The inquiry naturally suggests itself, why the state of things in the manufacturing districts of Great Britain should be so widely different from this? Some may satisfy themselves by recollecting that England is an old and America a young country; though, to my mind, this affords no reasonable explanation of the contrast—since, from the possession of surplus capital, complete machinery, and facility of communication, et cet., the advantages for commerce and manufactures, under a system of perfectly unrestricted exchange, must preponderate greatly in favor of the former. But whatever the solution of the difficulty, it is quite evident that the statesman who would elevate the moral standard of our working population, must begin by removing the physical depression and destitution in which a large proportion of them, without any fault of their own, are compelled to drag out a weary and almost hopeless existence. To some peculiarly constituted minds, "over-production" is the explanation of the present appalling distresses of this country; and what they are pleased to consider a healthy state of things, is to be restored by a diminution of production;—yet nothing is more certain, than that the largest amount of production which has ever been reached, is not more than adequate to supply our increasing population with the necessaries of life, on even a very limited scale of comfort. A diminished production implies the starving down of the population to such a diminished number as may obtain leave to toil, and leave to subsist, from legislators, who, either in ignorance or selfishness, set aside nature's laws, and disregard the plainly legible ordinances of Divine Providence. If we reflect on the part which commerce is made to perform in the moral government of the world, on the one hand as the bond of peace between powerful nations, by creating a perpetual interchange of temporal benefits; and, on the other, as the channel for the diffusion of blessings of an intellectual and spiritual kind; we are conducted irresistibly to the conclusion, that any arbitrary interruption of its free course must draw down its own punishment.

Though the laws of nature may not permit the limited soil of this country to grow food enough for its teeming population, yet while Great Britain possesses mineral wealth, abundant capital, and the largest amount of skilled industry of any nation in the world, the tributary supplies of other countries would not only satisfy our present wants, but would, I firmly believe, with an unfettered commerce, raise our working population, the most numerous, and by far the most important part of the community, to the same level of prosperity as the same class in the United States. Then would there be more hope for the success of efforts to elevate the standard of moral and intellectual cultivation among them, for as an improvable material they are no way inferior to any population upon earth. John Curtis of Ohio, a free trade missionary to this country, has published a pamphlet full of important statistical facts, illustrating the suicidal policy of Great Britain, from which I venture to take the following extracts:

"England already obtains luxuries in superabundance; but these can never supply the wants of her artizans—they demand substantial bread and meat, and a market where their labor can procure these necessaries. Tropical climates are not adapted to supply their wants. For this reason trade either with the East or West Indies cannot give effectual relief: it may furnish luxuries, but England is overstocked with them already. The food of tropical climates, with the exception of rice, is not calculated for export. The people of England, if they are to import food, need the production of a climate similar to their own. In this respect America is well adapted to supply them.

"All parts of the United States between thirty-seven and forty-four degrees of north latitude will produce wheat. But that part of the country best adapted to furnish an abundant supply is, beyond all question, the northern part of the Mississippi valley, and the contiguous country south of the great lakes. It has been styled par excellence the wheat-growing region of America. Within its limits lie the six north-western States of the American Union, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, and Wiskonsan (including as States the two territories of Iowa and Wiskonsan, about to be admitted into the Union.) These States, exclusive of two hundred thousand square miles, the title to which is yet mostly in the Indian tribes, cover an area of two hundred and thirty-six thousand and eleven square miles. The country is, generally, an undulating prairie, interspersed with groves of trees, and unbroken by hill or mountain. The soil commonly rests upon a strata of limestone, is fertile beyond description, and abundantly watered by the finest springs and streams. Its climate is clear and salubrious, and the country as well calculated as any other on the globe to minister to the support and happiness of civilized man. As already explained, for an inland country, it possesses unequalled facilities for foreign intercourse and commerce, by means of its great lakes and rivers. The most distant parts of it are now reached in twenty days from Liverpool. The energies of the American people have been chiefly expended, during the last few years, in opening and taking possession of this region, which they consider destined to become the future seat of American wealth and greatness.

"Wheat once formed a leading article in the exports of the United States. The trade of that country with Great Britain was then double the present amount in proportion to the number of the population. Had the trade of the two countries continued free, it would have increased with the increase of population and capital. The legitimate exchange trade has decreased between England and America for thirty years. What part has the restrictive system had in producing this result? A few facts may enable us not only to answer this question, but to anticipate the consequences of a continuance of the same policy. From the time of the revolutionary war in America until 1812, the trade between the two countries regularly increased with the increase of the population. The average annual consumption of foreign merchandise in the United States for each inhabitant was,

From 1790 to 1800, 39s. 4d.
" 1800 to 1810, 41s. 8d.

