not reduced to distress, we were partly supplied with bread from that quarter in 1837, by reason of short crops.

The indirect effects of a protective system in sustaining and raising the prices of agricultural products and labor, and in increasing the demand for them, assert a very strong claim for a full consideration. This is more important and more effective than direct protection, though the average of the latter, as seen above, is not exceeded by that bestowed on those things which are commonly supposed to be the chief objects of protection.

It is convenient in this place to distinguish between those products of American agriculture which are common to this country and all others, or most others, with which we trade, and those not common. Of course, exotic productions which we do not raise or produce at all, do not come within the scope of this question; and there are three or four slave-grown staples of considerable importance, which, though produced in some other countries, occupy a peculiar position, and will on that account claim a separate consideration, especially cotton. It may be remarked, however, in passing, that tobacco, as an agricultural product, which is chiefly though not exclusively a slave-grown staple in the United States, is yet essentially benefited by protection of its manufactured forms. Rice, as an American product, and a slave-grown staple, demands and receives protection. Sugar is also a slave-grown staple; but it requires protection only as a manufactured article. While the prices of this article are reduced by protection, as before shown, the value of the agricultural labor, in raising the cane, is enhanced by it; so also the labor of making the sugar, as it is done by the same hands. This benefit to this species of agriculture is proved by the fact that those engaged in it demand protection. Nothing, therefore, of the slave-grown staples of importance remains, except cotton, which is considered in another place.

Slave-labor invariably demands protection, much more than free labor, in all its work that is common to free labor, because the former is not only more expensive for a given amount of its products, but because a free man works for himself, while a slave works for a master. In raising cotton, rice, and sugar, slave-labor has no competitor in free; and in cotton, it has no rival anywhere, except in certain foreign parts, which, as shown elsewhere, is of no consequence. But in every department of labor performed by slaves in the United States, whether in agriculture, manufactures, or mechanics, which has a rival in free labor, slave-labor demands pro

tection against the foreign product much more than free labor. It can not subsist permanently without protection, as it would in the end eat up itself, and expire of its own vis inertia. There never was a greater mistake than for slaveholders in the United States to go for Free Trade. In economy, their slaves occupy precisely the position of the ox. horse, and mule, of the northern farmer. Nor is it the same position as that of the pauper-labor of Europe, which raises and supports itself on the pittance allowed. Slaves are more expensive. We are not the advocates of slavery. We speak as an economist. Slavery in the United States, without a protective system, would as certainly run out, extinguish itself, as the sun is sure to rise and set, except so far as it may be demanded for the production of those staples which free labor can not produce. Under a system of public economy for the United States, as one nation, in its foreign commercial relations, free labor could do without protection much better than that of slaves.

But, to return to our proposition, that, in addition to the benefits which agriculture derives from a direct protection of its products, it is also benefited even more essentially and more considerably by the indirect influence of a general and comprehensive protective system, in sustaining and raising the prices of its products, and consequently sustaining and raising the prices of agricultural labor. This proposition applies not only to those agricultural products which we raise in common with all or most other countries, but to those which are, for the most part, and soine of which are altogether, peculiar to this country.

Bat, first, in regard to agricultural products which are common to this and all or most other countries. Bread-stuffs and those things which are necessary to man's subsistence, are common to almost all countries of any considerable extent of territory. Savages generally find wherewithal to support existence, and can easily do so, where there is enough of the virtue of providence among them. But, in the advanced stages of civilization, as in Europe and some other parts, a country can not be found where the people do not endeavor to raise enough of bread-stuffs, animal food, and other esculents, or where the government does not encourage the raising of enough, to satisfy all the mouths that are in it, so far as necessaries are concerned. All Europe is abundantly provided for in this particular, except in a general or partial failure of the crops, against which, as a Providential event, no human foresight, care, or labor can be fully prepared. Even the great manufactur

ing nation of Great Britain is able, and for the most part intends, by its public policy, and by the practical operation of its system of society, to supply all its own mouths, from its own soil and fisheries, with the necessaries of life; and it has vast tracts of land not yet reduced to culture. But being a manufacturing nation, and requiring custom of other nations for her manufactured products, her policy is, in part, to suppress agriculture at home by not cultivating all her soil, so as to keep up appearances of a reciprocal exchange with her customers. But it will be found that the amount of the raw agricultural produce, which she is capable of raising at all, imported or bought by her, is trifling; and that the amount of her own agricultural produce exported in the forms of her manufactures, is many times in excess of all that she imports in the raw state for purposes of food. The following statements are to this point :

