Prohibition of the Importation of Coarse Cotton Fabrics. mountable barriers to the attempt, has labored, unremittingly, to place those objects upon which they depended for subsistence or defence beyond the reach of accident or war, by encouraging their domestic production at every expense, and at every sacrifice. honorable bodies that it would be the obvious interest of the European nations, and consistent with those maxims of policy by which their measures have ever been guided, and to which they are at this moment giving additional efficacy, to crush the infant, and as yet immature, establishYour petitioners would respectfully submit ments in this country, which threaten at no disthat the domestic manufacture of cotton goods tant period of time to interfere with their own comes within this last mentioned exception in two profits, and to place us above a dependence which ways. The cultivation of this article, as a pro- it has ever been their anxious wish to extend and duct of agriculture, is an object of primary im- strengthen. By pouring in upon us, during the portance to a large and wealthy section of the present year, a flood of goods, at reduced prices, country; and the consumption of the coarser this result would in all probability, be accomcotton fabrics extends so equally and universally, plished, and there is too much reason to appreas to include every family within the territories hend that their respective Governments would of the United States. Unless the domestic man- shrink from no pecuniary assistance to further ufacturing establishments can afford a partial the mercenary views of individual cupidity. If vent for the productions of the Southern agricul- these rivals be once crushed to the earth, even by turist, and afford an adequate supply for the ex- a large temporary sacrifice, it will be in their tensive demands of a population of eight millions power effectually to prevent their second growth, of people, any sudden interruption of our foreign and thus to hold a complete control over our concommerce must be productive of the most disas-sumers and our planters, by regulating, according trous consequences to all the growers and all the consumers of the article in question; and should this interruption prove permanent, or even be protracted to a period not exceeding the ordinary continuance of modern wars, may eventuate in the utter ruin of many, and the extreme distress of all. The growers of cotton must lose, or change their crops; the consumers must pay enormous prices for articles of daily and universal use, or have recourse to those wretched expedients, the use of which is ever generated by necessity. to their own discretion, the price of the raw production and the manufactured commodity in our markets, and thus to perpetuate a dependence which their monopolizing predilections are but too prone to abuse to our detriment. Your petitioners would further respectfully submit to the consideration of your honorable bodies, that, at this period of general pacification throughout Europe, every nation will become the carrier of its own articles of production and consumption; that a large portion of our accustomed commerce must necessarily perish, and the means Nor will these evils be prevented, or even in of discharging the enormous balance in favor any considerable degree alleviated, by domestic of England will soon be exhausted by a total drain establishments in a season of calamity, created of our specie from the country, already at a prefor the emergency, and perishing with the cir- mium of fifteen per cent. Under these circumcumstances, which gave them birth. Manufac-stances the encouragement of the domestic manutories are erected at an enormous expense of capital; and time, industry, and experience are required for their effectual operation. The ephemeral attempts to which a severe pressure would give rise must be of uncertain duration; and monstrous as well as immediate profits will be wrung from the distress of others, to afford some remuneration for the risk that has been incurred. Articles of necessary consumption will be subjected to the most enormous variations in their price, and extravagant and casual profits will take the place of the moderate and reasonable returns of a safe and certain trade. factures of the coarser goods would tend much to prevent the embarrassments likely to ensue from this aspect of affairs, and to relieve the country from these threatening evils. The manufacturing establishments in this country have now attained a degree of importance, and embrace so great a variety of interests, as to entitle them to some portion of the liberal patronage of Government. Commerce, agriculture, and manufactures, have become intimately connected, and, if duly and proportionably encouraged, will mutually assist and support each other. The natural advantages of the country have opened to Your petitioners would respectfully submit that its citizens a broad and even road to prosperity the injurious consequences which they have thus and greatness. To harmonize the various interbriefly sketched, can be effectually provided ests of the whole, and to complete the great circle against, only by a liberal encouragement of the of national grandeur, manufactories are essentially domestic manufactures, by an absolute or virtual necessary. The advantageous sites for the erecprohibition, during a period of peace, of foreign tion of suitable works which every district supcommodities of the same description; and they plies, render it emphatically an object of national would beg leave further to suggest that the pre-importance; by the purity of manners, and the sent season affords a happy opportunity for the interposition of Congress to prevent these evils, and to protect those whose individual and unassisted exertions have hitherto tended to avert or alleviate them. It cannot have escaped