necessary direction, subjects it to the Letter paid one half to the informant and prosecuPostage. tor; the balance to the United States. -Such are the Rates of Postage established Mail Contracts shall hereafter be given to by the Postage Reform bill. Among its other the lowest responsible bidder, in all cases. Sprovisions, it abolishes utterly the Franking Lists of Letters uncalled for must be adPrivilege of Postmasters and all other pervertised in the journal (or journals where two sons except the President, Ex-Presidents, or three are employed) of largest circulation. Widows of Ex-Presidents, Assistant Post-(By a subsequent decision of the Postmaster) masters General, Members of Congress, Sec- General, this is explained to mean CirculaSretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House tion within the County wherein the adverof Representatives. tising Post Office is situated. Private Expresses on Mail Routes are pro- No package shall be received for transmishibited carrying letters under a penalty of sion through the Mails which weighs over $150 for each offence, but every publisher three pounds. may transmit his Newspapers, Pamphlets or All suits arising under this act are to be other Printed Matter out of the Mails, if he prosecuted in any of the Courts of the U. States. chooses. In order to cover any deficiency of Post Owners of Steamboats, Rail-Cars, Stages, Office Revenue accruing under this act, the &c. who may carry letters are condemned to sum of $750,000 is specifically appropriated> pay $100 for each offence; the Captain, Con- from the Treasury in aid of this Department, (ductors, &c. of do. $50. with a proviso that more may be drawn if Private Persons are not forbidden to carry necessary; but the whole expense of the Letters or other matter on their several routes Mail Service must not exceed $4,500,000 per Sof travel, provided they receive no compen-annum. sation therefor. Railroads of the first class may be paid a? Bound Books are not “mailable matter," sum not exceeding that previously prescribed{ and Bank Notes may be transmitted through by law; Railroads of the second class, not? the Mails at Letter Postage or conveyed oth-over $100 per mile per annum; do. of the erwise, at pleasure. third class, not over 50 per mile per annum: Penalties accruing under this act shall be the Postmaster General to classify them. THE NECESSITY FOR PROTECTION. PROTECTION is the fundamental necessity, to him under the social compact; in the un-) the primary object, of all rightful govern- disturbed and absolute use of the products of ment. To protect each other against the fe- his own labor and skill, and in the right to lonious practices of the swindler, the burglar, employ advantageously all his faculties in the assassin, or the more formidable assaults the acquirement of an adequate subsist(of barbarian hordes, of ambitious chieftains, ence. (of invading armies, the members of a commu- Very few have ever denied to Government Snity unite to bear the burthens and submit to the right and duty of protecting its people the restrictions of natural right incidental to from overt acts of aggression and violence.the existence of government. Each individ- That an invading foe should be resisted, a ual, on his part, incurs the obligations, sub-law-breaking villain arrested and confined, mits to the restrictions, and assumes the bur- or a domineering, encroaching nation checked) then of citizenship, on the implied but palpa- and resisted, are propositions so plain that no ble contract of the government to protect him writer of note on Government has doubted or in the full enjoyment of those rights reserved demurred to them. Now it cannot be seriously, considerately of suffering, stagnation and pecuniary loss; it Sdenied, that a nation may be injured as cer- is not stable, for the first gleam of prosperity Stainly and vitally by the policy of a rival as in our land-if such gleam could be under) by its arms. An Order in Council, an act of that policy-would draw hither cargo after legislation, may cripple the Commerce and cargo of British goods, and ensure a repetiblight the Industry of a distant Nation, when tion of our disasters. Now the true and open hostility would have been wholly una-manifest policy of our Government, as it ap(vailing. The Navigation Act of Great Brit- pears most obvious to us, is to meet the again did more to destroy the commercial imgressive policy of our rival at the outset-to Sportance of Holland than all the fleets that countervail duty by duty, restriction by re-S ever issued from Portsmouth and Plymouth. striction-to protect and foster our ManufacHistory is full of examples of the decline and tures as fast and far as Britain at our exdestruction of nations from causes which they pense shall favor her Agriculture-and thus failed clearly to recognize, but which later to preserve our People from the bottomless and clear-sighted observers have readily abyss of foreign debt and bankruptcy, exdetected in the grasping policy and deep-tend the sphere of their industry, and lay laid plans of a subtle and determined deep and enduring the bases of a substantial rival. National Independence of all foreign policy We hold it self-evident that it is as clearly whatever. (and fully the duty of a Government to guard Let us endeavor, by an illustration, to its citizens against the insidious influences of place this important truth in a yet clearer hostile foreign policy, as against the more di- light, and establish at the same time the wisrect and manly assaults of foreign_ armies.