Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1846-10-17
CAUSE AND EFFECT.

Il is, we think, perfectly evident that the Union
believes quite as much in the second as in the first
of the two following sentences, one of which APP
peared on Thursday and the other on Saturday last
in that paper:
"WoKKISa THE New TAnIFF PoLIcr.-We alluded
yesterday 10 the purpose and the effect of the liberal po
cy adopted by the Democratic party opening the foreign
market to our vast agricultural produce and thus creating
activity in all the branches Of business pertaining the
carrying trade while, at the time, the fabrics of foreign
manufacture brought reduced prices within the reach
Of the masses of our population"
On the preceding Thursday it had produced, with
high panegyric,,an extract from JOHN TAYLOR OF
Caroline, Gan eminent Democrat of the olden time J
which extract begins in the words following:
90 We farmers and mechanics hare been pol tcaI SLAVES
ia all countries because are poitieai FOOLS"
Now, there's nice popular compliment for
you However, we make no doubt that il is per-
fec1y sincere, and that the last citation faithfully
the practice. For what, except the most thorough
persuasion that the farmers and mechanics mag
be male to sWalloac ANY THING, could prompt the
Union TO hazard assertions so extraordinary
Does that paper take it for granted that " the
farmers and mechanics have as well not an atom
OF memory as not grain of judgment! Does it
suppose that nobody will recollect that -four rose
as much last gear under the q Black Tariff oil
AZ" as IL has done under The Free Irade Tariff,
which has not yet gone into operation
The new bill does not take effect until next De-
cember. Now, every body that has two ideas
knows that the approach Of duties much reduced
must serre largely 10 check importations The
operation of the act can, therefore, up to about
the lst of December in England, be only to lessen
the shipping Of goods to this country If, then, it
were with goods that England was now to buy pro-
visions of US, she evidently would have 10 buy less,
not more, at smaller, not greater prices.
But, again did flour, &c. rise in Great Britain
as as the meoc tari6 ,oas kno,cn TO haze pass
ed? Or did it wait several months, and oniy rise
when il was ascertained that there would be an al
most general scarciiyin Europe!
Once more: it rose (say) one dollar ; il has since
fallen halt as much has, then, the tariff been
increased fifty per cent. during the last week or
two? One would say 50, according TO the Unions
logic.
The cause Of the rise in price of breadsuis is so
open, so striking so grievors to all who have am
heart to feel for impending suffering Of the poor,
for whole regions threatened with popular starva-
ton, that surely nothing but the most soulless
contempt for the intelligence of the poor in this
country and indifference for their restitution abroad
could induce such attempt to delude the I" far
mers and mechanics" as to the cause. When famine
threatens Europe, must not provisions rise in this
country! Do people stop to reason then about the
laws of trade!
Instead, then, of the effect for which the Union
argues, what is the real consequence Of the new
tariff as to the supplies which Europe must, for the
time, draw from this country! Only this, clearly !:
that, if the tariff of 1912 had Stood the -four, &c.
would have had to be paid for largely NTH specie J;
and that now it will be, after the law goes into ef-
feet paid for principally in cotton goods iron, coal,
and other articles no longer protected