296 [Assembly 



found the article entered at the custom house at one dollar and 

 three quarters per thousand. What honest merchants can suc- 

 ceed in business against such outrageous fraud as was here de- 

 veloped t Yet this is but one, and perhaps not an extreme in- 

 stance of the operation of that ruinous system which is fast 

 throwing our foreign trade into the hands of ambitious and un- 

 scrupulous strangers. 



A system which even in its most favorable aspect, allowing 

 each party to be equally lionest, throws the business into the 

 hands of foreigners, is unworthy of a free people. The French, 

 the German, the British raanufactm-er, can afford to ship his 

 goods at the simple cost of production. The American importer 

 must pay not only this but also a profit to the seller. Here, 

 then, granting that no unfair advantage is taken, but that each 

 party invoices his goods at their actual cost, the American is 

 undersold in his own market 



The influence of this foreign t^ff is felt at our elections. 

 The sympathy of our foreign population is readily excited in 

 favor of their wealthier countrymen, to sustain a sjistem which 

 is enriching them at the expense of American industry. The 

 foreign merchant amasses property, and then returns to his own 

 land to enjoy the gain wrung from the privations of the Ameri- 

 can laborer. 



If no other amelioration of our condition can be hoped for, 

 let us at least have a home valuation, tliat thereby the Ameri- 

 can, in his own market, may be on some sort of equality with 

 the foreign merchant. But the advalorem system, even with a 

 home valuation, would fall far short of that measure of just and 

 equal protection which the state ol our country requires, and 

 which specific duties only can ensure. The home valuation 

 would be liable to vary in different sections of the country, and 

 new sets of appraisers would conflict in their estimates with 

 those who had preceded them- 



A system of specific duties, uniform and determinate over the 

 whole country, would effectually prevent this difficulty, would 

 disarm fraud, and tend to improve the quality of this article, of 



