subdivisions. Commercial prosperity should be judged of, therefore, rather from the extent of trade, than from the magnitude of its apparent profits. It has been remarked, that Spain, certainly one of the poorest nations, made very great profits on the amount of her trade; but with little other benefit than the enriching of a few individuals and companies. Profits to the English merchants engaged in the Levant and Turkey trade were formerly very great, and there were richer merchants in England some centuries ago; considering the comparative value of money, than at the present highly commercial period. When the diminution of profits arises from the extent of competition, it indicates rather a salutary than an injurious change.*

The true course then, Sir, for us to pursue, is, in my opinion, to consider what our situation is; what our means are; and how they can be best applied. What amount of population have we in comparison with our extent of soil, what amount of capital, and labor at what price? As to skill, knowledge, and enterprise, we may safely take it for granted that in these particulars we are on an equality with others. Keeping these considerations in view, allow me to examine two or three of those provisions of the bill to which I feel the strongest objections.

To begin with the article of iron. Our whole annual consumption of this article is supposed by the chairman of the committee to be forty-eight or fifty thousand tons. Let us suppose the latter. The amount of our own manufacture he estimates, I think, at seventeen thousand tons. The present duty on the imported article is $15 per ton, and as this duty causes, of course, an equivalent augmentation of the price of the home manufacture, the whole increase of price is equal to $750,000 annually. This sum we pay on a raw material, and on an absolute necessary of life. The bill proposes to raise the duty from $15 to $22.50 per ton, which would be equal to $1,125,000 on the whole annual consumption. So that, suppose the point of

"The present equable diffusion of moderate wealth cannot be better illustrated, than by remarking that in this age many palaces and superb mansions have been pulled down, or converted to other purposes, while none have been erected on a like scale. The numberless baronial castles and mansions, in all parts of England, now in ruins, may all be adduced as examples of the decrease of inordinate wealth. On the other hand, the multiplication of commodious dwellings for the upper and middle classes of society, and the increased comforts of all ranks, exhibit a picture of individual happiness, unknown in any other age.' -Sir G. Blane's Letter to Lord Spencer, in 1800.

prohibition which is aimed at by some gentlemen to be attained, the consumers of the article would pay this last-mentioned sum every year to the producers of it, over and above the price at which they could supply themselves with the same article from other sources. There would be no mitigation of this burden, except from the prospect, whatever that might be, that iron would fall in value, by domestic competition, after the importation should be prohibited. It will be easy, I think, to show that it cannot fall; and supposing for the present that it shall not, the result will be, that we shall pay annually the sum of $1,125,000, constantly augmented, too, by increased consumption of the article, to support a business that cannot support itself.

It is of no consequence to the argument, that this sum is expended at home; so it would be if we taxed the people to support any other useless and expensive establishment, to build another Capitol, for example, or incur an unnecessary expense of any sort. The question still is, Are the money, time, and labor well laid out in these cases? The present price of iron at Stockholm, I am assured by importers, is $ 53 per ton on board, $48 in the yard before loading, and probably not far from $40 at the mines. Freight, insurance, &c., may be fairly estimated at $15, to which add our present duty of $15 more, and these two last sums, together with the cost on board at Stockholm, give $83 as the cost of Swedes iron in our market. In fact, it is said to have been sold last year at $81.50 to $82 per ton. We perceive, by this statement, that the cost of the iron is doubled in reaching us from the mine in which it is produced. In other words, our present duty, with the expense of transportation, gives an advantage to the American over the foreign manufacturer of one hundred per cent. Why, then, cannot the iron be manufactured at home? Our ore is said to be as good, and some of it better. It is under our feet, and the chairman of the committee tells us that it might be wrought by persons who otherwise will not be employed. Why, then, is it not wrought? Nothing could be more sure of constant sale. It is not an article of changeable fashion, but of absolute, permanent necessity, and such, therefore, as would always meet a steady demand. Sir, I think it would be well for the chairman of the committee to revise his premises, for I am persuaded that there is an ingredient properly belonging to the calculation which he has mis

stated or omitted. Swedes iron in England pays a duty, I think, of about $27 per ton; yet it is imported in considerable quantities, notwithstanding the vast capital, the excellent coal, and, more important than all perhaps, the highly improved state of inland navigation in England; although I am aware that the English use of Swedes iron may be thought to be owing in some degree to its superior quality.

