New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1851-12-31
The balance Of Trade.

on cannot be deemed unreasonable.
There is such thing as the balance OF
trade'-such thing as an untdcorable BAL
ance-a balance against US. Any farmer
who keeps an account of his outlay and H.
come, his crops and the cost of producing
them las every farmer should,) and who fnds
at the end of the year that he mas sold SIX
hundred dollars worth during the past year
and bought during the same period nine
hundred dollars worth, ought certainly to
INQUIRE why this is, and whittier it tends.
If he has been building new house, or
carrying on an expensive lawsuit, or doing
something which involved him in an extra
ordinary expense, this state of the account
need not alarm him but if he finds that 1t
is only way he has-that his sons have
had fine boots, beaver hats and lever
watches, while his daughters have sported
silk dresses, leghern bonnets and pianos,
and that help has been hired to milk and
cburn and chop and feed the cattle while
his boys and girls were off Safeguarding
and dancing night after night,-why then
we say that farmer must turn over new
leaf and draw tighter rein on his house,
hold, or he will soon have no house over
their heads. Wondrous as human ingenu-
itv is, it has never yet devised mode of
subtractipg larger sum from smaller, or
enabling man to go on from year to year
spending more than his income without
rushing on embarrassment and ultimate
bankruptcy. ~-J
Is there show of reason for believing
that this is less true Of community or ma
ton than it is of an individual! We know
that an individual of good property may
spend more than he acquires until he eats
himself out of house and home do we not
know that people may do likewise ? Sup
pose, for example, that the Contemplating
States should sell Eighty Millions worth
of their staple per annum, and buy yearly of
Grain and Meat, Fabrics and Wares, Pianos
and Champagne, Gold Watches and Pleas
ure Carriages, One Hundred Millions
worth-do you fancy that this course could
end in anything but general embarrass-
ment and bankruptcy? If such must inev-
itably be the result Of indIoidual over-buy-
ing, why not of like course on the part of
State, section or Nation? If large pro-
portion of the citizens of our country run
heavily in debt to their merchants, who
owe for the goods thus absorbed to the city
wholesale or jobbing dealers, who owe for
them in turn to the importers, who likewise
owe for them to European manufacturers or
bankers, why does not the aggregate of this
Indebtedness form practically National
Debt, depressing the energies and embar-
RAISING the industry of the entire communi-
ty? True, it may not at all times be felt
as an embarrassment, because the creditors
may not be pressing nor the debtors seek
ing to provide for payment but at best the
sword hangs suspended by a hair, and may
fall at the slightest whisper of the creditor.
Under such auspices, how can the debtor
be quiet, efficient and prosperous!
- But surely says Free Trader,
you don't object to our getting more for
our exports than their cost; nor can you
insist that we are falling in debt to Europe
because our Imports may come to US Of
fcially valued higher than our Exports.
Suppose we should send out hundred
cargoes of Ice, valued at One Million in
all, sell them for Ten Millions and take eur
pay in Iron, Silk, Tea, &c, would that
prove that we were rushing on ruin =
No, Sir not at all We don't regard
the officially declared value of our Exports
and Imports respectively as of much ac-
count one way or the other. How could
we, when we have most undeniable proof
that the various Wines now imported under
an Ad Valorem duty are valued at less than
one. third of the valuation Of the like Wines
imported under the Specific Duties of the
Tariff Of 40? We have no doubt that the
actual balance against us is much larger
than that shown by our Custom-house yalu-
atoms; but we place no dependence on
those valuations, enc way or another.
But these things zoe do kn0lo--and any
but the wilfuliy blind may know them; l..
That a large proportion of our National
Debts held in Europe, while of our State
debts many millions are held there and more
constantly tending thither; ?. That great
amount of our Railroad Bonds and other
evidences of Corporate Indebtedness is held
in Europe and more kicking about from one
banker to another in eager quest of pur-
chasers on almost any terms: 8 That orr