506 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



[August 



affections and _ the pockets of former devoted 

 owners. A pity, but it is true. 



Many of us have been rentlered suspicious in- 

 stead of cautious, and almost every farmer has 

 in his time received a '• l)acij-set" at the hands 

 of some kna'^e, who had discovered a panacea 

 for all the evils incident to poor land. 



We have before remarked, that the only safe- 

 guard we have against falling into such traps, is 

 in the honesty and business and moral standing 

 of manufacturers and vendors. We must know 

 what we buy, and who we buy from ; whether 

 the article is, or is not made by a man who has 

 a character to lose, and whether the vendor can 

 be trusted to keep it in store for some weeks, or 

 months, without any risk of its acquiring a too 

 intimate mixture with sand or dust. This much 

 nearly all of us can do for ourselves, as we know 

 what sort of men we deal with after awhile, as 

 we see them in different lights. Honesty will 

 show out from some one point, and caution is 

 never needless until it does. 



For ourself, we are not at all afraid of any 

 misrepresentation as to the ingredients and qual- 

 ity of the Manipulated Guano, put into the mar- 

 ket in this city. We have five manufacturing 

 establishments here, all of which are of highest 

 respectability. There are also others in Peters- 

 burg and Alexandria possessing equally high 

 clainis to public confidence. Baltimore too has 

 her establishments, some of which have won 

 for themselves a high reputation. 



The gentlemen representing these several es- 

 tablishments are all well known, and make no 

 secret of the ingredients used, nor their process 

 of compounding them. As to the comparative 

 merits of the articles they sell, it would be in- 

 vidious to discriminate,-— of this let every man 

 form his own opinion. 



We will only add that, we advise everybody 

 to mix plaster liberally with all the Guano they 

 sow, as we believe the addition of plaster mate- 

 rially helps to render it immediately soluble. 



Commercial, Ag^ricultural, and Intellec- 

 tual Independence of Virginia. 



In a letter recently published in the Rich- 

 mond Enquirer, answering to a call from a num- 

 ber of highly respectable citizens of Hanover, 

 Mr. Daniel H. London, renews and amplifies 

 the discussion of the matter of his speech de- 

 livered and published last winter on the Com- 

 mercial, Agricultural, and Intellectual Indepen- 



dence of Virginia, to which we have before 

 adverted in the pages of this journal. 



He opens the discussion with the proposition 

 implied in the following interrogatory : • 



"Are the people of the Southern States inimi- 

 cal to a Direct Foreign Commerce independent 

 of the Northern States?" 



As a just criterion of the sentiments of a na- 

 tion, he refers to its laws. If public acts, long 

 sustained by public opinion and continued in 

 force without opposition, do by their operation, 

 reveal a purpose to maintain a settled policy 

 in favour of, or in opposition to, a given course 

 of public procedure,Jt would be folly to contend 

 that such laws were not the true exponents of 

 public sentiment in relation to the subjects to 

 to which they refer. He then subjects the pol- 

 icy of Virginia to the test of her laws, in re- 

 gard to the subject of direct foreign commerce. 

 " Are they indifferent to the subject, or are they 

 in positive hostility?" What say her license 

 laws ? " She taxes on each of the sales of her 

 merchants and increases the per cent, as the 

 sales decrease in amount." Not one of the 

 other States has pursued this policy, and Vir- 

 ginia has done it in derogation of the Consti- 

 tution, which prescribes equality and uniformi- 

 ty in taxation. "Surely," says he, "two per 

 cent, on one, and a quarter per cent, on another, 



is NOT EQUAL OR UNIFORM FOR SELLING, and WC is- 



sue no merchants license foR anything else." 



Goods manufactured in Virginia and foreign 

 merchandize in the hands of the importer are 

 nr)t subjected to any tax on their first sale. 

 But if the importer design to sell by the pack- 

 age it avails hint nothing, because he already 

 enjoys this immunity through federal legisla- 

 tion, and therefore the exemption enures only to 

 the Virginia producer. Mr. London charges that, 

 although there may be professed friendship in 

 the proposed exemption, it is in fact but addi- 

 tional evidence of liostility to direct foreign com- 

 merce, when we come to trace it in its effects. 

 The general commercial usage is to distribute 

 merchandize, for the purpose of reaping the 

 benefits of the universally recognized principle 

 of the division of labour, through at least three 

 hands, viz: " the Importer or package man, the 

 Jobber, or piece man, and the Retailer or yard 

 man." Now if there is a repetition of tax each 

 time the goods pass for re-sale from hand to 

 hand, is it not plain that the accumulation of 

 charges has the direct tendency to discourage 

 importation into the State from abroad, and to 



