FARMERS' REGISTER 



709 



Unsepti the great inlerests of society; and if agri- 

 culluie is bad and languishing in a country and 

 climate, where i! may be good and prospeious, no 

 doubt remains with me, that political institutions 

 have chiefly perpetrated the evil ; just as they de- 

 cide the (ate of commerce. 



The device of subjecting it to the payment of 

 bounties to manuliacluring, is an institution of this 

 kind. This device is one item in every system 

 for rendering governments too strong for nations. 

 Such an object never was and never can be ef- 

 fected, except by factions legally created at the 

 public expense. The wealth transferred from the 

 nation to such factions, devotes them to the will 

 /, of the government, by which it is bestowed. 

 V They must render the service lor which it was 

 given, or it would be taken away. It is unex- 

 ceptionably given to support a government against 

 a nation, or one faction against another. Armies, 

 loaning, banking, and an intricate treasury sys- 

 tem, endowing a government with the absolute 

 power of applying public money, under the cover 

 o( nominal checks, are other devices of this kind. 

 Whatever strength or wealth a government and 

 its legal factions acquire by law, is taken from a 

 nation ; and whatever is taken (i'om a nation, 

 weakens and impoverishes that interest which 

 composes the majority. There, political oppres- 

 sion in every form must finally iiill, however it 

 may oscillate during the period of transit from a 

 good to a bad government, so as sometimes to 

 scratch factions. Agriculture being the interest 

 covering a great majority of the people of the 

 United States, every device for gelling money or 

 power, hatched by a fellow-feeling or common 

 interest, between a government and ils legal crea- 

 tures, must of course weaken and impoverish it. 

 Desertion, for the sake of reaping without labor, 

 a share in the harvest of wealth and power, be- 

 stowed by laws at its expense, thins its ranks ; an 

 annual tribute to these legal factions, empties its 

 purse ; and poverty debilitates both its soil and 

 understanding. 



The device of protecting dutiee, under the pre- 

 text of encouraging manufactures, operates like 

 its kindred, by creating a capitalist interest, which 

 instantly seizes upon the bounty taken by law fi-om 

 agriculture ; and instead of doing any good to the 

 actual workers in wood, metals, cotton or other 

 substances, it helps to rear up an aristorrafical or- 

 der, at the expense of the workers in earth, to 

 unite with governments in oppressing every spe- 

 cies of useful industry. 



The products of agriculture and manufacturing, 

 unshackled by law, would seek, each for them- 

 selves, the best markets through commercial chan- 

 nels, but these markets would hardly ever be the 

 same; protecting duties tic travellers together, 

 whose business and interest lie in different direc- 

 tions. This ligature upon nature, will, hke all un- 

 natural ligatures, weaken or kill. The best mar- 

 kets of our agriculture lie in foreign countries, 

 whilst the best markets of our manufactures are at 

 home. Our agriculture has to cross the ocean, 

 and encounter a competition with foreign agricul- 

 ture on its own ground. Our manufactures meet 

 at home a competition with foreign manufactures. 

 The disadvantages of the first competition, suffice 

 to excite all the efforts of agriculture to save her 

 hfe ; the advantages of the second suffice gradu- 

 ally to bestow a sound constitution on manulac- 



furing. But the manufacture of an aristocratical 

 interest, under the pretext of encouraging work of 

 a very different nature, may reduce both manulac- 

 turers and husbandmen, as Strickland says is al- 

 ready effected in the case of the latter, "to the 

 lowest stale of degradation." 



This degradation could never have been seen 

 by a friend to either, who could afterwards approve 

 of protecting duties. Let us take the article of 

 wheal to unlbid an idea of the disadvantasea 

 which have produced it. If wheat is worth 16s. 

 sterling in England the 701b. the farmers sell it 

 here at about 6s. sterling. — American agriculture 

 then meets English agriculture in a competition, 

 compelling her to sell at little more than one third 

 of the price obtained by her rival. But American 

 manufacturers take the field against English on 

 very diflerent terms. 'J'he competitors meet in 

 the United Slates. The American manulactures 

 receive, first, a bounty equal to the freight, com- 

 mission and English taxes, upon their English 

 rivals: and secondly, a bounty equal to our own 

 necessary imposts. Without jirolecting duties, 

 thereibre, the American manufacturer gets for the 

 same article, about 25 per cent, more, and the 

 American agriculturist about ISO per cent, less^ 

 than their English rivals. Protecting duties add- 

 ed to these inequalities, may raise up an order 

 of masters for actual nianuliacturers, to intercept 

 advantages too enormous to escape the vigilance 

 of capital, impoverish husbandmen, and aid irv 

 changing a fair to a fraudulent government ; but 

 they will never make either of these intrinsically 

 valuable classes richer, wiser or freer. 



In this number I shall consider a reason for pro- 

 tecting duties to encourage manufacturers, which, 

 if it is sound, overturns the whole argument 

 against them. In every essay on behalf of manu- 

 factures, we are told, that by creating this claea 

 with bounties and privileges, we shall both make 

 ourselves independent of foreign nations, and also 

 provide a market for agricultural labor, as an aris- 

 tocracy, in all ils forms, is a market for labor. 

 And the high price of wheat in England, is con- 

 trasted with its low price here, to prove tfie latter 

 assertion. It would be sounder reasoning to con- 

 trast the high price of manufactures here, with 

 the low price there, to prove that they ought to 

 give bounties to agriculture to provide a market 

 lor manufactures. Nations and individuals are >4^ 

 universally promised wealth by political swindlers. '^ 

 — The English price for wheat, is coupled with 

 the English political system. Without adopting 

 the causes of that price, the effects springing from 

 these causes cannot follow. The idle classes of 

 the nobility, clergy, army, navy, bankers and na- 

 tional debt holders, with their servants and depend- 

 ents, are the items of an aristocracy, which has 

 reduced the agricultural class to a poor and pow- 

 erless state, by the juggle of persuading it to buy 

 high prices, by creating and maintaining these 

 idle classes. 'J'he national debt alone maintains 

 more people, than there are agriculturists in Bri- 

 tain. These do not amount to a tenth part of the 

 nation. It is to this combination of causes, and 

 not to manufacturers singly, that the English 

 agriculture is indebted for ils high prices. 



These very prices are themselves proofs of the 

 oppression which produced them. 'J'hey are the 

 effect oft he tendency which industry has to reco- 

 ver back Eomc equivalent from fraud, and of the 



