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EXPORTATIONS OF THE FOUR STAPLE ARTICLES FROM THE UNITED STATES TO THE ZOLLVEREIN, IN THE YEARS 1843 AND 1844.

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It will be observed that the direct importation of cotton, by way of Hamburg, has declined in proportion to the increased importation of that article by way of Holland and Belgium, in consequence of the last treaty between the Zollverein and Belgium, by which the transit of transatlantic products into Prussia has become free; but it is very probable that Bremen or Hamburg will become the great cotton market for not only the States of the Zollverein, but also of the empire of Austria, as soon as the direct commerce between the United States and Germany will be increased by the proposed measures. One of the Hanse Towns will then become, for Germany, what Liverpool is now for England. The great quantity of twist above mentioned could then be manufactured in Germany.

* At 400 lbs. nett, a $8 per bale.

+ At 800 lbs., a $5 per 100 lbs.

It is impossible to ascertain the quantity of sugar exported from the south of the United States to Germany, as it is principally imported into Germany indirectly.

Experience shows that English, Hollandish, and other ships which carry American and other transatlantic goods to German ports, export from thence very rarely any manufactured goods, but instead of them only raw materials; for instance, wool, for their own manufactories; and they export from their own countries manufactured goods to the transatlantic ports. The reason of this course of trade, is not that the German manufactured articles are not equally good and cheap; but that the English find it more profitable for themselves to export their own manufactured goods, and to take in return merely the raw materials from other countries, in order to have the profit of the manufacture.

The following example may elucidate this position. England is dependent on Germany for wool, from which she manufactures those goods that constitute her principal articles of export to the United States; and she is dependent upon the United States for the cotton from which she manufactures the goods that constitute her most valuable exports to Germany. Germany herself manufactures woollen cloth, principally in Silesia, in Saxony, and in the Rhenish provinces of Prussia. German woollen cloths and cassimeres are faithfully made; their colors are very fast, and rival those of England, as those not only who use them in this country, but also American writers on this subject acknowledge.* But since Germany has little direct commerce with the transatlantic countries, and since the ships of England, France, and Holland, only import transatlantic goods into Germany, taking little or no manufactured goods in return, the German manufactories are compelled mostly to confine themselves to the home market.

All that has been said of the woollen cloths is also true of other German goods; for example, linen. The linen goods of Silesia and of Bielefeld are famous for their excellence, but they suffer under the same want of a free direct commerce with foreign countries, from whose markets England has almost entirely driven them away by favoring her own products. In proof that the causes alleged, and not inferior quality or high prices, have, been disadvantageous to German goods in foreign markets, reference may be had to Dr. Bowring's statements in the "Report of the select committee of the House of Commons on import duties, of 1840." He had been commissioned to report on the industry of Germany. In this report, (pages 5 and 6) it is impartially acknowledged that German goods are cheaper, and equal in quality to those produced in England and France. The abundance and high perfection of the raw materials produced in Germany for her manufactories, the ample and cheap food for the numerous and industrious population, whose labor is consequently cheap, the rapidly increasing facilities by railroads, are all contributing to increase her direct commerce with foreign nations. Since the United States manufacture none or very little linen, and woollen cloths in only a small quantity, linen and woollens would be among those articles on which a reduction of duty could be granted in return for a reduction of duty on American tobacco, sugar, rice, etc. Cotton is already free from all duty; breadstuffs have

* See an article by an American, dated` Bremen, June 30, 1845, published in the Union at Washington, on the 20th September, 1845.

always found a market in Germany after short crops, as is the case at the present time. Germany thus offers a better market for the agriculturist of the United States than is commonly supposed. Other German articles, besides woollen cloths and linen, in whose favor differential duties could be established, would be merinos and merino shawls, silks, Rhenish, Neckar and Moselle wines, Cologne water, bronze wares, philosophical instruments, musical instruments, looking glasses, toys, etc. But I shall not venture to enumerate those articles, for I deem it of more importance to show, that reductions of duty could be made without injury to the industry of the United States, upon those goods which this country does not produce at all, or in insufficient quantities. Thus products could be exchanged for products.

