The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1863-02-26
COMMUNICATIONS.

Q the Editors Of the Daily Press:

To the Editors Of the Daily Press:
Besides the numbering interests of Maine,
there are Others, which may be termed lis
~great interests" lpropose to speak OF Ship
building, Navigation, Commerce, Fisheries, Man
ufactures, Agriculture, and our Supply of
Bread.
l. SHrPBUILDISG. Our extended sea board
ard noble bays and harbors favor ship building,
and Maine has come TO occupy first po-
sition in the exercise of this art. She can
build vessels to better advantage than any
other State, If not crippled by outside infuen-
ces. The hard pine from the States now in
rebellion, with the oak and other hard woods,
as also the white pne,th larch or hackmatack
Of Maine, once gave us many advantages, that
have not passed away. The hard pine of the
South Is now locked up. Its place is largely
supplied by the larch or tanarack of Canada
and New Brunswick, which by Reciprocity
comes In without duty, as our own materials
. disappear. Abolish Reciprocity and you Grip
pie shipbuilding most seriously.
z. BY the same process you cripple NAvIGA-
TIoN AND COMMERCE, as connected there
with and growing out Of it, thus sending our
shipbuilders ,owners and sailors to other States,
or to the British Provinces. We have now
the free use of the ST. John, the st. Lawrence
and its canals, and the northern shores of the
great lakes, for our vessels and our men, as
have British subjects. Abolish Reciprocity,
ana you cut on tnat privilege.
3. FISHERIES. BY the treaty American ves-
sells and fishermen have the same privilege as
those Of England and the Colonies in all the
harbors and bays, coasts and islands, east of
Maine. Abolish Reciprocity, and you cut
them of from these privileges and revive the
dangers of collision between fishermen of the
two countries, as they before existed, No
State has position and facilities superior to
Maine for profting by those fisheries, and
IL mo tufo atxasls
future use.
4 MANUFACTURES. By narrow and suici-
dai legislative policy, manufactures in Maine
were long held in check, and have but recent
ly assumed normal condition. The interests
OF Maine demand q large expansion of manu-
features. TO meet the varied wants ol our own
State. The Provinces on both sides Of us have
similar wants TO be supplied. A wise policy
will give Maine;great advantages for supplying
the British Provinces with articles they can
not at present manufacture for themselves.
Their purchases from the United States are
very largely Of manufactures. Their products
are chiefly those OF their farms, their for
ests, and their fisheries, which they exchange
for cotton and woolen goods, agricultural
tools, iron ware, furniture, and domestic uten-
sils. We buy of them chiefly raw materials;
they OF us chiefly the products of skilled labor
added TO materials. Maine may share largely
In supplying these wants il she will.
8 AGRICULTURE. Maine may well regard
agriculture as one of her "great interests" No
interest OF Maine would seem more likely to
suffer by the competition OF Provincial industry
under Reciprocity. Their fire wood, bark, po-
tatoes, hay, oats, buckwheat, butter, cheese,
meat, eggs, poultry, and the like, might thus
compete in our markets, as well as those of
the country, with the products of our Maine
farms. What has been the result? Have not
all these products, IL Of good quality, held high
prices, with scarcely an exception, during
these eight years of Reciprocity? Have they
not ruled as high as CONSUMERS could afford to
pay for them? Are they not now sure to range
as high as Is consistent with the diversified in
dustries and interests of Maine? If there is
not full supply of these common necessities
at reasonable prices, the effect is to cripple
manufactures and all employments besides the
cultivation Of the soil. II .he6 Reciprocity
keeps the price of your products in Maine
somewhat below what they would otherwise
be, the direct tendency is to build up manu-
factures and mechanic arts, thus securing bet
ter home market by multiplying villages and
thriving communities engaged In varied indus
tries. Purchasing farm products from our
neighbors in the Provinces, enables them to
purchase more largely of our manufactures,
increasing the commercial ties and multiply
ing the mutual safeguards and defenses of our
national frontiers. Whatever thus holds us to
peace policy by common interests, is stron-
ger defense than forts, arsenals, OF hostile can
non. l am quite sure that the farmers of
Maine feel no such injurious pressure of Reci-
procity as to desire the abolition of the sys-
TEN. rather than revision and Improvement
Of the details of the treaty.
9. Our SUPPLY OF BREAD. This last is
not the least important view OF Reciprocity
Maine Ia, and has been, large consumer of
Hour from wheat grown in Canada and the
western States. She will be so hereafter; and
II the State and its manufactures and mechan-
ic arts shall be developed, as our interests de-
mand. she will require much larger supplies in
the future than in the past These must come
from Canada, or the far West. By Reciproci-
ty we have our choice. The Canadian and
our Western wheat have free competition in
our markets and in Europe. But we also have
competing routes for its transportation. The
Grand Trunk, connecting the St. Lawrence
with Portland, gives us the advantage of
the St Lawrence and the canals of Cana
da for its transportation, as freely as 10
the Canadians and the English. 1t is of great
moment to us, that we retain this right. Shut
us up to the American wheat and the Ameri-
can lines OF transit, and you shut us up to the
tender mercies Of the men who stand between
the East and the West as wholesale dealers
and forwarders, whose direct interest it is to
keep prices high with us who are the consum-
ers, and low with the Western producers. that
there shall be an ample margin Of profits be-