No. 216.] 373 



the same, since soil and climate give us at present, the control of 

 the markets of Europe. How long a period will elapse before the 

 rapidly advancing civilization of India, aided by English capital, 

 will create a successful rival in that home of the cotton plant, time 

 will determine; wheat we can never export, except in the occurrence 

 of a European famine; especially since the market of Great Britain 

 is opened to stimulate its production in Europe and Egypt. As ev- 

 idence of this, we have only to examine the statistics of former 

 years, and even now by late advices, the price of wheat at Dantzic, 

 is but a shade above that of New-York, with the advantage of a 

 shorter voyage and lower freight in its favor; some small items re- 

 main, as ashes, cheese, lard, what else at all adequate to balance the 

 exchanges which our rapidly increasing population will create by 

 the consumption of European manufactures. We have in Europe, 

 brought by the improvements in navigation, the poM^er of steam, 

 and by a net-work of railroads all terminating at its western shores, 

 into close proximity to our market; a hundred millions of people 

 pressed down by the remnants of feudalism and bad government, to 

 a condition in relation to the comforts of life of which American 

 citizens have not the faintest idea; they have acquired habits of 

 economy and industry, which necessity has compelled, of which we 

 know little — live principally upon vegetable diet, and are accus- 

 tomed to toil fifteen hours a day; their labor market is overstocked, 

 and their capital the accumulation of centuries is abundant, and 

 seeking employment at low rates of interest; these millions are 

 skilled as artizans, are rapidly increasing in intelligence, and are 

 eager to grasp at any opportunity which may offer for the improve- 

 ment of their condition. Among all these states of Europe, we find 

 currencies whose relative volume is much less than our own, which 

 is evidenced both by the price at which values are indicated, and by 

 the proportion which the integer of currency bears to population; 

 ■an item in the relative condition of Europe and the United States, 

 which has never received the attention its importance demands. In 

 our own country we have twenty millions of people rapidly increas- 

 ing in numbers, comparatively wealthy, ready and disposed to in- 

 dulge in the use of cheap commodities from Europe, which will be 

 promptly presented to them by the active agents of European labor 

 and capital located among us; and thus unwittingly will they pull 

 dow^n ruin upon their own heads — Taught by demagogues to believe 

 that a tariff of protection is for the benefit of the wealthy, and to 

 contemn the currency which has built up the country, they cry 

 " down with the banks," utterly ignorant of the intimate connexion 

 which exists between that currency, and the institutions, and obliga- 