-dom and necessity of genuine Protection.And they insist that a wise and paternal We will take the case of Great Britain, a Government will as carefully guard, as un-country of boundless wealth, experience and sleepingly watch against the machinations of skill in mechanical processes and arts, great foreign cabinets as the shock of hostile fleets and established facilities for all branches of and battalions. manufactures, and abundance of cheap labor; To illustrate this position, let us adduce a on the other hand we will set our own States case such as has substantially happened at of Michigan, Indiana and Illinois-States as (least once in the history of our own country. yet mainly agricultural, imperfectly subdued Let us suppose that the great mass of our and tilled, with labor scarce and in demand, People are satisfactorily engaged in Agricul- and a soil yielding abundantly all the fruits Stural pursuits, and that they obtain their of the earth. If Britain were wise enough Smanufactured goods by an exchange of their to take freely of these States their grain in surplus Wheat for the fabrics and wares of exchange for her cloths and wares, it would Great Britain. No duty, or a very moderate seem at first blush their manifest interest to one, for revenue merely, is charged on either procure of her their supplies of Manufactures. side. At length, however, Great Britain re- Beyond doubt they might thus obtain their solves to produce all her own grain, and to goods for fewer dollars than by encouraging this end imposes a heavy, a prohibitory duty, their production on their own soil. But exSon its importation from abroad. By this act perience abundantly demonstrates that, in orSour farmers are left without a market for der to buy their cloths of England at the their produce, its price depreciates, and it cheaper money prices at which they, being Sremains a drug on their hands. British fab- of trifling bulk, could undoubtedly be transrics are still pouring into our ports, are sold ported and sold, our Western farmers must for fewer dollars than it would cost to pro-sell their grain at such prices as would adduce them here, and thus fill all the channels mit of its transportation to England and sale of trade. What is the duty thereby imposed there in competition with the grain of all on our Government? Free Trade affirms other countries. Estimating the average that it should do nothing, but simply wait un- price of Wheat throughout the world at one til the inevitable bankruptcy of our business dollar a bushel, it could hardly, under a sysclasses, the continued decline in price of our tem of Free Trade, command more than a great staples, the withdrawal of our specie dollar and a quarter in England; and, in Sand the degradation or destruction of our cir-view of the close proximity of the great culating medium, shall have reduced the grain-growing regions of Germany and Poprice of American Labor, and with it all re- land, with their cheap labor, we may well sults of Labor, so low that the Manufactures doubt that it would be so high. The effect of we need can be produced here at as low a absolute Free Trade would, therefore, be to money price as in England. This is what is supply the farmers of the West with British implied by leaving trade to regulate itself.' Cloths at prices little above those of Leeds But we insist that it is neither a wise nor a and Birmingham, but to reduce the value of stable adjustment of the difficulty. It is not their own products far below that of the corwise, for it involves our People in an infinity responding products of Germany and Po land, by reason of the far greater extent of and this enormous disparity will cease.the devious, varied, and for months of each In support of the views here adduced, we year interrupted transportation to England. may add that even the Free Trade authoriAllowing that the average price of Wheat in ties of England do not counsel an abandonEngland would be a dollar and a quarter, its ment of Protection in any case analogous to (average price throughout the West could ours. Adam Smith, the great oracle of that (not certainly exceed fifty cents, and would faith, expressly approves and justifies the Soften fall below twenty-five. Admitting, British Navigation Act, which is not merely therefore, that the money cost of producing exclusively Protective, but aggressively so; Sthe Cloth on their own soil would for a time and even Mr. J. Deacon Hume, whose evibe twenty-five per cent. more, the simple dence before the late Free Trade Committee question to be decided by the farmers of the of Parliament, is so widely quoted and so West is, whether they will pay five dollars sweeping against the British