314 [Assembly 



direct competllion with our own products, have been reduced, and 

 our own labor taxed with additional duties on the raw materials used 

 in the manufacture of them. For instance, coarse wool has been 

 raised 25 per cent.; mahogany for cabinet ware, 5 per cent ; all 

 other kinds of wood, which enter largely into various articles of 

 manufacture in the hands of the mechanic and artisan, 30 per cent.; 

 bark of the cork tree, wh'ch gave employment to many, 15 percent.; 

 dyeing materials, 5 to 10 per cent.; burr stones unwrought — many 

 earn comfortable livings for themselves and families in preparing 

 these stones, but this tariff puts a duty of ten per cent, upon them; 

 India rubber, 10 per cent. There are not a few who earn a living 

 in this vocation. Palm leaf, unmanufactured, which gave employ- 

 ment to a multitude of females, 10 per cent. Shame, to strike them 

 down! Rattans and reeds, 10 per cent.; tin in sheets or plates, with 

 which our culinary vessels are made, giving employment to thou- 

 sands, 15 per cent. Most of the above articles, under the tariff of 

 1842, came in free. Paper is made to pay a duty of 30 per cent., 

 whilst books, printed and folded, can come in at 10 per cent. I 

 would ask any intelligent printer, if this does not strike at the paper 

 maker, type founder, stereotyper, ink maker, and printer, at the same 

 blow, in favor of the foreign operatives in those branches? Besides, 

 it will enable foreign authors to furnish the great mass of American 

 readers with just such literature as they please. If perchance it 

 should be deemed politic, Britain may employ a dozen Adam Smiths 

 or more to indoctrinate our people fully in her peculiar notions of 

 free trade! 



Great Britain employs in her manufactures 710,531 of her popu- 

 lation, against 2,470,411 employed in her agriculture. She has been 

 compelled to legislate against the latter, and in favor of the former. 

 She will undoubtedly strive with her utmost power to force her man- 

 ufactures into every land, because she knows it to be the surest source 

 of national wealth and greatness. It is a remarkable fact, that from 

 1760 to 1840, a period of eighty years, the exports cf Great Britain 

 greatly exceeded her impoits, with the exception of the years 1781, 

 1784 and 1811. In 1760, her exports over her imports was $28,- 

 232,191 in Aalue, and the increase has been constant up to 1840, 

 when the excess of. her exports over her imports reached the enor- 

 mous sum of $232,334,636 in value, and this was mainly the product 

 of her mechanical and manufacturing skill, after supplying the de- 

 mand for home consumption, which she secures entirely to herself, 

 furnishing thereby a market for four-fiflhs of her whole product. In 

 1836, Spackman informs us, that her total exports, with the excep- 



