1840.] SENATE— No. 36. 161 



men, women, and children, who i^erform the labor, have little 

 more than sufficient to sustain life. In a business so liable 

 to be suddenly and deeply affected by the caprices of fashion, 

 they are exposed to the most painful revulsions, and are often 

 reduced to the extremes of want and misery. Can we desire 

 to see any of our own population placed in the same condition ? 

 Yet how otherwise can we come in competition with this 

 foreign population in an article of this sort? Nothing can be 

 more absurd than to suppose, that if the country were to go 

 largely either into the manufacture or production of silk, as is 

 proposed by some persons, that present prices could be main- 

 tained. In countries, where men are trained in particular de- 

 partments of labor from their childhood, v/ithout any expecta- 

 tion or any practicability of a change, a different state of things 

 exists from that which exists among us. Here, men at their 

 pleasure can change, and are perpetually changing their condi- 

 tion. Here, excepting those pernicious influences, which result 

 from a disturbed currency, and an uncertain standard of value, 

 the relations of labor and its compensation in the various em- 

 ployments of industry will be continually seeking a level, and 

 maintain a uniform proportion. If any particular branch of 

 business promises extraordinary profits, and by extraordinary, I 

 mean a larger compensation for labor than other employments 

 aftbrd, men will rush into that, until its profits are equalized 

 with those of other pursuits. 



I am not an enemy to manufactures ; very far otherwise ; but 

 I believe no sagacious mind can doubt, that with a sound cur- 

 rency any considerable extension of them among us must tend 

 to reduce the wages of manufacturing labor. In our condition of 

 population, I have not been able to perceive the direct benefits of 

 manufactures to our agriculture, excepting as far as they increase 

 the productive capital of the country, from the manufacture of 

 any article among us. the raw material of which we do not pro- 

 duce ourselves. If this capital were directly applied to the ex- 

 tension and improvement of our agriculture, the benefits would 

 be obvious ; but this has been the case to a very small extent ; 

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