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and always will follow, from the competition of different individuals in the same trade. Thus the competition of the English manufacturers reduced the price of fine cotton yarn, in the course of twenty years, from thirty-five shillings and sixpence to four and fourpence halfpenny a pound; a reduction of from about eight to one on the whole cost; which, it will be perceived, must be much more on the labor of spinning alone. And such are the facilities which modern commerce gives to exchanges, that countries foreign to that where the improvements may first have been introduced, soon participate almost equally in the advantages of any great mechanical invention. So true is this, that we can now hardly find a people so remote, or a race so barbarous, that they have not obtained the blankets, and knives, the fire-arms and trinkets of civilized nations, in exchange for the skins and teeth of their animals, or the gold and precious stones of their rivers and mines.

There will be a time, to be sure, immediately after any great improvement, and before any extensive competition grows up, during which the nation, where the improvement is produced, will derive something like an exclusive advantage from it. The very commercial facilities, which we have above alluded to, will enable her to destroy the manufacture of the article which is the subject of improvement in other countries, by supplying them cheaper than they can manufacture for themselves, and still give a most advantageous employment to her own people engaged in the trade. But, indeed, if a nation so circumstanced could, by any laws or regulations, keep up the price of the article at home, it could avail them nothing. Foreign nations would the sooner obtain possession of the invention, and manufacture for themselves; and this they always will do, sooner or later, unless the inventing nation have some peculiarity in their circumstances, which enables them to carry on the manufacture to greater advantage than any other people.

The rival claims of England and France to superiority in mechanical invention, are urged with no little vehemence by both those nations. No new manufacture is established in France, but French patriotism is called upon to pay the easy tax of a belief that the invention originated in French genius, and was perfected by French skill and enterprize; while the English sweepingly declare, our inventions and discoveries are more numerous and solid than those of any other people. What may not have been original to us, we have seldom failed. New Series, No. 10.

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to improve as soon as it has passed into our hands; and we have applied to useful practical purposes more than all the rest of the world are vain of having had a glimpse of.' If this was expressed, as it was probably directed, against the French alone, it might be considered, although somewhat overcharged, as true in the main. The French have not in their character those qualities, which are necessary to superiority in the merely useful arts, which embrace the manufacture of those articles that contribute to simple comfort and convenience. In comparing them with the English, any one who has had the opportunity of seeing them in their respective countries, must have been struck with the fact, that while the English aim to produce good and plain articles in large quantity, the French constantly strive to bring forward something curious and showy. So deeply is the love of display engrained in the French constitution, that the factory itself is sometimes arranged with a view to produce a fine spectacle. Thus the steam-engine is put up in a shop window with its flies and its levers polished comme un miroir, to attract the admiration of the crowd.

But we Americans think, that we can maintain the claim to equality, at least, with the English. We know that an opinion is generally prevalent among us, that we are decidedly superior to them in mechanical invention. We are sorry to remark, that this is sometimes asserted with a vaporing air, which is ill calculated to produce conviction abroad, and which it would not at all injure us to correct. As this subject is now before us, we may briefly examine some of the facts, on which alone. the preeminence can be allowed to either country.

The English are the undoubted inventors of the steam engine. The Americans first successfully applied it to propelling vessels. The English invented the cotton spinning machinery. The Americans the cotton gin. The carding machine, the lace machine, the coining machinery, the threshing machine, the hydrostatic press, are all English inventions. While the Americans have produced the card machine, the nail machine, the machine for splitting leather, the improvements in flourmills, and the machinery which immortalizes the work of the engraver. These are all the decidedly important machines, which now occur to our minds, which can be specifically stated, and which clearly belong exclusively to either nation, although a great deal more of excellent machinery has been invented, in each country, since the period of American independence.

Improvements on almost all the old inventions for whatever purpose, have been made since that time, and many original machines of minor importance have been contrived. But we believe that we have enumerated the most important body of distinct machines, clearly the property of one country or the other. We have not mentioned the block machinery, which the English claim, because, although it was invented in England, its inventor, Mr Brunel, was born in France, and lived some time in America. It should be noticed also, that the steam engine, although improved since our independence, was very near its present state of perfection before that time. Among American inventions worthy of notice, we cannot, however, forbear to specify a beautiful machine lately constructed by Mr Blanchard, for fashioning irregular figures of wood. It is capable of producing an exact fac simile of almost any figure of common size, and is already in use for making shoemakers' lasts and gun stocks. An extensive application of it to other purposes may be expected.

