Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1852-05-24

Ho" WHICH 10 nc" taxing place ard hence the
general prosperity of the producing classes.
we bear our testimony to this prosperity with
unteigned joy. We share in its effects, and thank
fully acknowledge the bot,uty Of rrovidence-
Dut when we nre told that il is owing 70 tho Corn
Law Repeal aud our other late enactments of
that class, we point to the above extract desert
bing the state Of things at New York, and ns!s
TO what are we to attribute the prosperity OF
| America? America, rs Lord Derby Justly states.
retains her protective duties -
The tariff of the United States levies on almost
all articles of importation duties, more or less ex-
| tensive-duties which in some cases reach an on
presslve amount but which in almost every in
stance are levied avowedIy on those articles which
| come into competition with the produce of their
own soil and industry. "-.Speech, Feb. q, 1852
/ ct we see that America is Increasing in every
| element OF Wealth-in numbers IN commerce, in
| credit IN manufactures, in money, even-beyond
all former precedent She receives on her shores
thousand souls daily, of the surplus population
OF Europe, and cherishing them in her bosom,
| makes them minister to her opulence and power.
If the present activity of industrial pursuits in
England is owing to free trade, to what is it owing
IN the United States! May not the we'll doing
OF both countrles-but especially OF orr own Sc
| verely, aud, as we think, most unfairly tried one
be mainly referred to that increased production
| OF gold, which, as the great circulating medium
| OF the world has always had the effect of stmu-
| atlhg industry III proportion as it became mole
| abundant?
| On this point we are not left to conjecture. In
| the Introduction to Honsheds History there is
| remarkable description of the progress, of what
the worthy old writer terms s'llxury,n within the
memory of people then living. Owing to the dis
| covery OF Mexico and Peru and the vast influx of
the precious metals great alteration was made
| In the money value OF commodities. In the reign
| OF Elizabeth, 1t may be said in general terms,
| that prices doubled. But this rise so far
| from producing distress, which, according to the
doctrine of the Manchester economists, must have
been the result, had a very marked effect in pro
noting the comfort and welfare of the people. Il
do rejoice" says the ancient chronicer, ssto be-
hold how that, In time when ALT things are groun
TO most erceSslUe prices, do get find the means
to obtain or dchiere such furniture as heretofore
has been impossible. There are old men vet dwell
ing in the village where remain which have no.
ticed three things to be marvellously altered in
| England within their sound remembrance. One
is the multitude Of c]aimneyS lately erected, where
as in their young days, there was net above two
or three, II so many, i'll most outlandish towns of
! the realm, (the religious houses and manor places
| oil their Lords always excepted, and peradventure
some great personage,) but each made Il fire
against the reredosse in the hail. where he dined
and dressed his meat. The second is The great
amendments Of lodgings, for, said they our fathers
i
lets, covered only with sheet, Under coverIets
| made OF dog swaine OF hop harlots, & use their
own terms and good round log under their head
| instead of bolster. Pillows, said they, we
| thought only meet for woman in childbed. As
for servants, if they had any sheet above them it
was we-for seldom had they under their bod
les to keep them from the pricking straws, that
ran oft through the canvass and raised their hard
ened hides. The third thing they tell of is the
exchange oftreene platers $50 called suppose,
| from treene or woody into peaoter and aoooden
spoons, into sluer or tin. For common were all
sorts of treene vessels in old time, that a man
should hardly find four pieces of pewter (of which
| one was peradventure SALTY in good farmers
house. In times past, men were coutented to
dwell in houses builded of sallow, willow, &C., so
| that the use of oak was in dedicated
wholly into churches, religious houses, princes
palaces, navi gation, &c. But now salow, &c, are
rejected, and nothing but oak anywhere regarded;
| and yet the change; for, when our houses
were builded of willow then we had oaken men
but now that our houses to be made of
oak, not only become willow, but
great many altogether OF straw, which is al
iteration. Now we have many chinneys, and yet
our tender limbs complain of rheums, catarrhs
and poses then had we none but reredosse, and
our heads did never ache. For as the smoke in
those days WAS considered sufficient hardening
for the timber olthe house, that it was reputed
far better medicine to keep the good man and
his family from the quack or hose. wherewith,
then, very few were acquainted"
Should the historian of England, under Queen
Victoria, have to record similar improvement in
the condition of the people-that they are better
lodged and clothed, and have greater command
over the comforts of life-t will little matter
though he should lament the degeneracy of the
men and the spread of luxury. This amelioration
of our ancestors social state took place together
with the growth of ''most excessive prices"
With that forced and unnatural depression which
it was the object of the Peel policy to effect, we
had reason to fear that all casses-al our producing
| classes at least-would be greatly, and swiftly,
Impoverished; and we must repeat entire
conviction that, if theresult has not answered our
fears, it has not been from any in the
ing which guided our judgment, but from the in
PRODUCTION of an element-wholly unforeseen in
1S45*-whch has greatly and benefcially altered
our commercial and monetary state.
Price is not an arbitrary term, it is the relation
which one commodity bears to another-as regu-
lated mainly by the amount of labor which each
kind represents. AS gold in this country is the
standard by which all other commoditiesar mea-
sured, as it can know nofuctuation ITSELF remain
ing Mt its fixed price of de3 Us 10dd per ounce,
whatever the supply of it may be, it follows that
the price of all other things rises or falls with
its abundance or scarcity. With wheat so low as
40s per quarter, little consideration will show
that it must be as easy to raise two quarters of
wheat from the earth 1--WE speak in round num-
bers) as to procure from it one ounce of gold.--
But if from new gold fields being discovered, aud
from improved processes being applied to the ex-
traction of ore it should be easy to procure one
and half ounces of gold as two quarters of wheat,
then the grain would surely rise to Cos quarter;
or should it be as easy to raise of gold
as two quarters of wheat, then the ounce of ore
and the quarter of grain balancing each other, we
should have wheat at ef3 Us l0td per quarter.
And of course all other commodities would rise