COMMERCE A CHARGE UPON AGRICULTURE. 23 



that the shoulders of agriculture and manufacture are broad 

 enough to sustain, uncrushed and unbent, the whole burden of 

 the charge. 



And yet they do sustain it. Not a dollar goes into the 

 treasury of these improvements which is not taken from 

 the produced values of those who are ultimately the mutual 

 parties interested in the exchange, and in the consumption of 

 the commodities transported. The gross values of the producer 

 are diminished, aye, taxed, if you please, to this amount, and 

 the farmer pays his portion of the tax. But is he oppressed by 

 it ? Not unless the process has been fraudulent, because : 



1st. In consequence of a reduction in the cost of exchange 

 which commerce secures, his produce is worth more on his farm. 



2d. The merchandise which he needs costs less for the same 

 reason. 



3d. Because- the commercial agency takes away a smaller por 

 tion of his produced values, leaving a larger balance in his 

 hands; he is affected precisely as if his land had become more 

 productive; therefore his real estate rises in value. 



We will now look at money as a commercial agent. Gold and 

 silver coin, embodying the two qualities of universal receiva- 

 bility and divisibility at will, has been adopted by common 

 consent and the action of civil governments as the money of 

 the commercial world, and is as distinctly a part of the ma 

 chinery of commerce, as the railroad or steamboat. 



It is the office of the railroad to facilitate and cheapen trans 

 portation, and this constitutes its whole value as a railroad; so 

 it is the office of coined money to facilitate and cheapen ex 

 changes, and this constitutes its whole value as money. 



Were barter entirely convenient and economical, money 

 would have no office to perform, no necessity would have sug 

 gested its creation its presence in the business of the world 

 would be without meaning; it would never have been thought of. 



When we consider what an enormous sum of money the ex 

 changes of this country require; that v ihe annual charge for this 

 expensive commercial agent is the yearly interest of this sum, 

 with the addition of the annual cost of the coinage, the loss by 

 the wear and tear, by shipwreck and otherwise, we wonder 

 again, are the shoulders of agriculture and manufacture broad 

 enough to sustain the burden of this charge ? 



They do sustain it, with incalculable advantage and profit to 

 the producer. For the simple reason that money, although 



