Tri-weekly journal., 1848-01-19
GOVERNORS MESSAGE.
Gentlemen of the Senate and of

IldNlIlB COUNtlieU TIC VI luC
important duties committed to your charge, by
the people of the Senate, it becomes my duty
Ia duty which it is regretted | was prevented
from performing previous to your late adjourn
ment, by severe bodily injury, the result of a
recent accident,l TO communicate to you the
condition of the commonwealth, and to sug-
gest such measures as may seem to be demaD
ded for the preservation and increase of the pub
lie welfare. In doing so, it affords me heartfelt
pleasure to congratulate you upon the general
prosperity which has prevailed within our bor-
ders during the past year. We have enjoyed
the blessings of health in an unusual degree,
the supremacy of the laws has been maintain
ed, and the labor of the husbandman has been
bountifully rewarded by luxuriant crops, which
he had been enabled to dispose of at liberal
prices, thus giving renewed impulse to bus
mess of every description. Evidences of great
improvement in the condition of the people
are everywhere visible. Our cities and towns
steadily increasing in wealth and population,
and the primeva forests which still covera large
portion of the country are rapidly disappearing,
to give place to the rich products which are
drawn BY the hand of industry from generous
and fertile soil. For these, and the number
less other advantages we enjoy we owe un-
bounded gratitude to God, in whose hands are
the destines of nations, who has placed us in
land of religion, liberty and plenty; thus en-
abling us to advance our moral and social con-
dition, and to acquire that political and physi-
cal independence, from which so large a por-
ton of the human family is debarred. 1t be-
comes us, therefore, to acknowledge His good
ness with suitable reverence, and to invoke
continuance OF His blessings upon our below
ed country and npon our efforts to discharge
with fidelity the trusts which have been COM
mitted to US.
! The increased prosperity of the country,
cannot but think, is, under Divine Providence,
in great measure to be attributed to the wise
change in the policy Of the general government
of the Union, with regard to our commerce
with foreign nations. The repeal of the high
tariff of 1912, and the adoption of more lib
eral system of duties by the act of 1916, has
not only had the effect ofproducing an increas-
ed revenue TO the national treasury, but an in
crease of profits to the agriculturists. This
class of our fellow citizens, constituting the
main foundation of our national wealth and
prosperity, has, by means of diminished duties
on commerce at home and abroad, been ena-
bled to find market for greater proporn on
of their surplus products than they could 9TH
erwise have disposed of to advantage. Ma
king every allowance for any influence on pri-
ces which may have been produeed by sea-
son of unusual scarcity in Europe, yet when
we consider that how great soever may be the
necessity of the people of other countries, their
ability to purchase food from us is limited by
their ability to pay for it by the produce of
their own labor il is evident that every restric-
ton which prevents Us from receiving such
produce in return, must reduce the quantity or
value of that which they receive from u.s.
Happily for all parties-the overproducer OF
our own country as we'll as the starving con-
sumer abroad-upon the occurrence of gen.
eral failure of the crops in Europe in 1916, the
restriction which had formerly existed, were
in a great measure removed, and we were pre-
pared to reap the full benefit of the increased
demand thus created. 1t is to be remarked al
so, that while those engaged in the cultivation
of our soil have been so greatly benefited by the
opening of foreign market, the manufactu-
ring and commercial classes have enjoyed al
least their full share of the common prosper
lily. The great increase of manufactures and
of manufacturing and commercial capital, since
the passage of the comparatively low tariff OF at
proves that these interests are in most flour
ishing condition. In fact, the agricultural in
terest so greatly predominates in this country
that most Others are in great degree depend
ent upon it, and must, TO some extent, flour
ish or languish as that becomes prosperous Of
: depressed. Indiana is especially an agricultu.
raj State, and it is of the utmost importance
to our citizens that the sound and enlightened
policy of low duties or a revenue tariff-oi
striking off all restrictions upon trade not re-
quired by the wants of the public treasury econ
omically dministered-should continue to bt
maintained. Many of our fellow citizens, WHIT
t entertained serious apprehensions that the es
adjustment of this policy would be fraugh
with great evil, if not ruin to most Of GU
leading interests, are doubtless gratifed to fine
at length that their apprehensions were no
4 only without foundation, but that the very re
verse is true.
1t affords me still greater pleasure to be abl'
: to remark that the present increase Of prosper
ity appears to be founded, at least to far grea
ter extent than heretofore, upon a solid anC
. substantial basis. 1t was not brought about a
: formerly by wild and extravagant spirit o
! speculation, nor by similar expansion of tn,
= currency, but mainly by the gradual and whole
) some operations of a profitable trade, confined
!. within its legitimate channels. There is nov
! no great banking institutions under nationa
: authority, oyershadowing all the other none
= tary institutions of the country, capable o
welding an almost irresistible political power
and able, by means of vast capital and tn
control of the national treasury itself, to con
X tract or expand the amount of currency in cir
l. culation throughout the entire country, an
u consequently to cause the prices of every kin
tof property to rise or fall, as it might suppl
or withdraw the means of payment. Since tn
existence of the last institution Of the kind il