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MR. SECRETARY WALKER'S AGRICULTURAL PROJECT FOR THE UNITED STATES.*

MR. WALKER says: "We have more fertile lands than any other nation, can raise a greater variety of products, and, it may be said, could feed and clothe the people of nearly all the world. Agriculture is our chief employment. It is best adapted to our situation. We can raise a larger surplus of agricultural products, and a greater variety, than almost any other nation, and at cheaper rates. Remove, then, from agriculture, all our restrictions, and by its own unfettered power it will break down all foreign restrictions, and, our's being removed, would feed the hungry and clothe the poor of our fellow-men, through all the densely peopled nations of the world. . . Foreign nations cannot for a series of years import more than they export."

This is a great country-is it not? Big enough to let all the rest of the world sit down, or play. We can feed and clothe them all-why not? But Mr. Walker forgot one country-Utopiawhere one would think he was born and educated; and where, it might be supposed, he had been intimate with their greatest sages, brought away the cream of their philosophy, and must know how much of our agricultural products they will want. He should have added this to the sum of benefits we are to receive by adopting his Utopian theory.

Alas! to be obliged to hold controversy with an immigrant sage from such a country! It is hopeless, more because, by his flying so high, so fast, and so far, he is hard to catch, and when caught, hard to hold still, by any logic which ordinary men are used to, than from any other cause. What can the man mean? But, coming down from this loftiness, and setting aside all this nonsense, let us look at facts. Mr. Walker evidently dreams of our feeding and clothing all the world, and the inhabitants of Utopia besides. It is not less true, as a fact, that every nation takes care to feed and clothe itself, than that Mr. Walker proposes to do it for them; and so long as they refuse to avail themselves of our

kind offers, we must find other employment, else, as General Jackson said, in his letter to Dr. Coleman, in 1824, but in different words, we shall soon need their charity. Mr. Walker's proposal to turn this nation all back to agriculture, as hardly need be said, is a violation of General Jackson's theory, the carrying out of which, as shown elsewhere in these pages, laid the foundation of the wealth, greatness, and power of the American people.

"I will ask," said General Jackson, "what is the real situation of the agriculturist? Where has the American farmer a market for his surplus product? Except for cotton, he has neither a foreign nor a home market. Does not this clearly prove, when there is no market either at home or abroad, that there is too much labor employed in agriculture, and that the channels for labor should be multiplied? Common sense points out, at once, the remedy. Draw from agriculture this superabundant labor; employ it in mechanism and manufactures, thereby creating a home market for your bread-stuffs, and distributing labor to the most profitable account; and benefits to to the country will result. Take from agriculture in the United States 600,000 men, women, and children, and you will at once give a home market for more bread-stuffs than all Europe now furnishes us with. In short, sir, we have been too long subject to the policy of the British merchants. It is time that we should become a little more Americanized, and instead of feeding the paupers and laborers of England, feed our own; or else, in a short time, by continuing our present policy, we shall all be rendered paupers ourselves."

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*This article is from the manuscript copy of a new work, entitled "THE RIGHTS OF LABOR, now in a course of publication, by Calvin Colton, author of the "Life and Times of Henry Clay," "Junius Tracts," &c., being a part of the twelfth chapter, which is devoted to a review of the report of the Secretary of the Treasury.

events will force open all the ports of the world to free trade; which, being accomplished, the world is ours! the American protective system and the British corn laws are now out of the way. But other predicted results do not all coincide with Mr. Walker's prediction.

Lord Ashburton, in a speech at Winchester, England, Jan. 19, 1846, looking into the future, even under the abolition of the corn laws-for it was then decided as an event to be-said: "The supply [of breadstuffs] must not be expected from America, and we could not have a better proof of it than the fact, that, at this moment, American corn could come here from Canada, at a duty of 4 shillings; and yet, if the returns were examined, it would be found, that ninetenths of the foreign corn consumed in England, was from the Baltic, though the duty on the corn from its shores was 15 shillings a quarter. This was entirely owing to the low price of labor in the north of Europe." Again Lord Ashburton said, on the 29th January, ten days later, in Parliament: "The British farmer must not have his hands tied behind him. Did he meet the foreigner on equal terms? The farmer on the shores of the Baltic had his labor at sixpence a day, to compete with the farmer of this country (England) with his labor at two shillings a day. It required no skill in political economy to discover that these

two parties did not meet on equal terms." Does not the American farmer see by this, that "his hands are tied behind him," when he is doomed, even under the abolition of the British corn laws, to meet in the British market, the farmer of the north of Europe, whose labor costs him only sixpence (sterling, or 12 cents) a day? And that the farmer of the north of Europe, being near, will be in the British market first, and at less cost?

Corn laws or no corn laws, it could make no difference, except it would be better for the American farmer, in such a competition, that the corn laws should not have been abolished, as before that event, he could get to the English market, through Canada, with four shillings duty, when his competitor, in the north of Europe, had to pay fifteen shillings; but now, the corn laws being abolished, the farmer, in the north of Europe, has as much greater advantage over the American farmer, than in the former state of things, as the difference between fifteen and four. At best, the abolition of the corn laws can be no advantage to the American farmer.

