BRITISH AND AMERICAN TRADE. 221 The steam-engine, and the various and divers new or improved machinery which had been in motion during the fair, were named, and their interesting peculiarities and claimed excellencies, were explained. The general character and grade of specimens were pronounced of high order, and as affording ample evidence of the improvement and advance in manufacturing skill. The list of new inventions was long and respectable, and abundantly demonstrated the great skill and extraordinary ingenuity of Americans in the wide field of invention. It is a remarkable and interesting fact, said the President, that Europe, which has been conspicuous for her machinery, certainly during the last century, has scarcely sent us a specimen, which has not soon been returned, amended and improved by American ingenuity. He proceeded to recount, in glowing terms, many gratifying illustrations. He spoke of the Arts, and pointed to the excellent specimens of nautical, astronomical, and scientific instruments in exhibition. The fair was then adjourned to the next year, with thanks to the crowded audience for their attendance, and their uniform and firm support of the AMERICAN INSTITUTE. The exhibition of the Sixteenth Annual Fair then closed with music, and some splendid fireworks.—Annual Report of American Institute, 1843. XX. BRITISH AND AMERICAN TRADE. LET us glance for a moment at the course of England towards America. A few years since, we had a boundless credit on the London Stock Exchange. American bills and American stocks were as current as gold; goods were pressed in exchange for stocks and credit in vast quantities into America; mushroom banks and mushroom houses were forced by British capital and credit to a hot-bed growth, and States newly created, whose capital was in forests, log-cabins, and backwoodsmen, were tempted by the facility of credit to embark in works of improvement beyond the present wants of the community. Amid the fever thus created and fanned by the great bank of Pennsylvania, and indiscreet rulers at home, a great fire suddenly annihilates thirty million dollars in New York- the specie is drawn from the country; a panic follows, and the wise men of London, of a sudden, decide that nothing American shall be current. The fiat is obeyed. In a twinkling, a credit of one hundred million dollars more is extinguished; merchants are required to send specie, who have none to send; States, who require but one link more to get some return for their outlay, are utterly discredited, property rendered valueless, and, in the crash that ensues, amid the wreck of banks, merchants, and States, all who falter, however honest may be their views, are branded with the names of cheats, swindlers, and knaves. In this state of things, the American tariff continues annually to fall by a descending scale; the British merchant, to sustain his home market, sends to New York all that is unsaleable in England, draws away the little specie that is left, and breaks down the home manufacturer. What is the result? The country is disheartened, and, for a moment, discredited. A sudden fever seizes the patient in the flush of his manhood, but his constitution is not destroyed. The sagacious physician prescribes frugality, temperance, caution, industry, self-reliance, and the homespun dress. Cash duties are adopted, which, while they create a revenue, check the excess from abroad, and wages and salaries are reduced. The spindle, loom, hammer, saw, and plough, are set in motion. The flour England will not take is consumed at home. The patient revives. The exports of the country increase. Gold and silver return. Interest, in the great cities, falls from eighteen to three per cent. The credit of the States, and the Union, rapidly revives, and the United States stock, which was refused in England, at par, is going thither, at sixteen per cent. premium. Domestic produce rises, new factories are commenced on a firmer basis than the old, and new articles are manufactured. The country becomes equal to any emergency, and its honour will ere long be retrieved; and long may it be ere it again places it in the power of another nation. But let us glance at the other side of the water, and see what England has gained by her vacillating policy-encouraging her best customer to day, and then throwing him off, with dishonour, to-morrow. Mark the result. With the loss of American trade came an excess of goods, a fall of prices, a terrible deficiency in the revenue. Dividends are lost, profits destroyed, operatives discharged and left to starve; while the flour America offers for her debt is refused, furnaces are blown out, rival manufacturers created, branches of trade annihilated, property depressed in value, the Bank of England calls on Paris and Hamburgh for money, and heavy income taxes are imposed, which barely save the country from bankruptcy. It is easy to trace a large proportion of this to the loss of American trade. A little more mode-ration at first, and a little more forbearance and liberal policy afterwards for instance, the opening of the corn trade-would have greatly mitigated, if not prevented the evil. For the future, England must not expect to supplant the coarse manufactures of America; she must content herself with selling the porcelain, stone-ware, worsteds, plaids, linens, silks, and fancy goods, we do not make and consume most when most prosperous, and such overplus of others, as the rising price in America may admit; and be cautious that her denial of admission to our breadstuffs does not deprive her even of these. With such caution it is fair to presume the demand from the United States, which, even more than the opening of China, is reviving her commerce, may prove progressive.