PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION . 
i7 
westward tendency. That our great corn center (for the west) has 
removed from Ohio to Illinois, and though the latter state is its 
natural center, its productive gravity is restive and uncertain as 
the location of the magnetic pole, mostly attributable to two causes, 
both of which art and resolution is capable of removing. The 
first cause is, we have not the facilities, all combined, to move all 
the grain, and the higher qualities are taken to the exclusion of 
the lower grades; the second is, that it is totally impracticable to 
move the lower grades by rail, as the charges would eat up the 
profits, leaving nothing to reward labor. As J;he centers of pro¬ 
duction recede from the gravity of markets, the means of transpor¬ 
tation should be increased, and the pro rata cost reduced, but un¬ 
happily such is not the case. It is evident that the lowest possible 
water rates must be combined with the highest market rates to 
insure remuneration to labor. These facts are suggestive of gov¬ 
ernment duty. 
A nation rises and falls in productive energy, general prosper- 
perity, happiness and population, like the mercury in the glass, 
just in proportion as the people are encouraged by remunerative 
returns for labor, or depressed by unrequited toil. Productive en¬ 
ergy will bear up for a while, even against the deterioration 
or accidental loss of the fruits produced, so long as hope enlivens 
1 
the prospect, but when hope , chilled by the blasts of ever-recur¬ 
ring disappointment, opens no avenue of seeming deliverance, a 
relapse into barbaric indifference and indolence, is a result not 
without its array of precedents. When labor ceases to be remu¬ 
nerative—especially when it fails to yield a reasonable means of 
subsistence, indifference usurps the throne of acquisitiveness, and 
the victim floats carelessly on his frail barque with no higher am¬ 
bition than that of the Fejee—to eat and be wretched. The or¬ 
gan of acquisitiveness is well developed in many savage tribes, 
and is not wanting even in the improvident Digger Indians, but 
with these lower order of men that organ is like a hidden nugget 
of gold—they have not discovered its existence, for the simple 
reason they have no incentive. Once divest the sable subjects of 
Dahomy of their superstition—teach them that wealth is not only 
a means to enjoy the luxury of pleasure and comforts, but that it 
2—Ag. Tk,—A pp. 
