The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1827-05-16

He supported it on the ground that it was a
bill for the benefit of agriculture What il the
object of this bill, MIR. Chairman 1t is the
encouragement of the growth and manufac.
ture of wool at home, and to prevent its impor-
tation from abroad. 1t is TO create home
market for our farmers; a safe and sure one
which no changes in Europe can affect. Ii IS
| to prevent the Importation of the agricultural
produce OF foreign countries, to the 4.aGect
and ruin of our own. For what, he inquired,
IS the importation of CLOTH but the importation
OF agricultural produce? Is not cloth tho pro-
duct of agriculture? Analyze it resolve il
into its constituent elements, and what is il
lVoot and labor. What produces the wool
Grass and grain. And what supports labor
but bread and meat Z In Europe it got nc
more, and scarcely that. Thus closh is COM
posed OF the grass and grain that feed the
sheep, and the bread and meat that supports
the laborer who converts the wool into cloth.
And are we to BIO told that it is the policy of
this country, where seven-eights of the whole
population are agriculturists, thus 10 import
annually eight or ten millions of dollars worth
of grass and grain, and bread and meat. con.
verted into cloth, and that, too, from the starry
ing and miserable countries of Europe, while
our own are rotting on our hands Sir, this is
the policy we are pursuing, and its continue
ton is advocated by the opponents Of this bill.
| That the importation of cloth is the inporta-
iton of agricultural produce, may be regarded
as novel doctrine and to assert that thou
| sands OF tons of grass and corn are annually
transported from Ohio and Kentucky, to the
! Atlantic markets, would be considered as no
less strange; but it was not less true. 1t was
transported, not in its rude and original shape.
but, like the cloth, in changed and modified
condition. 1t was animated, converted into
live stock, cattle and horses Each one Of
these animals carried five or six tons of lay.
and fifty or one hundred bushels of corn, for
consumption, to the markets Of the cast, which
1t Is the policy of this bill to sustain and to in
crease. Hence he commended that it was for
the benefit of agriculture. There was no foun-
dation for the objection urged by gentlemen.
that it would tax tho farmer and ruin aqr;
culture. This argument had been urged a
thousand times against this policy. Ii was
urged against the minimum of twenty five
cents per yard, imposed by the tariff Of 1916,
upon cotton.
| What had been the effect of the minimum
duty imposed upon cotton It had afforded
eaectual protection III that case, as it would in
| tins. 1t had established the manufactures in
this country; and had this taxed the farmer !.
NO. 1t had the opposite effect; it furnished
the country better fabric, for one half tho sum
It cost before. This would not be denied
Nor was this all. 1t had supplied home mar
| ket to The southern planter for one hundred
and elghty Thousand bales of cotton last wear
market was not only }pernnaIchr,i -uur rrrcteAss
| ing thus verifying every anticipation of its
friends, and furnishing most triumphant refl-
tation of every objection urged by its enemies.
1t furnished facts and experience, in oppos-
ton to speculation and theory. And would
not similar effects result from similar policy
adopted in regard to wool9 Why not He
defied ingenuity itself to furnish distinction
What was required to convert cotton into
cloth2 Capital and labor. And what was re-
CURED to convert ,cool into cloth? Tho same
| capital and labor Then, if the capacity of the
country for the production of the raw material
is equal in both cases, its capacity for tho man.
ufacture of the cloth in both cases must be
equal This could not be controvcrted. But
he contended that the capacity of the country
for the production of wool was greater than its
capacity for the production of cotton. Cast
your eye abroad over tho Union, he said, and
scarcely State is to be found which is not, in
Q greater or less degree, adapted to the produc-
ton of wool; yet how few do we find adapted
to the culture of cotton.
If this Wow of the subject, then, said Mr.. S.
be correct, it follows an inevitable conse-
quence, that tho protection proposed by this
bill, so far from taxing agriculture, viii have
the same effect produced in the case of cotton
to diminish the price of the manufactured arti-
Gle, and at the same time furnish permanent
home market, not only for millions of wool,
annually, but also for the -four and oihcr agri-
cultural products of Pennsylvania, and the 9TH
er interior and western States. Even now,
without the benefit of this bill, the New En-
gland States imported last year G29, 600 barrels
of flour from Pennsylvania and the other agri-
cultural States, for consumption in their man
uiacturing establishments, while all Europe,
from whence We purchased and imported more
than 10000, 900, took less than 1900 barrels
of our four-not the one-tenth part of the
amount consumed in New England. Then
adopt this measure; let our farmers purchase
their cloths where they can pay in their own
4 productions, and no longer compel them, by
your anti-American policy, to wear foreign
wool, and support foreign labor, feeding or
foreign bread, when our own fields are lying
waste for want of a market for tho fruits of oul
labor. The millions expended for the purchase
and importation of the agricultural produce o
foreign countries was worse than lost--it wal
producing ruin to our farmers. lie assimilateC
it to the purchase of deleteTious drugs, which
impaired the health and ruined tho constitu
ton.
There was another view of the subject in re
lation to agriculture, which he begged leave tc
submit The fact seemed to be admitted oil
\ all hands, that, unless protection be promptly
!. extended to our woollen factories, they mus
inevitably sink. The most undoubted cv
denco is upon our tables, of the determination
of some of the most extensive woollen factore.
in the Union to wind up their business, having
suffered a loss of ten per cent. on their capita
during tho last year. The capital interested
in these institutions is estimated at about cigh
-ty millions of dollars. Refuse to pass this bill
and you not only destroy this immense capital
but you also destroy the market it supplies fol
millions of your wool, flour, and other agricul
tural productions, and, at tho came, force this
immense capital into agricultural pursuits
and compel the thousands of hands engaged in
manufactures. to become producers instead Of
consuncrs--rivals in agriculture instead Of