distempers among the silk insects, and destroyed the fruits of long exertions and labor. It is to be hoped that experience and perseverance will guide our farmers to better results in their future experiments. But let us now examine the question whether the art of raising silk-worms and spinning silk, will indubitably be a source of advantage and profit to such persons as engage in the business. To those men who are always ready to display their opposition whenever a new object of enterprise is presented to their view, we must answer by asserting facts, the truth of which can be daily defined.

The average crop of foliage yielded by an acre of trees in hedge rows, will be at least fifteen thousand pounds for the first year, and twice as much for the ensuing years. The largest quantity of leaves consumed in the feeding of the worms hatched from one ounce of eggs, is one thousand five hundred pounds, and the smallest quantity of cocoons produced will be at least eighty pounds, that is to say, eight hundred pounds of cocoons at least will be produced by an acre of land. Calculating the cocoons to be sold at the lowest rate, that is to say, at thirty cents a pound, we shall have a product of two hundred and forty dollars per acre of land, taking the minimum as a standard in all my calculations. If the operation should be undertaken on a larger scale, then, of course, some deduction must be made for additional barns or buildings, and for hiring a larger number of hands during the six weeks of operation. I am aware that my estimate is far below what other patrons of the culture of silk have exhibited in their statements, which are certainly more brilliant and more seducing; but I must observe, that in this respect any exaggeration, any disappointment, would operate against our views rather than in our favor.

Another objection, and even with some shadow of truth, is made against the profitableness of reeling cocoons into silk. The want of practice in spinning cocoons among our countrywomen, and the high wages paid for every kind of work in this country, will certainly prevent the production of silk from becoming a profitable undertaking. We cannot compete, (thus say our opponents,) in this art, with countries where labor is at a very low rate, where the wages are 75 per cent below that of our working classes.

I beg leave to observe, that in the production of unmanufactured silk, the largest capital is constituted by the value of the raw material, and the expenses for labor are very trifling. As I have always insisted upon the necessity of establishing large filatories, and as I always thought that reeling silk would prove profitable, when undertaken on an extensive scale, I will suppose a filature of 50 reels, having 50 female spinners and 50 girls to turn the hasps. 50 women, according to the present price of labor, will cost, board and lodging included, 16 dollars a month, making Fifty girls,

One superintendent,

Wood or coal for 50 furnaces, at 8 cents per day for each furnace

a month,

Sundries,

$800

500

$1,300

40

48

50

112

20

$1,570

The average of silk produced by 50 skilful women per day, will be at least 70 pounds, or 1960 pounds per month, which quantity, calculated at only $5 a pound, will give a gross proceed of $9,800 Charges deducted,

Nett proceeds,

1,570

$8,230

I will suppose that a whole bushel of cocoons will produce a pound of silk, if the cocoons are of good quality, and I calculate the cocoons at the fair price of $3 per bushel, for 1960 pounds of silk, or 1960 bushels of cocoons, at the rate of $3 per bushel, 5,880 There will be a nett profit of $2,350

every month on a filature of only 50 reels.

You must observe, also, that the great advantage peculiar to this country, highly favored by nature over Italy and France, of producing two and three crops of cocoons in one year, and the abundance of wood and coal, and the facility of building houses at a moderate expense, will at any time enable us to sustain advantageously competition with silk of foreign production, if the same protection were afforded to that branch of industry as is granted by our tariff to the manufacture of cloth, muslin, and other articles.

But it is almost in vain to attempt the introduction of a new species of industry, a new art or manufacture, without governmental aid. Our constitution happily imparts to our government the right as well as the duty to protect the arts and industry of its citizens, and expressly ordains that "congress shall have power to regulate commerce.' The existence of that power implies an imperative duty to make use of it. Acting on this wise principle, our laws protect the author's copyright, protect the American tonnage, in behalf of the shipbuilder. A tax is imposed upon almost every imported article, even of the most common use and necessity. Standing insulated and alone, by a most strange anomaly, silk goods, the luxury of the wealthiest part of our population, are not comprised in our customhouse laws. Thus the activity, enterprise, and costly efforts of those of our agriculturists and manufacturers, whose activity, zeal, and industry are devoted to the culture of silk, in order thereby to form a new national staple, are sacrificed by the overpowering competition of foreign fabrics introduced free of duties.

