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Want of timber aggravates the expence of building, and, of courfe, 

 enhances the rent of houfes. It encreafes, alfo, the price of ma- 

 chinery, and of all utenfils in which wood is employed. This aug- 

 mentation of price in tlie habitations of man, in worlifliops, warehoufes, 

 mills, machines, and utenfils of trade, mull prove an obftacle to the 

 progrefs of manufaftnres, and a difcouragement of induftry, by ope- 

 rating as a tax on the manufafturer. Want of timber operates, alfo, 

 as an impediment to every fort of induftry (agriculture not excepted) 

 by encreafing the price, and confequently aifting as a tax, not only 

 on ploughs, harrows, and all inftruments of rullic labour, but on all 

 carriages, and machines for the tranfportation of commodities from 

 place to place. But one of the moft: ferious lights in which the fear- 

 city of timber can be viewed, is with refpeft to the conftruftion of 

 fliips, and its prejudicial influence, both on the commerce, and exter- 

 nal defence of a country. 



The necefiary confequences of the fcarcity of timber mufl be, that 

 fewer fliips, boats, and other machines for water carriage, will be 

 conflrufted, and fuch as are built will ftand the proprietor in greater 

 fums. This will tend, in a double refpeft, to raife the price of freight ; 

 both, by leffcning the number of fliips, and by encreafing the fird cofl 

 of (hipping. The encreafed price of freight afts, as a tax, on com- 

 merce and manufaftures, in a two-fold capacity ; (and both its aftions 

 are accumulated to the detriment of induflry) — it increafes the charge 

 of importing the raw materials of manufa<nures, for which we depend 

 on foreign countries ; and it encreafes the charge of carrying our ma- 

 nufaftured produce to the foreign market. It lays on the indufk^of 

 the manufacturer, a tax equal to the accumulated encreafe of freight, 

 both for the import of the raw material, and the export of the ma- 

 nufaftured commodity ; and it fubje£ts him to a difadvantage in the 

 foreign market, proportionable to the full amount of the tax on his 

 induftry, and in the home market, proportionable to the encr-;afe4 

 price of the raw material. 



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