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tive of revenue, when the imports are diminished by its operation, which is in fact the argument which was most effectually urged upon the Minister of Finance in France, in the negotiations with which Mr. Bowring was charged with Lord Clarendon; that at that time they were receiving somewhere about £3,500,000 nett revenue upon a population of 35,000,000, whilst, in England, under a system less protective than theirs, they were, upon a population of 24,000,000, getting nearly £20,000,000 of nett

revenue.

Mr. Bowring also gave other examples, where some branches of trade have risen to a state of great prosperity in different parts of the world, without any protection being given them. "You may take, for instance," said he, "two of the most extensive manufactures, the cotton trade in England, and compare it with the cotton trade in France; it is known that the cotton trade in England is the least protected of our trades—that it was in fact a persecuted trade in its origin; that taxation was levied upon cotton goods, in the interest of the woollen trade; that cotton manu. facturers have been throughout the advocates of free trade, yet the development of that trade in England is perfectly unexampled. In France, the cotton trade is the most protected of trades; it was protected from its origin; it is only within a few years that the finest numbers of cotton twists have been admitted into France; there is an absolute prohibition on all articles of cotton manufacture except the very high numbers of cotton twists, which are used for making lace. The cotton trade has made very small progress in France, compared with the cotton trade of England; the state of cotton laborers is frequently one of very great suffer. ing; the number of bankrupts among the cotton manufacturers of France has been great, and when the home market is glutted there is no means of relief by going to the foreign market, inasmuch as the price at which they produce, the fictitious price created by the protective system, is much higher than the prices of the nations with which they compete. The consequence is, that as a means of relief, the government have been in the habit of giving a large premium on exportation, which is another taxation levied upon the French people; they paying in the first case a much greater sum than they need pay for the cotton garments they wear; and secondly, the cost of the increased price upon the article which France exports, in order to enable her to get rid of her superfluous production." The committee were made to understand that the increased price of all kinds of cotton goods, whilst France has the same facility as England, arises mainly from the protective duty; and that the only manufacture in France towards which a liberal system has been applied, is the manufac ture of silk. Foreign cotton goods are excluded-foreign silk goods from any part of the world pay a duty of from 13 to 15 per cent; yet so sound and healthy is the manufacture of silk, upon the whole, that France is able to export four fifths of the whole of the silk goods she produces. So that while of cotton, protected in every conceivable way, the amount of her exports is trifling, and principally growing out of other circumstances, that of her superiority in taste, her exports of silks are, as before mentioned, four fifths of the whole which she manufactures.

From the knowledge Mr. Bowring possessed of the general state of trade in Europe, and in the United States, he thought that Great Britain must anticipate hostile legislation, on the ground that many countries have made representations of this character: "We are willing to adopt a sys

tem of reciprocal modification; and if you are not willing to meet us on that ground, we must adopt a system of further protection, and even of prohibition."

It appeared to Mr. Bowring, that the British tariff has been established without any regard to a general principle; that it is not protective in all its bearings, and that it is not made most productive to the revenue. That it is not protective, as the tariffs of France, Spain, Austria, and Russia are, of which the object is to exclude all foreign manufactures. That there are some duties that are productive, while there are others that are not, and that there is no general policy, no comprehensive end or object running through the English tariff as a system. He thought that the interests of protection and the interests of revenue are frequently incompatible; and that one of the two ought to be made the object of customhouse legislation, which should be simplified, even beyond the simplification of the Prussian tariffs. If some ten or twelve articles, in which there is no competition with the home producers, were made the main objects of taxation, and upon those articles the highest duty imposed which could be recovered, and if then all other imports were left free, he thought that would be the wisest and most beneficial system of legislation that could be adopted.

Mr. Bowring spent a considerable time in Spain, and watched the oper ations of the high and prohibitive duties in that country, where, perhaps, the protective system has been pushed to its greatest extent, and where exports are in so low a state, and where commerce and manufactures probably suffer more than in any other kingdom in Europe. He stated that he had frequently travelled with smugglers, and had seen the way in which their goods are conveyed from one part of the country to the other, some times by fraud and sometimes by force; that the laws are completely inefficient wherever the recompense to the contrabandist is large, or where the difference of price is considerable, between the price in Spain and the price in the producing country; that exclusively of the demoralizing effect, the revenue of that country had been considerably diminished from what it would have been if the goods had been admitted at a moderate duty; and that the only parts of the country where there had been any thing like a general prosperity, are the parts in which the prohibitory customhouse legislation had not been introduced. The Biscayan provinces having a fiscal legislation of their own, have always resisted the authority of the general government to impose prohibitory laws upon them; and the con trast in the condition of the people in that country and every other part of Spain, is remarked by all who travel through that country. The condition of the ports of Spain, and the general misery of the people, is mainly at tributable to their bad commercial system; the grass grows in the streets at this moment in their principal commercial places.