The circumstances of the English have, on the whole, been most favorable to produce machinery. They had forty years ago the most mechanical knowledge, and they still have the most capital, and a greater number of people occupied in machinery. These are certainly more than an equivalent for the higher price of labor in this country, which is perhaps the most considerable incentive to invention with us. Still we believe that our improvements have been as ingenious as theirs, and have required as much persevering industry to carry them into effect; and that we are, at least, not inferior to any nation in those qualities necessary to advance the useful arts.

It does not appear that Germany and Holland have maintained the rank, to which their former inventions, particularly the art of printing, and the application of the pendulum to timekeepers, had raised them. It has been perhaps rather from a want of enterprise than of mechanical skill, that the great inventions of the age have not been brought into more general use in Germany. The government of Russia has extended a liberal patronage to the introduction of arts and machines from foreign countries; and as civilization advances, they must neeessarily be adopted throughout that vast empire.

ART. XXVI.-Message from the President of the United States, transmitting, in pursuance of a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 30th January last, communications from the Agents of the United States with the Governments south of the United States, which have declared their independence, and the communications from the Agents of such Governments, in the United States, with the Secretary of State, as tend to show the political condition of their Governments, and the state of the war between them and Spain. March 8, 1822.

THE late recommendation to congress to recognize the independence of those portions of South America, which have thrown off the colonial yoke, and the unanimous report of the committee of foreign relations, in the house of representatives, in favor of such a measure, will furnish the justification of the present article. It is no part of our purpose to discuss the political expediency of the measure; partly as the public mind, we apprehend, is in a good measure made up on the point, and still more as this subject will meet a singular fortune, if it be not discussed, at least to the true extent of its merits, in another quarter. We have too much conscience to add another to the harangues, which will be drawn forth from the public spirited gentlemen, who think it their duty to favor congress with their speculations on all subjects, and at the same length, and who, sometimes with a garrulous familiarity, do not scruple to force on congress the details of their private feelings and personal concerns, as the same may happen to be excited or affected, by public measures. Leaving, therefore, the discussion of the political question to the gentlemen so heartily disposed to engage in it, and granting that this is a subject more worthy of grave and deliberate discussion, than almost any which could come before congress, we shall proceed to lay before our readers a few statistical and economical statements, which may assist them in forming an opinion of its practical importance.

We shall suppose our readers to be acquainted with the general train of events in South America, and the general result of a long series of struggles and revolutions, of which the various details, as they have from time to time appeared in our newspapers, have, singly taken, been too obscure and insignificant to arrest general notice, though the impression left by the whole on the minds of the American public has, we think,

been unfavorable to the discretion with which the revolutionary movements in South Amerca have been conducted. Had the mother countries been in a condition to oppose a prompt and well organized resistance, it is highly probable that the efforts to throw off the colonial yoke would have been wholly ineffectual; unless we suppose, indeed, what might also have well happened, that a more formidable manifestation of royal authority would have had the effect of producing greater concentration and energy in the republican counsels. Whatever may be thought of this, in the last two or three years great strides have been made toward effective independence. The fine provinces of Venezuela and New-Grenada having separately declared their independence, and pursued with various fortunes the war against the royal armies, are now united into one state, under the name of the Republic of Colombia, with one of the most distinguished of the South American chieftains, Bolivar, at its head. The fundamental act of their constitution adopted at Venezuela, December 17, 1819, is among the documents accompanying the message of the president, alluded to above. The Spanish armies are wholly excluded from the territory of Colombia, with the single exception of the garrisons of Porto Cabello and Panama. The provinces of Buenos Ayres, on whose politics we made some remarks in our number for April last, in connexion with our notice of the history of those provinces by Dean Funes, have had no obstacles in the way of their independence to contend with since 1810, save those, which have grown out of their own factions. They formally declared their independence in 1816; and the view presented in the letters of Mr Forbes to the secretary of state of the condition of this republic, under the judicious ministry of Mr Rivadavia, is more favorable than any thing which has been known of them, since the revolutionary contests began. Chili declared its independence in 1818, and has sustained itself against the feeble attempts of the royal power. The late destruction of the remnants of the royal force at Callao completes the independence of Peru; and the events which have transpired in Mexico, and of which curious details are contained in the documents accompanying the President's Message, seem to establish the independence also of that mighty region.

To assist our readers in pursuing the train of the discussions to which the measure proposed by the president may lead, we

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