Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1844-06-14

airy and constant when contrasted with our own ev-
CIR changing industry. Unwearied pains aIe llNJn
to ascertain the extent of demand LOT 'l'isn
raw material With all these elements an approx
innate calculation may be made. Inc ehects OF
rivon nolicv NAV be to some extent ioreseen, and
the causes being known, it is safe to argue that
like causes will produce like ELECTS.
With us the picture is reversed Our statistical
details are loose, slovenly, and unreliable, not to
say faithless, to the very extreme OF inaccuracy-
The modes and objects of our husbandry, and all
our industrial empoyments, are necessarily huctu-
oting. New sources OF production are opening
every hour. The amount Of any given article pro-
duced in one year scarcely furnishes ground for
plausible conjecture as to the quantity to be expect
ed the next; and the most sagacious statesman
must throw down his pen in despair, whenever he
attempts to reduce his anticipatons Of the future
to even approximate calculation
repeat, them sir, with us all experiment Is but
u leap in the dark. Let us be content with present
prosperity, and suffer not ourselves to be bewilder
ed by the fear of evils, which may be fancied but
cannot be foreseen.
1t is worthy of notice, while on this point, that,
whatever the practice of England may be, the
teachings of her popular writers tend to the very
doctrines inculcated by this report. Authors arc
subsidized to manufacture free-trade theories for
the foreign market, and large sums are raised to
carry on this new missionary enterprise of dssem-
mating through the world those doctrines of poit-
ical economy which England is wise enough to
repudiate at home.
England spares no pains to acquire an influence
here. She aims to dictate our economical theories,
our commercial system, our legislation She COM
mends herself to the North, by Boosting Of her
ACHIEVEMENTS in the great cause Of the abolition of
human slavery; and to win favor at the South she
holds out the deusive hope that her influence will
be thrown into the scale Of universally free and UNI
restricted trade.
But sir, are we never to be in fact, what near
three and ten years ago our fathers declared
us to be of right, Independent of England? Have
we, in that long space, learned nothing from our
own experience, and is the utmost period of the
life Of man too short to teach any thing 10 nation?
Are not the counsels of the wise and good the dead
and the living Of our own land, sufficient for our
guidance? For me, sir, the examples and the
teachings Of our fathers suffice. | look for no in
struction in the science of our government TO Brit
ish writers at home, or TO British renegades, or
nlicnnted Americans here; and prefer the palpa-
BILE prosperity that l can and feel, to the airy
visions of the most persuasive theorist.
But it is time to look little more closely at the
bill under consideration, and to enquire into its real
character and purposes. 1t is scarcely possible to
cast glance at it, without discovering that both
its arguments and its facts derived from sources
unfrendly to American interests and more dspos-
ed to color, dist6rt, or SUPPRESS than candidy to
disclose the whole truth You are hearing the ar.
guments and assumptions Of British importers from
the mouths of American statesmen. The hostility
of the bill to domestic labor is so thinly disguised
if, indeed, there be any attempt at conceslment,
that it seems work of supcrerogaton to point it
out; but so far as the policy it inculcates can be
referred to any Ineligible principle, it is this: to
make show of protection to the material, by
a slight reduction or, as in the case of wool not
grown in this country an increase of the duties
imposed by the existing law, and then to neutralize
this protection, by admitting the manufactured ar
tcle at a much lower rate. The manufacturer can
be induced to purchase the raw material only by
the nope Of profit on the manufactured goods. But
if you admit the goods at such rates that the for
elgn manufacturer can undersell him in our market,
he will suspend his operations, and buy raw mate
rial no longer 1t avails nothing to the American
producer to protect his wool by duty of thirty per
cent, if you admit woollen goods at the same, or a
lower rate of duty. You destroy his market by
destroying the inducement of the American manu-
facturer to buy. This is too palpable to require
any calculation beyond the simple statement. In
deed, so unequivocay is the bill characterized by
unrelenting hostility to American industry that it
in general reduces the duties imposed by the Tariff
Of 1912 on foreign manufactures just in proportion
TO the amount Of foreign labor expended upon them
This is point Of so great Importance that desire
to draw to it the special attention of the Commit
tee. BY the Tariff of 1872 the highest duties were
imposed on those wares in which the value of the
raw material bore the lowest proportion to the a
mount of the labor required for their fabrication,
and so far the duty operated as a tax on foreign
and bounty upon domestic labor The bill now
under consideration proposes to abolish this Just
and sautary discrimination, and in effect to give q
premium to the foreign laborer Thus, the duty on
raw silk is reduced three and half per cent; the
duty on iron four per cent; manufactures of iron
from four to one hundred and seven per cent The
duty on common wool, three cents per pound, on
wooen goods from five to fifly-seven per cent
I = day on the simpler glass wares one per cent;
one-third to one-half the length, one hundred and
fifty-six per cent; and upon the largest sizes of
crown glass two hundred and thirty per cent. To
what principle, but hostility to domestic labor, can
We refer a system Of duties which favors the adj
mission of foreign wares in proportion their val
ne has been increased by the employment of for
eign capital and foreign labor?
coNCLUDED WEEK.