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pauper and serf laborer of Europe. Our farmers compete in foreign markets with the pauper and serf labor of Europe, then deduct freight and other charges, which for our more interior portions of the United States, amounts to 50 or 100 per cent, and the foreign price with these deductions, determines the domestic price for every latitude and longitude in the union. One would say with but little hesitation, that our American husbandmen should not be subject to such a degrading competition, on such unequal terms, without the interposition of the protecting arm of the government. But our manufacturers have insisted with much pertinacity and eloquence, on being protected in our home markets against the pauper labor of Europe, when in fact, situated as they are, the commodities produced by the European factories, cannot be imported free of duty, subject to freight, charges, interest on capital, insurance, and importers', jobbers and retailers' profits, and be afforded, in any inland portion of the Union, short of 50 or 100 per cent added to their foreign cost. This is a protection then, which our manufacturers enjoy against the pauper labor of Europe, independent of legislation, by the natural course of 'trade.

This protection against their European rivals, by the natural course of trade, and the privilege of purchasing their bread-stuffs, provisions &c., and raw materials at prices mach below in this country what they cost their European competitors, one would suppose would be all the protection they would expect, without having the face to petition for legislative protection in addition. Now, without legislative protection, on either hand the American farmer would be situated the very reverse of all this, for he, by the course of trade, gets less for his produce, by 50 or 100 per cent than the European, and pays about as much more for all the goods he purchases, while competing with the pauper and serf laborer of the old world. Under this difference in the circumstances of the two classes, no one could doubt the justice of giving the agriculturalist protective bounties of 50 per cent or more on his surplus exports, in order to bring him up to an even position with his neighbor, the manufacturer. Legislative protection for the farmer to the amount of 50 to 100 per cent, would be no more than the protection which the manufacturer enjoys independent of legislation, by virtue of his geographical position, and the laws of trade.

If our agricultural population were thus protected, they would be prosperous, to say the least, if not opulent; and though our manufactures should have no direct legislative protection extended to them, yet, in addition to their protections which they naturally enjoy, they would derive much incidental protection from the prosperity of the agricultural masses. The latter constitute the principal market of the manufacturers, even now, and if they were more prosperous, and had greater ability to purchase, they would consume of merchandize vastly more than now-affording to the manufacturer, an increased "home market," and a wealthy and liberal constituency.

If a course of policy be pursued, which shall insure the prosperity of our agricultural classes, we shall have laid the foundation for our national greatness on a broad and sure basis; and if other interests were left with but the protection which they must incidentally derive from the permanent thrift of so large a class, constituting near seveneights of our population, it could not be said that they were left altogether unprovided for.

But contrary from what might have been anticipated by all unprejudiced minds, our government commenced about a quarter of a century since, to add legislative aid, to the ample protection which our manufacturers already enjoyed, and which, if we may credit the ample returns made in taking the census of 1810, and the estimates of Tench Coxe, had already, during the interval of peace between the two last American wars, grown up without legislative protection, to a state of the most astonishing prosperity.

This policy once commenced, the avarice of those interested, seemed to grow with what it fed on; and corporate wealth soon found means of successfully applying its immense gains to perpetuate and increase a policy, which, at the first, was claimed by none of its advocates as any thing more than temporary.

By successive growths, the protective duties in favor of manufactures, have become truly enormous, ranging from 30 and 40 to 150 per cent. It is true, if we include every thing on which even a nominal duty is imposed, and thus make an average, our tariff tax amounts to but about 35 or 36 per cent. ; but if we strike out the mere nominal duties, such as are not intended for protection, and make the average on such as are intended to protect the manufacturer, it

will be found that the protective tariff proper, will average not less than 60 or 70 per cent. For the truth of this, let us recur to the evidence contained in the House Report, No. 306, 1st session 28th Congress, table C., which contains the ad valorem rates of the present tariff, as estimated at the Treasury.