William Brown, Esq., a British Free-Trader and merchant, in his letter to John Rolph, Esq., a landholder, which appeared in the "Economist," a British Free-Trade journal, of November 15, 1845, says: "Paradoxical as it may appear, I think Great Britain. is the largest grain-exporting country in the world, although it is impossible to estimate accurately what quantity of grain, &c., is consumed in preparing £50,000,000 [$242,000,000] value of exports [manufactured], by which you [landlords] so greatly benefit. It is placed in the laboratory of that wonderful intellectual machine, man, which gives him the physical power, aided by steam, of converting it into broadcloths, calico, hardware, &c.; and in these shapes your wheats find their way to every country in the world. .. We are dependent on foreigners for using our wheat in the shape of broadcloths, &c. ; and I wish we were more so... You fancy other nations are untaxed, and have no national debt. Pray point them out. I think you will find, on inquiry, that the taxation of this country, taking into view its wealth and ability to pay, is as light as in any country I know, even in the United States. Indeed, I have been much astonished at the burdens which some of the states have to bear, and in part from a direct land-tax. . . You speak of how small an amount of value in bread is consumed by the working classes, adding that, if the price were lower, it would also take away rent altogether; but you forget beef, pork, mutton, milk, butter, cheese, potatoes, &c., and that rent is not a large portion of the cost. If wheat, the most convenient article for transport, is a little cheaper, other articles of agricultural prod

uce would advance, under a prosperous trade. Any wheat that would come here, would only help to keep at home our 100,000 human machines [who annually emigrate], and sustain our 400,000 annual increase, and again be sent away in the shape of the products of our industry. . . The fact is, instead of keeping our people at home to manufacture for the rest of the world, and be your best customers at your own door for the products of the soil, our anti-commercial policy is forcing them to emigrate, to seek work elsewhere; and other nations are employing their hands to do what we could have done better for them, and at a lower price. Suppose we imported all the wheat required for their use: consider the amount of wages [of the manufacturing operatives] that would reach the agriculturist, directly or indirectly, for other descriptions of your produce, independent of wheat. Nor need you be afraid. of the United States. Their population is increasing still more rapidly than that of Europe, and their growth of wheat is not excessive. In 1843, it was but 12,500,000 quarters; in 1844, it was under 12,000,000; of Indian corn, in 1843, it was 62,500,000, and in 1844, only 53,000,000 of quarters. You are aware that our growth of wheat is estimated at 18,000,000 of quarters; and of all kinds of grain, beans, &c., 60,000,000. . . It is obviously our true policy to increase our trade with other nations. . . With the advantages we have in climate, capital, security for property, intelligence, machinery, improved agricultural implements, and above all, in the immense and cheap supply of the moving power, coal, we can afford to give higher prices for agricultural produce, to sustain the rent-rolls of the landlords, and maintain England as the most powerful and prosperous kingdom, and the principal workshop of the world. . . I have shown you, that the introduction of our manufactures into other countries, is the medium through which we export, and obtain high prices for your wheat and other agricultural productions."

There is one great principle or doctrine of public economy disclosed in the above extract, which, in a subsequent part of this chapter, is more fully elucidated, and which, vital, important, and all-pervading as it is, in every practical system, has not even been recognised by the standard economists of the age. It will be seen, after reading the above, that we refer to the incorporation of agricultural labor and products with the products of manufacture. No system of public economy can begin to be what it ought to be, that overlooks this comprehensive element. There is no other that

enters more essentially, or pervades more thoroughly, the operations of the commercial world, as they affect this branch of knowledge; and no one, left unconsidered, that would lead to so great a defect of a system. It is impossible, indeed, to understand the true economy of any great nation, without understanding this.

But the particular purpose for which we have here introduced the above extracts, is to call attention, by such incidental evidence -the more conclusive because it is incidental-to the competency, even of Great Britain, to feed her own mouths, where no extraordinary events of Providence, as by the failure of the potato and other crops in 1845 and 1846, should disappoint human calculations. Her usual production of bread-stuffs is but a little short of her own wants.

But Europe is emphatically the wheatfield of the world. With a superficial area of 3,650,000 square miles, four sevenths of which, according to M'Culloch, are adapted to the cultivation of wheat, including all the densely-peopled regions, and with a superabundance of laborers to work at wages from six to twelve cents a day, with an ordinary product of that part of the world, the wants of Great Britain are not likely to be without supply at prices which no American can or will work for. The tables in the note below will give some instruction on this point.*

It is stated above that Great Britain exports many times of her own agricultural products, in excess of what she imports, for pur

• Importations of Wheat into Great Britain, from the principal Wheat Countries, far 1841, 1842, and 1843, in Bushels, together with the Sum total from each Country.

These three years, 1841, 1842, and 1843, were the years of the largest importations of breadstuffs into Great Britain, averaging 18,300,000 bushels; whereas, the average from 1829, to 1843, including fifteen years, was only 10,964,896 bushels. It is generally allowed, however, that Great Britain ordinarily requires an average annual supply of wheat from other countries, of about 15,000,000 of bushels. or 1,500,000 quarters, which is about one twelfth of her own product, as stated by Mr. Brown, above. The proportion of this supply from the United States, according to the above table, is about one twentieth.