OF AMERICA. 1 3 



that we farmers, our class alone, are every year, out of our 

 hard earnings, needlessly and heedlessly throwing away 400 

 millions of dollars, and that we could, if we would, save in 

 our yearly expenses a sum large enough to defray the 

 whole of the national expenditure nearly twice over?" 

 " Yes, sir," we reply, "it is a fact. We have clearly sho^^^l 

 that the same articles of consumption that you could get 

 from the Britisher for 100 dollars, you have now to pay 

 140 for. Now, if you, one with the other, rich and poor, 

 spend 200 dollars a year on such articles, the common rule 

 of three shows that but for your heavy Customs duties you 

 need only spend 143 dollars for the same things instead of 

 200, and that, while living just as comfortably, you would 

 on an average save fifty-seven dollars a year. Now, as there 

 are 7,000,000 of you agriculturists, multiply that number by 

 the fifty-seven dollars which each would save, and you will find 

 it comes to 400,000,000 dollars. The fact is, that you never 

 realised the amount of your loss — never put it into figures'. 

 It is so mingled up in small doses with your daily spend- 

 ings that, though enormous in the gross, it does not strike 

 you in the detail. You go on paying thirty cents for a knife 

 instead of twenty; or fifty cents for a piece of canvas instead 

 of thirty; or ten dollars for woollen clothing instead of six ; 

 or your wife buys a printed calico gownx for three dollars 

 instead of two, and so on throughout the whole range of 

 your requirements ; but you do not stay to inquire how 

 much you are overcharged at each step. Now, this has 

 been calculated for you. For every seven dollars which you 

 now spend you ought only to spend five ; the other two 

 dollars are simply thrown away in consequence of your 

 import duties." 



It has been sail the American farmers actually prefer 

 paying seven dollars to the Eastern States manufacturers to 

 paying five dollars for the same thing to the Britisher, espe- 

 cially as the extra two dollars do not go out of the country. 

 Well, if the two dollars do not go into another country, they 

 at all events go into another pocket, and surely the 

 farmers can hardly be persuaded that it is the same thing 



