinery for its production, and to secure herself in its exclusive 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 manufacturer, but his home market still remained to him, so long as the Company retained the exclusive control of the trade. In 1821, the last year of the monopoly, the export from England to India was but 5,000,000 of yards, and 4,000,000 of pounds of yarn. 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 pounds of yarn. Large as are these figures, they require but little more than 100,000 bales for their production, and would make a consumption of perhaps 220,000 bales per annum, to take the place of that which has 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 occipied 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 combination 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,t 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 supplies 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 when the whole wages consist in an insufficient 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 sixty 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 half pence, or five cents, per pound. Thence it goes to Calcutta, a distance 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 absence 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 hundred to one hundred and forty degrees. If the horde, sometimes amounting to a thousand, is overtaken ly rain, the cotton, saturated with moisture, becomes heavy, and the black clayey soil, through which lies the whole line of road, sinks under the feet of a man 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 poorest soils, by aid of sticks, could not be devised. t Import of cotton from India into England:1844...... 88,000,000 lbs. 1845.... 58,000,000 c" 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 cc t A series of popular lectures on the cotton manufacture has recently been delivered in London, by Mr. Warren, of Manchester. In his first lecture he stated that should the THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 105 unproductive labour can be made the lower will be its price, the more confident 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 continue to be prevented from consuming on the land the products of the land.* The deterioration of quality is due to the recession of cultivation from the lower and richer lands; 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 Demarara, cotton plantations have always succeeded better on the seacoast 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 improvement, when day by day the cultivation recedes from the neighbourhood 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 production. Every such effort 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 culture 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 expenses 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 supplies, 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 cultivating 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. 6d. per (lay, while that of the 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 emancipation of the American slaves, by rendering their labour profitless to the owners. * The " London Chronicle,' of a late date, has an article showing that the efforts 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 abandonament of the experiments in cotton cultivation that have been carried on, under Dr. Wight's superintendence, at Madras. This enterprise, which had for its object the production of an article less palpably inferior to the cotton of America than the present badlypicked 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 ~100,000, had already given fair warning of the probable issue of Dr. Wight's efforts in the sister presidency, and with its abandonment 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 1846, out of 467,856,274 lbs. imported into this country, 401,949,893 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 HARMON Y 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 producer 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 everywhere 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, CONSUMPTION, &c., OF AMERICAN COTTON, FOR TWELVE YEARS.* Total am't. Crops, as Consumed Stock at Imports of American of Ameri- Stock of Average shown by in the the ports Cotton into Great can Cotton Am. Cot- quot. of receipts the U. States, end of the Britain, from 1st Jan. consumed ton in Gt. Uplands 31st Aug. year end'g year to 31st Dec. in Great Britain, in Liver31st Aug. 31st Aug. Britain. Dec. 31. pool. 1836-7 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 77 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 61841-2 1,684,211 267,850 31,807 1842 1,013,400 893,256 373,400 5| 1842-3 2,379,460 325,129 94,486 1843 1,396,800 1,110,046 593,200 49 1843-4 2,030,409 348,744 159,772 1844 1,246,900 1,126,008 654,900 4k 1844-5 2,415,448 389,006 98,420 1845 1,499,600 1,289,808 809,100 t4i 1845-6 2,100,537 422,597 107,122 1846 937,000 1,280,096 397,800 4j 1846-7 1,778,651 427,967 214,837 1847 874,100 867,516 286,200 61 1847-8 2,347,634 531,772 171,468 1848 1,375,400 1,189,500 348,300 4 The stock in our own ports, Aug. 31, 1836, appears to have been, 109,000 That of American cotton in English ports, - - - 90,000$ The crops of the twelve years, from 1836-7 to 1847-8, were 23,571,000 To which must be added, for the additional consumption in the South and West, in the last two years, - - - 125,000 Total, - - 23,805,000 The stock in port, and in G. B. at the close of the season 1847-8, 520,000 Consumption of twelve years, - - 23,375,000 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 23,375,000 * From the New York Courier and Inquirer. t Duty, y/d. per lb. taken off by Act of Parliament, passed 8th May, 1845. + The imports of 1837 exceeded the consumption by 66,000 bales, and the stock, at the close 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 Years. Total Average. Average of last Two Years English,..846,000. 1,008,000. 1,028,000 American,. 235,000. 348,000. 542,000 All other,.. 444,000. 591,000. 548,000* 1,525,000 1,947,000 2,118,000 From this we see that the average consumption of the twelve years exceeded 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 obtain the following results:English,. 21 per cent. American,.... 125 " " All other,.... 23 " " The portion of Europe that has most fully adopted the system of protection being the Zoll-verein,t 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 Tariffleague or Zoll-verein, remained from 1827 to 1835 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 159,000 cwts., or from 30 to 45,000 bales. The following shows the growth from that period in the territories of the confederation:Average from 1836. 1837 to 1841. 1843. 1845. Raw cotton, quintals.. 152,364 200,093 306,731 443,887 Cotton twist and wadding, do.. 244,869 351,884 475,564 574,303 397,233 551,977 782,295 1,018,190 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 consumption 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* This period embraces a season of war and convulsion over the whole continent. t De Bow's Commercial Review, Vol. V. p. 267. + Merchants' Magazine, Vol. XIII. p. 286. ~ Ibid. 1I The increase of consumption after the formation of the Union was very rapid. As early as 1838, it was said, that The cotton manufacture of Saxony had already become of twice the extent it had reached before the Union."-Porter's Progress of the NTation, Vol. II. p. 198. The quantity of cotton hosiery made in Saxony has increased immensely of late, and from its cheapness has not only secured the monopoly of the markets of the Union, but las also been shipped largely to the United States. 108 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. tection. If, now, from the additional British consumption we deduct the additional yarn sent to this one protected country, we shall be enabled to see how trivial is the power of increase in the unprotected world. The account will then stand thus:First two years. Last two years. Ratio of increase. English.. 846,000. 958,000*. 13 per cent. Zoll-verein (1836). 100,000. 230,000*. 130' American.. 235,000. 542,000. 125 " All other.. 344,000. 378,000. 10 In the one case England took 846,000 at 7d., total. $53,000,000 In the other, 958,000 at 5od...... 48,000,000 In both, the price was fixed in her own ports, and regulated by her own power of purchase. Had our home consumption absorbed 200,000 additional bales, thus reducing the supply to 750,000, the price would have been 8d. and the amount would have been...... $54,000,000 and the product of the whole crop would have been almost doubled. The consequence of this incapacity of extending her foreign market is, of course, the accumulation of large quantities in English ports, accompanied by a fall of prices, by aid of which the English consumer obtains a larger quantity for the labour that he can afford to give in exchange for the materials of clothing, and that tends to decrease as his labour becomes more unproductive, and as the disposition to "fly from ills they know" increases. This will be seen by the following table:British and Irish consumption. Crop. Bales. Average price. Quantity. Value. 1839-1,368,000. 14-5 cents.. 73,000,000 pounds. $10,585,000 1840-2,180,000. 86 ". 172,000,000 " 14,620,000 1841-1,634,000. 103 ". 97,000,000 " 9,991,000 1842-1,684,000. 82 ". 97,000,000 " 7,954,000 1843-2,388,000. 6 ". 120,000,000 " 7,200,000 1844-2,030,000. 8-1 ". 124,000,000 " 10,116,000 1845-2,100,000. 5.9 ". 164,000,000 " 9,696,000 1846-2,101,000 7-3 ". 147,0000000 " 10,731,000 1847-1,778,000. 