The following table will show what are the chances of the American producer of bread-stuffs, in the British market, as the competition, on both sides, will be equally benefited by the abolition of the corn laws, except, as above noticed, the loss is on the side of the American:

Importations of Wheat into Great Britain from the principal wheat countries for 1841, 1842, and 1843, in bushels, together with the sum total from each country.

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are tied behind him," as Lord Ashburton says; and the end of the whole is, that this competition falls on American labor, and brings that down towards the level of wages in these rival quarters. That result is inevitable. This, indeed, appears to be the main object of Mr. Walker, in order to keep up the price of cotton, as is betrayed by him in many forms of phraseology, found in his report: "While bread-stuffs rise in Eng land, cotton almost invariably falls." It is the low price of cotton that he complains of, and he has conceived the notion, that the only way to raise it, is to depress the prices of other agricultural products of the country, which he considers of less importance. He would, therefore, have the whole country go to farming, that they may produce enough to bring down prices of agricultural products, other than cotton, as would, doubtless, be the result. But Mr. Walk

er mistakes in supposing that cotton is the only great interest of the country, and the only interest worth sustaining. He mistakes, even in supposing, that in sustaining the interests of cotton, it is necessary to depress other interests. All stand or fall together; and it is impossible to imjure one, without injuring all, directly or indirectly.

That American bread-stuffs cannot go to England, to any considerable extent, except at low prices, appears from the fact, that Russia, Denmark, Prussia, Germany, Holland, France, Italy, the Islands, and other European and Asiatic countries, can feed her, whenever she wants more than she produces, at lower rates than American labor will be satisfied with-for all depends on the price of labor. The following tables and facts, from the Hon. Charles Hudson's speech in Congress, of February 26, 1846, are pertinent here.

"The following table will show the prices of wheat per bushel in the principal marts of trade on the Continent, from 1830 to 1843, inclusive:

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come into fair competition with our trans-
Atlantic wheat growers. And how is it
with reference to freight? By official
documents laid before Parliament, it ap-
pears that the freight on the highest
calculation cannot exceed, on an average,
13 cents per bushel. By the report of the
Hon. Mr. Ellsworth, Commissioner of
Patents, laid before Congress in 1843,
where he examines this subject somewhat
minutely, it appears that the average freight
from New York to Liverpool is 35 or 36
We cannot estimate wheat
cents per cwt.
at less than 56 pounds per bushel; and
hence the freight must amount to 17 or 18
cents per bushel. The difference in the
freight and first cost would make a balance
against us of 41 cents per bushel. But as
the year 1837 was one of uncommonly
high prices in this country, I will omit

that year in my estimate, which will reduce this balance down to about 36 cents; and from this I will deduct, for the difference of exchange, 10 cents, which will bring the difference down to 26 cents per bushel.

"The English consul, writing from Odessa, at the close of 1842, says: Under present circumstances, extraordinary low freight and favorable exchange, a shipment of the best wheat could now be made and delivered in England on the following

terms, viz:

First cost

Charge of loading
Freight
Insurance and factorage
in England

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s. d.

bushels of oats, could be supplied. In this list is not included Riga, Rotterdam, Antwerp, and several other important ports for the corn trade."

The above promises of supply are more than 8,000,000 bushels in excess of the annual average of imports of foreign corn into Great Britain, from 1829 to 1843, inclusive, 15 years; and of course demonstrate an absolute independence, as to any necessary supplies from the United States. Nor could the grain, alias corn-growers, in the United 22 6 per quarter. States, have any chances in such a market, except on the basis of wages of labor and prices of products, corresponding with the wages and prices of the countries above named. Will the American laborer and farmer be satisfied with that? Then in what are they or can they be benefited by the abolition of the British Corn Laws, and Mr. Walker's theory?

25

66

67

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40

66

35 6

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Total "This reduced to our currency would amount to 97 cents per bushel delivered in England. And in 1843 there was a still further reduction; so that wheat from the Baltic could be delivered in England without duty at 87 cents, and from the Black Sea at 78 or 80 cents per bushel. A price much less than our wheat could be purchased at in our own ports."