the attention of your intelligence which eminently characterize our citizens; the wholesome jealousy with which all monopolizing institutions are regarded, and the salutary superintendence of a vigilant and impartial administration of the laws, promise to secure us for ages against those evils of which politicians Protection to Manufacturers. and moralists have considered them to be productive. Your petitioners would beg leave to call the attention of your honorable bodies to some of those interests which would be protected by the measure proposed, and to some of the consequences of which it would be productive. The growers of cotton would be presented with a convenient market for a large portion of their produce, not subject to the fluctuations of political events, nor controlled by the cupidity of foreign traders, certain in its demand, and enlarging with the increasing consumption and abilities of the country. the Government of the United States towards domestic manufactures, your petitioners have, at a great expense of money and labor, erected and put into operation extensive works for manufac turing cotton goods. Most of the establishments for this object have been completed within a few years, and, owing to the numerous and unavoidable difficulties always attendant on the introduction of new branches of business, and the embarrassments arising from the situation of the foreign relations of the country, the proprietors have. hitherto, been prevented from reaping the rea sonable profits which they calculated to obtain. During the continuance of the late war, in addition to the ordinary expenses and difficulties of prosecuting the business, they had also to struggle against the enormous advances in the price of almost every article they used, together with the trouble, cost, and delay, which accrued from the necessity of transporting by land the raw material, and every other commodity required for the supply of the manufactories, and for the support and maintenance of the people employed therein. The same burdensome expense and disadvantage were also experienced in conveying the goods, when finished, to distant markets for sale. But while your petitioners have had to lament that the circumstances of the times did not permit them to realize the profits which they To the Government would be secured the had a right to expect, they had the satisfaction to means of clothing its troops under every emerg-perceive that the nation was deriving great and ency, and a new, certain, productive, and increasing source of revenue during a season of war. The consumers would be assured of a neverfailing supply of well-wrought fabrics, daily improving in quality and diminishing in price, and unaffected by the interference, the jealousy, or the hostility of foreign nations. The country would preserve the whole amount of capital already invested in these establishments, be no longer subjected to the uncertainties of foreign trade for an important article of necessary comsumption, enlarge and increase the objects of industry, affording new encouragements to her population and emigration to our country of foreign artists, and relieve herself from the pressure of a serious balance against her in her foreign trade. The internal and coasting trade, and the communication between the different and remote sections of the country would be substituted for an inconsiderable and injurious branch of foreign commerce, harmonizing their conflicting and jarring interests, and strengthening the bonds of mutual dependance. These considerations your petitioners would beg leave to press upon the serious attention of your honorable bodies in support of the measure they have proposed, relying implicitly upon the patriotism and wisdom of Congress for the adoption of some means of relief and encouragement. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c. JOHN R. WATROUS, and others. PROTECTION TO MANUFACTURERS. [Communicated to the Senate, December 22, 1815.] To the honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: important benefits from their labors, receiving, from the skill and industry of our own citizens, vast supplies of useful and necessary commodities, at moderate prices, calculated for universal consumption, and at a period when they could not be obtained from abroad; and that employment and the means of earning a comfortable livelihood were at the same time extended to thousands of poor people, dependent on their labor alone for support, and who must otherwise have been reduced to a state of misery and want. The event has also fully proved, in the opinion of your petitioners, that, by due encouragement on the part of Government to domestic manufac tures, there may be insured to the country, from this source alone, an abundant and regular supply of the most essential and important kinds of cotton goods, at fair prices, and independent of foreign nations. Your petitioners would now respectfully represent that, in addition to the accumulated embarrassments and losses under which they have labored, the pressure of which has been so great, during the last year, as to induce many of the some to suspend it entirely, the free and unre manufacturers to contract their business, and stricted admission at present allowed into the United States, of cotton fabrics of foreign p The petition of the undersigned citizens of the duction, not only extinguishes the hope of a United States, being a committee appointed by, sonable profit in future from the manufacture of and acting for and in behalf of the cotton manu-similar goods at home, but threatens the speedy facturers residing in Providence and its vicinity, respectfully showeth: That, in consequence of the interruption of commerce, and relying on the favorable disposition uniformly manifested by destruction of the establishments already erected for that purpose, and the loss