10-1 ". 77,000,000 " 7,777,000 1848-2,347,000. 7 ". 130,000,000 " 9,100,000 1,961,000. 8-6 ". 1,201,000,000 " 9,777,000 The total home consumption by the 27,500,000 composing the population of the United Kingdom, was thus but 1,200,000,000 pounds, or an average of 120,000,000 per annum, giving 41 pounds to each individual, supplied at a cost so low as to ruin the producer. The average of the first two years was 122,500,000, while that of the last two years was but 102,500,000, notwithstanding an increase of population that should have brought it up to 140,000,000. From this statement it appears clearly that the power of the people of Great Britain and Ireland, to be customers to the cotton planters of the world, cannot go much beyond $10,000,000; and that, instead of increasing with the population, it tends decidedly to diminish. The reason of this appears to me obvious. The people of England are perpetually engaged in the effort to sell the products of their labour in distant markets, in competition with low-priced labour, and therefore at the lowest price; receiving payment in food and other articles of consumption produced in distant markets, which come to them burdened with enormous cost of transportation, and therefore * I have deducted and added only 70,000 bales, supposing the last two years' export not to have been as great as that of 1845. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 109 obtained at the cost of much labour. The natural growth of production elsewhere tends to increase the supply of raw materials, but the power to pay for them does not increase, because the labour of British subjects, home and colonial, instead of becoming more productive of commodities to be given in exchange, is becoming less so from month to month and from year to year, and yet into that constantly diminishing market are thrown all the surplus products of the world, that the price of the whole product may there be fixed. The effect of this is to throw on the planters the loss that should belong to themselves, and thus enable them to supply themselves at the lowest price; whereas, whenever the cotton planter shall cease to be dependent upon them for his market, they will again, as formerly, be obliged to buy at the highest price. The product of British labour, measured in the ayticle of first necessity, food, is small, and the surplus remaining, to be applied to the purchase of clothing, is therefore very small indeed. They are incessantly engaged in supplying low-priced, and often worthless clothing to the world, and are therefore unable to clothe themselves. That the tendency is downward, seems scarcely to admit of a doubt. A few years since, by a great effort, the poor-rates of England were reduced to less than ~4,000,000. They have since risen gradually, and those of 1848 were ~7,817,000, or $38,000,000. Every ninth person is a pauper. In Scotland, the destitution of a large portion of the population is frightful. The people of the Northern and Western Highlands are in a state of pauperism; and Glasgow and its vicinity present a scene of wretchedness scarcely, if at all, to be exceeded in the world. Ireland is exhausted. There being no separate accounts of the imports into that kingdom, it is not possible to ascertain the present consumption of cotton, but the condition of the people is now far lower than at the dates of the following returns:The whole import of cotton into Ireland from all parts of the world, in the twenty years from 1802 to 1821 both inclusive, amounted to 538,542 hundred weights, or about 150,000 bales, being an average of 7500 bales per annum, and the whole import of cotton yarn, to 19,995,350 pounds, or about 1,000,000 pounds per annum, the product of about 4000 bales, making a total of 11,500 bales.* The amount of cloth imported is not given. In 1825, the year of great expansion everywhere, with an export to Great Britain of agricultural products amounting to almost $35,000,000, we find the import of cotton-wool to have been 4,065,930 pounds, and the import of cotton cloth to have been 4,996,885 yards, making in the whole about 6,000,000 pounds, or about 18,000 bales of cotton, in all its forms, required for the supply of almost 8,000,000 people; being about three-quarters of a pound per head. In subsequent years, no information can be obtained, owing to changes in the mode of keeping the custom-house accounts; but in a general report on the state of the trade of Ireland, made by a committee whose object would not have been promoted by under-estimates, it is stated that the import of cotton-cloth into that kingdom was, in 1835, 14,172,000 yards, being equal to about 4,000,000 pounds of cotton, or half a pound per head. What quantity of cotton-wool, or yarn, was imported at that time, cannot be ascertained, but it is elsewhere shown that some of the largest establishments for manufacture, of a period somewhat earlier, had disappeared, and that the calico printers were in a state of bankruptcy.t We may now look to the consumption of the colonies of Great Britain. In the years 1845,'46,'47, the export to them was as follows,: in millions of pounds:-1845, 85; 1846, 87; 1847, 67. Of this, however, large * Ireland before and since the Union, by R. Montgomery Martin, pages 56 to 60. t Ibid t Merchants' Magazine, Vol. XIX. 600. 110 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. quantities went to Gibraltar, Malta, Jamaica, and other places, to be smuggled into Spain, Mexico, and other countries, and the consumption of the colonies of themselves could not have exceeded 70,000,000, or about 170,000 bales, for more than 100,000,000 of inhabitants. During this time, the average price was a fraction over 7 cents, and it follows that $5,000,000 is the maximum amount of trade maintained, through the medium of England, by the planting States of the Union, with a large portion of the people of the world, although producing two-thirds of the whole quantity of this necessary commodity for the use of the world. Taking the total consumption of the United Kingdom and the colonies, we now have the following quantities:1845. 1846. 1847. Millions of pounds.. 239. 234. 144 Need any better evidence be desired of the poverty inflicted by the system upon all the people subject to it, than the fact that an increase of price equal to one cent per yard reduces the consumption almost one-half? Let this be compared with the growth of consumption in the protected markets of Germany and the United States, and it will be seen how steady is the protected, or real free-trade, system, compared with the perpetual change of the monopoly one. How great, too, the difference in the consumption per head! While England and all her vast possessions consumed but 144,000,000 the consumption of the Zoll-verein (population 25,000,000) had grown in nine years from 45,000,000 to. 115,000,000 and that of the Union was.... 243,000,000 We have seen how slow has been the growth of the English demand, and it may now be well to see the wasteful and exhausting process by which even this has been obtained. " The extremely low price of cotton," say Messrs. Rathbone, Brothers & Co.,* " has encouraged the manufacture of a very inferior class of goods, which require a great weight of cotton compared to the labour expended on them, and of which the make ceases entirely when cotton is moderately high. The demand for very coarse yarn," they continue, " is always large at very cheap prices, but in the year just closed it has exceeded all precedent,t particularly for export, chiefly to the Levant, and in some instances to accelerate its make, it has not passed through all the usual processes. It is on the consumption of cotton for these classes of goods," they add, " that even a moderate advance in prices is apt so immediately to tell." The cotton thus forced into the Levant goes to the same countries that before were supplied from India, and thus is the poor Hindoo deprived of another portion of his market, the necessary consequence of which must be a further depression of prices, and increased inability to continue the work of production. The decline in the trade of Western India is remarkable, and is probably the result of this flooding of the Asiatic markets with half-made cotton goods.$ * Circular, January 3d, 1849. t The prices of ordinary cotton ranging during a large portion of the year, from 3d. to 4d. t The average imports of Bombay for the five years ending December 31, 1846, were 63,000,000 of rupees, while those of 1846 were only 52,000,000. The exports were as follows:5 years ending December 31, 1846. 1846. Cotton,. bales. 380,987.... 257,743 Wool,. lbs.. 3,421,976.... 4,626,470 Coffee,. lbs.. 3,140,821.... 1,529,900 Pepper. cwts.. 47,260.... 46,182.Indigo,. lbs.. 135,833.... 55,928 Ivory cwts.. 5,764.... 6 109 THE HARMONY. OF INTERESTS. 11l It has been seen how large was the export to India in the first six months of the year, and now we see by the newspapers of the day what are the consequences. Low as was the price of cotton, the speculation has not answered. The markets are glutted, and the prices are unremunerative. "Great caution," it is said, " must now be exercised, or the exporting houses will suffer exceedingly."