456 IMPORTERS, JOBBERS, AND DEALERS. 



quality, then it is due, not merely to the farmer s purse, 

 but to the cause of mechanical improvement, that the 

 English fields should be turned over for a time by 

 American ploughs. 



March 16. I visited this forenoon the warehouse of 

 an importer of hosiery goods in Pearl Street, the centre 

 of the import business of the city. There are here 

 three classes of merchants through whose hands im 

 ported goods go before they reach the consumer : and, 

 therefore, besides freight, charges, and duties, three 

 profits to be added to the price. The importer sells to 

 the jobber on eight-months bills. These jobbers sell to 

 the storekeepers in town and country, at twelve to 

 eighteen months credit ; making together nearly two 

 years interest, at six or seven per cent, to be added to 

 the other items which go to make up the price to the 

 consumer. With the opportunity of selling directly to 

 the storekeepers which the New England manufac 

 turers possess they ought to be able to undersell 

 British merchants, without the protection of a thirty 

 per cent duty. In truth, this duty, as I have elsewhere 

 remarked, seems likely to act more in crippling the 

 energies of the acute and intelligent New Englander, 

 than in promoting the general welfare or the ultimate 

 and sure development of the manufacturing capabilities 

 of the country. 



In light cotton hosiery, the Germans are beating 

 the English manufacturers of Nottingham and Lough- 

 borough out of this market. The latter cannot, or will 

 not, make them so light and cheap. Their goods are 

 confessedly better ; but my informant said he had tried 

 in vain to induce the party he dealt with, during his 

 visits to Loughborough, to make the kind of goods he 

 wanted; and he was against his will driven to the 

 Germans, who would make him anything. This thin 

 very light hosiery stockings and shirts is imported 



