TOBACCO INSPECTION LAWS. 9 



pay the freight to Philadelphia or New- York, and thus to seek themselves the 

 competition with the West which they now desire to restrain, or even to destrov. 

 They should always remember that the largest market is the best to trade with. 



A piece of silver of a certain size, and with a certain mark, is called a dollar, 

 and dollars pass by tale, because every one knows that every such piece con- 

 tains a given quantity of silver ; but if we had a hundred different mints, public 

 and private, engaged in stamping silver pieces, the managers of each putting in 

 more or less alloy, according to their fancy, the result would be that every such 

 piece would be carried to some person admitted to possess the skill to ascertain 

 its true value, and the integrity necessary to give value to the certificate he 

 would be requested to put upon it. That man would require to be paid, although 

 the person who first stamped it had already been so, and thus two men would 

 be receiving wages for doing the business that might have been done better by 

 one. In a little time the producers of silver would find that they could obtain 

 more for it if they went al once to the right man and obtained his certificate, 

 and by degrees the private mints would cease to exist. Such would be the case 

 with local inspections of tobacco. 



In all poor and barbarous nations there exists an extreme jealousy of rivals in 

 trade. It is found in all villages, and is one of the essential characteristics of 

 what the Germans call liitle-townism. It disappears with the growth of wealth, 

 the man who has acquired a spade feeling no jealousy of his neighbor who digs 

 with his fingers. In evidence of this, on a large scale, we have the general exten- 

 sion of the warehousing system, by means of which merchants from abroad are 

 enabled to make up cargoes in London or in New- York, composed of the produc- 

 tions of all the world, almost as cheaply as they could have them at the places 

 of production. This is the system that our Maryland friends would abolish. 

 They would go backward instead of forward in civilization, substituting jealous 

 restriction for liberal competition. We feel assured, however, that the resolu- 

 tions have been adopted without full consideration, and that the measures pro- 

 posed will not be urged with a view to the accomplishment of any such object. 



If the tobacco planters of Maryland would prosper they must learn that pros- 

 perity follows exertion directed by knowledge. Their competitors are men who 

 are all laboring for themselves — men in Avhose minds every stroke of the ax and 

 every furrow of the plow is identified with the personal independence and wel- 

 fare of him who strikes the one and who opens the other ; whereas the Mary- 

 land planter operates by the labor of those who think little and cure less. He 

 must himself do all the thinking, that he may more skillfully and effectually di- 

 rect the labor of operatives who have no interest in the results, if he Avould suc- 

 cessfully compete with rival planters in Ohio. If he will not give himself, 

 mind and body, to the task — if he will live highly and spend in amusements the 

 time and capital necessary to success — he must not be surprised if decay and 

 poverty, manifested by exhausted lands and diminished population, be the con- 

 sequence ; nor will it be matter of surprise if such a state of things be accom- 

 panied by increasing jealousy of more prosperous neighbors. Hercules helps 

 him who helps himself. Let him learn to think — to explore the real sources of 

 his embarrassments, such as they may be — to defy such as may be averted by 

 sagacity and exertion, and to submit with grace to such as are inevitable; but let 

 him never play the pitiable part of a drowning man catching at a straw. 