* The small rise in price has already caused many mills to commence working short-time, and the operatives in them are thus deprived of the power to purchase clothing. It is the most gambling, and most extraordinary system, and the most destructive to the interests of the agricultural population of the world that has ever been devised. The fever and the chill succeed each other with such rapidity that we are scarcely advised of the arrival of the one, before we see indications of the approach of the other. The cause of this difficulty of extending the sale of cotton in distant markets is to be found in the fact that the labour-cost of cloth so obtained is great. We have seen that the extension of the manufacture in this country for a few years following the passage of the tariff of 1828 was rapid, and that it then became almost stationary under the Compromise, yet the import not only did not increase but decreased until it reached the lowest point in the period of 1842-43. The labour-cost of clothing was steadily increasing, but as the tariff of 1842 came into operation the labour-cost diminished, and there arose a power to pay for finer cloths from abroad, and thus the import and manufacture increased together. If we desire to see the operation of this, we need only take a single farmer of Tennessee or Kentucky, who obtains 30 or 40 bushels of corn in return for the labour bestowed on an acre of land, and is happy to sell it at 20 cents per bushel,t when the price in Liverpool is 75 or 80 cents. Thirty-five bushels yield here $7, which is about the cost of 70 yards of tolerable cottoncloth, plain and printed, when received on his farm. To produce those 70 yards would require 20 pounds of cotton, or one-twentieth of the product of a well-cultivated acre. To convert those pounds into yards of cloth requires far less than half the capital, and half the labour required for their original production. Taking, however, the conversion at one half, and adding that proportion to the number of pounds, we obtain the equivalent of 30 pounds of raw cotton as the return for 35 bushels of corn, and yet that corn sells, at the place of consumption, for as much as would purchase almost a bale of cotton. It is obvious that though the money-price of the cloth is low, the labour-price is high, and it is by the latter that the power of consumption is measured. The cloth, too, is worthless. As far back as 1832, the quantity of flour required for the use of the cotton factories of England was stated atfortytwo millions of pounds,j or almost as much as the weight of 100,000 bales of cotton, all of which is traded off as cotton, to the poor consumers of distant lands, who are thus defrauded and impoverished. Bad as is even this, it is far from all the loss that is sustained. The corn is sent from the land, and the farmer loses the refuse. The land is impoverished, and its occupant is compelled to fly to other lands, to be again impoverished. The loss from this source alone isfar more than the value of all the imports into the Union, of every description,from all the manufacturing nations of the world. The apparently cheap clothing is very dear. It is obtained at the cost of much labour, and of little value when obtained. * Morning Herald, November. t "Tennessee grows more corn than any State of the Union. A few months since we took the liberty to ask a farmer from Tennessee who had a drove of hogs in our 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. * McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary, article Cotton. 112 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. What is true of Tennessee and India, is equally so of the other parts of the world that are compelled to depend on England for supplies of cotton cloth. The poor Russian obtains less than a pound of cotton for a bushel of wheat, and thus he gives ten days' 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 American, 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 nations are endeavouring to shut out the manufactures of Great Britain. Everywhere, 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 smuggling goods into Spain. Exhausted Portugal receives millions of pounds of cotton goods, likewise to be smuggles 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 cotton 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 people of England think proper to fix upon it. Why that is so, may, perhaps, be ascertained by an examination of the following table:Gross proceeds of sales of American cotton in Liverpool, from which are to be deducted freights, comStock in Liverpool, Dec. 31. missions, &c. &c. Weight of bale Crop. Bales. Price. estimated at 450 pounds. 1837-1,422,000. 158,000. 7d.. $49,000,000 1838-1,801,000. 316,000. 7. 57,000,000 1839-1,360,000. 242,000. 78. 57,000,000 1840-2,177,000. 403,000. 6. 55,000,000 1841-1,631,000. 344,000. 64. 45,000,000 1842-1,684,000. 373,000. 54. 47,000,000 1843-2,379,000. 593,000. 43. 47,000,000 1844-2,030,000. 654,000. 47. 49,000,000 1845-2,415,000. 808,000. 44. 51,000,000 1846-2,100,000. 597,000. 47. 56,000,000 1847-1,778,000. 286,000. 64. 51,000,000 1848-2,347,000. 348,000. 4I. 45,000,000 The quotations of the latter portion of the last year were below the average, being about 4d., and about that point they remained for several months, until the chief portion of the crop had been shipped. The unfavourable 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 present year increased in its proper ratio to the population engaged in its production. 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, &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 American 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, 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 follows: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 estimated at......... $65,772,000 In 1845, it rose to 958,000,000, and the product fell to. 56,000,000 In 1847, it fell to 711,000,000, worth..... 72,000,000 In 1848, it rose to 1,100,000,000, and until the occurrence of frosts and freshets, the prospect was that it would not average 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, weighing 5 Ibs. 12 oz., was 7s. 10d., ($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 61 cents, making the product $20,000,000. The price of cloth then was 6s. 63d., ($1573,) 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:Average from 1830 to 1835. 1845-6. Loss. Cloth, pieces, - 9,250,000. 6,250,000. 8,000,000 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, - - 311,000,000 - 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 consumption having much more than doubled in a similar period of time. In the period intermediate 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 122 per,ent. per annum, or quadruple the increase of population, the following vould have been the home demand:1835-6.. 243,000 bales 1839-40.. 388,000 bales 1836-7. 273,000 " 1840-41.. 437,000 c 1837-8.. 307,000 " 1841-42.. 491,000 " 1838-9.. 345,000 " Total.. 2,484,000 The actual consumption was.. 1,844,000 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:1842-3.. 552,000 bales 1846-7.. 883,000 bales 1843-4.. 621,000 " 1847-8.. 994,000 " 1844-5.. 680,000 1c 1848-9.. 1,019,090 c 1845-6.. 785,000 5,550,000 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 circumstances 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? 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 consume on the land the products of the land, and my reasons for so believing 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-every man is a consumer to the whole extent of his production, whatever that may be. Had the tariff of 1828 remained unchanged, the production 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 demand 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 conveniences 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 millions of dollars, enabling 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 consume twelve where before he consumed but one, while freights to Europe would be so far reduced that the price of cotton in New York would 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 continued 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 farmer 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, instead of a million. What then would be the price of cotton, even with a crop of 3,000;000? Would it not be $60a bale, yielding him 180 millions instead 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 could 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 twenty-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 transported 156,000,000 to market. Were he to calculate the cost of transportation 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 consumption of the South would then have risen to a level with the present consumption of the North, and the latter would have largely increased, because of the great demand for labour that would have existed. Had that been done, the price of the whole crop would have been 8d. instead of 4id., 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 important 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 consume 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 increased 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 increase more rapidly. The increasing emigration to this country would raise the value of man abroad, and those whom we now see expelling him from their lands, burning his house that he may not return, would then find themselves compelled to offer him inducements to remain. Agriculture would then improve and wages would rise, and the power to consume cotton, on both sides of the Atlantic, would grow, to the infinite advantage of the planter. With the increased demand, he would at length find something like certainty in place of the present gambling system under which he is so often nearly ruined. How little 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. July. Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. * Fair Orleans. Middling Ordinary. 4Jd. * Fair Orleans. t Middling. $ Ordinary. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 117 The following shows the variations, from 1844 to 1848, in the prices of cotton, twist, and cloth. 1844. 1845. 1846. 1847. 1848. A7o. 40s, 11 Best 2d 10 Ml7ule p Ier. Ib.uon thele ft of the tables.s. d. Twist. 9 11 0 10 6 *Gray 8 10 0 Shirtings, 7 9 6 72 Reed, 896 38 Yd. h 80 Cotton 5 Fair Upland. The highest and lowest lines show the comparative prices of yarn and cotton, the quotations being per. lb. on the left of the tables. The middle line shows the fluctuations of a cotton long cloth, the 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 tlie 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 Hindoo 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 narket cheaply, and cotton cloth go more freely to that country; and vet with every 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 pestilence. 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 nake 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 Manchester. 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 at 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 higher 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 much 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 maintained 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 immigration 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 be 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 quantities 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 will show precisely similar re. suits. In 1822, we exported 83,000 hogsheads, and the price was $74 82, yielding about $6,200,000. In 1845, 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 $6,200,000, yielding to the producer, on his plantation, as much as the larger quantity in 1845. The sum of $6,200,000, at these two periods, would have brought in Liverpool: 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 The 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 onefifth tons for a hogshead; whereas in the last he has little more than onethird 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 customers to that of large ones, and the less will be the cost of transportation from the place of production in 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 therefore 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 equivalent of a constantly diminishing one. The following exhibit of the movement of the great sugar market, since the commencement of the present century, shows that the amount paid for sugar has been constantly diminishing, 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 14T2 persons paid for a ton of iron, that of 24 was required in 1831, and the proportion 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 difference in the price of iron was, by comparison, 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.,t and the colonist, after paying the extra freight, must have received less, in money, for the large than for the small quantity, while the price of iron had advanced fifty per cent. His timber would therefore yield him about forty per cent. less weight of iron to be employed in the further production 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."+ 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 that the poor and over-taxed colonists desire annexation. t Edinburgh Review, July, 1849. t Ibid. 120 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. Number of persons fed with sugar in erQuantity retained for Price per Total value change for a Population. consumption.-cwts. cwt. consumed. Price per head. Priceof iron. ton ofiron. 1801 16,338,000 3,639,000* 45/t ~8,188,000 10/2 ~7 5t 14-2 1811 18,500,000 3,818,000* 41/6t ~7,888,000 8/6 ~8:t 18-8 1821 21,200,000 3,529,000* 34/t ~6,000,000 518 ~6 10t 23 1831 24,029,000 4,233,000 23/8t ~5,000,000 4/2 ~5H 24 I 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 appears to correspond with it. Enough, however, is given to show that the people of the United Kingdom were 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 effort to cheapen sugar, and yet there were taken for consumption (including the large quantity exported after being refined) in the years 1845 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 consequence 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 Sow that the Carolinian 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 $80,000,000, we have the sum of $150,000,000 as the value of the labour of that large portion of the population 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 maintenance, or the increase, of the productive power. A ton of bar iron is not the equivalent of twenty-five days' labour, properly 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 produce 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 me 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 hands it has passed, may readily be imagined. Twenty pounds of sugar must be required to pay for one of cotton, in the form of coarse cloth. 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 themselves from such a state of vassalage? To add to the present annual production of the Union in the next seven years, the whole quantity of iron required to pay for the cotton and sugar crops of the world would require not the slightest effort, 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 transportation might be given to the work of cultivation. 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 premature 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 increase. 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 following 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 andfifteen 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 fourteen 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 (dArkansas) Democrat, Nov. 16. Those men are flying from the rich and unoccupied soils of lower Carolina and South Alabama to the high lands of Arkansas and Texas, thus increasing 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 coffee 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 competition with both.t Is it among the operatives of England? They are *De Bow's Commercial Review, Vol. VII. page 446. t The following passage from one of the journals of the day, presents a tolerably correct 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 a market for food. It is forgotten, however, that every diminution in the amount of pro16 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 France? 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 increased 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 capacity is without limit, and we could command the services of half the ahbourers 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 that 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 proprietary producers abroad, who had no rent to pay. The removal of this tax has now thrown directly upon the English 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 relinquished 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 the 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 numbers are annually diminishing, swelling the numbers of bread-consumers in other employments." * Merchants' Magazine, Vol. XVII. page 562 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 great 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 the growth of population 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 making 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 purpose. 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 * Originally published in my book., The 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 destroying the trees. This, however, is not all. The surplus thus yielded has given him means for improving the poorer landg"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 increased 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 +abour 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 may be 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 railroad runs by houses and towns occupied by one or two hundred thousand persons. Half a 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 less 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 progress 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 yield 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 hundred 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 madl3 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 centuries 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 supplies 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 sole 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 limestone. It passes into the food 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 lime. 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, produces 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, while 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 axemaker, consists simply in the power which they afford 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 days 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 manure; 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 solitary 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 power to command the use of the machinery 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 instrument; 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 which the land is most improved; and the nearer the place of exchange or conversion 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 production 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 vear'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 misemployed his time, for his farm is unimproved. He has wasted labour and manure. 