8 



for a long series of years, by a systematic arrangement of 

 prohibitory duties or sliding scales. She may now find it 

 more consistent with her general welfare, — more for her 

 advantage, in view of her manufacturing and commercial 

 interests, — more for the improvement of her whole condi- 

 tion, to relax or abandon this system for a time or alto- 

 gether. But this is a question with her of policy, and not 

 of power. Nobody doubts that the state of British agri- 

 culture, the relation of production to population, the pro- 

 portion of supply to demand, render it susceptible of this 

 sort of governmental protection. And so it may be, and so 

 it is, with other countries of the Old World, and perhaps 

 of the New. 



But what could prohibitory duties or sliding scales, ap- 

 plied to agricultural productions, accomplish for the Ame- 

 rican farmer ? Is there any scarcity of food among us, 

 inviting supplies from abroad? Can food be raised in 

 other regions, and imported into our country, at lower rates 

 than those at which we can raise it for ourselves? Do any 

 foreign products of the soil enter into injurious competition 

 with our own products in the American market ? There 

 may be a little flax-seed, a little coarse wool, or a few 

 hides, brought here from South America or the East In- 

 dies ; and now and then, during the prevalence of a myste- 

 rious blight, our provincial neighbors may supply us with a 

 few potatoes, or even with a little wheat. But these are 

 exceptional cases, entirely capable of explanation, if they 

 were important enough to justify the consumption of time 

 which such an explanation would involve. 



The great peculiarity in the condition of the United 

 States is, I need not say, its immense and immeasurable 

 agricultural resources. Our boundless extent of fertile 

 land, and the hardly more than nominal price at which it 

 may be purchased, have settled the question for a thousand 

 years, if not for ever, that, unless in some extraordinary 



