The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-31 00:00:00

NAVIGATION AND MANUFACTURES.

Our navigating interest is eminently prosperous.
The number of vessels built in the United States has
been greater than during any preceding period of
equal length. Large profits have been derived by
those who have constructed, as well as by those who
.
have navigated them. Should the ratio of increase m
the number of our merchant vessels be progressive,
and be as great for the future as during the past year,
the time is not distant when our tonnage and com-
mercial marine will be larger than that of any other
nation in the world.

Whilst the interests of agriculture, of commerce,
and of navigation have been enlarged and invigo-
rated, it is highly gratifying to observe that our
manufactures are also in a prosperous condition.
None of the ruinous effects upon this interest which
were apprehended by some, as the result of the
operation of the revenue system established by the
Act of 1846, have been experienced. On the con-
trary, the number of manufactories, and the amount
of capital invested in them, is steadily and rapidly
increasing, affording gratifying proofs that American
enterprise and skill employed in this branch of do-
mestic industry, with no other advantages than those
fairly and incidentally accruing from a just system of
revenue duties, are abundantly able to meet success-
fully all competition from abroad, and still derive fair
and remunerating profits.
While capital invested in manufactures is yielding
alequate and fair profits under the new system,
the wages of labour whether employed in
manufactures, agriculture, commerce, and naviga-
tion—have been augmented. The toiling millions,
whose daily labour furnishes the supply of food and
raiment, and all the necessaries and comforts of life,
are receiving higher wages and more steady and per-
manent employment than in any other country, or at
any previous period of our history.
So successful have been all branches of our industry
that a foreign war, which generally diminishes the
resources of a nation, has in no essential degree re-
tarded our onward progress or checked our general
prosperity.
With such gratifying evidences of prosperity and
of the successful operation of the revenue Act of
1846 every consideration of public policy recommends
that it shall remain unchanged. It is hoped that the
system of import duties which it established may be
regarded as the permanent policy of the country, and
that the great interests affected by it may not again
be subject, to be injuriously disturbed, as they have
heretofore been, by frequent and sometimes sudden
changes.
PROPOSAL OF TEA AND COFFEE DUTIES.

For the purpose of increasing the revenue, and
without changing or modifying the rates imposed by
the Act of 1846, on the dutiable articles embraced by
ifs provisions, I again recommend to your favourable
consideration the expediency of levying a revenue
duty on tea and coffee. The policy which exempted
these articles from duty during peace, and when the

revenue to be (ierived from them was not needed,
ceases to exist when the country is engaged in war,
and requires the use of all its available resources. I t
is a tax which ',could be so generally diffused among
the people, that it would be ielt oppressively by none,
and be complained of by none. It is believed that
there are not, in the list of imported articles, any
which are more properly the subject of war dutks
than tea and coffee.

It is estimated that 3,000,000 of dollars would be
derived annually by a moderate duty imposed on
these articles.

Should Congress avail itself of this additional
source of revenue, not only would the amount of the
public loan, rendered necessary by the war with
Mexico, be diminished to that extent, but the public
credit and the public confidence in the ability and de-
termination of the Government to tn,At all its engage-
ments promptly, would be more firmly established,
and the reduced amount of -loan which it may be
necessary to negotiate cour, probably be obtained at
cheaper rates.
Congress is, thi.refore, called upon to determine
whether it is. N':.,ser to impose the war duties recom-
mended, or, oy omitting to do so, increase the public
debt ar-130511y 3,000,000 of dollars, so long as loans
sb.";11 be required to prosecute the war, and afterwards
provide, in some other form, to pay the semi-annual
interest upon it, and ultimately to extinguish the
principal. If, in addition to these duties, Congress
should graduate and reduce the price of such of the
public lands as experience proved will not command
the price placed upon them by Government—an addi-
tional annual income to the Treasury of between
500,000 and 1,000,000 of dollars, it is estimated,
would be derived from this source. Should both
measures receive the sanction of Congress, the annual
amount of public debt necessary to be contracted
during the continuance of the war would be reduced
near 4,000,000 dolls. The duties recommended to be
levied on tea rind coffee, it is proposed shall be limited
in their duration to the end of the war, and until the
public debt rendered necessary to be contracted by it
shall be discharged. The amount of the public debt
to be contracted should be limited to the lowest prac-
ticable sum, and should be extinguished as early after
the conclusion of the war as the means a the Treasury
will permit.
With this view it is recommended that, as soon as
the war shall be over, Pal the surplus in the Treasury
not needed for other indispensable objects, shall con-
stitute a sinking fund, and be applied to the purchase
of the funded debt, and that authority he conferred by
law for that purpose.