1840.] SENATE— No. 36. 163 



prices of bread on the other ; for in an artificial system like 

 theirs, the agricultural interest claims protection as well as 

 the manufacturing ; and corn laws must be maintained, the 

 hardships of which fall almost exclusively upon the laboring 

 classes. Under such circumstances, the only sovereign remedy 

 against the complaints of their starving crowds has been 

 bayonets and balls. Now with all her wealth and all her 

 machinery, and all her magnificence, w^here, all circumstances 

 considered, where on earth exists a more wretched, miserable, 

 vicious, squalid population than are to be found among a large 

 portion of the manufacturing population of Great Britain ? 

 We may add likewise the silk manufacturers of Lyons. Who 

 would desire to see a standard of wages introduced among us 

 like that which prevails in England or among the manufactur- 

 ers on the continent ? Hitherto among us, for various reasons, 

 which it is not necessary to discuss, and especially from our 

 sparse population, from the demands for labor made from other 

 sources, and from the cheapness of land, manufacturing labor 

 has been most liberally and sometimes exorbitantly paid. But 

 in proportion as manufactures are extended among us, unless 

 under a high tariff, amounting almost to a prohibition, the stand- 

 ard of wages must be in some measure conformed to that of 

 Europe. It is idle to think of introducing the manufacture of 

 silk unless we can produce it at the rates of labor which are 

 paid there. 



XXIII. Our own Condition. — But how are we to pay for the 

 silks which we import from Europe ? We cannot honestly pay 

 for them. We ought not to use them. In our present condi- 

 tion we have no right to them. The enormous extravagance 

 and luxury which have prevailed among us, have occasioned 

 the bankruptcies and the distresses, and many of the flagrant 

 crimes which darken the history of our community for the few 

 past years. But cannot we make them ourselves ? As I have 

 already said, the luxurious and spendthrift classes might do it, 

 if they would ; but no one expects this of them. But may 

 not much of the labor, which is now applied to other purposes 