It is sufficient, for all purposes, to take the greastest and leading manufactories of the Union :

The above articles must include much the greatest amount of all the manufacturing done in the United States, on which the tariff is intended to be protective, and if we make a general average it amounts to 72 per cent., and these may be taken as a pretty fair specimen of the whole. And while every manufacturing interest has been carefully ferretted out, and adopted as a pet child of Congress, and the most ample protection lavished upon it, either by import duties or export bounties, as the case required, not a single penny's worth of practical protection has been extended to our agricultural interests. While other pursuits have been warmly cherished by the parental hand of our national legislature, the cold shoulder has been pertinaciously turned to the farming classes. Whenever a list of import duties has been adopted, for the purpose of raising the prices of the deficient articles of the country, the catalogue was brought to a full pause, whenever it approached an article of this class, which a farmer might have for sale.

Though, almost all articles which farmers have for sale, are of the surplus kind, and could not be protected by an import duty, yet, to this there are a few exceptions, viz: hides, coarse wool, linseed, flax, raw silk, bristles, &c., are not supplied in redundancy by our home producers; and any duty which should be imposed on the imported

deficiency, would raise the price of the American article to the amount of the duty, and would be protective to that extent. For instance, one dollar duty on every hide imported, would add a dollar to the price of every American hide, and would put one dollar more in the pocket of every farmer who had a hide to sell. But in this, as in all other cases, as soon as the catalogue of duties had run through all that was necessary to protect the manufacturer, and come to some such articles as would equally protect the farmer, the import duties stop entirely, or fall to a mere nominal duty of 3 or 5 per cent, with the single exception of fine wool, which, it must be admitted, has lately been increased in price by a protective duty. But by another year there will probably be a surplus of this article in market, when the import duty will be inoperative.

Then on the other hand, export bounties have been used to some extent to raise the price of, and thereby protect some of the surplus articles of our country; as for instance, pickled fish, spirits manufactured from molasses, and refined sugar; and if congress had kept on and offered export bounties on pork, beef, flour, fruit, timber, &c., all of which have to maintan a sharp competition with similar articles brought into market by the serf and pauper labor of Europe, then our farmers would have been protected in the market to the full extent of the bounty. But no; as soon as the list of export bounties was likely to fall on such agricultural products as would increase the price of any thing a farmer had to sell, then these too, like import duties, were brought to a bold stop.

Thus while the United States Congress is in full possession of means for the most ample protection of any class of citizens it may choose to favor, and has freely used both import duties and export bounties for such purposes, it has hitherto carefully eschewed the least protection to the agricultural classes.

The continuation of protection to a favorite class for a series of years, and the withholding it from another, must produce such an obvious impression in the relative prices of what each has for sale, as to leave no doubt of its unequal effect, and baneful influence on the non-protected portion of community.

Let us recur to a few examples by way of illustration: To produce wheat and flour, and nearly all other agricultural products, cost just

as much labor now as it did fifty or sixty years ago, and every thing is naturally regulated in price by the amount of labor which enters into its production. Therefore, flour, for instance, is a better standard by which to compare the relative value of every thing else for the last half century, than money itself, which has been subject to so many fluctuations, by means of the expansions and contractions of bank issues, &c. We will then compare the relative prices of flour and iron, before the protective tariff policy can be said to have commenced.

Previous to 1789, there was no duty whatever on iron, yet in 1792, when the duty had been imposed no higher than 73 per cent, we learn from the report of Alexander Hamilton, and other sources, that the manufactory of iron had already proceeded so far that it could by no means be said to be in its infancy.

In his report on manufactures, after enumerating the many kinds produced, he goes on to say: "The enquiry to which the subject of this report has led, have been answered with proofs that manufactories of iron, though generally understood to be extensive, are far more so than is commonly supposed."

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"Iron works have greatly increased in the United States, and are prosecuted with much more advantage than formerly. The average price before the revolution was about $64 per ton; at present it is about $80; a rise which is chiefly attributed to the increase of the manufacture of the material, [Manufacturing bar iron into tools &c.]

"Steel is a branch which has made a considerable progress, and it is ascertained that some new enterprizes on a more extensive scale have been lately set on foot. The facility of carrying it to an extent that will supply all internal demand, and furnish a considerable surplus for exportation, cannot be doubted."

It seems then, that more than half a century ago, we thought ourselves on the eve of having a surplus for exportation; more than we can say now.

In 1810, Secretary Gallatin says about 4,500 tons of bar iron are imported from Russia, and an equal quantity from England and Sweden. This would be about 9,000 tons in all, imported for 7,239,814 inhabitants; the remainder of the iron used was manufactured at home. This gives a pretty fair picture of the condition of the man