Let us contrast a commerce to be carried on upon such a basis with our present trade with England. While England and some other nations continue to shut us out of their ports, by high duties on articles of which we have a surplus, we cannot without heavy loss import from those countries manufactured articles; for the high English duties reduce our profits.

The idea is erroneous that high duties add only to the price of the article to the consumer. American business men know very well that where sharp competition exists, the duties come chiefly out of the pocket of the producer, or the wages of his laborers, and that moreover those duties diminish the amount of production as the enhanced price lessens the demand in foreign markets.

It must finally be observed that there exists the following connection between the American currency and the English tariff. The practical operation of the high English tariff is, to drain other countries by an unequal trade of their specie, thereby weakening and endangering their banking system and paper currency, by depriving it of, or at least diminishing, that which is the only safe basis. It also compels other nations to pay a considerable part of the interest of the national debt, and of the expenses of the government of England.

We cannot have a safe banking system so long as we permit the basis of our currency to be withdrawn or drained from the country by such a monopolizing trade. If this question was submitted to the experienced and intelligent bankers of both political parties of this country, they would come to the same conclusion. A provision was introduced into the charter of the Bank of England, under the government of Sir Robert Peel, in pursuance of which the circulation of that bank must be diminished in the same proportion as specie is drawn from its vaults. If such a provision was applied to our banks we should soon find that on account of our large and irregular shipments of specie to England, our paper currency would become very vacillating. This shows how unsafe and fluctuating the basis of our currency is rendered from time to time on account of that course of trade; an evil which, as we have shown, can be removed by ourselves.

One of the most essential means to be used to augment the commercial intercourse between the United States and Germany, will be the establishment of a line of mail steamers between New York and one of the Hanse Towns. The harbor of Bremen is named for this purpose, and appears well adapted. Bremen, as shown in the previous statement, imports more American goods and exports more German articles than any other German port, and offers encouragement to a further extension of intercourse.

A line of mail steamers between New York and Bremen, connecting with the steamboats on the Weser and Elbe, and the railroads soon to be completed, and terminating at the Hanse Towns, would bring the heart of Germany, within the difference of a few days, as near to the United States as the principal cities of England. The yearly increasing commerce, correspondence and travelling, between the United States and Europe, call for such a measure. In the same manner that the state of New York by its central position forms the heart of the United States, through whose rivers, canals and railroads commerce and travelling from the other states are concentrated, so by its geographical position Germany is the heart of the continent of Europe. From all these reasons it seems advisable to establish the line of mail steamers between that port and New York.

In regard to the English mail steamers between Liverpool and Boston, I was informed in England, that the income for postage more than covered the pecuniary aid which the English government gives to that line; but, since I could obtain no official information on this subject, I would only say, that if such is the fact, the postage would pay in a similar manner a great part of the expenses of the contemplated steamers, particularly since they could also touch at some port or ports in the British channel, and deliver there the mail for England, France, Holland and Belgium.

I ask the American people and their statesmen, attentively to consider the advantages that would flow from favoring their direct commerce with Germany, and to adopt such measures as will lead to the settlement of the commercial intercourse of nations upon the fair basis of true reciprocity.*

* It may not be superfluous as a matter of justice to all parties concerned, briefly to answer the following statement in the above quoted article, entitled "The Zollverein and the Hanse Towns," in the Washington Daily Union, of September 20, 1845. That article says:

"In the Report of the Secretary of State, which accompanied the President's Message in 1843, it was remarked, in speaking of the Zollverein :- The accession to the Union of the Kingdom of Hanover, with nearly two millions of inhabitants, is in contemplation. This event would doubtless induce the smaller states of the north to join the Union.' Now the department must have relied for information relative to what was transpiring in Germany, on individuals employed by the Government to conduct its affairs there; but, be the source what it may, from which the information was derived, that Hanover had it in contemplation to join the Union,' it either designedly mis-stated the facts, or was marvellously ignorant of them. So far from its having this object in contemplation,' it entered into a treaty with Great Britain last autumn, which utterly precludes the possibility of such an occurrence for ten years."

