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the setting up of the mercantile class, thus re-acts upon productiou, enlarging 

 its volume, and enriching the producers themselves ; still, it is an ultimate and 

 fixed fact, which ought to be distinctly undei-stood, that Commerce is a charge on 

 Agriculture and Manufacture — that the whole cost of the commercial machinery, 

 must withch-aw just so much of the gross value produced, from the hands of the 

 producer. 



If the commercial processes be clumsily and expensively performed, the pro- 

 ducer suffers; he retains less of his value produced, and is so far forth less 

 prosperous. 



If the commercial processes be skilfully, expeditiously, and cheaply performed, 

 the producer has the benefit of it; he retains more of his values produced, and 

 is so far forth more prosperous. 



The manifest inference is, that the fanner is interested in every improvements 

 of the commercial processes, which will diminish the expenses of transportation 

 and exchange — as truly so as he is in those improvements in manufacture which 

 diminish the cost of production. 



The improvements in ocean navigation, costly as the steamship is, by cheap- 

 ening freights, are enriching producers on both sides of the Atlantic. 



The immense array of steamboats which float upon our inland waters, as a 

 part of the machinery of our internal trade, with their frequent loss, and destruc- 

 tion of property, would seem to constitute an enormous charge upon the indus- 

 trial interests of the country. 



But to banish steam from our lakes and rivers, and to return to the raft and 

 flat boat, and other foi-ms of the time consuming, and labor consuming naviga- 

 tion of the last half century, w^ould be to impoverish and desolate the interior — 

 for the simple reason that the enormous amount of our present lake and river 

 trade, far transcending our foreign commerce, could not be carried by a craft like 

 that of the past generation, without a tenfold expenditure of time, labor and 

 money — and at whose charge ? At the charge of the producer. 



If the produce of the farmer should go forward to market, the compensation 

 of the commercial agency would absorb the whole value, leaving no balance for 

 the producer. If the manufactured commodities necessary to meet the wants of 

 ci\ilized men, w^ere brought into the interior from the commercial mart, they 

 would come to the cultivator of the ground at a price which would place them 

 essentially beyond his reach. 



It is obvious enough, that under such conditions, production and trade would 

 fall together, and a greatly reduced standard gf enjoyment and civilization would 

 prevail throughout a sparsely populated interior. 



Without the steamboat, what would have been the condition of the great basin 

 of the St. Lawrence, and of the great valley of the Mississippi, on this very day ? 



