OF THE ABLEST CIVILIANS OF THE UNITED STATES IN FAVOR OF THE WITH THE STATISTICS OF PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES, In Monthly Parts. and now for the first time published complete in one Volume. NEW-YORK: GREELEY & McELRATH, TRIBUNE BUILDINGS, 160 NASSAU-STREET. 1843. PRICE $1 00.] AMERICAN LABORER, Devoted to the Cause of Protection to Home Industry. By Greeley & McElrath. Office No. 30 Ann-street, Near Astor House, Broadway.} CONTENTS MONTHLY. NEW-YORK, APRIL, 1842. Tariff our Currency may be speedily and perma- nently restored, our Laborers be universrlly em- ployed and more amply remunerated, and our Country again impelled on the high road of Pros- perity and Industrial Activity to perfect freedom from Foreign indebtedness and general prostra- These great truths will be calmly, earnestly set forth in the calm language of persuasion, and We do not advocate Protection as a remedy for Ithe Moral condition of Mankind-we will unite in these efforts whenever and wherever we may— but we shall devote the pages of The Laborer ex- clusively to the great cause of Protection to Ame- rican Industry, as essential to the general employ- ment and just recompense of the Working Men of this Country, to their comfortable and independent subsistence, to the proper education of their chil- dren, to the steady improvement of their circum- stances, to the enlargement of their sphere of Intellectual existence, and to the ultimate estab- lishment of all International relations and inter- We present herewith the first number of a friends of American Industry every where to aid account of the Proceedings of the Home Industry Conven- The next number of THE LABORER will contain a full M508375 What of the Times? HARD TIMES again!" says some well-conditioned, well-fed grumbler at other people's grumbling; "shall we never have an end of this incessant cry of Hard Times?'" Truly, we fear not immediately. Our country is in debt Two Hundred Millions of dollars to Europe; this debt must in good faith be paid, and its annual interest alone requires a drain of Ten or Twelve Millions a year, upon the Industry of the country. Many of the States are paralyzed and dishonored for the moment, yet their whole indebtedness will ultimately be paid, principal and interest. But neither can this be done, nor can our country extricate itself from domestic embarrassments and resume its onward march to greatness, without a decided change from the Public Policy of the last ten years. arguments of all thinkers, theorists, economists, suppose this. One man traces all our evils to an inflated and vicious Paper Currency; another, to the overthrow of the National Bank; a third finds the cause in Speculation and Extravagance; a fourth, in excessive Commercial Activity and Over-Production in particular branches of Industry, &c. The clear-sighted observer perceives that these various causes are not discordant, as they seem, but essentially one; the only difference be Mr. Slade's Speech. We earnestly commend to the profound attention and enlightened judgement of every reader the able and convincing SPEECH OF HON. WM. SLADE of Vt. showing the absolute unanimity and zeal of every eminent Statesman whom our Country has produced in favor of Protecting Domestic Industry, the acquiesence and union of all parties which ever existed in this Country, (except the Tories of the Revolution) in support of this policy, and the imminent necessity which now exists for its readoption and maintenance as essential to all interests and all sections of the Country. Mr. Slade's Speech is very long-longer than any document we shall usually publish-but is in good part made up of pertinent and forcible quotations from WASHINGTON, JEFFERSON, MADISON, and the Sages and Patriots of our Revolutionary era, as also from our more modern Statesmen, showing the absolute necessity of Protecting Duties on Foreign Products to our National Independence and welfare. Long as it is, there is not a paragraph that we could consent to spare. We entreat the Farmers, Mechanics and Working Men of the Union to consider carefully its arguments, and compare them with the easy flippancy, the pert assurance, the irrelevant commonplaces of the Free Trade theorists of our day.ing as to which is fundamental and underlies the Only let both sides be heard by the toiling millions whose interests are so deeply involved in the decision of this controversy, and we shall cheerfuily abide their verdict. The great HOME INDUSTRY NATIONAL CONVENTION will assemble in this City on Tuesday, the 5th inst. It will be attended by more than Two THOUSAND DELEGATES from all parts of the Union. We earnestly entreat the Farmers of each County or Town, the Mechanics and Artisans of each City and Village who may not have already done so, to hold meetings immediately and appoint one or more Delegates to this Convention. Momentous consequences to the interests of all hang upon its deliberations, and we trust that great and lasting good will result from them. It is important that all branches of American Industry be represented— that all voices be there heard. A Convention of the citizens of Bristol County, Mass. in favor of the Protection of Home Industry, was held at Taunton on the 17th-Silas Shepperd, President. The following is one of the Resolutions: Resolved, That the Protection we claim under a system of Revenue that shall at the same time meet the wants of an economical Administration of Government and those of an industrious, enterprising people, involves the vital interests of the whole Country-equally of the South and the North, of the West and the East; and ought to be considered with a gravity suited to its IMPORTANCE, and with a patriotism suited to its COMPREHENSIVENESS; and as being infinitely above the biases or prejudices of a local or party origin. Committees were appointed to collect and disseminate information, and Twenty Delegates appointed to the Home Industry Convention in this City on the 5th of April. The others. All see that the Currency as it is is un- All know that we-that is, a great many of us- matter. We are in debt as a Nation, as States, and as People. Many of our States have adventured rashly upon vast enterprises of Internal Improvement which they have not the means to complete; whereupon they are deeply embarrassed, their faith dishonored, and in debt increasing by interest, to