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 transporting it; and that although he may have obtained as good wages in some 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, ie 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 let THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 127 his neighbour bring 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 diminution in the proportion which that machinery bears to the mass of production, 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 fatten them when at market; now fattens them on the ground, and sends them by railroad ready 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 employed in ditching and draining, while the latter fertilizes the soil heretofore 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 the 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, butter, 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 afforded, 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 newspapers of the day, in speaking of the operations of the railroad recently constructed from Springfield (Illinois) to the Illinois river, tell us that," One week before the railroad was finished, corn could be had here in any quantity, at 15 cents a bushel. Not a bushel can now," says the Saugamon 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 sc 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 for 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, vast 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 133,000 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 wealth. 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 millions, 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 cannot sell it, he has no (" right" but to starve-himself, his wife, and his children. ( 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.": 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 increase 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 afford to remain behind. To accomplish this object, Colonization Societies are formed, and Parliament is memorialized by men who desire to export their fellow-men by hundreds of thousands annually. Whig and Tory journals!) unite in urging the necessity for expelling man from the' * J. S. Mill's Principles of Political Economy. + Edinburgh Review, October, 1849. $ Ibid. ~ See article on Transportation, Blackwood's Magazine, November, 1849. I The number of Blackwood's Magazine, just received, advocates the application of ~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 type of thisfree-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: c The state of the country is frightfil. The assassinations are computed at more than ten per week, half a hundred per month, which, added to the systematic starvation of almost 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 will be more than a proprietor's life is worth 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 landlords 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 property 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 village 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 Britainhas 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 few years since, says that "land in Vermont and New Hampshire, close to the line, is five dollars per acre, and in the adjoining British townships, only one dollar," and that on the northern side of the line, with 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, and 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. Farmers will then grow rich, and labourers will grow rich, and the power to consume cloth and iron will grow with the same rapidity with which it recently 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 17 130 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 prosperity 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 increased. 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 all 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, while Englishmen must have large ones, i. e. enough to feed and clothe themselves comfortably. They emancipate the negroes, and then 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 transportation. 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 raising 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 worker in iron, the spinner and the weaver, to combine their exertions 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 itfwould contribute towards producing harmony, we must first inquire into the auses of discord. The labourers of the world have ont 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 shoemaker can apply his labour, the more readily will the farmer provide himself and his family with shoes. Such, likewise, is the case with nations. It is to the interest of all that labour in all should- beconme 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 land should everywhere become productive and valuable. It does so become 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 improving 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 facility of obtaining cloth for food, or food for cotton, diminishes the quantity of labour to be given for food or clothing, and enables the producer to obtain other commodities and things needed for the improvement of his mind, or which tend to enable him more advantageously to apply his labour. The landed proprietor of England is therefore directly interested in the improvement of the mode of cultivating 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, manufacturers, and merchants. The object had in view in the prohibition of manufactures in the colonies 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 waste of time and money. Another consequence was, that the people engaged in the work of transportation, conversion, and exchange, increased 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 landowners, 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 were enabled to tax the labourer and the mechanic, and by the other the mechanic was enabled to tax the world in return. The effect 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 converters 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 protection, and as revolutions never go backward, we may fairly conclude that the 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 England, 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 of 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 woollen factory in the country, and would diminish the value of both labour and land, by compelling the producer of food to seek a market in England. Similar measures adopted by the Zoll-verein, would compel the people of Germany to do the same, attended with similar results. The market of 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 increase 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. Consumption 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 terrific, all of which must be paid by the producers and those who own the machine of production, 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 products of others, adding nothing whatever to the quantity produced, while living out of it, and thus deteriorating the condition of the land-owners 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 depopulated 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 themselves. Their policy has converted the little occupant into the hired labourer, and the labourers on land into the tenants of lanes and alleys in Liverpoolt and Manchester. Throughout much of Scotland they have substituted sheep for the men whom they have driven to take refuge in Glasgow, 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 of England might be doubled by a moderate expenditure for drainage. t 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 clothfor 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 be 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, adoption 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 fo6d 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 manufacturers 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 become 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 settlement. It will be said that here is discord. If the city population did not grow, what would become of the owners of city lots? The harmony of interests 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 country, 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 continue to recollect that their desire to prohibit the importation of opium involved 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 the 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 necessaries 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 man, it may be the grandfather, or even the great-grandfather, patriarch-like directing his descendants, many of whom are in their youth and prime, while others are in their 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 day are over, they return to their humble and happy homes, their fare consists chiefly ofrice, fish and vegetables, which they enjoy with great zest, and are happy and contented. I really believe there is no country in the world where 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."