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losses they incur in carrying Western produce at less than the mere cost of transportation. Passing south, you find a Pennsylvania road, running east and west, to compete with yours, Maryland and Virginia roads to compete with all, and South Carolina and Georgia roads intended to do the same; but of local roads you find almost none whatever. Why is this? Because Liverpool is becoming more and more the centre of our system, with New York for its place of distribution. Because we are fast relapsing into a state of colonization even more complete than that which existed before the Revolution.

For the moment, your city profits by this British free trade policy, the prices of lots rising as the taxation of farming lands augments, but, is it quite certain that her services will always be required, as distributer of the produce of British looms? May it not be, and that, too, at no distant period, that Manchester and Cincinnati will find it better to dispense with services that require the payment of such enormous sums as are now required for the maintenance of so many thousands of expensive families, the use of so many costly warehouses, and the payment of such enormous rates of interest? The Grand Trunk Road has already, as we are told by the Daily Times,

"Seized upon our Western carrying trade, and linked Chicago and Cincinnati to Portland and Boston by the way of Canada, and on terms which almost defy competition from the trunk lines of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York. They are delivering flour and grain in New England, and both domestic and foreign merchandize in Ohio and Illinois, cheaper than they can be profitably transported via Philadelphia, or New York, or Albany. Not content with this, they have entered into competition with our coasting-trade from the Gulf to the East, and, using that other Anglo-American enterprise just alluded to, the Illinois Central, are delivering cotton from Memphis to the New England factories cheaper and with more expedition than it can be forwarded by the Mississippi River to New Orleans, and thence by sea to New York and Boston. Nor have they been unmindful of their own direct steam communication with England from Quebec and Portland-the last-named point being converted into a mart of BritishAmerican commerce by reason of the perpetual lease or virtual ownership by the Grand Trunk Company of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railway from Portland to the Victoria Bridge. They are now using the Quebec line of screw steamers, already one of the most successful between England and this continent, for delivering produce from Cincinnati and Chicago at Liverpool in twenty days! · which end they issue their own responsible bills of lading in the West through to Liverpool. A sample of this operation may be seen in Wall Street almost any day attached to sterling bills of exchange made against breadstuffs and meat and provisions from the West on England. And it is by no means certain that in another year the cotton of Tennessee and North Mississippi will not be made to take the same extraordinary direction, say from the planting States to Manchester through Canada."

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Such being the case now, at the end of fourteen years of British free trade, what will it be ten or twenty years hence? Arrangements are already on foot for connecting Southern cities with Liverpool by means of Portland, while, throughout the West, the managers of the road "have not," as we are farther told,

"Failed to effect the needful alliances in the West, to make the connexions at least temporarily complete. The Illinois Central, from Cairo to Chicago, is their natural ally by reason of its English proprietary, and they bridge the peninsula of Michigan by another English work, the Detroit and Milwaukee Railway. As this last connection will not fully answer the designs of the company on the

winter and early spring trade of the West, while the lakes are closed, it is not impossible that one of the older Michigan roads may be leased, like the Atlantic and St. Lawrence, or a controlling interest purchased in its shares and mortgages. The Michigan Southern has been named in this connection, because of its present financial embarrassments, which have cheapened almost to a nominal value its stock and bonds, and because, too, of its terminus at Toledo as well as Detroit; the former point being essential to the Cincinnati connections of the Grand Trunk."

The more frequent and severe our financial crises, the more perfect must become the control of British traders over all our roads, and the greater the tendency towards diminution in the necessity for profiting of the services of New York stores and New York merchants. So, at least, it seems to me.

For seven years past we have talked of the construction of a road to California, but, in the present state of our affairs, becoming poorer and more embarrassed from year to year, it is quite impossible that we should ever enter upon such a work. The wealth and power of Britain, on the contrary, become greater from day to day-all her colonies, ourselves included, being compelled to add to the value of her land and labor, while their own soils become more and more impoverished, and their own laborers are less and less employed. Let our existing commercial policy be maintained, and we shall see the Grand Trunk Road extended to the Pacific-Portland and Quebec becoming the agents of Liverpool and Manchester, and taking the place now occupied by New York. Looking at all these facts, is it not clear

That all our tendencies are now in the direction of colonial vassalage? That, as your city has grown at the expense of others, because of its proximity to Liverpool, so other places, furnishing means of communication that are more direct, may profit thereby at its expense?