In speaking of the unequal taxation in different continental countries, and the heavily taxed labor of England in competing with the more lightly taxed, or untaxed labor of foreign countries, Mr. Bowring remarked that "wages are only one element in the cost of production; and it is quite clear that we have not the greatest advantages where we pay the lowest rate of wages, for in many cases the competition is strongest with foreign countries. Where we produce to the most advantage will frequently be found to be where we pay the highest wages; and the reason is obvious the low rate of wages in this country exists principally where labor is bought in its rudest shape, where there is very little skill, as in the

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case of the hand-loom weavers; and this labor, where there is little skill, is placed in competition with the whole world: it is a species of labor which is everywhere purchasable, and all production which is bought in the region where this labor is applied for general competition, must be in a peril. ous state. Those of our manufactures are most successful in which we ob tain the greatest aptitude and the most intelligence from the laborer, and in these our great superiority is found over other countries. For example, the pacha of Egypt has chosen to be a great manufacturer; the price he pays to his laborers in the cotton manufactories he has established, is thirty paras a day, which is less than two pence; that is the price now fixed in the manufactories of Egypt. He has the advantage of having the raw mate rial, probably at two-thirds of the price that is paid here, it being grown upon the spot; besides that the manufacturers choose for the manufactures of the pacha the superior qualities, before the general supply is sent down to the markets for exportation. Notwithstanding this advantage of having the raw material so cheap, and having labor at a price so incredibly low, he cannot compete with the manufactures of England; and wherever English goods come in contact with the Egyptian, they are found to be cheaper. So in the regions of Syria, where the rate of wages is from four to five shillings a week, the Syrian articles compete successfully, and frequently drive out the Egyptian, though it would appear, if the question of wages were the only question, that the Egyptian must have a great advantage over them. The question of the amount paid for rude labor is not so important a one as it is believed to be.

"The least instructed laborer can everywhere produce certain rude manufactures; the consequence is, that those manufactures will be very badly paid for. All those laborers, in fact, who are employed in producing those common fabrics must necessarily be in a very bad condition, because they find competing labor in every part of the world: the way to benefit their condition is not by protecting them by legislation, but by extending the field of demand for labor, by increasing their manufacturing aptitude, and directing their attention to labor of a more productive and better compensated character."

Mr. Bowring was in favor of adopting the plan of introducing, on all articles which yielded but a small amount of duties, what is called by the French droit de balance, that is, a duty on registration, to repay the expense of machinery for obtaining correct statistical returns. He thought it important to British manufacturers, who have to compete in foreign mar kets, that every article required by them in the process of the manufacture, should be landed from the ship into the warehouse with as little delay, and at as little expense as possible. "Such facilities," said he, "always increase trade; I may mention the fact, that there are two ports in Italy which are free ports, in one of which the transfer of goods is very much facilitated, and in the other very much impeded: the trade of Leghorn has greatly increased under the free system; and that of Genoa, though nominally a free port, has continued stationary under the restricted system. The great facility connected with the warehousing of goods has been among the main causes of the prosperity of the Hanse Towns."

At the conclusion of Mr. Bowring's examination, he expressed it as his opinion, if the corn laws were repealed, that the first effect would be, that the fluctuations of prices would be very much diminished; that there would be a considerable rise on the continent, and some fall in England; that

there would be on the continent a re-direction of capital to agricultural objects, which is now being devoted to manufacturing purposes; that there would be a considerable increase of trade, and a demand for labor, and a very great increase in the consumption of corn in England, probably equal to the whole amount with which foreign countries would be able to supply them.

ART. IV. ILLINOIS, AND ITS RESOURCES.

ALTHOUGH the preponderance of wealth and power in the United States still lies east of the Alleghany mountains, yet it is abundantly evident that the true elements of our future greatness and glory are centred in that vast and fertile valley which stretches from the Alleghanies westward to the Rocky mountains. This magnificent valley includes about two thirds of the entire territory of the United States; contains more than a million and a quarter of square miles; and is capable of sustaining a population of one hundred and fifty millions of souls. There is, probably, no part of the globe of equal extent which has so small a proportion of waste land and so great an amount of soil fit for cultivation. It is not only the garden of America, but of the world, and M. de Tocqueville, the French tourist and philosopher, declares it to be "the most magnificent dwelling-place prepared by God for man's abode."