* Let this be compared with the results of the system that has desolated Ireland and India, and that drives our people to Oregon and California, while men are everywhere, among ourselves, half-cultivating large farms, when they might obtain treble the result from half the surface, and let it then be determined which is the one that tends most to promote the prosperity 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, retaining so 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 1834 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 would be sufficient for almost the population of the world, if properly cultivated. The more roads we make in the now-settled States, the richer and stronger we shall grow, 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 China. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 135 tity of either required to be given to the work of conversion 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 be 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 la.bour and land. We are now separating the consumer from the producer, and the consequence 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 community, 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 wheat 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 people of the South would oppose the admission of Canada, although the effect of such a measure would be to convert the Canadians into large customers, instead of permitting them to remain small ones.t Once within the Union, the consumption of cotton in the British provinces would speedily rise from 20,000,000 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. The material interests of the South would be promoted by the annexation of Canada, yet would the South oppose the measure on the ground of supposed 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 sugar at a cost far below the present one, and a market for grain and cloth that would absorb of both to a vast amount. Political interests are thus at variance with material ones. In both cases the discord is but apparent, 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 communities, can never fail to be productive of benefit to all. The cotton planter, as we have seen, now sells his product in the cheap* Ireland 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 labour that would result from change of their political system. t Export to British North America in the first six months of 1846. 1847. 1848. 1849. Plain calicoes. 7,483,318 7,339,686 6,745,536 5,979,991 Printed.. 8,483,163 6,497,845 4,589,811 5,701,857 16,966,481 13,837,531 11,335,347 11,681,848 136 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 compelling 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 for 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 they 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 ge 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, is the fact. The more the loom can be made to come to the cotton, the more valuable are the services of men, the greater the number of men to be imported, the larger the number of commodities 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 requisitions 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 equivalent 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 would 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? We know that the latter cannot make fine muslins at the present rate of duty-nor can they manufacture silk goods in competition with France. The South will work up its cotton and make its own exchanges, leaving the luty as it stands, and then Lowell, Lawrence, and Providence must go down, for competition is impossible." Such are the views perpetually promulgated by journals whose editors profess great acquaintance with political * The export from Great Britain to all the foreign West India Islands is but little over 20,000,000 of yards. THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 137 economy,, and whose speculations are received as authority by their readers. Nothing, however, could be less in accordance with the true interests of the planters. The larger the quantity of the machinery prepared for the conversion of cotton into cloth, the smaller will be the charge for its use. The planter requires to rid himself of a monopoly that limits the increase of that machinery, and compels him to give to the owners of the little that exists, whether English or American, a share of the product entirely disproportioned to its value as compared with that of the machinery required for producing 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 England, and sell his goods at the market price, as fixed in England, for until the quantity of machinery shall be so far increased 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 converting 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 converting cotton-wool into yarn. Year. Crop. Price. Price Amount of twist. Price of crop. conersior. of twist. conversion. 1843-4 815,000,000 6d. 10cd. ~31,000,000 ~20,000,000 ~11,000,000 1844-5 958,000,000 4 111 41,000,000 16,000,000 25,000,000 1845-6 840,000,000 43 93 30,000,000 16,500,000 13,500,000 1846-7 711,000,000 7 10k 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 insignificant 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 yarn 18 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. as he paid for the wool itself. In 1845, when he paid 4d. he sold at nearly a shilling —. e., he charged twice as much for the work of twisting the wool as he paid for the wool. He was enabled to do this, because of twc reasons:-First, the machinery of conversion was disproportioned 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 operations of 1848. Crop. Price. Price of Amount of yarn. Amount of crop. Charge for yarn. conversion. 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 twisting 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 cotton 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, in 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 making of railroads, the improvement of the machinery of cultivation, the diffusion 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 pace with increase in the supply of cotton, he will be constantly giving * See Plough, Loom, and Anvil, No. XIX., page 421. VOL. II.-85 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 139 more cotton for less iron or silk, and thus others will enjoy the whole advantage resulting from his increased exertion. That the advantage may, as justly it should, be his, it is necessary that the production of the commodities 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 planter 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 Kingdom 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 material 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-producers, 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 quantity 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 remedy? 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 consume 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 consume 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 consumers of one pound into consumers of twenty pounds, and the consumers of twenty pounds into consumers of forty pounds. By adopting the opposite policy-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 machinery, to an incalculable extent; and once here, here they would stay, increasing 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 HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 141 CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. HOW PROTECTION AFFECTS THE CAPITALIST. IF protection be "( a war upon labour and capital," it must tend, by lessening the productiveness of labour, to prevent its proper employment, and thus to diminish the power of accumulating wealth by the clearing, draining, 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. If, 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 machinery 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 facilitating 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 disappear 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 little 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 1845 and 1846, would have been paid for by 6,250,000 piecesof 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 two 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 Atlantic, 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 311,000,000 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 producing, 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 average 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, including 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 which 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 furnishes it as the result of his personal observation:-:" Of the expense of this first movement, some idea may be formed by those who have 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 Vicksbirg, hauled by five yoke of oxen carrying 2800 to 3000 pounds, and so slowly that motion was scarcely perceptible. So many perish in the yoke in winter and spring that it has been said, with. some exaggeration, that you might walk on dead oxen from Jackson to Vicksburg. That was before 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 distance of only fourteen miles. Supposing the average distance to be 75 miles, and the roads to be 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, suppose that a single yoke of oxen can transport four bales, or 1800 pounds, 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, 2300 wagons, average cost $80,... $175,000 4400 oxen, " " $40,... 175,000 2200 men, " "$600,... 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 $100,000. 