There are in my hands official public documents, entitled "The Great Zollverein of the German States, and the Commercial Union of Hanover and Oldenburg," printed in Hanover, February, 1844, in which the Government of Hanover states, that negotiations concerning a commercial union between Hanover and Oldenburg on the one side, and the Great Zollverein on the other, have been conducted during a long time. The voluminous correspondence on this subject forms the second part of this document. The United States' Secretary of State has consequently been correctly informed.

I have shown in a previous article published in the January number of this Magazine, that by establishing a firm and safe basis for our commercial intercourse, by means of treaties, is preferable to the present system, which is subject to great vacillation, arising from the frequent changes of political parties.

Art. III.-THE ARTIST, THE MERCHANT, AND THE STATESMAN.

THE VALUE OF NATIONAL HOME FEELING, AND THE FUTURE INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE, COMMERCE AND THE ARTS ON THE FORTUNES OF AMERICA.

THIS last work of Mr. Lester* opens a field which has hitherto been untrodden by American authors; and as some of the topics it discusses, as well as its general tone and spirit, cannot but arrest the attention of all our readers who sympathise with the movements of the times, we shall make it the occasion of some remarks, in which we shall endeavor to show the practical application of the writer's views to the present state of the country. We shall say nothing of the article on the CONSULAR SYSTEM, which occupies considerable space in the first volume, for we have already published an able communication from Mr. Lester on this subject, in which the same views were advanced. We are glad to learn that his plan has received the approbation of the President and the Secretary of State, and that a bill will probably be introduced into Congress with a fair prospect of becoming a law, embracing substantially the plan here proposed. Our space will neither allow us to notice the conversations of the author with Powers, the sculptor, although they constitute some of the most interesting passages in the history of art we have ever read. We shall be obliged to limit ourselves to the principles and the spirit of the volumes under consideration, and prepare a dissertation on the topics of the book rather than a review of it.

Never has it been so important for our country to cultivate a home feeling, a strong, warm, American sentiment, as at the present moment. We are threatened with foreign aggression. Despotism in Europe looks upon our liberty with increasing distrust and fear; and seems watching an opportunity to strike. The very Holy Alliance talks of preserving a balance of power in our western home; and as our head is somewhat the loftiest, it must be cut down to the general level of Mexico and South America. Young liberty escaping into life, must be thrust back into the charnel house of despotism; and there will be the equilibrium and the quiet of death. The nations of America will lie still in their coffins. Nothing, in such a crisis, can afford us such real power and security, as to cause the body politic to feel to its remotest extremity, the deep and strong pulsations of an American heart. Our population, also, is spreading itself over an immense territory, and the times demand, for this reason, that our national bonds should be renewed and strengthened at all points. The living streams which set in upon our shores from Europe, bear with them foreign feelings and opinions, and there is a most urgent necessity that a national sentiment should be created here, so broad and deep, as to absorb all others into itself. Facilities for intercourse, which blend the people together, are doing much for our country in this respect; but our literary men, and our artists, could they have suitable patronage, might speedily accomplish far more than railroads or canals, if they would all unite in delivering the public taste from the thraldom of a foreign yoke, and cultivate far and wide over the land, a respect and love for our own. It is their mission to inform, quicken, and strengthen the American mind, till it will heartily engage in the proper development of our own national resources.

THE ARTIST, THE MERCHANT, AND THE STATESMAN of the Age of the Medici and of our own Times. 2 vols., 12mo., 2d ed., 500 pp. New York: Paine & Burgess.

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