successive year--with constant increase in the power of a bushel of wheat, or a pound of wool, to purchase money. In the last the land yields less from year to year, with constant tendency to decline in the price of food and cotton. The first import the precious metals. The last export them. The first find daily increase of power to maintain a specie circulation as the basis of the higher and better currency supplied by banks. The last are gradually losing the power to command a circulation of any kind, and tending more and more towards that barbaric system of commerce which consists in exchanging labor against food, or wool and corn against cloth.

"We may be told, however, Mr. President, that in return for the eighty-five per cent. of his products that, as we see, is paid by the farmer of Iowa, and by the Texan planter, we are obtaining a magnificent system of railroads-that our mercantile marine is rapidly increasing-that, by its means, we are to secure the command of the commerce of the world, etc., etc. How far all this is so, we may now inquire. To me it certainly appears that if this be really the road to wealth and power it would be well to require the exportation of wheat instead of flour, paddy in place of rice, cotton in the seed, corn in the ear, and lumber in the shape of logs, rather than in that of furniture.

"Looking first to our internal commerce, we find a mass of roads, most of which have been constructed by help of bonds bearing interest at the rate of 6, 8, or 10 per cent.bonds that have been disposed of in the market at 60, 70, or 80 per cent. of their nominal value, and could not now, probably, be resold at more than half the price at which they originally had been bought. Half made, and little likely ever to be completed, these roads are worked at great expense, while requiring constant and great repairs. As a consequence of this it is that the original proprietors have almost wholly disappeared, the stock being of little worth.

The total amount applied to the creation of railroads having been about $1,000,000,000, and the average present money value scarcely exceeding 40, if even 30, per cent., it follows that $600,000,000 have been sunk, and with them all power to make new roads. Never, at any period of our history, have we been, in this respect, so utterly helpless as at present. Nevertheless, the policy of the central government looks steadily to the dispersion of our people, to the occupation of new territories, to the creation of new States, and to the production of a necessity for further roads. That, Mr. President, is the road to physical and moral decline, and political death, as will soon be proved, unless we change our course.

"The railroad interest being in a state of utter ruin, we may now turn to the shipping one, with a view to see how far we are likely, by its aid, to obtain that command of the commerce of the world so surely promised to us by the author of the tariff of '46. Should that prove to be moving in the same direction, the fact will certainly afford new and stronger proof of the perfect accuracy of your own views, Mr. President, as to the sort of freedom we so much require.

"In a state of barbarism, person and property being insecure, the rate of insurance is high. Passing thence towards civilization, security increases, and the rate of insurance declines, as we see it to be so rapidly doing, in reference to fire, in all the advancing countries of Europe. Our course, in reference to shipping, being in the opposite direction-security diminishing, when it should increase— the rate of insurance steadily advances, as here is shown:

Rates of Insurance upon American Ships.

"To what causes, Mr. President, are we to attribute this extraordinary change? May it not be found in the fact, that

the more we abandon domestic commerce, and the larger the amount of taxation imposed upon our farmers for the maintenance of transporters, the greater becomes the recklessness of those who gain their living out of that taxation? Look back to the last free-trade period-that from 1837 to 1841and you will find phenomena corresponding precisely with those which are now exhibited, although not so great in magnitude. At present, the utter recklessness-the total absence of conscientious feeling-here exhibited, is such as to astonish the thinking men of Europe. Railroad accidents have become so numerous as scarcely to attract even the momentary attention of the reader, and the loss of life becomes greater from year to year. Steamers are exposed to the storms of the lakes that are scarcely fit to navigate our rivers. Ships that are unfit for carrying insurable merchandise, are employed in the carriage of unfortunate passengers, they being the only commodity for whose safe delivery. the ship-owner cannot be made responsible. Week after week the records of our own and foreign courts furnish new evidence of decline in the feeling of responsibility which, thirty years since, characterized the owners of American ships, and the men therein employed.

"Look where we may, Mr. President, on the sea or on the land, evidences of demoralization must meet our view. 'Stores and dwellings'—and here I give the words of a New York journal-'are constructed of such wretched materials as scarcely to be able to sustain their own weight, and with apologies for walls which tumble to the ground, after being exposed to a rain of a few hours' duration, or to a wind which possesses sufficient force to set the dust of the highways in motion. Entire blocks of edifices are put up, with the joists of all so connected with each other, as to form a complete train for the speedy communication of fire from one to another. Joists are built into flues, so that the ends are exposed to becoming first heated, and then ignited by a flying spark. Rows of dwellings and warehouses are

frequently covered with a single roof, which has not, in its whole extent of combustible material, a parapet wall, or other contrivance, to prevent the spread of the flames in the event of a conflagration.'

"The feeling of responsibility, Mr. President, grows with the growth of real civilization. It declines with the growth of that mock civilization, but real barbarism, which has its origin in the growing necessity for ships, wagons, and other machinery of transportation. The policy of the central government tends steadily towards its augmentation, and hence it is that American shipping so steadily declines in character, and in the proportions which it bears to that of the foreigners with whom we are required to place ourselves in competition.

"Two years since, we were told, that our shipping already exceeded 5,000,000 tons; that we had become the great maritime power of the world; and, of course, that this great fact was to be received as evidence of growing wealth and power. Last year, however, exhibited it as standing at only 4,871,000 tons, and future years are likely to show a large decrease-ships having become most unprofitable. More than four-fifths of the products of Western farms and Southwestern plantations, are, as we have seen, taken for the support of railroads and ships; and yet, the roads are bankrupt, while the ships have done little more, for some years past, than ruin the men who owned them. Such being

the case, it seems little likely, that it is by means of sailing ships we are to acquire that control of the commerce of the world, so confidently promised when, in 1846, we were led to abandon the policy which looked to the creation of a domestic commerce as the true foundation of a great foreign one. What are the prospects in regard to that higher description of navigation which invokes the aid of steam, will be shown in another letter.

Yours very truly,

GEN. U. S. GRANT.

PHILADELPHIA, December 10, 1868.

HENRY C. CAREY."

CHAPTER IX.

THE FALLACIES OF THE PROTECTIVE THEORY.

BY HON. AMASA WALKER, LL.D.

Late lecturer in Amherst College.

WE

E leave now the illustrations of the principles of protection, as exhibited in the manufacture of iron. We believe we have shown the unsoundness of all that political philosophy which proposes to substitute artificial for natural laws, in production. But there still remains some popular arguments, which we will notice.

1. It is claimed as good policy to protect "an infant manufacture" until it is well established, because it will then take care of itself, and ultimately confer great wealth on the country. Of this it may be said :—

(a) There is no assurance, under a system which removes the sole test of usefulness and self-support from the production of a people, that enterprises will not spring up which never will come to maturity, which have no vital force of themselves, which exist solely by reason of the protection, and will never become remunerative. If good enterprises, why not bad, since the test of bad or good has been withdrawn? In such a rankness of unnatural growth, it is far more likely that weeds will be produced than useful plants. Thus the whole industry of a country may become perverted and falsified by removing the principle of competition. There will be no reason for healthful industries to spring up,