May, therefore, our people, may our legislators, be duly impressed with the truth, that a duty imposed upon all foreign silks imported into the United States, effects a diminution of the importation of foreign silk; that such a diminution amounts to an increase of the production of our domestic silk, and that such an increase of our production will gradually free our country from every indebtedness to foreign nations, and complete the sacred work of our independence.

L. T.

ART. VII.-PROTECTION vs. FREE TRADE.

To the Editor of the Merchants' Magazine:

SIR-Having already been repeatedly favored by you with an opportunity to defend the great principle of Protection to Industry, in your work, I feel that it would be an unworthy return for your kindness to claim a dozen more pages wherein to answer my "Free Trade" opponent's last article, and continue the discussion. I will not so tax your liberality, nor the good-nature of your readers. Indeed, sir, I am very well content to leave the general argument where I have already placed it. If the enlightened public, on a calm comparison of what I have written with the counter essays of my opponent, decide against me, I submit. I have merely presented, as concisely as I may, the considerations which have induced a large majority of the most eminent statesmen the world has known, to give their best energies to the cause of protection. If such men as Pitt, Napoleon, Canning, Hamilton, Webster, Clay, H. Niles, &c., have groped through life in utter ignorance of the first principles of political economy, the blindness of so humble an individual as myself cannot excite astonishment. Without desiring to press the discussion further, I will now barely note one or two mistakes in my opponent's last article.

1. He commences with the broad assertion, that "governments are quite as likely to extend their 'fostering, protecting aid' to a branch of industry for which the country is not at all adapted, as to one for which it has a natural capacity." Now it would have been just as easy to assert that governments are as likely to hang saints as felons-to punish uprightness as forgery. And it would have been easy not only to assert this, but to adduce facts, after his fashion, in support of it. Have not mul. titudes of great villains lived honored and law-protected? And were not Christ, Socrates, and others of the wisest and best, condemned by law, and executed according to law? The inference is direct,-Away with all laws! they punish the innocent quite as often as the guilty! But the man who can seriously assert that our government is as likely to protect a branch of industry to which the country is not at all adapted' as any other, is certainly beyond the reach of my powers of argumentation.

Whether France is so idiotic as he supposes, in protecting the manufac ture of beet-sugar, is of course a matter of opinion. It seems a pity her Say, Arago, Chaptal, Guizot, &c., could not listen to one hour's lecturing of my opponent, and thereby save their country six millions per annum on' its sugar alone! But when it is considered how difficult to obtain, and how costly when obtained, was the sugar consumed in France in 1811, when such blockheads as Bonaparte and his counsellors undertook to protect and foster the home manufacture of that article, I must think their ignorance of political economy deserving of some compassion!

2. I shall try to answer all my opponent says against countervailing duties by a single question,-Is he opposed to the Navigation Act? Great Britian and other nations say to us, "We allow goods imported in our own vessels a deduction of five, ten, or twenty per cent from our regular duties. We do this from no ill will to you, but to encourage our own marine." Now, how shall we treat this? According to the doctrines of Protection or those of Free Trade? One thing is certain. Without countervailing the discrimination, our shipping must be driven from all share in the car

rying trade with the discriminating nations; so, without a dissenting voice, we have countervailed. What would my opponent have us do in the premises? I have tried to learn already, but without success.

3. My opponent cannot escape my illustration of the truth, that nominally low may often be actually high prices, by his poor perversion about "cider and turkeys at Londonderry." My illustration was necessarily drawn on so small a scale that every one could see it, but the principle covered the whole ground. The same influences that raised the price of "cider and turkeys" at Londonderry, raised that also of flour at Rochester, and pork at Cincinnati. I do not believe there is a producing interest, or a county in the Union, what would not be directly vastly benefited by our manufacturing at home the cloths, hardware, &c., we now import from England.

4. I do not contend that a free trade between different nations is one "equally taxed," as my opponent gratuitously asserts, but one equally un taxed. Strictly, free trade implies the absence of all imposts; but I am an advocate of fair trade-a trade mutually advantageous and just to both parties or none. My Oregon illustration was intended to show that a trade really free would not always benefit an infant settlement or a country just emerging from barbarism. I will not go over the groundwhich seems to me unshaken by my opponent-but I ask a moment's attention to his manifest unfairness. My illustration supposed that the new Oregon settlement could not sell its bulky products in any way but by bringing them across to St. Louis-in other words, not at all. Under such circumstances, I maintained that it would be policy in that country to impose a protecting tariff, and manufacture for herself. And my opponent professes to answer this by saying, “barter your mountains of grain and beef which you cannot consume, for those articles which you pressingly need." In this strain he amplifies triumphantly. Is this discussion?