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 one-fifteenth 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, provided 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 markets, they would have increased their power so to do, by increasing their capital. It will be said, however, that while the labour employed in producing the cotton is set down, there is no allowance for that required for 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 125,000,000 of pounds of cotton consumed by the people of Great Britain and Ireland was thus absolutely wasted, and therefore it was Skinner's Journal of Agriculture, Vol. III., 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 thus 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 twothirds of it on the road to and from the distant mill, for want of the application 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 community that mills speedily rise for the conversion of grain into flour, and are satisfied with one-eighth toll; and so we see in every neighbourhood, 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 getting 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 somewhat 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 English cloth, it will 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 a gainer. Let him look around and see how much of the labour of his neighbourhood and of his own plantation is wasted 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 on 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 in 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 apparently 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 $7 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 bours 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 neighbourhood 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 shoemaker, 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 calculate 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 but onethird 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 persons 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 Manchester spinner, it is worth, perhaps a dollar. The labourer buys it at that 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 Tennessee man buys'it back, paying five 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 so 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 unprofitable consumers, everywhere 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 andJbr ever, the mill to him? The reason may be found in the newsspapers every day. Two years since, cotton manufacturers, 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 changce in our own affairs? It does not. It arises out of changes abroad. T 1wo years since, England made railroads, and consumption then was large. This year she does not make roads, and consumtption 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 protection, 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 employed in them would have remained profitable customers for the farmers, instead of being driven over the country to become the rivals of the farmer, increasing the quantity of provisions, of which there is already a redundance. 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. Yoll 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 frotm the road, amid this corn stands a log cabin, the smoke curling up in blue wreaths even in these hot (lays. 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 hickory, 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. Tl.re are some nails for hats and clothes. There is a rifle on wooden pins; a shelf, witl 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 firn a half bushel of corn meal inside, and over it. on a string, is a piece 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.''lIow 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 between 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 to make halm 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 labour and capital;" but it would here certainly 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 proroting concentration. That of the system falsely called free-trade is to promote dispersion. 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 has been created here (NewYork) among those who have made shipmellts of merchandise to Calilornia, by the receipt of letters from commission houses in San Francisco, containing accounlt of sales. It appears that the charges have, in several instances, used0( up entirely the proceeds of the sales. We hear it stated in dry-good circles, that one of our largest auction-houses sent out over two hundred thousand dollars' worth of dry-goods last winter, for which, up to tllis timte, they have 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 tlhat about 500 vessels had, up to the 1st of November, arrived at San Francisco, fiomr the United States and Europe, and that at least 100,000 people were, at that time, in California. The average cost of outfit for each person cannot be less than $200, which makes an aggregate of $20,000,000. It will cost an average of at least $300 per annum for each to live. This am:ounts to $30,000,000. This makes a total of $50,000,00000, for the bare outfit and provisions for one year. Tie 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 ainonits to $10,000,000. The time of eachl 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, $80,000,000. 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 ($0,000,000) in gold dust, from California and the whole'Pacific coast. It will be perceived that there is still an enormous balance against California, arid 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 shipments. 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 presented 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 steamsllhips 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 small 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 landowners 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 transportation 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 ma'ke 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 markets, 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 furnaces 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, rollingmills, 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 movements 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 plantation, 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 consumer 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 per 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 hundred and sixty millions 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-and the'other half to be for other purposes, the result will be that the market for capital provided by the foreign 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 annually 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 England and Scotland, can doubt that the expenditure of twenty times that amount in the gradual improvement of cultivation, and in the improvement of communications would be attended with a large return. Land, however, is everywhere centralized in the hands of great owners, and cultivated by great farmers; and the consequence is, that capital does not find employment in its improvement, and has to seek a vent in manufactures and commerce, 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 history of the period from 1835 to 1842, ending in bankruptcy and repudiation. Such is the history, so far, of the tariff of'46. 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'McCulloch's Statistics, Vol. I. p. 78. 150 THE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. had been ruined, and there remained, in 1842, 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 great home speculation, and the railroad soon became the hobby of the day. It was a great lottery, in which lieers 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 expensest of the Blaclkwall railway amounted to,.... per mile, $70,000 T'hose 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 consequence of which has been that while the designing few 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 agriculture, 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 nowtobe examined. In 18;35,aswe have seen,the natural outlets forcapital t ere 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 capital. 