140 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



Is it said that our manufacturing companies have often been com- 

 pelled to suspend, or break up, even under laws as favorable to them as 

 those now in operation ? The reason for this is too pointedly and perti- 

 nently stated by Mr. Lawrence to require any addition at my hands, in 

 the following extract from a letter to me, bearing date April 13, 1847; and 

 it will be seen in the concluding sentence that the bold and manly decla- 

 rations of his preceding letter were not the result of a casual or momentary 

 confidence, but are deliberately reasserted : 



" The maiuifactiire of wool has often been disastrous to pai'ties who have embarked in it 

 for many reasons, two of which are sufficient — a icant of capital and a want of skill. These 

 difficulties are being obviated. Capitalists are more ready to embaik under certain auspices, 

 and the amount of skill is very fast increasing, so tliat this brajich is on a footing not to be 

 •■moved." 



Undisturbed by those changes of vacillating legislation, or those move- 

 ments in the National Legislature pointing to such changes — at one time 

 enormously pampering the manufacturing interest, and leading to over- 

 action and rash adventure — at another, threatening it with disaster and 

 utter subversion — our manufacturers will steadily, nay, rapidly advance. 

 If NOW LET ALONE, they will soon not only " clef// foreign cotnpctition'''' in 

 the home market, but there is not a single good reason to prevent them 

 from defying it in the great and opening market of South America, and 

 even in the Old World. Some evils or errors in commercial legislation 

 are less to be deprecated than constant changes. The present Tariff', so 

 far as it affects wool and woolens, is the result of a compromise of inter- 

 ests. It may not be perfect in principle or detail. But it does not seem 

 to flagrantly favor or oppress any interest. I speak not in the spirit of a 

 politician, or of the representative of an interest or section, when I express 

 the hope that no change will he made or attemjftcd in this jiortion of the 

 Tariff, until the lapse of years shall bring ahout other changes requiring 

 it, or until ample experience shall clearly call for a revision of the system. 



I have spoken of two " margins " to be filled by the American wool- 

 oi'ower — the present deficit in supplying our own manufactories, and sec- 

 ondly, the prospective one, as our manufactures increase, so as to overtake 

 and then keep pace with the consumption of an increasing population. 

 The demands of our manufactories will advance pari passu with the pro 

 duction, Mr. La^^Tence predicts, for at least fifteen years. Why not foi 

 fifty, or a hundred! Lotus glance at the prospective consumption, and see 

 if, independent of exportations, it is likely to require any curbs or limits to 

 be placed on production or mamfacture. 



In the debates in Congress on the Tariff in 1S28-9, Mr. Mallary esti- 

 mated the consumption of woolens in our country at 872,000,000 per 

 ann. ;— $10,000,000 imported ; $22,000,000 maimfactured ; $40,000,000 

 home-made. The Committee of the " Friends of Domestic Industry," 

 who met in New-York in 1831, reported that the proportion between the 

 amount of wool worked up in factories to that in families was as 3 to 2 ; 

 that the entire annual product of wool and its manufactures in the U. S. 

 was $40,000,000. These are the only accessible published estimates which 

 now occur to me. 



The Census of 1840 shows that the value of woolens made in our manu- 

 factories in 1839, was $20,096,999. The import of foreign woolens the 

 same year was $18,575,945, and of raw wool* $1,359,445. It should be 

 remarked, however, that the import of woolens is considerably higher than 

 that of any year before or since. Taking the average of the same three 



♦ Takinp the average product of t&37-8-9, as in Table 9. The separate import of 1839 is not before me. 