no good purpose, when perhaps those very works would be worth to them three times the cost, and would pay interest forthwith, if completed. So of thousands of individuals, who are now reviled as bankrupt speculators for undertakings which would have proved highly useful and lucrative, but for great and violent changes in the state of affairs, which they could neither avoid nor foresee. And the very men who now exult over their misfortunes and pronounce them richly deserved, would have been the most eager to follow, the loudest to huzza in their train, had the wheel 1 but turned the other way, and brought them up it, then is it proved that every article of trifling. winners! This is a base world of ours! But the question still recurs-What shall be done to restore General Prosperity? The instinctive, the inevitable answer is, We must work more, produce more, earn more, and buy less, consume less, spend less. We must all strive to get out of debt, where we have formerly seemed solicitous only to get in. We must export more than we import, if we would honorably relieve ourselves from Foreign Debt; we must raise more Grain, make more Cloth, wear less Silk and drink less Wine, if we would remove our Domestic embarrassments. So far, all must substantially agree. But it is idle to bid men work, when they can get nothing to do-to exhort them to produce when they cannot sell their last year's products at a living price And this brings us at once to the great, the momentous question: What change in our National Policy will best promote the interest of the Laboring Mass, increase the demand for and reward of their Labor, and secure a ready market and fair reward to the Products of American Industry? This inquiry comes home to the business and fireside of every laboring man-of every citizen who is not shielded by wealth from the danger of embarrassment and want. On the 1st day of July ensuing, a great change in the Tarifi takes place, if not prevented by intervening action of Congress. On that day, all the duties collected on Foreign Goods imported into this country are to be reduced to the uniform horizontal rate of 20 per cent. on the value thereof. On many articles this reduction will amount to one-third of the duty now collected. Let us now state a few pertinent facts. Throughout the past winter and present spring, Foreign Goods have been poured and are still pouring into the country on Foreign account, to an extent almost without parallel. This importation is invited by the low and still decreasing rates of duty imposed by our Tariff, and stimulated by the depression of Trade and Labor in Europe. While Laborers are famishing for bare bread, they are Thankful for any wages, even sixpence a day. With Labor so reduced, it is manifestly easy to manufacture articles which do not suffer by transportation, and of which the value is large compared with the bulk, and sell them in our markets below the prices of our own similar products. For instance, let us suppose that the average earnings of a shoemaker in this country are one dollar for a full day's work, while in France shoemakers may be hired for twenty-five cents, and leather-dressers in proportion. Who does not see that it will be easy to manufacture shoes in France, pay a duty of 20 per cent. and sell them here below the money cost of the American article? As of this, so of other Manufactures. If the fact that an article can be bought abroad for fewer dollars than would be charged for its production at home proves that it is the dictate of wisdom and sound policy to import upon weight, in proportion to its cost, of which cost labor is the principal element, should be bought by us from the workshops of Europe, and. not produced on our own soil. But is this a safe deduction? How are we to pay for these manufactures if we import them? In what is payment to be made? Not in Cotton, Tobacco, or Rice, surely; for we have already forced these the European markets till they are glutted, and the price of our great Southern staple is now lower than ever before. Not in our Grain, Beef, Pork, and other Free Labor products; for these are all substantially prohibited, except in times of famine, by the Governments of Europe. How, then, are we to pay for Fifty Millions' worth more of Foreign Manufactures? Let us glance one moment at the immediate effects of our easy encouragement to Foreign Importations. All through the winter European Manufactures have been pouring in upon us on Foreign account, rattled off at auction for what they would fetch, and the proceeds a good part in speciehurried off to London or Paris. This process has naturally depressed the value of all such Manufactures so rapidly that many mercantile houses in this and other cities, who have been doing a brisk business, throughout have been rendered irretrievably bankrupt simply by the fall in price of their goods. At the same time our sound Banks, laboring under a constant and irresistible drain of specie, have been compelled to contract, and still contract their Circulation and Discounts, breaking many business men by the mere reduction of their accommodations. On all hands, we see bankruptcy, embarrassment, poverty. Such is a first effect of the reduction of the Tariff. Its effects on our Industry have not been less disastrous. At the very time when our Domestic Trade is declining through the general decline of prices and the anarchy in Exchanges, we see 5000 pair of French boots imported in one ship to Boston, the very metropolis of the American shoetrade. A French merchant tailor drops over in a steamship, picks up orders for six hundred coats from the dandies of Baltimore, and is off in the next steamer, to have the coats made in Paris from French cloth, and at prices which an American tailor could not live by. Meanwhile our American Manufactories, undersold through the cheapness of British pauper labor, are preparing to give up business; several have already stopped; others will do so as soon as they have worked up their stock on hand, and many more if the further reduction of duty on the 1st of July goes into opera tion. We are assured that many of the principal establishments of New-England have had a consultation, and, finding that they must either stop business, rush upon certain ruin, or reduce the wages of their laborers, have very properly resolved to stop, as the least of impending evils. |
