SOLON ROBINSON, 1846 25 



Great Britain, As a philanthropist, I rejoice to think 

 that the half-starved English and Irish slaves may par- 

 take of some of the blessings enjoyed by our American 

 slaves. For, among the latter, suffering, for lack of food, 

 is almost an unknown thing. I most sincerely wish that 

 the British starvelings could have a goodly share of the 

 eatables of this country that daily go to waste; or, the 

 good, rich food that our hirelings turn up their noses at, 

 and would utterly refuse to live upon. I do not dispute 

 your axiom that there is a tendency to produce a surplus 

 of grain in this country ; but I do say, that it would place 

 this country in a far more prosperous condition if there 

 was sufficient inducement for that portion of the popula- 

 tion which tends to create that surplus, to engage in other 

 pursuits to an extent that there would be a home con- 

 simiption of all the agricultural products of our fertile 

 soil. If the cultivators of American soil are only to look 

 to a foreign market for their surplus productions, it will 

 take more millions than there are in your arithmetic to 

 compensate them for their loss of a home market. Again, 

 all the exports of agricultural products, even should it 

 (which I doubt) amount to $20,000,000 a year, will be 

 returned to us in the manufactured products of pauper 

 labor, such as every country should always make at home. 

 While it is recollected that those engaged in the carrying 

 trade are "consumers," that a goodly number of them are 

 foreigners, and that a very much larger number of con- 

 sumers would be engaged in carrying the surplus coast- 

 wise, for the home consumption of home manufacturers 

 of home-grown raw materials, into fabrics to export, in- 

 stead of exporting the raw material and food for others 

 to use to gain a power to level the agriculturists of this 

 countiy down to the same level as the serfs of overgrown 

 British land monopolizers. "Hence the disastrous effects" 

 can and will be as "great as apprehended by some ;" and 

 while "many of our farmers will grow richer by the sales 

 of their produce" to English manufacturers, many, very 

 many more, will grow poorer in consequence of the repeal 



