298 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



exist in our country. A very large proportion of 

 the merchants who, a lew years ago, were the 

 tliorough-going advocates of a national hank, 

 have, after witnessing the misciiiefs incident to 

 putting down the late t»ani<, come to the conclusion 

 fiiluT that such an insiiiuiion is not desirable in 



commodities, there is scarcely a bale of cotton, or 

 a barrel of flour or chest of merchandise, of any 

 sort to he transported a rod, a mile, or ten thou- 

 sand miles, but there is readv at hand the appro- 

 priate can inge to accomplish the design. It is 

 quite certain that all this macliinery cannot be- 



itself, or if it is, iliat it must he so dependent upon j made to operate thus by chance, for then all the- 

 polities and parlies, that another would very likely ships of the world wuild sometimes assemble in 

 be overthrown as the two heretofore esialilished the Gulfof JMexico, arid at others in the East In- 

 have been, and lliat the convulsion is on the whole, ' dies. There must be somewhere a great regula- 



(r the danger of it, more to be dreaded than all 

 the benefits of the policy are to be desired. At the 

 Rame time, there is a very general feeling that our 

 present system of banks is deficient and insecure 

 without some central power to bind it toaeiherand 

 produce unifbrnfity of action. JNJuliitudes say 

 "we must have something." But no general sen- 

 timent can be obtained in favor of any plan. TL he 

 various states have expended more legislation on 

 banks and the currency than upon any thing else, 

 and yet there is nothing about which there is so 

 general a feeling that the desideratum has not yet 

 been readied. After all the variety of laws, and 

 systems, and amendments, which have been devis- 

 ed, the impression is as extensive as ever that the 

 arrangements are inadequate to the exigencies of 

 the case. A regulator is wanted. 



In Europe, the same state of" feeling exists as 

 here. The Bank of England is an object of con- 

 stant attack. Its movements are watched with 

 intense and dissatisfied interest. Its peculiar privi- 

 leges have been, and will be still fan her diminish- 

 ed. Rivals are rising up who with less responsi- 

 bility dare talk of defying its power, and the public 

 mind is always deficient of confidence in the wis- 

 dom of the bank or its ability to accomplish the 

 object of its creation. It is evident that in Eng- 

 land, as well as here, the banking system as it ex- 

 ists does not possess the degree of confidence 

 which enables the public to repose upon it. There 

 ia very generally the leeling, that the system is 

 not 60 good as it might be; that there must be 

 somewhere, among things yet undiscovered, a 

 belter way. 



It seems strange that this matter cannot be put 

 in a satisfactory shape. The products of the world 

 are brought together, manulactured and distributed, 

 and all the movements of actual goods and chattels 

 carried on by a system which never lails to ope- 

 rate, and to operate in such a way that the whole 



tor, or such perlect adjustment between demand 

 and supply could not possibly exist. It would b& 

 as ridiculous to suppose that all this is done with- 

 out laws, as to suppose that the sun keeps its cen- 

 tre of the solar system, and all the other bodies 

 theirs, without laws. The laws which work so 

 admirably, must be good laws, and wisely framed. 

 They are not, however, to be found in any of the 

 great tomes in our law libraries. It strikes us as 

 very strange that the whole system which trans- 

 ports all the masses of merchandise, should work 

 so well, and yet that the comparatively little affair 

 of keeping the accounts should make so much 

 trouble and be so difficult, nay almost impossible,, 

 to fix in any satisfactory shape. How is it, that a 

 cargo of cotton can be shipped from New Orleans 

 to New York without the least difliculty, and in a 

 manner perlectly satisfactory to all concerned, and 

 yet that the bills of exchange, the mere bits of'pa- 

 per by which the proceeds are reckoned and trans- 

 ferred, can find no satisfactory method by which 

 they can be treated. What is the grand superi- 

 ority of the system which regulates ships, steam- 

 boats, and wagons, and their cargoes'? We will 

 tell thee, reader, the secret of the whole matter. 

 It is free. 



We wonder that the dangers of a free system of 

 navigation have not attracted the notice of our le- 

 gislators from the beginning to this day. If go- 

 vernment did not see to it, how could it be expect- 

 ed that the vehicles, infinite in variety as well as 

 nuinber, coulii be provided to transport our im- 

 mense quantities of merchandise? How could 

 we expect that ships and siuailer vessels, steam- 

 boats and horse carts, should be every where ready 

 at a moment's noMce, unless government should 

 make provision? Again, how dangeious it must 

 have appeared to allow Tom, Dick and Harry, to 

 set up as shippers, wagoners, and carters. Was it 

 not (piile aptjarent, that if irresponsible persons 



commercial world are satisfied that noihing belter Were allowed logo into freighting business, in- 

 could be devised. The million and a half bales of { competent and fi'audulent men would load their 



our cotton are collected together in t lie seaports, 

 sent forward to the eastern states, to Europe, and 

 wherever else any portion of it may be wanted ; 

 the whole quantity is manufactured into number- 

 less articles of comfort and elegance, and returned 

 through the ten thousand channels of consumption, 

 and the whole world is satisfied. So wilh our 

 mighty crop ofbread stuHs. So with all the com- 

 modities of the world. Ships are built of the right 

 sizes, and in suitable numbers, and so it is with 

 brigs, schooners, sloops, and boats, steamers, wa- 

 gons and carts. There is no dillicultv about regu- 

 lating the exchanges of cotton, or Hour, or iron, 

 so that the difference in price between the article 

 at one point and another is always kept as small 

 as possible. Wherever there are products to ex- 

 port there are ships ready to carry them away, 

 and bring back other things in exchange. In all 

 this mighty movenjent about the exchanging of 



ships on freight, and then run off wilh the goods. 

 What immense (rauds, what boundless ruin, must 

 ensue if every body could own ships and freight 

 goods. Thanks to Providence, our legislators 

 have never ftdlen into these liighiful contempla- 

 tions, for had they, the conse(pience would no 

 doubt have been, that in the discharge of the first 

 of their duties, they would have passed an act Ibr- 

 biddinir any man, or body of men, to own, charter 

 or possess any ship or vessel, on pain of the peni- 

 tentiary. They would no doubt have felt an es- 

 pecial horror of those little boats, shallops and 

 smacks, which so inflate the shipping business, 

 disorganize freights, cause revulsion in the crops, 

 and "cheat the poor. Having created a great 

 chasm on the ocean, and perliicted the mischielis 

 they feared, it would of course have been necessa- 

 ry that some provision should be made for the 

 transportation of goods. If the ^veral state 