Sir, the true explanation of this appears to me to lie in the different prices of labor; and here I apprehend is the grand mistake in the argument of the chairman of the committee. He says it would cost the nation, as a nation, nothing, to make our ore into iron. Now, I think it would cost us precisely that which we can worst afford; that is, great labor. Although bariron is very properly considered a raw material in respect to its various future uses, yet, as bar-iron, the principal ingredient in its cost is labor. Of manual labor, no nation has more than a certain quantity, nor can it be increased at will. As to some operations, indeed, its place may be supplied by machinery; but there are other services which machinery cannot perform for it, and which it must perform for itself. A most important question for every nation, as well as for every individual, to propose to itself, is, how it can best apply that quantity of labor which it is able to perform. Labor is the great producer of wealth; it moves all other causes. If it call machinery to its aid, it is still employed, not only in using the machinery, but in making it. Now, with respect to the quantity of labor, as we all know, different nations are differently circumstanced. Some need, more than any thing, work for hands, others require hands for work; and if we ourselves are not absolutely in the latter class, we are still most fortunately very near it. I cannot find that we have those idle hands, of which the chairman of the committee speaks. The price of labor is a conclusive and unanswerable refutation of that idea; it is known to be higher with us than in any other civilized state, and this is the greatest of all proofs of general happiness. Labor in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the patronage of capital but capital solicits the aid of labor. This is the general truth in regard to the condition of our whole population, although in the large cities there are doubtless many exceptions. The mere capacity to labor in common agricultural employments, gives to our

young men the assurance of independence. We have been asked, Sir, by the chairman of the committee, in a tone of some pathos, whether we will allow to the serfs of Russia and Sweden the benefit of making iron for us. Let me inform the gentleman, Sir, that those same serfs do not earn more than seven cents a day, and that they work in these mines for that compensation because they are serfs. And let me ask the gentleman further, whether we have any labor in this country that cannot be better employed than in a business which does not yield the laborer more than seven cents a day? This, it appears to me, is the true question for our consideration. There is no reason for saying that we will work iron because we have mountains that contain the ore. We might for the same reason dig among our rocks for the scattered grains of gold and silver which might be found there. The true inquiry is, Can we produce the article in a useful state at the same cost, or nearly at the same cost, or at any reasonable approximation towards the same cost, at which we can import it?

Some general estimates of the price and profits of labor, in those countries from which we import our iron, might be formed by comparing the reputed products of different mines, and their prices, with the number of hands employed. The mines of Danemora are said to yield about 4,000 tons, and to employ in the mines twelve hundred workmen. Suppose this to be worth $50 per ton; any one will find by computation, that the whole product would not pay, in this country, for one quarter part of the necessary labor. The whole export of Sweden was estimated, a few years ago, at 400,000 ship pounds, or about 54,000 tons. Comparing this product with the number of workmen usually supposed to be employed in the mines which produce iron for exportation, the result will not greatly differ from the foregoing. These estimates are general, and might not conduct us to a precise result; but we know, from intelligent travellers, and eyewitnesses, that the price of labor in the Swedish mines. does not exceed seven cents a day.*

The price of labor in Russia may be pretty well collected from Tooke's "View of the Russian Empire." 66 The workmen in the mines and the founderies are, indeed, all called master-people; but they distinguish themselves into masters, under-masters, apprentices, delvers, servants, carriers, washers, and separators. In proportion to their ability their wages are regulated, which proceed from fifteen to upwards of thirty roubles per annum. The provisions which

The true reason, Sir, why it is not our policy to compel our citizens to manufacture our own iron, is, that they are far better employed. It is an unproductive business, and they are not poor enough to be obliged to follow it. If we had more of poverty, more of misery, and something of servitude, if we had an ignorant, idle, starving population, we might set up for iron makers against the world.

The committee will take notice, Mr. Chairman, that, under our present duty, together with the expense of transportation, our manufacturers are able to supply their own immediate neighborhood; and this proves the magnitude of that substantial encouragement which these two causes concur to give. There is little or no foreign iron, I presume, used in the county of Lancaster. This is owing to the heavy expense of land carriage; and, as we recede farther from the coast, the manufacturers are still more completely secured, as to their own immediate market, against the competition of the imported article. But what they ask is to be allowed to supply the sea-coast, at such a price as shall be formed by adding to the cost at the mines the expense of land carriage to the sea; and this appears to me most unreasonable. The effect of it would be to compel the consumer to pay the cost of two land transportations; for, in the first place, the price of iron at the inland furnaces will always be found to be at, or not much below, the price of the imported article in the seaport, and the cost of transportation to the neighborhood of the furnace; and to enable the home product to hold a competition with the imported in the seaport, the cost of another transportation downward, from the furnace to the coast, must be added. Until our means of inland commerce be improved, and the charges of transportation by that means lessened, it appears to me wholly impracticable, with such duties as any one would think of proposing, to meet the wishes of the manufacturers of this article. Suppose we were to add the

they receive from the magazines are deducted from this pay." The value of the rouble at that time (1799) was about twenty-four pence sterling, or forty-five cents of our money.

"By the edict of 1799," it is added, "a laborer with a horse shall receive, daily, in summer, twenty, and in winter, twelve copecks; a laborer without a horse, in summer, ten, in winter, eight copecks."

A copeck is the hundreth part of a rouble, or about half a cent of our money. The price of labor may have risen, in some degree, since that period, but proba bly not much.