manufacturing interest is large and increasing, that one defeat will not discourage its partisans, and lastly, extraordinary as the fact may seem, that the bill in question, fraught with such varied evil, was thrown out by a majority of only one vote in the senate. The tendency of this project was not only to introduce an unequal system of taxation, but first, by the destruction of a large part of our foreign commerce, to diminish very materially the market for our home products, and secondly, to divert a large portion of agricultural industry into the service of the loom and spinning jenny.

But it will be asked, are manufactures then to be entirely neglected? Most certainly not. Still there is a certain limit, in a newly settled country with a thin population, beyond which their establishment is not only useless to government, but a burden to the people. It is undoubtedly true that the manufacture of articles of immediate necessity or very general circulation ought to be encouraged by a wise and provident people; but it ordinarily happens that these need no extraordinary patronage; their extended use soon gives a facility to the artist, which enables him to enter into competition with the foreigner, provided the raw material is to be found at home in any tolerable abundance. Thus we find that hats were manufactured in the colonies at a very early period; together with household furniture, saddlery, &c. they have long since ceased to be an article of importation. It is necessary for the well-being and security of a nation, that certain articles, should be manufactured within its limits, such as gunpowder, coarse clothing, and some others of a similar discription.—But the moment people attempt to force by means of high duties on foreign imports the production of a commodity, which, by reason of the extravagance of the wages of labour and other causes, must necessarily be sold at a much greater price than the imported one, their conduct would seem no less an affront to common sense, than a solecism in political economy.

The United States possess a very restricted capital; and as the tilling of the soil requires comparatively much fewer advances than any other department of industry, that capital became immediately invested in agriculture. Land, cheap, and fertile, constituted a fund which gave a certain profit. And as the productions of the labour of more than five eighths of our population went to purchase foreign articles either of luxury or necessity, a great and profitable intercourse was constantly maintained with Europe. Under an equitable system of foreign duties, arising from this commerce, the expenses of government were defrayed, our debt gradually extinguished, and by a powerful but necessary re-action our agriculture improved and extended. But the tariff bill restricted a large and valuable commerce principally with Britain. It is not to be supposed that, while we refused the broadcloths and hardware of England, she would still continue to buy the same proportion of our cotton and tobacco. Our market then for these articles would be so far lost; and if we now feel the effects of a diminished demand for our produce in consequence of the establishment of peace in Europe, how can it be thought a wise policy to suffer other embarrassments and losses, by excluding ourselves entirely from every foreign port where we might calculate upon its sale? Where then is our produce to find a vent? For assuredly the most enthusiastic friend of domestic manufactures could never imagine, that the most extensive establishment of them could ever give an adequate consumption for the present amount of our agricultural productions.

The bill then imposing heavy duties on foreign articles, besides diminishing the number of the cultivators of the soil, would in some degree operate as a tax on its fruits, because, while the price of manufactures was enormously increased, the value of produce would be more than proportionally diminished. For the cultivator, not only deprived of the benefit of a competition between the domestic and foreign consumer in the sale of his articles, is obliged to purchase those of his neighbour, at any price which his cupidity and the tariff may determine. The expenses of the state being still the same and its usual resources dried up, a general but unequal system of taxation would be adopted, which in fact, the farmer bending under the weight of this partial policy, is less able to pay whatever contribution may be levied. These assertions are by no means novel, they are mere corollaries from the plainest and most undoubted principles of political economy. Dr. Adam Smith, the great father of the science, and all whose views on this subject, though not acted upon in a country whose domestic policy was too firmly established to be changed without a most serious revolution, ought to have great weight with us in the adoption of any permanent system, speaks in this decided manner in his "Wealth of Nations," vol. iii. p. 201. "It is thus that every system which endeavours, either by extraordinary encouragements, to draw towards a particular species of industry a greater share of the capital of the society, than what would naturally go to it; or by extraordinary restraints, to force from particular species of industry some share of the capital which would otherwise be employed in it; is in reality subversive of the great purpose which it means to promote. It retards instead of accelerating the progress of the society towards real wealth and greatness; and diminishes instead of increasing the real value of the annual produce of its land and labour. All systems either of preference or restraint therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man or order of men." M. Say, a man no less remarkable for his practical knowledge of manufacturing industry, than his profound acquaintance with every branch of economical science, has given his marked disapprobation of that system which we are discussing. "Lorsqu'au travers de cette marche naturelle des choses," says he, "l'autorité se montre et dit: le produit, qu'on veut créer, celui qui donne les meilleurs profits, et par conséquent celui qui est le plus recherché, n'est pas celui qui convient, il faut qu'on s'occupe de tel autre; elle dirige évidemment une partie de la production vers un genre, dont le besoin se fait sentir davantage." Traité d'Economic Politique, tom. i. p. 168. We can only refer to pages 172 and 201 for the expansion of these ideas. It is thus we find that the arguments adduced in favour of this system neither accord with the convictions of fact nor the suggestions of reason. Whenever the increasing capital devoted to the land can no longer be profitably employed, then manufactures will flourish and the surplus profits of agriculture be legitimately devoted to their support.

During the late war, the prospect of large gains caused by the extravagant price of all European commodities, caused many persons in our country to embark their fortunes in cotton and woollen factories.—These factories were brought into being by a temporary and unnatural state of things. On the return of the peace of 1814, many of these manufacturing establishments came of necessity to an end. Some establishments remain and ought to succeed, because they prove that the profits of their capital may enter into competition with that employed in agriculture. In this case the transfer is not only natural but conducive to national wealth.

But we are asked to patronise manufactures at the expense of agriculture, on the ground of our being rendered really more independent by them. This is, however, but an attempt to conceal private interest under the