ufacturers, or of mechanics, or of tradesmen, or of artists, or of any of the persons engaged in the almost countless pursuits of life, other than that of agriculture, which the farmers of the country do not or ought not chiefly to supply with food; and none of all these which they do not or ought not, to a very great extent, to supply with clothing. It is their natural, social, political right, in preference to the claims of foreigners to do the same things. It is their natural right, because they are in places contiguous; it is their social right, because they are neighbors; and it is their political right, because they and all these parties are members of the same political commonwealth. And yet, it was openly proposed by the secretary of the treasury of the United States, in his project of a public policy, established by the tariff of 1846, in addition to what is noticed above, to increase the imports of boots and shoes, $45,000; of ready-made clothing, $200,000; of blacksmith's work, $200,000; of hats, $110,000; of leather, $100,000; of glass, $100,000; of paper, $150,000; of hemp, cordage, &c., $275,000; of pins, $50,000; of salt, $1,000,000; of sugar, $630,000; of wool, unmanufactured, $200,000; of potatoes, $150,000, &c., &c. And many of these estimates are as much below what would be required for the necessary revenue, under the reduction of duties fixed by the tariff of 1846, as those given for woollen goods, iron, and coal, as above noticed. So much business, and all the profits thereof, it is proposed, by an American government, to take out of the hands of the American people, and give to foreigners. And Americans, by being thus forced to buy what they could produce, and wish to produce, and the production of which is necessary to their welfare and happiness, are forced to bear the immense system of foreign taxation on all these imports, at the same time that they are impoverished for want of the work.

But to show yet farther how farmers are affected by this policy, we shall avail ourselves of the following extract from a speech of the Hon. Andrew Stewart, of Pennsylvania, delivered in Congress, May 27, 1846, in part a repetition of what we have already given, but in a different form, and well put :

"With all the protection we now enjoy" [under the tariff of 1842], said Mr. Stewart, "Great Britain sends into this country eight dollars' worth of her agricultural productions to one dollar's worth of all our agricultural productions, save cotton and tobacco, that she takes from us. I assert, and can prove, that more than half the value of all the British merchandise imported into this

country, consists of agricultural products, changed in form, converted and manufactured into goods. Take down all the articles in a store, one after another; estimate the value of the raw material, the bread and meat, and other agricultural products which have entered into their fabrication; and it will be found, that one half and more of their value consists of the productions of the soilagricultural produce in its strictest sense. By reference to Mr. Walker's report, it will be seen, that, for twelve years back, we have imported from Great Britain and her dependencies annually, fifty-nine and a half millions of dollars worth of goods-call it fifty millions— while she took of all our agricultural products, save cotton and tobacco, less than two and a half millions of dollars worth. Thus, then, assuming one half the value of her goods to be agricultural, it gives us $25,000,000 of her agricultural produce to $2,500,000 of ours taken by her, which is just ten to one; to avoid cavil, put it at eight to one... We have imported yearly, for twenty-six years-so says Mr. Walker's report-more than ten millions of dollars worth of woollen goods. Last year we imported $10,666,176 worth. Now, one half and more of this cloth was made up of wool, the product of labor and agriculture. The general estimate is, that the wool alone is half. The universal custom among farmers, when they had their wool manufactured on shares, was to give the manufacturer half the cloth. Thus we import, and our people have to pay for, five millions of dollars worth of foreign wool, mostly the product of sheep-feeding on the grass and grain of Great Britain, to the prejudice of the market for our own wool; and this is the policy gentlemen recommend to our farmers! Yes, sir; and not satisfied with fire millions, they wish to increase it to ten millions a year for foreign wool. Will gentlemen deny this? They dare not. They supported Mr. Walker's bill, reducing the duties on woollens nearly one half, with a view to increase the revenue. Of course the imports must be doubled, making the import of cloth twenty millions instead of ten, and of wool ten instead of fire millions of dollars per annum. What is true of cloth is equally true of everything else. Take a hat, a pair of shoes, a yard of silk or lace, analyze it, resolve it into its constituent elements, and you will find that the raw material and the substance of labor, and other agricultural products, constitute more than one half of its entire value. The pauper-labor of Europe employed in manufacturing silk and lace, gets what it eats, no more; and this is what you pay for, when you purchase their goods. The article

of iron is a stronger case.

