Protection of Home Industry* 
?G 
Such then, farmers of the United States, is the 
class of people you are to come in competition 
with, whenever you send your productions 
abroad for a market. But this is not all. You 
have two other items to contend with. The 
first is, transportation to their shores, from an 
average distance of 1,000 miles from the in¬ 
terior of your own country, and then across the 
Atlantic 3,500 to 5,000 miles further. But this 
difficulty and expense, the indomitable energy 
and resources of our countrymen could grapple 
with—but a greater one yet remains behind, 
and in this we must inevitably be worsted. 
European exactions are an over-match for even 
Yankee skill and perseverance, though the 
latter is unequalled by any thing else. We 
have then the enormous customs or duties to 
pay in foreign ports, and to give you a slight 
idea of what they are, and nearly what they 
always will be, we subjoin the impost on some 
of the principal items of export, to the principal 
countries with which we trade in Europe. 
Cotton being an article they have not hitherto 
raised, it is admitted at a small duty by all 
Europe; generally at less than one cent a pound, 
and in some cases, as in Prussia, it is free; but 
as by manufacturing, they can make three times 
as much as we in producing it, there is little 
credit due their liberality on that score. 
The following table shows the duties levied 
on the articles enumerated. The sliding scale 
being adopted both in England and France, to 
regulate the duty on Grain imported into those 
countries, the rate of duty may vary every 
month, increasing as the price of grain or flour 
falls, and vice versa. No later authentic infor¬ 
mation of the rates actually paid, have been re¬ 
ceived than the close of the year 1840, but those 
of 1841 will not vary materially from those of 
the preceding year. 
ENGLAND. 
Flour, per barrel, paid duty in 1840, $3 12^ 
Wheat, per quarter of 8 bushels, do. 5 20 
Com, do. (not given in 1840) in 1838, 3 68 
Rice, per cwt. in 1840, 3 60 
Tobacco (manufactured), per lb. in 1840, 2 16 
do. (unmanufactured), do. do. 72 
RUSSIA. 
Flour, per bushel, in 1838, 56 
Rice, per 36 lbs. in 1842, 45 
Tobacco (manufact’d), pr 36 lbs. in 1842, 9 00 
do. (unmanufact’d), do. do. 4 50 
FRANCE. 
Flour (wheat), per 220 lbs. in 1840, 10 83 
do. (rye), do. do. 6 60 
Wheat, per 22 gals. do. 4 63 
Corn or Maize, per 22 gals, do 3 50 
Rice, per 220 lbs. ' do. 46 75 
Tobacco, per 2% lbs. do. nearly 2 00 
Austria levies a duty of $7 20 on every 
123^ lbs. leaf tobacco imported; and Prussia 
$7 51 on every cwt. of manufactured tobacco, 
and $3 76 on every cwt. of unmanufactured to¬ 
bacco. The two last never import grain from 
the United States. 
We have given above the figures; we shall' 
leave it for our readers to determine, how de¬ 
sirable a trade must be to us, carried on at a 
distance of five thousand miles, and paying an 
average duty a good deal exceeding one hun¬ 
dred per cent. And this, be it remembered, is 
after carrying into the account 700,000,000 
pounds cotton, exported last year, and paying 
but a trifling duty abroad; throwing of course,, 
nearly the whole burden of duty on the other 
exports, the product of the country at large. 
In round numbers, we pay on our exports, 
amounting to about $90,000,000 annually, over 
one hundred per cent, of foreign duty , while 
the $100,000,000 we import, we levy a duty 
only of twenty per cent. The reciprocity in 
this intercourse seems to be all on one side; yet 
one sided as it is, it exhibits about the fairness 
of trade we have ever had in Europe. Nor 
need' we look for any material abatement of 
foreign imports. The selfish policy they adopt, 
we must use in self-defence, or be kept in our 
present slavishly embarrassed condition. No 
change of policy need be looked for abroad, 
till the present race of human beings are blotted 
out of existence, and another substituted in their 
place, with an intensity of love for their neigh : 
bors, as great as that now existing for them¬ 
selves. 
Then why do we indulge this insane policy ?• 
The motives are various. We have never been 
'•frightened from our propriety, 5 though we 
have often been gulled out of it; and our late 
special treaty with France, by wffiich her politic- 
monarch, apparently crouching before our me¬ 
nace, yielded to our demand for the payment of 
a few millions, but first secured conditions by 
which she received it back ten times over. He 
£ stooped to conquer. 5 It was an act illustrative 
of the race. 5 Twas the old bargain over again 
on a larger scale, in which the countryman sold 
his turkey for a dollar and his dinner, but his 
dinner consumed the turkey and as much more 
with it. We received an indemnity of about 
$5,000,000, and have paid them back $50,000,- 
000, for which we have no claim for indemnity. 
But our great error is in submitting to a policy 
dictated by a small minority of our producing 
class, in their misguided expectations of pro¬ 
moting their own exports and profits, in the 
exact ratio they injure, (from excessive impor¬ 
tation,) all the remainder of the Union. Do 
they not see the utter fallacy of this doctrine—• 
that Europe buys not a pound more of cotton 
