clothing of the people was imported from Great Britain. The hatters of London complained that a good many hats were made, especially in New York. In conclusion, the Board sums up:

"From the foregoing statement, it is observable that there are more trades carried on, and manufactures set up in the provinces on the continent of America to the northward of Virginia, prejudicial to the trade and manufactures of Great Britain, particularly in New England, than in any other of the British colonies; which is not to be wondered at, for their soil, climate, and produce being pretty nearly the same with ours, they have no staple commodities of their own growth to exchange for our manufactures, which puts them under greater necessity, as well as under greater temptations for providing for themselves at home; to which may be added, in the charter governments, the little dependence they have on the mother country, and consequently the small restraint they are under in any matters detrimental to her interests. They closed by repeating the recommendation that measures be taken to turn the industry of the colonies into new channels serviceable to Great Britain, particularly the production of naval

stores.

Parliament proceeded to act on these suggestions. That year (1732) an act was passed "to prevent the exportation of hats out of any of His Majesty's colonies or plantations in America, and to restrain the number of apprentices taken by the hat-makers in the said colonies, and for the better encouraging the making of hats in Great Britain." By this act not only was the exportation of colonial hats to a foreign port prohibited, but their transportation from one British plantation to another was also prohibited under severe penalties, and no person was allowed to make hats who had not served an apprenticeship for seven years; nor could any hatter in the colonies have more than two apprentices at any one time; and no black or negro was permitted to work at the business of making hats.

The manufactures of iron next came in for a share in the paternal regard of Parliament. In 1750 Parliament permitted pigs and bars of iron to be imported into England from the colonies duty free; but prohibited the erection of any mill or other engine for slitting or rolling iron, or any plating forge to work with a

tilt-hammer, or any furnace for making steel in the colonies, under the penalty of two hundred pounds. And every such mill, engine, forge, or furnace was declared a common nuisance, and the governor of the colony, on the information of two witnesses on oath, was ordered to cause the same to be abated within thirty days, or to forfeit the sum of five hundred pounds. Such was the spirit, such were the exactions of British legislation while our fathers remained subject to the mother country. [See the foregoing facts more fully cited from the original records in Pitkin's Statistics, edition of 1835, pp. 461-66.]

Our

The consequences of this state of enforced and abject dependence on Great Britain for the great mass of our fabrics are such as have been a thousand times realized in the history of the world. Although allowed a nearer approach to fair trade with the mother country than she has ever vouchsafed us since our independence, the colonies were never able to sell enough raw produce to England to pay for the manufactures with which she was constantly flooding us. people had cleared much land, built houses, and provided every thing essential to physical comfort, but the course of buying more than their exports would pay for could not be evaded. In the midst of outward prosperity, the colonies groaned under an increasing load of debts, which were constantly effecting the transfer of property here to owners in Great Britain. It was a standing reproach against our Revolutionary fathers that they flew to arms to evade the payment of their mercantile debts and the importunities of their creditors. And the Congress which assembled in 1765 to remonstrate against the Stamp Act, drew a graphic though sad picture of the calamities which had befallen the people-the multiplication of debts, the disappearance of money, the impossibility of payment, the stagnation of industry and business, through the excessive influx of foreign fabrics.

The war of the Revolution corrected this tendency, cutting off importation, and largely increasing our own household manufactures. But peace, in the utter absence of all protective legislation on our part, revived the mischief which had been trampled beneath the iron heel of war. The struggle for independence had left all the States embarrassed, trade completely disordered

and the whole country overwhelmed with worthless paper money; and the unchecked importing of foreign fabrics still farther multiplied and magnified debts, deprived us of our specie, broke down the prices of our products, and created general stagnation and distress. From the state of desperation thus engendered, arose the disgraceful outbreak of insurrection in Massachusetts known as 'Shay's Rebellion.' This was but one symptom of a general disease.

Repeated attempts were made to put an end to this state of things, by imposing duties on imports. But the Congress of the old confederation had no power to do this, except with the concurrence of each of the state governments. It was attempted, but failed. Rhode Island, then almost wholly a commercial state, objected, though the duty proposed was but five per cent. and the object the paying off the debts of the Revolution. Here was presented that stringent necessity which alone could have overcome the prevailing jealousies of, and aversion to, a stronger and more national government. A Convention was called, a Constitution framed and adopted; and the second act of the new Congress stands on the records entitled: "An Act to make provision for the necessities of `government, the payment of the national debt, and the protection of American manufactures." This act passed both houses of Congress by a substantially unanimous vote.

