The Evansville journal. (Evansville, Ind.) 1834-184?, 1844-07-05
EVANSVILLE, INDIANA, FRIDAY, JULY 5, 1874.

Soi'tidiy: al Tic cost, iHCIuulnS d CERTAIN
profit, TO the seller, fixed and regulated the
price, our traders must always gain, and
could never lose. They all know, every man
knows that in buying and selling, it isnot the
cost ofthe article, but the market price, that
governs.
At the very Threshold of your argument
you set out, with a false conclusion. Is it re-
markable, that your subsequent reasoning
should be false, and deceptive?
Surely every one, who can think atall, and
has been once to mill, knows, that there are
other considerations, besides the original
cost, that regulate the market price-and
they are supply and demand, scarcity and
abundance. AS supplies, ebb and flow,
prices ebb and flow. Every farmer knows,
that when crops are good, and a large surplus
produced, prices come down; if the crops
fail, and no surplus, prices run up. You COM
plain of the market-you say, it is ga spoilt
child, full of whims." And that very COM
plant, ought to have suggested to you, your
grand error. If the cost of the article sold,
and a certain and reasonable profit to the
seller, regulated the market, the market
would be a decent, welIbehaved, benevolent
conscientious old matron, full of years, and
full of honor, instead ofbeing, as you assert,
that i%nsolent, vain child, destitute of all ex-
perience, and fill of caprices. But perhaps
you carry your anathemas against the market
loo far. There is less caprice, and more
method, in her madness, than you seem TO
think. High prices, denote scarcity, low
prices denote what we western people call a
giut. And these important facts, you leave
Fout ofview, and argue the question as though
the duty fixed the price.
Our true policy, then isl increase sup
plies at home. For by that means, we re-
duce prices. If we place cur source ofsup-
ply at a greater distance, in a foreign coun-
try; say in great Britain, where our COM
merce is restricted if not prohibited by
heavy duties, IS it NJ certain that our sup
plies must fluctuate greatly the gulf of du-
tiles that we would have TO pass mustbe often
times impossible, and the market would be a
miserable rickety, whimsical spoilt child
sure enough. And who would pay for all
these whims? would it not be the consumers!
A few fortunate adventures, would amass
great fortunes, but the millions would be
trodden down.
Il We have had a full experiment of your
policy. We were once the colonies of Great
Britain. Our Fathers were compelled by
the policy of the mother country to raise raw
materials, and send them across the Atlantic
to be exchanged for hats, shoes, coats, iron,
and indeed for almost every article which
was the product of manufacturing or me-
chanical skill. This was a free exchange.
Surely, circumstances could not have been
more auspiC GUS for testing the value of your
doctrines. One would suppose from your
argument, that our farmers must have grown
rich very rapidly in those days. A rich vir-
gin soil; no restrictive duties imposed by
England on their farm produce; no manu-
facturers, few merchants, no a~rtizans, scarce.
ly any mechanics, and what was better than
all, no ~abominable, mis-shapen, miscalled
protective tariff, to pauperize the land
Why, sir, they must have been in the very
midst of paradise. But let us see how they
got along. And on this point I will intro
duce a witness from Great Britain, a coun-
tryman of yours, a Mr.. Joshua Gee, who
wrote a book not quite one hundred years
ago, entitled, ssThe trade and navigation of
Great Britain considered" He testifes
that
"New England, and the northern colonies,
have not commodities and products enough.
to send US in return for purchasing their ne
cessary clothing; but under very great diff
%culties, and therefore any sort will sell with
lhom' Anu "HeH tney are grown Out Vi
fashion, with US. they are new fashioned
enough for them"
Old clothes, good enough, new fashioned
enough for them. And not able to buy
enough at that. In one particular, there was
a similarity between their condition and that
of our first parents in the garden of Eden,
before tasting the forbidden fruit-they were
! nearly naked.