That as Liverpool has taken the place of New York in regard to ships, it may soon do so in regard to trade? And therefore,

That the real and permanent interests of your city are to be promoted by an union of all our people for the re-establishment of that industrial independence which grew so rapidly under the protective tariffs of 1828 and 1842 ?

Begging you to be assured of my continued determination to give to the answers you may make to these questions, the widest circulation among protectionist readers, I remain, my dear sir, Yours, very truly,

W. C. BRYANT, Esq.

HENRY C. Carey.

PHILADELPHIA, March 6, 1860.

LETTER ELEVENTH.

From the Evening Post, Tuesday, Feb. 28.

"AN EXAMPLE OF THE EFFECT OF PROTECTION.-Among the commodities which have hitherto not been permitted to be brought into France from foreign countries is cutlery. It is now included in the list of merchandize to which the late treaty with Great Britain opens the ports of France.

"Those who have made a comparison of French cutlery with the cutlery of the British islands must have been at first surprised at the difference in the quality. Nothing can exceed the perfection of workmanship in the articles turned out from the workshops of Sheffield. The symmetry and perfect adaptation of the form, the excellence of the material, the freedom from flaws, and the mirror-like polish which distinguish them, have for years past been the admiration of the world. French cutlery, placed by its side, has a ruder, rougher appearance, an unfinished look, as if the proper tools were wanting to the artisan, or as if it was the product of a race among whom the useful arts had made less progress.

"This is not owing to any parsimony of nature, either in supplying the material to be wrought or the faculties of the artisan who brings it to a useful shape. The ores of the French mines yield metal of an excellent quality, and the French race is one of the most ingenious and dexterous in the world. In all manufactures requiring the nicest precision and the greatest delicacy of workmanship the French may be said to excel the rest of mankind. Out of the most unpromising and apparently intractable materials their skilful hands fabricate articles of use or ornament of the most pleasing and becoming forms. What, then, is the reason that their cutlery is so much inferior to that of Great Britain ?

"In all probability the reason is that which at one time caused the silk trade to languish in Great Britain, which at one time made the people of the same country complain that their glass was both bad in quality and high in price. In both these instances the competition of foreign artisans was excluded; the British manufacturer having the monopoly of the market, there was nothing to stimulate his ingenuity; he produced articles of inferior quality, his vocation did not flourish, and both he and the community were dissatisfied. So with regard to the cutlery of France, the difficulty has been the prohibition of the foreign article. Let the foreign and the French commodity be looked at side by side for a few years in the shop-windows of Paris, if the duty to which cutlery is still to be subject will permit it, and we think we may venture to pledge ourselves that the French workmen will show themselves in due time no way behind their English rivals. We may expect the same result to take place which has so much astonished and puzzled the friends of protection in Sardinia, where the removal of prohibitions and protective duties has caused a hundred different branches of manufacturing industry to spring to sudden and prosperous activity."

DEAR SIR-Anxious that all the protectionists of the Union should, as far as possible, have it within their power to study both sides of this question, I here, as you see, lay before my readers your latest argument against protection, thereby affording them that opportunity of judging for themselves which you so systematically deny to the readers of the Post. Why is it that it is so denied? Is it that the British system can be maintained in no other manner than by such concealment

of great facts as is here so clearly obvious? While enlarging upon the deficiencies of French cutlery, as resulting from protection, was it necessary to shut out from view the important fact, that under a protective system more complete, and more steadily maintained, than any other in the world, France has made such extraordinary progress in all textile manufactures, that she now exports of them to the extent of almost hundreds of millions of dollars annually-supplying them at home and abroad so cheaply, that she finds herself now ready to substitute protective duties for the prohibitions which have so long existed? Would it not be far more fair and honest were you to give your readers all the facts, instead of limiting yourself to the few that can be made to seem to furnish evidence of the truth of that system to which you are so much attached, and to which we are indebted for the financial crises whose ruinous effects you have so well described?