It will be found, that the British gov ernment never expected to be supplied with bread-stuffs from the United States, in case of the abolition of the CornLaws from the following facts, stated by

Mr. Hudson:

"In 1840 the British Government called upon their consuls, at some of the principal marts of the corn trade, to inform them what amount of grain could be sent to the

The first considerable abatement of duties on corn, in Great Britain, was by a law which took effect in April, 1842, reducing the duties at once about one lar to those predicted to follow the enhalf. Great results were expected, simitire abolition. What did they prove to be? Directly the reverse of what was anticipated, as the following facts will show. The average annual importation of wheat into Great Britain for the three years previous to this reduction, was 20,692,000 bushels, and the importation for the first year after the reduction is pretended to be proved by these was only 9,540,000 bushels. All that facts, is, that other causes controlling these results, were more potent than the law, not only disappointed legislation, Bushels. but made things go directly the other 1,540,000 way from what was intended. And if 240,000 the abatement of half the duties on the 2,400,000 Corn Laws was followed by such a te1,200 000 sult, what certain evidence can be placed on the consequences predicted for their 2,520,000 entire abolition? One thing is put be2.000,000 yond doubt, by the facts above exhibited,

English market in case the English duty

were reduced to a nominal sum. The substance of their replies will be seen in the following table, submitted, with their report, to Parliament in 1841:

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8,000

520,000

47,712 that this event cannot, in any probabili4,304,000 ty, be of the slightest benefit to the pro1,400,000 ducers of bread-stuffs in the United States. 1,600,000 It would be a calamity to those producers, if the prices of those products should be so low as to compel them to go to the same market which the producers of bread-stuffs on the Baltic and on the shores of the Mediterranean resort to, and which they chiefly monopolize by the low wages of their labor, and the

17,770,712 "From these twelve ports it appears that a supply of 17,770,712 bushels of wheat could be obtained annually; and it further appears that 7,298,000 bushels of rye, 6,520,500 bushels of barley, and 6,445,700

consequent low price of their products. It is an ascertained fact, that the small amount of bread-stuffs which has heretofore gone directly from the United States to the English market, has been exported rather for freight and remittances than for profit; and that only when the prices were not regarded by the producers as a remuneration.

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Every practical man," says Mr. Hudson, "knows that, between two great commercial nations, an article will be exported from one to the other, when the prices in the two countries seem to forbid.

The wheat that we have sent direct to

Great Britian is, to a considerable extent, the result of accidental causes. A merchant is indebted abroad, and must send forth something to discharge his debt, and not being able to meet the demand in specie, he sends forward a quantity of flour. Or, a vessel is going out without a full cargo, and will take grain for a mere trifle. Or, a speculator has a large amount of flour on hand, bought perhaps on six months, and is obliged to send it out at a sacrifice. Our grain goes to England mainly in the shape of flour, by which a saving of 10 or 15 per cent. over the export of wheat is realized. These are the causes, more than anything else, which enable us to supply the English market to the small extent we now do. Ask our merchants who have had experience in this trade, and they will generally tell you that it is a precarious business, and one in which much more has been lost than made."

The wheat crop of the United States in 1840, was 84,823,000 bushels; and in 1844, it was 95,607,000 bushels. For fourteen years previous to 1846, the average annual export of wheat from the United States, to all parts of the world, was 5,505,000 bushels; in 1836, only 805 bushels; 1838, 41,475 bushels; in 1837 we imported 4,000,000 bushels; deduct the imports, and the average of fourteen years was about 5,000,000. What is this to the whole product of nearly one hundred millions of bushels, all which found a home market, except the above fraction of a little more than one-twentieth ? How much better would it have been for the American growers of wheat, if General Jackson's great principle, in his letter to Dr. Coleman, had been carried a little further, by withdrawing more people from agriculture into manufacturing and other pursuits, so as to have created a home demand for the entire product of wheat during those fourteen years, so as to have kept up the prices to a full and satisfactory remuneration of the

producers, that they should not have been obliged to send so small a surplus to compete with the low wages and low prices of Europe, and thus bring down the prices at home? For such was the inevitable effect of this small surplus. It brought down prices at home, and left both the laborer and his employer without a fair remuneration, simply because they were obliged to compete with the low wages and low prices of Europe.

This all-controlling principle of supply and demand seems not to have been understood by Mr. Walker; or else he has done an atrocious wrong to the country a wrong in any case. It is a grand fundamental principle of political science, without a knowledge of which no man could begin to be a statesman, or to know what a tariff should be. There is an annual surplus of agricultural products in the United States, and in manufacturing and other pursuits, Mr. Walker proposes, that those engaged should turn to agriculture, and become producers instead of consumers, for the benefit of those already engaged in agriculture! and for the benefit of the country! Is this man a statesman?

Let us illustrate the principle of supply and demand. A given number of houses and other buildings are wanted for a small business town; and so long as that number is not exceeded, they will rent for a fair remuneration. But if one-tenth or one-twentieth more than are wanted should be built, the owner or owners of these surplus buildings, rather than not have them occupied, will offer them at a lower rate than the others are hired for. Then down comes the rent of the whole; and so long as there is a surplus, rent will continue to fall to 50 per cent, of a remunerating price, or lower. Wherthe effect of it will be ruinous to all the ever it stops, there is still a surplus, and owners. Thus a small surplus of anything in market may annihilate half or

more of the fair value of the whole. The supply, in such a case, exceeds the demand. Reverse the case, and let the demand exceed the supply, and the contrary effect will be produced.

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