"In 1812 came the second American war, and in 1815 the British corn law, which was promptly followed by the high American tariff of 1816. For ten years prior to 1830, the annual average consumption of merchandize had fallen to 22s. 6d., while the population of the States was nearly double, and their capital treble that of the ten years preceding 1810. Soon after 1830 followed the modification of the American tariff, and the importations based on the great transatlantic loans of that period. But, notwithstanding the stimulation and extravagance of the time, the average annual consumption amounted to only 31s. per head of foreign produce during the ten years prior to 1840. Abating the importation based on the loans of the last few years, and the trade of England with the United States has not increased in amount for the last thirty years, while the population of England has increased from eighteen to twenty-seven millions, and that of the States from seven to seventeen millions.

"Let the reader observe this, that in the Eastern States, in that of Massachusetts, for instance, in which State Boston is situated, the people bring a large part of their food from the Western States, where they obtain it in exchange for their manufactures. If free trade were allowed, is it possible for any man to give a reason why the manufacturer and laborer of Manchester would not be able to do as well as the manufacturer and laborer of Boston now does, abating the difference of transporting goods and grain across the Atlantic? At least, the consequence would be an extension of trade, and employment equal to the amount of food which would, in such case, be brought from America; and the limit to this quantity will be found only when the wants of Englishmen are supplied, and their ability to pay exhausted. The ability of America to supply any required quantity of food has already been shown. There lie the broad lands, ready for cultivation as soon as there shall be a demand for the produce. And if seventeen millions of people, sent chiefly from England, or descended from those who have been sent, are not sufficient to raise the requisite quantity of provisions demanded of them by those who remain in the parent country, then let more be sent, for the land lies equally open to the people of all nations.

"Then, as to the ability of Englishmen to pay for all they want, let us ask, what those who produce the food, or those who bring it, can want in exchange that England cannot furnish? Gold, it is said.[A] But for what do they want gold but to purchase other supplies than food? and as they would then have the means to pay, England would be the very country which, of all others, could supply them to advantage. Whatever was wanted which her own artizans do not produce themselves, they could still supply. Englishmen would not at all be confined to a direct sale or exchange of their goods with the wheat grower, but can give him the merchandize of India and China, and the fruits of the tropics, for which English manufactures would pay. If the idle mills and idle laborers of England could at once be set at work to produce food for the people, new activity would be imparted to trade in every part of the world—from India to the frozen regions of Greenland and Labrador. But, on the other hand, how is it possible for England to extend her foreign trade while the present restrictions continue? Even with such a country as India, reduced under British sway, it cannot be done except by diminishing the commerce with other countries to the same extent. England cannot, in her present condition, greatly increase her consumption of such merchandize as India can furnish, or dispose of such merchandize abroad, to any great extent, for the reasons already given.

[A]: "Englishmen, reasoning from a restricted course of trade, are constantly prone to the belief that the purchase of foreign corn, from some unexplained necessity, must take away their gold. Americans, from the same cause, reason in the same manner respecting the purchase of foreign goods. Under the action of the restrictive system, there may be some truth in the reasonings of each party, but they certainly form a beautiful running commentary upon each other."

"As to any proposed gain by the Colonial trade, it is the very thing rejected by the restrictions on the trade with the United States. What are these States but the greatest colonies ever planted by Great Britain? and their independence does not at all prevent England from deriving all the advantage from them ever to be derived from colonies. The only good which England can derive from her extensive colonization is not to be gained by swaying a barren sceptre over distant colonies, but by spreading abroad her race, her language, her civilization, and thus enlarging the sphere of her commerce. Under a free system of intercourse England would not derive less benefit, at present, from the United States than if they had remained a part of the British dominions, for if trade were free, they would not trade the less because of their independence, or furnish less food, or at higher prices. England, however, seems determined to sacrifice all the advantages which naturally accrue to her from having colonized the finest part of the New World, and to refuse the abundance and relief thus providentially prepared by her own offspring."

The great importance of these extracts is the best apology for their length—but there is yet another branch of the subject. A country whose population is beyond its means of supply from its own soil, has no resources but that of her manufactures and foreign trade; if these be dried up, her people must emigrate or starve. But the United States has an alternative;—her first and best resource,—and the most profitable application of her industry is in her broad and fertile lands, the superabundant produce of which would not only feed, but, by exchange, clothe her population, and supply them with all the comforts of civilized life. She cannot avail herself of this to its full extent without our aid. But, if we refuse to trade on equal terms, her wants will not, therefore, go unsupplied. She can manufacture for herself—her resources for manufactures and commerce are, at least, equal to our own, with the exception of capital and population, which the lapse of a few more years will supply.