Great Britain now became alarmed for the stability of her market for manufactures in America. Her Board of Trade made a report on the subject in 1794, urging the negotiation of a commercial treaty with the United States, based on two propositions; the first being, "that the duties on British manufactures imported into the United States shall not be raised above what they are at present." The other proposed that the productions of other nations should be admitted into our ports in British vessels, the same as if imported in our own. But the government did not venture to press these propositions.

It was plainly discerned by the British economists of that day, that, while our • Congress had explicitly asserted the principle of protection, and had intended to act consistently with that principle, yet, from inexperience and a natural hesitation to change abruptly the direction which circumstances had given to our

national industry, they had fallen far short of this. The few articles of manufacture already produced in the country to a considerable extent, were, in general, efficiently protected; but the greater portion of the manufactures essential to our complete emancipation from colonial dependence were left unprotected by duties of five to fifteen per cent. Years of hard experience and of frequent suffering were required to teach the mass of our statesmen the advantage and benefi cence of extending protection also to those articles which had not been, but might easily and profitably be, produced in our own country, if the producers were shielded from the destructive rivalry always brought to bear upon a new branch of industry by the jealous and powerful foreign interests which it threatens to deprive of a lucrative market. We had but begun to learn the truths which form the basis of a wise and beneficent national economy, when the breaking out of the great wars in Europe opened to us large and lucrative foreign markets for our raw staples, and the heads of our most sedate thinkers were nearly turned by the tempting prizes proffered to mercantile enterprise by the convulsions of the old world. It seemed as though we had but to produce whatever was easiest and most natural to us, and Europe would take it at our own price, and pay us bountifully for carrying it where she wanted it. This was a pleasant dream while it lasted, but a brief one. We were awakened from it by seizures, confiscations, embargoes, and at last war, which imposed on us the necessity of commencing nearly every branch of manufacture under the most unfavorable auspices, and of course at a ruinous cost. The war with Great Britain was, in this respect, a substantial benefit to the country. The Congress of 1816 failed to impose a tariff at all adequate (save on a few articles) to the real wants of the country, but the germ of industrial independence had been planted in a soil fertilized by blood, and the plant was destined to live and flourish, though exposed to rude blasts and chilling frosts in its springtime. From 1816 to 1824, it might well have seemed doubtful whether the country would not discard all the dear-bought experience of the past, and blast all the well-grounded hopes for the future, in a heedless pursuit of what seemed (deceitful seeming!) to be the sordid interest of the present. But hetter counsels ul

timately prevailed, and the passage of the tariff of 1824 may be regarded as the resting of the ark of national independence on the dry and solid ground of efficient and positive protection to home industry. From that hour until the duties were sensibly reduced under the operation of the Compromise Act, the course of the country was due onward to more and more decided prosperity.

Experience and observation are of little use if we fail to regulate our conduct by them. The same policy which the British Government pursued towards this country whilst in its dependent colonial state, still forms the favorite measures of that government towards the United States. It would be no difficult matter to show that upon every agitation of the question of protection in Congress, the British Parliament have introduced some proceedings in order to distract, if possible, the attention of our statesmen, and to induce among us an opposition to any measures which should establish protection to our own industry, as the settled policy of the nation. The Parliament even carried the farce so far, that in May, 1840, a time when the whole people of this country were thoroughly waking up to the importance of the home system, they raised a select committee in the House of Commons, to inquire whether the duties levied by the British tariff "are for protection to similar articles" manufactured in that country, or "for the purposes of revenue alone." This select committee, in their report of August 6, 1840, appear to have lost sight of the principal object apparent on the face of the resolution authorizing their examination and report, and content themselves with observing that the English tariff "often aims at incompatible ends; the duties are sometimes meant to be both productive of revenue and for protective objects." But they state that they had discovered “a growing conviction, that the prolective system is not, on the whole, beneficial to the protected manufactures themselves."

After such a discovery, and its solemn announcement by a select committee of the House of Commons, it would reasonably be imagined that some steps would be taken towards rectifying that "incompatibility" in the British policy, and in abandoning that system which they represent as having been found not to be beneficial to their protected manufactures. If, however, we expect any such

thing from that quarter we shall be much mistaken in our anticipations. That report was grown and manufactured for the American market, and was not designed for any real effect upon the proceedings of the British House of Commons. It was intended to convince the American Congress and the American people that Great Britain was almost ruined by her protective system, (a system of ruin which she adheres to with astonishing pertinacity up to the present moment,) that our protective tariff would in like manner be ruinous to us, and that our only salvation was in adopting at once the principles of free-trade, opening our ports to all British manufactures, and becoming, in fact, merely a market for British labor. Whether, following a change on our side of the policy, they would admit our agricultural products freely, or how our own mechanics should find employment to keep them from starving, they would leave to be afterwards discovered.

Finding that their recommendation to us had no effect upon the measures of our government, they cease to be careful of the principles they put forth to the world, and seeing no longer any good reason for disguise, the leading men in both houses of Parliament afford us a fine commentary upon the text of that report of the select committee. The Duke of Wellington very recently, with the frankness of his known character, stated in the House of Peers, the true and permanent policy of Great Britain, in observing that when free-trade was talked of as existing in England, it was an absurdity. There was no such thing, and there could be no such thing as freetrade in that country. We proceed (says he) on the system of protecting our own manufactures and our own produce--the produce of our labor and our soil; of protecting them for exportation, and protecting them for home consumption; and on that universal system of protection it is absurd to talk of free-trade."

The necessity of a modification in our duties upon imports, which became apparent early in 1842, afforded a further insight into the course of British policy towards this country. So soon as the cry for protection to American industry became so loud and long as to require an answer to its demand from the supreme legislative authority, we were told throughout the whole length and breadth of our land, the information originating in

England for our benefit, that Great Britain was willing to take our surplus bread-stuff in exchange for her manufactures; and that there was therefore no necessity of changing our tariff policy in order to build up a home market for our grain-growers in the Western and Middle states, as well as our cotton-planters in the South. This would have been the tale to this day if we had not settled our protective system. It continued to be used as long as it could be with any effect; and when it became apparent to the British administration that the people of the United States could be no longer deluded by their interested and mystified views of state policy, volunteered for our service, they at once changed their note, as will be seen on reference to the speech of Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons, in May, 1843, upon the motion of Mr. Villiers for a repeal of the English corn-laws. Sir Robert sustains and advocates the British system, and that motion was rejected by a majority of one hundred and ninetysix votes! Those who had previously flattered themselves that the British ministry were prepared to go, in some modified form, for free-trade, will do well to notice the horror expressed by Sir Robert Peel of the consequences of abandoning "the principle of protection;" and they will see by that most decisive vote that the House of Commons agree with him in sentiment. As to the judgment of the House of Peers on the subject, there cannot be a question that they are more thoroughly opposed, from interest, to any kind of free-trade, than even the Commons. The Duke of Wellington in his speech (to which we have previously referred) expressed the sentiments of a large majority of that house.

It follows then, that unless we are determined to be infatuated, we must see that Great Britain does not intend, under any possible state of circumstances, to abandon the full and entire protection of her own agriculturists, and her own manufactures. We do not see then why we should for a moment hesitate about effectually protecting ours. It does not become us as a people to suffer ourselves to be hoodwinked by interested British statesmen,-to have our state policy indicated to us by British capitalists and manufacturers-a policy which they are very careful not to adopt themselves.

And with the knowledge which our people have, or may have by merely

Had

looking into the history of the world about us, it is beyond measure strange that there should be a difference of opinion amongst our citizens on the subject. The new school of political economists, disciples of Adam Smith, have set up for their chief maxim, that nations should buy where they can buy cheapest. This may at any time be a sufficient rule for the present by itself; but they seem never to have reflected that with nations as much as with individuals, a smaller present good is often to be foregone for a greater good in the future. Great Britain was once dependent on Flanders for her woollen goods, on the East Indies for her cottons, on France for her paper, glass, and various articles. she continued to act on the present-advantage system, she would have been so dependent to this hour. She now makes them all for herself, besides gathering in half the wealth of the world by selling the surplus. It is the same policy which alone can raise us to any permanent height of strength and prosperity, or even keep us from sinking into a second state of colonial dependence. The advantages and blessings which have followed the adoption of the present tariff, the act of 1842, should open the eyes of all who are not intentionally blind. Just before the passage of the present tariff in August, 1842, there were forty thousand unemployed persons in the state of Pennsylvania alone; and at the same time full ten thousand of the industrious classes in the city of Philadelphia were vainly endeavoring to earn the means by which to buy bread to feed themselves and their fami lies. Our tariff has fed the hungry, found employment for the destitute; and the blessing of those who were in want, and ready to perish, sanctifies it as one of the most righteous measures of a government founded for the good of the people.

The enemies of the American system are accustomed to assail it as unconstitutional. We consider this point to have been effectually settled by Mr. Webster's late clear and powerful argument at Albany. We do not see how any one can read that argument, or can be in any other way familiar with the history of those times, and not be convinced of the existence of such powers in the Constitution to the full extent claimed by the friends of the tariff. It is known, as well as any thing can be known, that the exercise of such powers by the new