Why is it that the French people, while so successful with regard to silks and cottons, are so deficient in respect to the production and manufacture of the various metals? The cause of this is not, as you tell your readers, to be found in "the parsimony of nature," and yet, it is a wellknown fact, that while the supply of coal and iron ore is very limited, others of the most useful metals are not to be found in France. This, however, is not all, the "parsimony of nature" which, notwithstanding your denial of it, so certainly exists, being here accompanied by restrictions on domestic commerce of the most injurious kind, an account of which, from a work of the highest character, will be found in the following paragraph:

"By the French law, all minerals of every kind belong to the crown, and the only advantage the proprietor of the soil enjoys, is, to have the refusal of the mine at the rent fixed upon it by the crown surveyors. There is great difficulty sometimes in even obtaining the leave of the crown to sink a shaft upon the property of the individual who is anxious to undertake the speculation, and to pay the rent usually demanded, a certain portion of the gross product. The Comte Alexander de B has been vainly seeking this permission for a lead-mine on his estate in Brittany for upwards of ten years.'

Having read this, you cannot but be satisfied that it accounts most fully for French deficiencies in the mining and metallurgic arts. That such was the case, you knew at the time you wrote your article, or you did not know it. If you did, would it not have been far more fair and honest to have given all the facts? If you did not, is it not evident that you have need to study further, before undertaking to lecture upon questions of such high importance?

Turning now from French cutlery to British glass, I find you telling your readers that the deficiency in this latter had been "in all probability" due to the fact, that "the competition of foreign artisans" had been so entirely excluded. On the contrary, my dear sir, it was due to restrictions on internal commerce, glass having been, until within a few years past, subjected to an excise duty, yielding an annual revenue of more than $3,000,000. To secure the collection of that revenue, it had been found necessary to subject the manufacturer to such regulations in reference to his modes of operation as rendered improvement quite impossible. From the moment that domestic commerce became free,

domestic competition grew, bringing with it the great changes that have since occurred. That such is the case, is known to all the world, and yet I find no mention of these important facts in this article intended for the readers of the Post. Would they not, my dear sir, be better instructed, were you to permit them to see and read both sides of this great question? What has recently been done with British glass, is precisely what was sought to be done in France by Colbert and Turgot, both of whom saw in the removal of restrictions upon internal commerce the real road to an extended intercourse with other nations of the world. With us, the great obstacle standing in the way of domestic commerce, is found in those large British capitals which, as we are now officially informed, constitute "the great instruments of warfare against the competing capitals of other countries, and are the most essential instruments now remaining by which the manufacturing supremacy" of England "can be maintained;" and in protecting our people against that most destructive "warfare,” we are but following in the direction indicated by the most eminent French economists, from Colbert to Chevalier. France has protected her people, and therefore is it, that agricultural products are high in price, while finished commodities are cheap, and that the country becomes more rich and independent from year to year. We refuse to grant protection, and therefore do we sink deeper in colonial vassalage from day to day.

Foreign competition in the domestic market is, however, as we here are told, indispensable to improvement in the modes of manufacture. This being really so, how is it, my dear sir, that France has so very much improved in the various branches, in which foreign competition has been so entirely prohibited? How is it, that Belgium and Germany have so far superseded England in regard to woollen cloths? How is it, that American newspapers have so much improved, while being cheapened? Have not these last an entire monopoly of the home market? Would it be possible to print a Tribune, or a Post, in England, for New York consumption? Perfectly protected, as you yourself are, is it not time that you should open your eyes to the fact that it is to the stimulation of domestic competition for the purchase of raw materials, and for the sale of finished commodities, we must look for any and every increase in the wealth, happiness, and freedom of our people?

The more perfect the possession of the domestic market, the greater is the power to supply the foreign one-the Tribune being enabled to supply its distant subscribers so very cheaply, for the reason that it and its fellows have to fear no competition for home advertisements from the London Times, or Post. "This principle," as you yourself have most truly said,

"Is common to every business. Every manufacturer practises it, by always allowing the purchaser of large quantities of his surplus manufacture an advantage over the domestic consumer, for the simple reason that the domestic consumer must support the manufacturer, and as the quantity of goods consumed at home is very much larger than that sent abroad, it is the habit of the manufacturer to send his surplus abroad, and sell at any price, so as to relieve the market of a surplus which might depress prices at home, and compel him to work at little or no profit."

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