The mountain sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1844-1853, 1853-01-06
From the Harrisburg Keystone.
Commerce and Finance.
THE CURRENCY AND THE TARIFF.


When the immortal ADAM SMITH. in Scotland.
and the illustrious SAY, in France, first laid
open to view the sources and means Of national
wealth and prosperity, they did not expect the
truths they unfoded to find acceptance in the
Old World for many long years. They knew
that at was welded to its idols and they saw
that ii had cherished its commercial errors, and
practised its financial abuses long, that they
ad at last become necessary to the very exis
tence of the social state, and could not be eradi
Gated without total revolution in the very
| framework of society.
| But they turned to the Model Republic Of the
| West, then being peopled by strong minded men,
! busily engaged in upbuilding new social and
commercial system, trying all things, and hold
| ing fast those which were good, as the land Of
| hope aud promise. There they hoped TO see their
| great ideas realized, and to behold the Young
| World teaching the Old the direct road to
| tional wealth, comfort and we'll being. Little
did they dream that herr, separated by q vast
and stormy ocean from the errors of our Faith
| erlands, n great party would rise up, whose OBJ
iect 1t would De tc infuse into our political sys-
tenn those out-worn and exploded errors respec-
| ting the currency and the tariff, which have
made Spain poor, with Mexico and Peru Mt her
! back, and which have sadly impeded the pro-
gress of some of the proudest nations Of Eu-
rope.
And yet it is The whig party claims
to be the conservative party CT this country =
and to make good its boast, il has ever prided
itself in keeping as far behind the age pos
sible. It resists every great measure designed
for the general good. Distrusting what ever is
new, however true and useful, it ever reverses
and sustains whateve is old, however false and
feeble. 1t is prc-eminently the party OF the
past 1t lives in past age, and ever uphoids
institutions which have Jagged far behind the
wants of the present tine Hence its adv cacy
of high protective tariff and an inflated cur
rency.
The chief argument of the whig party, and
the one which it addresses TO the great masses
OF consumers in favor OF protection, is that
hgh tariff proves quite as effectual IS free trade
in the reduction OF prices that home competi-
ton will eventually bring down prices to their
lowest possible rate. Now, if the cost of cur
labor and capital is such that can produce
low at lme be done abroad, what d
is there of protection? But if we can import
an article che aper than we can produce it at
home, why not do So, and invest our land, labor
and capital in that which win yield us n better
return We can raise pine apples in hot-hOu-
ses, in great perfection, at double the cost of
those impo rted But he who raises his own
pine-appies instead of importing them, really
pays for each one the price of two for his la
Dor otherwise directed in agriculture, would
furnish him with the means Of buying two.
But, rejoin our whig friends we want pro-
tective tariff to build up our infant mauufac-
tures, which will thus in few years become
selfsustaining. To which it may well be an
swcred, you have abundant protection for this
purpose already III oar revenue tariff As the
Individual States levy direct tax to sustain the
State governments, so the United States to sup
port the federal government levies an indirect
tax upon all consumers of imported goods, in
the shape of tariE-which tax is paid by the
importer to the custom house, by the wholesale
jobber to the importer, by the retailer to the
! jobber and in the end by the consumer to the
retailer the tax in each sale being included in
the price of the article. This revenue tax or
tariff mainly levied on the import of goods now
! tHlS Country, amounts 10 UNer
| $50, 600, 900 annually. Is not this sufficient
| protection A manufacture which could not
plant itself under such auspices, would be a
| curse to any country.
The true policy, alike dictated by nature, and
confirmed by the teachings of political economy,
is for each country to produce those articles for
which it is most specially adapted by producing
which, its land capital and labor will receive
! the fullest possible return. And in such a COM
petition we would have nothing to fear We
have vast mountains of iron ore, the purest in
| the world. We have finest and most i'm
mense water power known while our soil yields,
in close pro1imiy, the products necessary for the
loom. We have great prairies, ON which the
sun sets on the sea, whose virgin soil will re-
| pay the husbandmen a thousand fold for centu-
| ries to come. We have great valley in itself
] a world, veined by ten thousand streams, af-
| fording nnbounded facilities to our internal
trade. Wepeople a continent so little disjoined
by nature, that you could construct railroad
without an inclined plane, from Philadelphia to
San Francisco a continent situated in the very
| commercial centre of the world, and which is
destined to become the great highway of nations
over which shall pass to ancestral Europe
the teas and spices of the "barbaric East" All