of the immense capital invested in them. They, therefore, earnestly entreat the interposition of your honorable Protection to Manufacturers. body, to preserve them from impending ruin. They are the more encouraged in this application, as they conceive the time propitious for Government to extend its fostering care to the manufactures of the country, and are convinced that the request accords with the general feelings and wishes of the people, and with the best interests of the nation. In this estimate are not intended to be included the numerous classes of persons engaged in occupations indirectly connected with and dependent upon the manufacture, such as those employed in furnishing the various kinds of machinery used in the works, in supplying the people with provisions and other necessaries and conveniences, in transporting goods to and from the manufac As an eligible mode of effecting the object in tories, together with those engaged in the coastview, your petitioners would respectfully submiting trade, in bringing the raw material and other to the consideration of Congress the expediency commodities required for the use of the establishof prohibiting, by law, the importation of all cot-ments, and in conveying the manufactures to ton goods, (nankeens excepted,) the production market. of countries beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and From this cursory view of the subject a faint of augmenting the duty on those of a coarse tex-representation is exhibited how intimately the ture imported from other parts of the world. It is well known that the cotton fabrics of India are made from very inferior stock, and that they are so badly manufactured as to be of little intrinsic value, compared with the substantial and durable manufactures of our own country; and it is believed that almost every nation of Europe has found it expedient to discourage their use, by subjecting them to very heavy duties, or have prohibited their importation entirely; and it is deserving of particular observation that their consumption is interdicted in England, although they are the production of her own colonies. It is also a weighty consideration that, being made wholly of a material of foreign growth, so far as their introduction is permitted, they operate to deprive our own citizens, engaged in the cultivation of cotton, of their best and surest market, and thus injuriously affect one of our most important branches of agriculture. In order to show the extent and importance of the cotton manufacture in the United States, your petitioners beg leave respectfully to state that it has been satisfactorily ascertained that in the small district alone comprised within a circle of thirty miles from Providence, there are not less than one hundred and forty manufactories, containing, in actual operation, more than 130,000 spindles, and capable of holding a much larger number, few of them having yet received their full complement of machinery. The quantity of cotton which, in their present state, they spin in a year, may be computed at 29,000 bales, which, when manufactured into cloth of the descriptions commonly made, will produce 27,840,000 yards, the weaving of which, at the average price of eight cents, amounts to $2,227,200, and the total value of the cloth will exceed $6,000,000. To complete the manufacture from the raw material, until the goods are fit for market, it is estimated would afford steady and constant employment to 26,000 persons. But the benefits resulting from this vast amount of labor are much more extensively diffused than if the whole were done by people constantly engaged in the business, a considerable portion of it being performed by those who are partially occupied in other pursuits, particularly the weaving, which is almost wholly executed at the farm-houses throughout the country, few of which are to be found not supplied with looms. cotton manufacture, although but in its infancy, is united and blended with almost every other occupation; thus creating an interest, in a greater or less degree, in all classes for its maintenance and success, and involving in its destruction very disastrous consequences to the whole body of the community. Your petitioners know of no description of persons who are not, either directly or indirectly, benefited by this branch of manufacture, except a few capitalists engaged in the trade to India, a commerce affording employment for comparatively but few of our ships and mariners, far less, it is humbly conceived, than would be necessary to carry on the coasting 'trade arising from the manufacture at home of the same quantity of goods imported from thence. Nor does it afford a market for a single article of our own production, but operates as a continual and destructive drain of the specie of the country, the scarcity of which is at this moment most severely felt. It may be also worthy of remark that the augmentation of the revenue arising from the increased consumption of indigo and other articles used in dying, and the various commodities and materials required in the erection of the works, and in the different processes of the manufacture, many of which are subjected to heavy duties, would, it is humbly believed, nearly, if not entirely, remunerate the Treasury for the loss occasioned by the interdiction proposed. Your petitioners are aware that it has been a favorite maxim with some, that commerce should be left free and unrestrained; and, while they are far from being disposed to controvert its correctness as a general rule, subject, like all others, according to circumstances, to particular exceptions and modifications, they beg leave respectfully to suggest that they believe it far safer, and more agreeable to the dictates of political wisdom, to follow in the beaten tract of successful experience, rather than to pursue a course of policy not sanctioned