This immense valley, at least six times as great as the whole of France, and ten times larger than the island of Great Britain, is watered by rivers which have been formed on the same scale of vastness and grandeur. These, taking their rise in the mountains on either side, meander through the rich plains below for hundreds, and, in some instances, for thousands of miles, until they lose themselves in that ceaseless flood which rolls along the bottom of the valley, called, in the pompous language of the natives, Mississippi, or the Father of Waters. The Mississippi rises in latitude forty-eight, amid the frosts and snows of the wintry north, and having coursed its devious way for three thousand miles, discharges itself into the Mexican Gulf, in the region of perpetual summer. In the course of its wanderings it receives the waters of no less than fifty-seven large navigable rivers, which, with their tributaries, distribute fertility and beauty throughout the valley, and cross it in such a variety of directions, that there is not a spot, unless it be in the great plains of the Upper Missouri, that is more than one hundred miles from some navigable stream. In this great congregation of confluent waters are many rivers of the very largest class. The Missouri sweeps away from the base of the Rocky mountains for more than three thousand miles; the Arkansas has a course of fifteen hundred; and six others wind their way among the rich bottoms and rolling prairies for about a thousand miles. Besides these great rivers and their lesser confluents, the country is everywhere crossed by rivulets starting from springs and fountains, which gradually swell into larger streams, and bend their way among the lesser valleys towards the ceaseless flood which is ever rolling its turbid waters to the ocean.

This great valley has been naturally enough divided by Darby into four sections. That portion which lies below the mouth of the Ohio, possessing

peculiarities of surface, soil, and climate, is called the lower valley; and that which lies above this point, the upper valley. The country watered by the Ohio and its branches takes the name of the Ohio valley, and that which lies along the Missouri is called the valley of the Missouri. The Upper Mississippi valley differs somewhat from all the others. It is not so low, marshy, and warm as the lower valley: it is not spread out into such immense plains as the country which borders the Missouri and its surface is not so diversified as that which lies along the waters of the Ohio.

The head branches of the Mississippi flow from an elevated tract of table-land, abounding in marshes and small lakes, and producing a spontaneous growth of wild rice. This lofty level, which is about one thousand five hundred feet above the Gulf of Mexico, not only gives rise to the waters which glide to the south through the great Mississippi valley, but also to those which run north into Hudson's Bay, and east into the St. Law. rence. From Lake Itaska, its extreme head, the Mississippi winds along through many deviations towards the south, and after passing through a succession of lakes and rapids for about seven hundred miles, is precipita ted down the falls of St. Anthony. Ten miles below the falls it receives one of its largest branches, the St. Peters, from the west, and a little further down, another, the St. Croix, from the east. From these points, until it reaches the northern borders of Illinois, a distance of some two hundred and fifty miles, it curls among a multitude of islands, which in the summer are clothed so densely with forest trees, grass, and wild flowers, as often to prevent the eye from reaching the opposite shore. The land on the borders of the stream breaks into bluffs, which are divided by valleys and creeks, and clothed to the summit with the same splendid verdure as the islands, while the ravines below abound with crystals of quartz, carnelians, and other precious stones.

The valley of the Mississippi presents everywhere the most indubitable proofs of a diluvial formation. "Nowhere," says M. de Tocqueville, "have the great convulsions of the globe left more evident traces: the whole aspect of the country shows the powerful effects of water, both by its fertility and by its barrenness. The waters of the primeval ocean accumulated enormous beds of vegetable mould in the valley, which they levelled as they retired. Upon the right shore of the river are seen immense plains, as smooth as if the husbandmen had passed over them with his roller. As you approach the mountains, the soil becomes more and more unequal and sterile: the ground is, as it were, pierced in a thousand places by primitive rocks, which appear like the bones of a skeleton whose flesh is partly consumed. The surface of the earth is covered with a granitic sand, and huge, irregular masses of stone, among which a few plants force their growth, and give the appearance of a green field covered with the ruins of a vast edifice. These stones and this sand discover, on examination, a perfect analogy with those which compose the arid and broken summits of the Rocky mountains. The flood of waters which washed the soil to the bottom of the valley, afterward carried away por tions of the rocks themselves; and these, dashed and bruised against the neighboring cliffs, were left scattered like wrecks at their feet."

These evidences of a diluvial formation are scarcely less marked on the eastern side of the great river. From the summit level, which gives rise to the Mississippi, and forms the brim of the great lakes to the south point

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