AN ACCOUNT of the Declared Value of British and Irish Produce and Manufactures Exported from the United Kingdom, &c.—continued.

The foregoing proposed reforms in the financial legislation of the United Kingdom are bold. Yet, we consider them not only equitable but practicable. The tendency of public opinion is, yearly, increasing in their favour; and, considering the financial reforms made during the last few years, it will be impossible to impede the progress of equitably reforming our financial and commercial legislation.

In accordance, therefore, with the principles which we have laid down, that country which possesses average advantages from nature, and whose population possesses the greatest industry, ingenuity, and intelligence, will, if unfettered from legislative restriction upon labour, industry, agriculture, manufactures, navigation, and trade, become, in proportion to its extent, resources, and advantages, the most flourishing country in the world; or, at least as prosperous as any other country, with equal natural, and moral advantages, and legislating upon equally liberal principles.

We believe that the United Kingdom possesses all the requisite advantages to become that, more happy country, which nothing but false legislation prevents; viz., far more independent, prosperous, and far more rich and powerful; and, with the whole population far less poor, far better employed, more fairly paid for their labour, better sheltered, clad, and fed, and more independent than that, at the present time, of any other country in the world.

The agriculture, the manufactures, the shipping, the foreign and colonial trade, and the power of the United Kingdom might, in their present stage, be viewed as only in their infancy, instead of being considered as having, before now, attained manhood, if those sound principles of fiscal, and commercial legislation, which we have attempted to elucidate, but which are not new, were boldly taken up, in order to be carried by the Imperial Parliament.

II. COMMERCIAL LEGISLATURE OF AMERICA.

If England has made great advances, towards an equitable, and liberal system of commercial legislation, the Free and United States of America have actually retrograded from a system fiscally, and commercially, unsound in its origin, into the most wretched, and unenlightened schemes of customs duties: framed on the fallacious basis of protecting manufactures.

The numerous customs tariffs of the United States, would be discreditable to the most ignorant, and barbarous government; and, when we consider the intelligence of the citizens, and the condition of the country, when Congress first passed laws to impose duties on the importation of foreign commodities, we can only account for the blunders committed, by an hereditary attachment to the bad example of the mother country.

If any country was ever placed, by favourable circumstances, to legislate wisely, on sound commercial, and fiscal principles, that country was, and is, the United States of America.

In comparing the constitution, agreed to by this great republic, with that of the governments of other nations, we must remember, that when the AngloAmerican colonies declared their independence, their moral and physical condition was very different from that of all republics, that had previously existed. The people were generally intelligent, and thoughtful; their habits frugal and

industrious; and, unlike the Europeans of South America, their ideas were free from religious intolerance, and from the thraldom, of ecclesiastical tyranny.

The abilities of the men, who directed their councils, were more solid than brilliant; practical rather than experimental. They adopted the constitution and laws of the then most free government in the world, as the groundwork of theirs; making a royal hereditary chief magistrate, a titled privileged nobility, and a national church establishment, the chief exceptions.

The vast regions of their territory comprehended soils yielding every production under heaven. They were watered by numerous navigable rivers, and streams; they abounded in useful woods and minerals. The sea-coast was indented with harbours; and the shores, rivers, and seas afforded plentiful fisheries. All these secured to them every natural advantage.

Their language and education enabled the people to enjoy all the benefits of English knowledge and literature, without the labour or expense of translation, or paying for copyrights. They had also the earliest advantage of discoveries in the arts and sciences, without the cost of purchasing the rights of patents.

With the good fortune, also, of being governed, at that solemn period of their history, by honest men, they had the experience of all ages and countries to aid their judgment.

Possessing, therefore, such extraordinary advantages, the Anglo-Americans were placed in a condition to avoid the blunders committed by nations, the governments and laws of which, growing up from their birth in the feudal ages, during centuries of bigotry, intolerance, tyranny, and ignorance, down to periods of liberality and intelligence, were consequently incompatible with equal justice, personal liberty, and sound principles.

But with all these lights and advantages to guide them, and having a free course before them, erroneous views of commercial legislation arose out of the very principles of independence, which they declared. Men of moderate ambition and frugal habits, like Washington and many others, entertained, with no doubt pure intentions, the idea, that in order to be perfectly independent, they must produce at home, every thing required for food, raiment, shelter, convenience, and luxury. This fallacious principle has hitherto prevailed, but we believe cannot be very long continued.

"As early as August 14th, 1774, a convention was held in Virginia, and resolutions were passed, signed by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other statesmen, as follows:

"We do hereby resolve and declare that we will not, either directly or indirectly, import from Great Britain any goods, wares, or merchandises, nor any of her manufactures. We will turn our attention from the cultivation of tobacco to the cultivation of such articles as may form a basis for domestic manufactures, which we will endeavour to encourage throughout this colony to the utmost of our abilities.'