by the practice of any other commercial or manufacturing people, and resting solely on opinion and theory for its support. All those nations which have carried commerce and manufactures to the greatest extent, have judged it expedient to protect their citizens against foreign competition. No Government has been more vigilant and rigid in this particular than that of England-a policy which it has steadily pursued Protection to the Sugar Planters of Louisiana. for ages, and which has been crowned with unexampled success. While the same principles continue to be persevered in by other nations, a contrary practice on the part of the United States would subject us to a species of colonial dependence, rendering us at once the victim of our own liberality and a prey to foreign cupidity and caprice. Your petitioners would endeavor to avoid encroaching upon the time of your honorable body, by the repetition of arguments of a general nature, which have been often urged, and which must readily occur to every reflecting mind; but deeming the subject of primary importance in a national point of view, and deeply affecting their individual interests, they persuade themselves it will not be considered obtrusive, succinctly to enumerate some of the particular and immediate advantages, which they conceive the country would derive from the extension of the patronage of Government to the manufacture in question. It would insure a constant and competent supply, at reasonable prices, of articles wanted for general and daily consumption, not liable to be interrupted by the hostility or injustice of foreign nations. The internal and coasting trade, which has always been considered as the most advantageous to a nation, and worthy of a high degree of public encouragement, would be thereby promoted and extended; and, by the mutual interchange of commodities between the remote sections of our extensive country, would have a salutary and powerful tendency to bind and link together the various parts in the bonds of reciprocal dependance and friendship. By a portion of our population being engaged in manufactures a market would be created at home for the productions of agriculture, not subject to be destroyed or materially injured by the enmity or jealousies of foreign Governments. This consideration is of the more importance in the present state of the world, when a general pacification has taken place between the nations of Europe, which promises to be of long duration, and forbids the expectation that the productions of the United States will continue to command such high prices abroad as during the last twenty years, while those nations were engaged in the most destructive and sanguinary wars. A sure and regular demand would be produced for a considerable portion of the cotton raised in the United States, continually augmenting with the means of manufacturing it, and the increasing consumption of the goods. Your petitioners would further respectfully suggest that the cotton fabrics of India usually imported into the United States, being of a coarse texture and cheaply made, their prime cost is very inconsiderable, and paying only an ad valorem duty, they afford but a small income to the Treasury; and the loss incurred by their exclusion might, it is humbly conceived, in a great degree, if not wholly, be restored, by increasing the duty on the coarser kinds of cotton goods imported from other parts of the world. They, therefore, pray your honorable body to take their case into your serious consideration, and that a law may be passed prohibiting the importation of all cotton goods, (nankeens excepted,) the production of places beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and laying such duty on those of a coarse texture, imported from other countries, as shall give to your petitioners the necessary protection and relief, and as Congress in their wisdom may deem expedient. And, as in duty bound, will ever pray, PROTECTION TO THE SUGAR PLANTERS To the honorable the Senate and House of Rep[Communicated to the House, January 5, 1815.] resentatives of the United States in Congress assembled: The memorial of the sugar planters, citizens of the State of Louisiana, respectfully represents:That there is, perhaps, no culture more important and advantageous to the United States than that of the sugar cane, the produce of which, though at first ranked among the luxuries of life, bas, from its universal use, become an article of the first necessity. Before the acquisition of Louisiana, vast sums of money were lost to the United States in the purchase of sugar, rum, and molasses, made in the East and West Indies, from whence alone those commodities were obtained. In time of war supplies from thence are precarious, and the consumer would be either entirely deprived of those necessary articles, or could obtain them only at exIt would enlarge the field of useful industry travagant rates. It is, then, obviously the interest and enterprise, and, by multiplying the sources of of the United States to encourage the cultivation of wealth and the means of subsistence, would en- the cane, and to secure to themselves the advaz courage population and the emigation to our tages which Louisiana offers in this particular. country of foreign artists and others, bringing Whilst its citizens rejoice in the means which a with them the latest improvements in manufacture has placed within their reach, of supplying the tures and the mechanic arts. The vast capital already invested in these establishments would be preserved, and, by its active and successful employment, would continue to contribute largely to the riches and prosperity of the nation. wants of the other States of the Union, they have at the same time to lament that their ability to effect it will depend on the fostering aid of the General Government. Beyond all others, the culture of the