*" Two Months Abroad,"-By a Railroad Director of Massachusetts. *English Reciprocity. — England charging one hundred per cent. duty on Chinese teas, and requiring of China a duty of only sixpence a yard on English broadcloth! England charging both specific and ad valorem duties, amounting in the aggregate to one hundred per cent. on wooden ware, one thousand per cent. on tobacco, and virtually prohibiting American flour, lumber, fish, and other staples, and meanwhile complaining and protesting against revenue duties levied on British manufactures, which compete with our own. XXI. RESOURCES COMPARED TO THE DEBTS OF ACCORDING to the view that has been taken of the resources of these States, their public debts, on the most liberal estimate made of them, bear an insignificant proportion to their means. Supposing the amount of those debts to be 200,000,000 of dollars, at an interest of six per cent., the annual charge is 12,000,000 dollars, which is little more than one per cent. of their income in 1840, and may be presumed to be less than one per cent of their present income. But if they were all to provide for the punctual payment of this interest, and thus restore that confidence in the national faith which once existed, or even make an approach to it, the debt could be readily converted at par into a five, or even four per cent. stock, and the excess would be sufficient for a sinking fund that would discharge the debt in thirty years or less. In this interval, too, as wealth would be steadily increasing, the burthen would become lighter and lighter, and in twenty-five years it would bear but a third or a fourth of its present rate on the value of property. With such ample means of complying with their engagements, the States have not a shadow of excuse for not faithfully fulfilling them. It is true that these debts are distributed among them very unequally, because their affairs have been administered with very unequal degrees of wisdom and forbearance; but even those States which are most encumbered, may provide for the payment of interest by a moderate tax, which shall be made to bear on all sources of revenue. Thus the debt of Pennsylvania, estimated at 40,000,000 dollars, bears, at five per cent., an annual interest of 2,000,000 dollars. The income of this State was, in 1840, 131,000,000 dollars, and is probably at this time not less than 150,000,000 dollars. A net revenue of only one-and-one-third per cent. of that income would produce the 2,000,000 dollars required. But were the burthens yet greater, and the means of discharging them yet less, no State, which does not set a higher value on property than integrity, can consent to a violation of the national faith; nor would any right-minded citizen deem the saving thus effected any compensation for the stain of national infamy it would leave behind it. But the public sentiment of the Union, to say nothing of our character abroad, to which we never have been, and never ought to be, indifferent, is so decided on this subject, that it is impossible the people of any State can permanently resist it. Even the excuses and pretences which were but too successfully urged by those who make a political traffic of their principles when the first stunning effects of the revulsion in 1839 were felt in full force, will soon find no support from any considerable portion of the American people. All men who have at once common sense and common honesty, must see that 'repudiation,' if warranted by strict law, would not be just; and though it were just, would be neither liberal nor wise. We confidently trust, then, that the cloud which now fearfully overhangs a few States, and to the distant observer casts a shade over their uncontaminated associates, will soon disappear, and leave the path before us as bright and cheering, as that it is our pride to have passed over.-Tucker's Progress of the United States. Causes of the Embarrassments. I must again refer to the nature of our general government, resulting from the union of independent States, for national purposes only. The question whether power was given to it to make roads or other communications of national importance, was one of early interest. The opinion that it was given, rather prevailed at first, and some appropriations for purposes of this nature were made. President Jackson gave a decided opinion against it, and refused his assent to any further aid. The separate States, then, concluded that they must undertake such works for themselves. The great canal in New York, made by De Witt Clinton, from Lake Erie to the Hudson, was an example of the use of State power eminently successful. It is rare that the sagacity and skill, or care of an individual, in his private affairs, leads to so profitable a result. Its income has been sufficient to pay all interest on the |