ADDRESS. 13 



prerogative of genius and untiring perseverance only to obtain. 

 We realize this fiction in the value which labour, guided by intel- 

 ligence, imparts at the present day to the vilest substances, and 

 most unpromising materials. The iron consumed every year, 

 exceeds tenfold in value the precious metals produced by all the 

 mines in the world. The ancients considered that a favoured 

 land, where Ceres lived in harmony with Pluto ; meaning, doubt- 

 less, that there exists an intimate connection between all the pur- 

 suits of life, when efficiently followed out ; and where each mem- 

 ber of a community labours in behalf of himself, in the benefit 

 conferred on his neighbour. 



It has been a part of the creed of some political economists, 

 both here and in Europe, that it would be best for us as a nation, 

 to remain, for an indefinite time to come, agriculturists, and suffer 

 other nations to come and take the productions of our soil in 

 exchange for their own manufactures. But this dogma, though 

 enunciated so emphatically from the high places of science in 

 Europe, and echoed by some otherwise sound politicians and true 

 patriots among us, has been gradually losing ground, and has for 

 supporters at the present day, few besides those who are so evi- 

 dently under the influence of interested motives, that their argu- 

 ments must appear vitiated to every impartial mind : and further- 

 more, if ever so plausibly maintained, they would fall to the 

 ground from the fact that the genius of the people has never, from 

 the commencement of the controversy, been in accordance with 

 them. The nation, almost without any regular process of rea- 

 soning, but guided by an instinctive impulse, came to the con- 

 clusion that its labour, divided among the three great interests, 

 was infinitely more productive than if confined to one alone ; and 

 nothing could prevent it from furnishing its own merchants, not 

 only for the supply of domestic, but also^ of every foreign com- 

 modity. Feeling an innate consciousness that no labour was too 

 great, nor enterprise too arduous, they set forth upon untried 