Of course I have said nothing in opposition to credit, either individual or international. I am in favor of the former, and not averse to the latter under circumstances which render it desirable. But running up a heavy balance, year after year, with a foreign nation, by buying of that nation articles which we could easier produce than pay for, and for which she will take scarcely any of our products in return, is utterly inconsistent with my ideas both of proper credit and of fair trade. My opponent cannot see how the manufacturers of a protected country can ruin those of an unprotected one, except by lowering the price of their mutual products. I think he must be the only reader of my illustration by the case of France and England who did not see this. The protected manufacturers have a steady, stable, reliable home market, securing them a certain and uniform business and profit. They throw their surplus and refuse stock into the market of their free trade neighbors, causing a sudden depression. They sell, for instance, all their surplus razors thus at cost and chargessay five dollars a dozen-and thereby glut the market. The rival free trade manufacturers now find their sales forestalled-they cannot sell at all. They are ruined and fail, and next year the protected fabricators have both markets to themselves, and can get six dollars a dozen for all they can produce. Free trade has produced fluctuation, temporary depression, and the ruin of its devotees; while the average cost of razors is left as high as, perhaps higher than, ever. In fact, my opponent, though "weary of answering positions which seem so manifestly erroneous,” evi

dently feels the force of this illustration, and urges that "the moderate duty required for the support of the government would prove a sufficient protection." I submit that this is giving up the free trade ground, which implies that all duties are an injury to the public interests and an obstacle to national prosperity-to be endured, if at all, only as a lesser evil than direct taxation.

MERCANTILE LAW DEPARTMENT.

RECENT DECISIONS IN THE UNITED STATES COURTS.*

INTERESTING MERCANTILE LAW CASE.

United States Circuit Court.-In Equity-before Judges Thompson and Betts.April term, 1841. The United States vs. William Couch, survivor, &c. and another. The prayer of the bill demanded an account in respect to effects and moneys alleged to have belonged to the late firm of Castro and Henriquez, and that the right of the plaintiff thereto, in preference to others, might be decreed, and the amount applied on outstanding judgments and customhouse bonds in favor of the United States against Castro and Henriquez. The bill presented this state of facts; that Castro and Henriquez, prior to April, 1823, had been in partnership, carrying on the distilling business in this city; and in connection with that business, imported merchandise, and became indebted to the United States on customhouse bonds to a large amount. On the 20th April, 1823, the firm stopped payment, then being indebted to the United States on duty bonds for over $74,000. Henriquez was at that time in Europe. The business of the concern was managed by Castro, who also had a full power of attorney from Henriquez. On the day of their failure, or the day following, Castro made an assignment of the property of the firm and that of himself, to Lewis A. Brunell, and immediately departed from New York, without the knowledge of his creditors. On the same day, proceedings were taken under the state act against Castro and Henriquez as absconding or absent debtors, by the defendant Couch, (and his then partner Stebbins,) and others of their creditors.

A few days thereafter, Castro returned to the city, and his assignment to Brunell being supposed imperfect or insufficient in law, he resumed and cancelled it, and executed another, prepared under the advice of counsel, in which he assigned all the partnership estate, and all his individual estate, to Brunell, for the payment of the debts of the partnership, giving preference to the debts due the United States.

That prior to the failure, the firm had consigned to Stebbins and Couch large quantities of distilled spirits for sale, some of which had been sold on credit, and some remained unsold on the day of their failure, but has been since sold and the proceeds realized, which are now held by the defendant Couch, (survivor of Stebbins and Couch.) That after the assignment, Brunell, the assignee, placed like property, belonging to Castro and Henriquez, in the hands of Stebbins and Couch, the avails of which defendant has received and yet retains; and also, that Brunell carried on the distillery of Castro and Henriquez, with their stock assigned him, and consigned the liquors to Stebbins and Couch for sale, and that the proceeds of such sale are retained by the defen

dant.

The bill also avers that judgments have been recovered by the United States

* Reported expressly for the Merchants' Magazine.