Protective sys a yard for Cloth in Wheat at a dollar a bush- tem, in that same evidence insists that the el, or buy it at four dollars a yard and pay in Free Labor of Jamaica should not be left to Wheat at thirty cents a bushel? The answer a naked competition with the annually re(could not long detain any one who had mas-cruited Slave Labor of Cuba-'I conceive,' (tered the simple rules of arithmetic. says he, that this question is taken entirely Or, we may state the question in another out of the category of Free Trade. We need (form: Which is cheaper, to send Flour from not indulge in any comment. (Peoria and Chicago to Leeds and Sheffield We have refrained from pressing the arfor Cloth, paying four barrels out of six for gument that the multiplying and varying of transportation, or to invite the cloth-makers the pursuits of industry in our own Country to our own soil, and here pay them four bar- must inevitably afford fitting and congenial rels instead of two for the Cloth, and yet save employment to a far greater variety of taltwo of the six to the farmer who raised the ents, capacities and inclinations, than would (Grain and buys the Cloth? It is most mani- otherwise be absorbed in them, and thus (fest that the policy which keeps the cloth- vastly increase the product, wealth and hap(makers on one continent and the grain-piness of the People-and that those fabrics growers in the heart of another, is one of fla- of which the domestic production has been grant improvidence and waste-a wanton fostered by adequate Protective duties have throwing away of the enormous cost of re- always been afforded at cheaper and cheapciprocal transportation-reducing greatly the er rates, until they vastly undersold the foressential reward of labor on either hand, and eign competitor. Neither have we taken thus depressing the condition of the laborer. occasion to show, as we might easily have How shall this conclusion be avoided? done, that many articles which can be proWe, therefore, do not advocate the Pro- duced here as cheaply, even by the dollar tective policy as advantageous to our own standard, as elsewhere, still need a moderate (people merely, but to all who in the sweat of duty on imports to protect them against the (their face eat bread-who by honest industry fluctuation of European markets, a glut in the (add to the sum of human products and com- foreign production, or the desperate efforts of forts. So far as may be necessary to the a foreign rivalry, which understands that by home production of all articles essential to breaking down our Home Manufacture it subsistence and well-being, and to which may secure to itself a monopoly of our production there exists no natural obstacle of market for years, and thus reward itself for climate or soil, we hold the Protective policy an outlay of thousands by a profit of hundreds to be the true and obvious policy of all na- of thousands. Neither have we dwelt on tions, with regard as well to the general as the importance of preserving the Industry to their individual good. We hold such and Currency of our Country from a degrad(Protection to be dictated by a wise Econo-ing and ruinous dependence on the fluctua(my as well ss a true Independence. What- tions of the Stock Exchange of London, the (ever articles are 'far-fetched' are proverbial- machinations of a few commercial capitalists) Sly 'dear-bought;' inevitable necessity dic- in the dark purlieus of the Bourse of Paris or States this, and commercial rapacity aggravates the Bank of England. But without extendSit, Very many articles are now daily charged ing farther our illustrations, we would reto the consumer at least six times the price spectfully submit that the Principles of Prothat was paid to the producer. But this can tection appear to us those of true Political only take place to any extent where the pro- Economy, far-seeing Wisdom, and practical ducer and consumer are widely separated Statesmanship; their spirit and tendency (from each other-usually by oceans or conti- consistent with universal benevolence and (nents. Let us encourage and diversify good will; and their observance and enforceHome Production until every thing to which ment in our legislation and policy essential Sour position is genial shall be produced on to National Independence and general wellSour own wide-spread territory and fertile soil, being. ESTIMATES OF CROPS IN THE SEVERAL STATES FOR 1844. 6,930 28,000) 7.660 291,000) 7,170 9,000 Virginia 10,805,000 14,812,000 38,960,000 2,374,000 33,574,000 N. Čarolina. 2,461,000 5,346,000 22,330,000 3,615,000 53,000 49,700,000 163,000 213,620,000 310,000 140,000,000 176,000 195,240,000 270 154,800,000 1,310 160,000,000) Tennessee.. 6,950,000 7,841,000 61,100,000 2,051,900 33,736,000 39,600,000 25,090 460,000 Kentucky. 3,974,000 11,901,000 47,500,000 1,371,000 57,555,000 6,888,000 880,000 5,810 2,447,000 Ohio Indiana. Illinois Missouri.. 15,969,000 20,393,000 48,000,000 4,847,000 396,000 4,013,000 10,000 1,000,000 2,111,000 7,500,000 611,000 Dist. Columb 1,250 Total..... 95,607,000 172,247,000 421,953,000 99,493,000 151,705,000 872,107,000 396,790 201,107,000 |