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 thlls placed under the control of strangers. The day of settlement, however, arrived. England claimed payment for the cloth and iron; but the means by which she rmiaht 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 wlasted acs many 2millions as wouldl have built fJrnaces to produce quadruple the iron we ever yet have used, and converted into cloth all of the cotton ue then produccd. The mass of smaller capitalists were ruined, but the few 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 18;36. In a little time it will be judged expedient to create banks at a distance, and then a little while and Enoland will claim payment for the cloth and iron we are now buying on credit, and then will be re-enacted the scenes of 1842. * Herapath's Railway Journal, quoted in North British Review, August, 1849. t Thle Parliainentary expenses of 184),'6, and 7, were upwards of ~10,000,000; or $5(,000,000. —Ibid. TIE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 151 If we desire to know who are the persons from whom is derived the power thus to derange the movements of the world, it is needed only to look at the prices of cotton and yarn between the periods of 1844 and 1848, as shown in a former chapter. The farmers and planters of the world first give avway their products, then borrow a part of them in the forms of cloth and ir,;n, and when ruined by the operation are denounced as bankrupts and swindlers.'I'he well-understood interests of the capitalists of all nations are in perfect harmony with each other. Whatever tends to diminish production in one, tends to diminish the return to capital in all. The British 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 comprel the labourer to underwork the Hindoo and the Russian, and to sink him to their level. Therefore it is that labourers and capitalists of other nations are forced to resort to measures of protection. The irnmmediate effect of the adoption of efficient and complete protection, as a national measure, would be the transfer to this country of an immense body of capital in the form of machinery, followed by a gradual rise in the rate of profit abroad, whic would tend to attain a level with our own. That capital, once here, could nl't be reclaimed. Like the men we import, it would stay, and the effect that would follow 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 TILE LABOURER. WHTENEVER there is in mIarket a surplus of any commodity, whether that surplus be the effect of natural or artificial causes, the price of the whole tends to fa'll 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 commodity, 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 no 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 no horse or cart must transport his load upon his back. Such is the condition of the people of India, and such, nearly, is that of the people of Ireland. Labour is consequently unproductive, and its price is low. To render labour productive, men require machinery, which is of three kinds, to wit: First, Machinery of prodouction, consisting of lands that are cleared, drained, and otherwise fitted for the work of cultivation. Second, Machinery of conversion, as saw-mills, which convert logs into planks and boards; grist-mills, which convert wheat into flour; cotton and woollenmills, which convert wool into cloth; and furnaces, which convert lime, fuel, and ore into iron. Third, Machinery of transportation, by aid of which the 152 THE IARMONY 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 quantity 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 production, the less will be the necessity for transportation, the more steady will be the demand for labour 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 ploughmen, 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. WIhen wealth increases rapidly, new soils are brought into cultivation, 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 increasing demand for labour, and its increased productiveness, and the consequently increased facility of accumulating wealth are followed necessarily and certainly by an increase of the labourer's proportion. His wages rise, and the proportion 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 farmer'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 find that where machinery 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 other of the necessaries and comforts of lifeis least: and that where transportation is least needed, the quantity 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 increasing 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 graduallyreceding 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 constantly 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 diminution 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-i'. 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 continue to do as Southern and Western men become manufacturers, because the latter will then have more to offer 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 proportion 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 himself in food and clothing. With every step downwards, labour is more and more becoming surplus, as is seen from the growing anxiety to expel population, 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. Whether it shall tend to raise or to depress the standard of condition, must depend upon the character of those with whom it is necessary that it should be maintained. The man who is compelled to associate with the idle, the dissolute, and the drunken, is likely to sink to the level of his companions. So is it with labour. The necessity for depending on commerce with men 20 154 TIIE IARMONY OF INTERESTS. among whom the standard is low, tends to sink the labourer to the level of the lowest. Place lhlf a dozen men on an island, two of whom are industrios and raise food, leaving it to the others, less disposed to work, to provide meat, fish, clothing, and shelter, and the industrious will be compelled to exchange with the idle. Clothing and shelter are as necessary as bread, and those who play 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 co7mmnnism and socialism. They seek to compel union, and to force men to exchange with each other, the necessary effect of which is to sink the whole body to the level of those who are at the bottom. So, too, is it with nations. The industrious community that raises food and is (dependenlt on the idle one that makes iron must give much of the one for little of the other. The peaceffl coimmunity that raises cotton and is depezdernt on the warlike one that raises silk, must give much cotton for little silk. Dependence on others for articles of necessity thus makes a community of goods, and the sober and industrious must help to support the idle and the dissolute-nations as well as individuals. So long as this state of dependence exists, the condition of each is determined by that of the other. If the idle become more idle, and the dissolute more dissolute, those who still continue to work must steadily give more labour for less labour, and their condition must deteriorate unless they adopt such measures as shall gradually diminish and finally terminate their dependence on such companions. The policy of England has tended to produce conmmunism among nations. Slie has rendered herself dependent upon other communities for supplies of the articles of prime necessity, food and clothing, obtaining her rice from the wretched tlindoo, her corn from the Russian serf, and her wool from the Australian convict, neglecting her own rich soils that wait but the application of labour to become productive. The necessary consequence of this is a tendency downwards in the condition of her people, and as it is with those of England that those of this country are invited to compete, it may not be amiss to show what is the condition to which they are now reduced by competition with the low-priced labour of Russia and of India. The al,,cfttor, a free-trade journal, informs us* that " the condition of the labouring classes engaged in agriculture, long an opprobrium to our advancement in civilization, his not improved; while wages exhibit a universal tenden,;/ to de /lc'ne Leneatlh t/h lowest level of recent times." The Molib'ilfj Chro;icle has recently given a series of letters from a correspondent specially deputed to inquire into the condition of the labouring classes in the aglricultural counties, and by him we are informed that in Buclinghamlshire and Oxfordshire the average wages of the year will not exceed 9/-$=2-16 per week, while in Berks and Wiltshire they will not exceed 7! — $1 79, and with this it is to be borne in mind that " when a poor wrA tch is prevented for a day, or even half a day, from working, his wages are stopped for the time." The wife sometinmes works in the fields, and adds tilhre shillings a week to the fund out of which these unfortunate people are to be subs)isted, yet this gain is not without a drawback, as will be seen by those who lmalty read the following account of the condition of the English agricultuall iabourer, in the middle of the nineteenth century, which, long as it is, will be found interesting:Noven,- r Lor2 12, 1849. TIHE HARMONY OF INTERESTS. 155 cc'When a married woman goes to the fields to work, she must leave her children at home. In many cases they are too young to be left by themselves, vwhien they are generally left in charge of a young girl hired for the purpose. The sium pai.l to this vicarious mother, who is generally lierself a mnere child, is from 8d. to Is. per week, in addition to wlhiceh she is fed and lodlged in the house. This is nearly eqllivalent to an addlition of two more melmbers to lihe ifamily. If, therefore, the mother works in the fields for weekly wages equal to the inaintenanrce of three children fbr tie week, it is, in tile first place, in many cases, at the cost of having two additional nioths to feed. Blit tiis is far from being all the (isa(lvaintages atteniling out-door labour by the mother. One of the worst features attending the system is the cheerlessness with which it invests the poor man's house. On returning fiom work, instead of finding his house in order and a nmeal comfoirtably prepared for him, his wilfe accompanies hinm home, or perlhaps arrives after hirn, when all lias to be done in his presence which should have been dlone lor his reception. Thlie result is, that home is made distastefiil to him, and lie hies to the nearest ale-houso, where lie soon spends the balance of his wife's earnings for the week, and also those of his children, if any of them have been at work. A great (leal is lost also througth the unthrifty habits of his wife. Her expertness at out-door labour hias been acqnired at the expense of an adequate knowledge of her in-door duties.