This declaration, it must be remembered, was directed against England in order to diminish her manufactures and trade, and consequently her means of

coercing the colonies, far more, than for protection to home manufactures. For there was no prohibition of goods from Saxony, France, or other countries, which could send manufactures to America.

It is also a remarkable fact, that when a virtuous and, in other respects, a great man, like Washington, delivers a fallacious, and, at the same time, a specious opinion, such a blunder will be a thousand times more pernicious, than if pronounced by a profligate in power.

General Washington, in his message, in 1789, recommended to Congress the encouragement of manufactures, in the following words :

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Congress have repeatedly, and not without success, directed their attention to the encouragement of manufactures. The object is of too much consequence not to insure a continuance of their efforts, in every way that shall appear eligible. Ought our country to remain dependent on foreign supply, precarious because liable to be interrupted? If the necessary article should, in this mode, cost more in time of peace, will not the secu. rity and independence thence arising form an ample compensation?"

We do not, however, find Washington recommending high protecting duties, or prohibition. We would argue the contrary from the following maxims, in his parting address, on retiring from public life.

"Observe good faith," says he, "and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and (at no distant period) a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.

"In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded, and, that in the place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.

"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations, is extending our commercial relations, and to have with them as little political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronising infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. my opinion, it is unnecessary, and would be unwise to extend them.

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Harmony, and a liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours, or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying, by gentle means, the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with the powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of merchants, and to enable the government to support them, conventional rules of intercourse-the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit; but temporary, and liable to be, from time to time, abandoned, or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view, that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favours from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favours, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or

calculate upon real favours from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard."

President Jackson, in his message as late as the 4th of December, 1838, on alluding to the prosperous trade of the country, and to the relations of America with foreign courts-observes

"This desirable state of things may be mainly ascribed to our undeviating practice of the rule which has long guided our national policy,—to require no exclusive privileges and to grant none.'

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"Nor have we less reason to felicitate ourselves on the position of our political than of our commercial concerns. They remain in a state of prosperity and peace-the effect of a wise attention to the parting advice of the revered father of his country (Washington) on this subject, condensed into a maxim for the use of posterity by one of his most distinguished successors to cultivate free commerce and honest friendship with all nations, and to make entangling alliances with none.'”

The first act for raising a revenue by impost and protecting manufactures was passed July 4, 1789, and advocated by James Madison and others, headed—

"Whereas it is necessary for the support of the government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures, that duties be laid on goods, wares, and merchandise imported."

Mr. Jefferson, who is generally called the father of democracy in America, says, in his message, December, 1802 :

"To cultivate peace and maintain commerce and navigation in all their lawful enterprises, and to protect the manufactures adapted to our circumstances, are the landmarks by which to guide ourselves in all our proceedings."

And, in a letter dated January 9, 1816, says:

"We have experienced, what we did not before believe, that there exists both profligacy and power enough to exclude us from the field of interchange with other nations ; that to be independent for the comforts of life, we must fabricate them for ourselves! We must now place the manufacturer by the side of agriculturist. The grand inquiry now is, shall we make our own comforts or go without them at the will of a foreign power? He, therefore, who is against domestic manufactures, must be for reducing us either to a dependence on that nation, or be clothed in skins, and live like wild beasts in dens and caverns. I am proud to say I am not one of these. Experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort; and if those who quote me as of a different opinion, will keep pace with me in purchasing nothing foreign, when an equivalent of domestic fabric can be obtained, without regard to difference of price, it will not be our fault if we do not have a supply at home equal to our demand, and wrest that weapon of distress from the hand which has so long wantonly wielded it."

The specious and fallacious opinions of Messrs. Jefferson and Madison, and those afterwards of Mr. Alexander Hamilton prevailed. Yet Franklin and many others delivered sound maxims on commercial legislation.*

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Those who advocate restrictions on foreign trade, and those who are opposed to such restrictions, may, or at least ought to, derive instruction from the sound and clear opinions of Benjamin Franklin, the most practical statesman and financier ever born in the United States. If," he observes, "the importation of foreign luxuries could ruin a people, we should, probably, have been ruined long ago; for the British nation claimed a right and practised it, of importing among us, not only the superfluities of their own production, but those of every nation under heaven; we bought and consumed them, and yet we flourished and grew rich. At present our independent governments may do what we could not then do, discourage by heavy duties, or prevent by heavy prohibitions, such importations, and thereby grow richer; if indeed, which