COTTON AND THE LOOM. 487 



eut of the land, whereas if he had consumers near him, he would raise almost 

 as many bushels of potatoes, the manure for which would go upon the land to 

 enrich it, and make himself rich. He could then afford to clear, and ditch, and 

 drain, and cultivate the richest land, now covered with timber, or with water. 



Why does he not do these things ? Why does he not bring the consumer lo 

 his side ? Why does he continue year after year, to send his grain, or cotton, to 

 the distant mill, instead of bring once and forever, the mill to him ? The reason 

 may be found in the newspapers every day. Last year cotton manufacturers, 

 wool manufacturers, and iron manufacturers were prosperous. Now they are 

 stopping their work. Many are already ruined, and many more are likely so to 

 be. Why is this ? Does it arise out of any change in our own affairs ? It does 

 not. It arises out of changes abroad. Last year England made railroads, and con- 

 sumption then was large. This year she does not make roads, and consumption 

 is small. Last year we built factories and furnaces. This year manufacturers 

 and furnace-builders are ruined. All of them would be ruined, had they not a 

 Tariff of protection, inadequate as is that of 1846 to give them that protection 

 that is needed to secure them against such changes. Prosperous they would now 

 be had the Tariff of 1842 remained unaltered ; and the thousands employed in 

 them would have remained profitable customers for the farmers, instead of be- 

 ing driven over the country to become the rivals of the farmer, increasing the 

 quantity of provisions of which there is already a redundance. 



We may now readily see why the planter of South Carolina and Georgia, and 

 Tennessee, has not the consumer near him : why he continues year after year, 

 wasting his cotton and his corn on the road going to the mill, instead of bringing 

 the mill to him. The whole system of trade, by which the cotton and the food 

 are thus forced to go to the mill instead of the mill coming to them, is unsound 

 and unnatural, and therefore irregular, unstable, and ruinous. Revulsions are 

 and must be perpetual occurrences ; and none can risk their means in factories or 

 furnaces, but men who can afford to incur great risks for sake of exorbitant pro- 

 fits. The whole system is one of mere gambling, and so will it continue to be 

 while the trade of the country remains thus liable to be deranged by changes in 

 the action of foreign nations, over which we can have no control ; and so long 

 will the planter continue to give five bales of cotton for one of cloth. Whenever 

 he shall determine to take for himself the protection necessary to enable him to 

 bring the spinner and the weaver to his side, there to eat the corn, while convert- 

 ing the cotton into cloth, he will save all the vast expense of transportation to 

 which he is now subjected : he will increase the market for his cotton at home, 

 and he will obtain better prices for the cotton and the corn that he sends into the 

 general market of the world. All this he will do when he shall have arrived at 

 the conclusion that the question of protection, is in fact and in truth, one of pro- 

 tection to the farmer and planter, and not of protection to the manufacturer. The 

 latter with his machinery can go where he will. The planter's land cannot 

 change its place. The former will come to him, as the grist-miller does, all 

 over the country, if he can be assured of adequate and uniform remuneration, 

 and the freight and commissions will then be saved. If the manufacturer can- 

 not safely do this: if he continue to be, as in past times he has been, forbidden 

 by the fear of change in parties and party policy, he will continue to compel 

 the planters' produce to come to him, and commissions and freights will con- 

 tinue expensive and wasteful as now they are. 



Let the planter examine carefully the changes that have occurred in the 



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