cane is Military and Naval Expenditures. attended with difficulties. It requires enormous capitals. The lands that produce it are dear, large gangs of slaves, and laboring animals are required, immense edifices are to be erected, mills, and expensive utensils are to be obtained; add to those the costly and unceasing labor that is required in forming, and keeping up the works that are necessary to prevent the overflowing of the mighty stream that borders those lands, the numerous canals for draining them, and without which they would not be susceptible of cultivation; so that after a fortune has been consumed, and often distressing debts incurred, years on years elapse before the most fortunate and successful reap the reward of their expenditures and toils. It is true, in a propitious season this culture affords greater profit than any other, but numerous and dreadful are the accidents that often blast the hopes of the planter. The climate is subject to hurricanes, the ravages of which not only destroys the crop in the ground, and often the expectation of the one ensuing it, but levels to the ground the buildings which had been erected at such an immense cost. Those are evils which sugar planters every where experience; but there are others, which are the peculiar scourge of those of Louisiana-an early frost prevents the maturity of the cane, and greatly injures its yield; a warm day, in the season of making sugar, occasioning it to ferment, sours the juice, and destroys the labor of the year; the coldness of the climate, and destructive attacks of worms, to which the cane is subject, requires it to be frequently replanted, and is a serious drawback on the planter, as the growth of one acre is only sufficient to plant four; the same cause also often destroys the cane intended for plants, and blasts his hopes of the ensuing crop. At times high winds, or the negligence of an individual, causing a break in the dike that retains the river, the water rushing down, sweeps buildings, crop, and animals before it, and spreading on all sides carries irresistible ruin with it. Such inundations, by covering the fields with a poor, sandy sediment, often renders them for many years useless, and they are not unfrequent. With such serious evils to contend with, it cannot be expected that the planter of Louisiana can, without some encouragement from the Government, stand in competition with those who rear the plant in its congenial climate; yet it is impossible for him successfully to attend to any other branch of agriculture. Indigo, cotton, tobacco, and sugar, are the only kinds of produce which have as yet been considered as suitable to the country. About thirty years ago the raising of indigo absolutely ceasing to afford the means of subsistence to the cultivator, tobacco, and afterwards, cotton were resorted to; but experience has shown the impossibility of standing in competition with the States of Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky, with regard to tobacco, from whence our supplies for consumption are at present received, and those of Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and the Mississippi Territory, in that of cotton. The planters of Louisiana, therefore, hope that the liberal views of Congress will in duce that honorable body to come to their aid. As part of the American family they believe it suffices for them to make known their wants to the common parent, to have every proper relief extended to them. But they address it with more confidence, from the conviction that the interests of the Union loudly demand that this distant State should be assisted in securing to herself, and, consequently, to the nation, the vast advantages which its climate and situation promise. With the encouragement of Congress she would in a few years be able to supply her sister States with sugar, rum, and molasses, and will in return consume a considerable portion of their produce and manufactures. Political considerations require also that this distant and frontier State should be strengthened, and its population augmented; let, then, the only kind of agriculture for which nature intended her, which she alone of all the States is capable of producing, and which is at the same time so essentially necessary to all, be fostered and encouraged. We, therefore, humbly entreat your honorable body that the same sound policy which has hitherto invariably excited the General Government to protect the growing manufactures of our country, and, consequently, made us in many branches completely independent of foreign nations, may be extended to the cultivators of the cane, and that the duties laid during the war on foreign sugar, rum, and molasses, be made permanent by law. BERNARD MARIGNY, and others. NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, 1815. MILITARY AND NAVAL EXPENDITURES. [Communicated to the House, February 5, 1816.] TREASURY DEPARTMENT, Feb. 5, 1816. SIR: In obedience to a resolution of the House of Representatives, passed yesterday, I have the honor to transmit a letter from the Register of the Treasury, and the statements which accompany it, viz: (A.) A comparative statement between the annual amount of the expenditure for the Military Establishment of the United States, as rendered by the Treasury Department, under a resolution of the House of Representatives of the United States, of the 20th of January, 1816, and the statement thereof furnished under the resolution of the House, of the 31st of March, 1810. (B.) A comparative statement between the annual amount of the expenditure for the Navy of the United States, as rendered by the Treasury Department, under a resolution of the House of Representatives of the United States, of the 20th of January, 1816, and the statement thereof furnished under the resolution of the House, of the 31st of March, 1810. I have the honor to be, &c. |