"The present may justly be considered a crisis in the commercial policy of America. If it be decided that foreign markets are to continue closed against American corn—if England, which is the principal corn market of the world, refuse to exchange the produce of her mills and workshops for that of the fields of the Americans, they have no other alternative than to erect mills and workshops from which to supply themselves. The effect of such a course would prove decisive on the trade with England, and go far to complete the ruin so effectually begun by the British corn law and corresponding restrictions. If forced from employment on the land, which an abundant and fertile soil has naturally made their most profitable one, it will be found that the Americans lack neither the talent, the energy, nor the means, at once to extend their present manufactures to the full supply of their own wants. They have water-power, coal, and iron, in greater natural abundance and perfection than any other part of the world."[A]

[A]: "The United States are computed to contain not less than eighty thousand square miles of coal, or sixteen times as much as Europe. One of these coal fields extends nine hundred miles in length. The State of Pennsylvania has ten thousand square miles of coal and iron. Great Britain and Ireland have two thousand. All the north-western States of America contain large quantities of coal. The coal strata of the States generally lie above the level of the streams, and the coal is taken from the hill sides. The beds of coal and iron are to a great extent contiguous."

This is not mere theory. The developement is actually begun:

"A few years since, the country smiths, and the matrons with their daughters at the household wheel and loom, were the principal manufacturers of America. Now the cotton mills alone are computed at one thousand, and the capital invested in manufacturing machinery at £23,500,000. The estimated value of some of the principal articles of manufacture is as follows:

Woollens, £15,750,000
Cotton, 11,250,000
Leather, 9,000,000
Hats and Caps, 3,575,000
Linen, 1,350,000
Paper, 1,350,000
Glass, 1,125,000
Iron and Steel, 11,250,000

"Some idea of the rapidity with which the American manufactures are now capable of being extended, may be formed from the past progress of the cotton manufacture. The consumption of raw cotton was,

In 1833, 196,000 bales.
1835, 236,700 "
1837, 246,000 "
1839, 276,000 "

"The United States already supply two-thirds of their own consumption of cottons. At the above rate of increase—of nearly fifty per cent, in five years—America will much more than supply its own market in five years to come. Never has the manufacturing interest of the United States been in as prosperous and sound a condition as at present. They need no high tariff to protect them against British competition. The English corn law is their best protection."

It is the restrictive policy of Great Britain that has called into existence Lowell and the manufacturing cities of the United States, producing an immense amount of articles which were once the sole products of British industry and skill. If the same policy is continued, the prosperity of the United States will be impeded, but that of England will be destroyed.

The following is an extract from the memorial of Joshua Leavitt to Congress, on the wheat interests of the North Western States:

"Should it, indeed, come to be settled that there is to be no foreign market for these products, the fine country under contemplation is not, therefore, to be despaired of. Let the necessity once become apparent, and there will be but one mind among the people of the North-west. The same patriotism which carried our fathers through the self-denying non-importation agreements of the revolution, will produce a fixed determination to build up a home market, at every sacrifice. And it can be done. What has been done already in the way of manufactures, shows that it can be done. The recent application of the hot-blast with anthracite coal to the making of iron, and the discovery of a mine of natural steel, would be auxiliaries of immense value. We could draw to our factories the best workmen of Europe, attracted less by the temptation of wages, than by the desire to leave liberty and land as the inheritance of their children. But it would take a long time to build up a manufacturing interest adequate to supply the wants of the Northwest, or to consume the produce of these wide fields; and the burden of taxation for internal improvements, uncompleted and unproductive, would be very heavy and hard to bear: and all the population that is concentrated upon manufactures, is so much kept back from the occupation of that noble domain; and the national treasury would feel the effects of the curtailment of imports and the cessation of land sales; and the amount of misery which the loss of the American market would occasion to the starving operatives and factory children on the other side of the Atlantic, is worthy to be taken into the account, by every statesman who has not forgotten that he is a man."

If we refuse the Americans as customers, we compel them to become our rivals; and, after supplying their own wants, they will compete with us for the trade of the world, on more than equal terms. Our statesmen may yet employ America to build up the prosperity of our country whilst increasing her own, or they may suffer its rapidly developing and gigantic resources to work out our ruin: the alternative is before them and before the country—but decision must be prompt, for there is no pause in the march of events. However unwise the policy, we cannot be surprised that the American and Continental manufacturer are each applying to his government to follow our example, and protect home trade by fiscal regulations.

This question of trade with America has also most important anti-slavery bearings—and here, again, I find my own views anticipated by the able writer already quoted: