10 



all nnportorp, and because such prerogatives have been much oftener conferred 

 ou thtm than has been consistent with the equal rights of the producer of the 

 raw material and the consumer of the manufactured article. 



Wliilst opposing tliese extraordinary demands, we have ever been ready to 

 sympathize with the manufacturers in any evil they may suffer. But the proper 

 remedy is not to throw burdens off" their own shoulders to crush down a class 

 -whose investments, more than those of any other class, yield the least profit, 

 although denying to itself those living expenses and gratifications which the 

 citizens following commerce and manuf.ictnres enjoy. Tlie ability of Mr. Burke 

 should have been exercised in examining the right and policy of government to 

 select occupations acknowledged to be lawful, to bear a burden heavier than 

 others. He should have inquired whether the husiness of a country can be taxed 

 without prejudice to individual equality or the ultimate depression of that busi- 

 ness. He should have discussed great principles — those befitting this age and 

 nation — and not cited " the view taken by European governments," which have 

 not advanced beyond the principles embodied in the monopolies of C^ueeu Eliza- 

 beth. 



But there remains to be stated and considered our chief purpose in referring 

 to these views of Mr. Burke. We see everywhere "cropping out" a deter- 

 mined purpose to burden the agricultural productions of this country with heavy 

 taxes and duties, that their exportation may be destroyed, in order that m inu- 

 facturers may command these at their own dictated terms. We have, over and 

 over again, because of its vast imjiortance, called attention to the fact that ex- 

 ports and imports are the chief regulators of prices in every country. In na- 

 tions having no foreign commerce, as in Japan and China, agricultural products 

 are almost without value. Over-production sinks prices lo the lowest point. 

 But foreign exports raise the prices of home consumption to the level of those 

 abroad. They relieve the home markets of a surplus, as well as fix the rate of 

 prices. Sa imports depress home prices to the level of foreign prices, and hence 

 it is that, to raise this level, high duties are demanded hy protectionists, or, in the 

 more manly, because more candid, expression of Mr. Burke, to the level of" the 

 prerogatives of the manufacturer " — to the "perpetual lien on the entire con- 

 sumption of the country," which they assume to be a part of these prerogatives. 

 In the bi-monthly report of January and February, 1SG4, it was sh wn at 

 length that our leaf tobacco barely held, because of its better quality, the ex- 

 port trade it enjoyed; that the tobacco production of European nations con- 

 stantly competed with it, so that, under the improved prices here between ISoO 

 and ISCO, by a greatly increased home consumption, its export scarcely in- 

 creased during this decade. We hold our agricultural export trade in all lead- 

 ing articles upon precisely the same conditions. The war demand for bread- 

 stuffs, and the short corn crops, raised the price of wheat during the last year 

 above the ordinary rates of export prices, and the resulc is seen in the following 

 table of British imports for the past eleven months : 