Last year, according to Mr. Walker's report, we imported $9,043,396 worth of foreign iron and its manufactures, mostly from Great Britain, four fifths of the value of which, as every practical man knows, consist of agricultural produce-nothing else. What gives its value? The labor of horses, oxen, mules, and men. And what sustained this labor, but corn, oats, hay, and straw for the one, and bread, meat, and vegetables of every kind, for the other? These agricultural products are purchased and consumed, and make up nearly the whole price of the iron, which the manufacturer receives and pays over to the farmers again and again, as often as the process is repeated. Is not iron made in England of the same materials that it is made of here? Certainly. Then is not four fifths of the value of British iron made up of British agricultural produce? And if we purchase nine millions of dollars worth of British iron a year, do we not pay six or seven millions of this sum for the produce of British farmersgrain, hay, grass, bread, meat, and other provisions for man and beast-sent here for sale in the form of iron?.. Mr. Secretary Walker informs us that the present duty on iron is 75 per cent., which he proposes to reduce to 30 per cent. [which is the duty of the tariff of 1846], to increase the revenue. To do this, must he not then double [more than double] the imports of iron? Surely he must. Then we must add ten or twelve millions a year to our present imports of iron, and of course destroy that amount of our domestic supply to make room for it. Thus at a blow, in the single article of iron, this bill is intended to destroy the American market for at least eight millions of dollars worth of domestic agricultural produce, to be supplied from abroad."

The following extract from Adam Smith will show that he was aware of this great truth in public economy, though it is singular that it should require three fourths of a century for its full development: "A piece of fine cloth which weighs only eight pounds, contains in it the price, not only of eight pounds weight of wool, but sometimes of several thousand weight of corn, the maintenance of the different working people, and of their immediate employers. The corn which could with difficulty be carried abroad in its own shape, is in this manner virtually exported in that of the complete manufacture, and may easily be sent to the remotest corners of the world. In this manner have grown up naturally, and as it were of their own accord, the manufactures of Leeds, Halifax, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Woolverhampton. [Now may be added Man

chester, Paisley, and many other manufacturing towns of England and Scotland.] In the modern history of Europe, their extension and improvement have generally been posterior to those which were the offspring of foreign commerce. England was noted for the manufacture of fine cloths made of Spanish wool more than a century before any of those which now flourish in the places above mentioned were fit for foreign sale. The extension and improvement of these last could not take place but in consequence of the extension and improvement of agriculture, the last and greatest effect of foreign commerce, and of the manufactures immediately introduced by it.”

The English Free-Traders have overshot the mark, and given advice to all the world, which was designed for home consumption. They would have been more wise, if they had held all their debates with domestic opponents, behind closed doors. For example, in the “"Examiner," where we find Mr. Brown's letter, we also find an article the next month, of which the following is an extract: "Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, are the great merchants who buy the duke of Buckingham's wheat [a metaphor, meaning any Englishman's wheat] at 55s. per quarter, pay a bounty of 20s. with it [making 75s. per quarter], and then sell it abroad at 35s. per quarter. In fact, it is the foreigner who pays the farm laborer and the landlord's rent; and if the Chinamen, and the Yan kees, and the Germans, were to stop payment, what would become of mortgages and daughters' settlements."

It can not be denied, that this is a candid disclosure; and if "the foreigner," especially "the Yankees," are not instructed by it, they must have lost their reputed sharpness. Is not this cool, not to say impudent, for an English Free-Trader to insult the world with such a notice? It is the "Yankees," then, who redeem their mortgages, and furnish the daughters of the English landlords with settlements, by consuming their agricultural products, in the form of manufactured goods! This, doubtless, is the exact truth. Some, perhaps, will be puzzled to discern what this writer means by purchasing "the duke of Buckingham's wheat" at a cost of 75s. per quarter, and selling it at 35s. It is simply this: It goes into the mouth, "laboratory," of Mr. Brown's "wonderful intellectual machine, man," the British operative, "and gives him the physical power, aided by steam, of converting it into broadcloth, calico, hardware," &c. This "physical power," imparted by the bread, is such a multiplication of the power of its cause, that a moiety

thereof is worth more than the whole cost of the power that produced it; and this is the way in which they buy "the duke of Buckingham's wheat" at 75s. per quarter, and sell it at 35s.

That this great and important doctrine, viz., that agricultural products and labor incorporate themselves with those of manufacture, constitute the principal part of them, and go forth in this disguise to market, at home and abroad, wherever the articles of manufacture are in request, is well understood in England, appears to be evident enough; though all British economists, for reasons that appear elsewhere in this work, have taken good care to keep it out of sight.* It only requires, that it should be understood in the United States, and the agriculturists, the farmers, of this country, will then see where their true interest lies. It lies in a protective system, that shall secure a home market for their products. Nature, sound policy, and Providence, seem to have decided, that agriculture and manufactures, in the United States-anywhere, indeed-should support each other, and that they together should keep commerce in motion, to distribute their products over the face of the earth; for the products of manufacture are but the products of agriculture

It seems, too, that the secretary of the treasury of the United States, in his annual report for December, 1847, has also endeavored to keep this out of sight, by a most extraordinary, even audacious statement. He says, that "the average exports of breadstuffs and provisions were much larger in the years of low, compared with high duties, the tables of the treasury clearly prove." The veracity of this statement is most unfavorably tested by the following extracts from these very "tables of the treasury," as officially certified and published by himself. We have added a third column, to show the amount of agricultural products and labor imported from the same quarter, for the same years, rating them at half the cost of the imports, as above shown not to be too large. This third column is at the same time an illustration and a proof of the doctrine of this chapter, as stated in the text above in italics: