Take, for instance, the culture of beet-root sugar in France. This business was introduced into that country about the year 1811, and the government immediately extended to the "struggling infant its fostering, protecting aid." It laid a duty on all foreign sugar of about nine cents a pound,* and also taxed the sugar of its own West India colonies in such a manner as to extend the greatest possible aid to the producers of France. Under this forcing system a considerable quantity has been annually pro. duced; but, after an experience of thirty years, it is still impossible to produce sugar in France as cheaply as in the West Indies, and a high duty is required to preserve those who are engaged in the culture from loss. A writer in the Edinburgh Review, some years ago, calculated the annual loss of the French people, arising from this mistaken protection, at over six millions of dollars, which, in thirty years, would amount to the very convenient sum of one hundred and eighty millions of dollars, the interest of which would, probably, supply France with all the sugar she

consumes.

The corn laws of England are equally in point. It so happens that the landed interests have long held the power in the British government, and have, consequently, taken care to extend their "fostering, protecting aid" to the producers of grain. The duty commonly amounts to a prohibition, and is, therefore, of little advantage to the revenue; while the monopoly enables the landholders to exact large rents from their estates, the consumers being taxed to sustain the imposition. "If," says Mr. Hume in his testimony before the committee on import duties, "I am made to pay 1s. 6d. by law for an article which, in the absence of that law, I could buy for Is., I consider the 6d. a tax, and I pay it with regret, because it does not go to the revenue of the country."

In our own country many articles have been fostered and protected after the same fashion. That of sugar is a conspicuous example. The Louisiana sugar planters have been fostered and protected for a long series of years, by a duty of about one hundred per cent; but to this day sugar cannot be produced, to any great extent, without the aid of a tariff. If this be so if the protective policy is thus uncertain in its action-if governments are about as likely to inflict an injury as to confer a benefitthen, surely, for these reasons alone, even allowing there were no others, it would seem to be the part of wisdom to hesitate long before enacting laws which must unsettle the course of business, change large investments of capital, and urge men into enterprises which must lean on the crutch of the government for their support.

II. Under his second head my opponent contends, that "the high, invidious, protecting duties of other nations, and of nearly all the countries of the civilized world, absolutely constrain us to take care of our own producing interests."

This is an error which has been often refuted, and which lies at the foundation of much false reasoning on the subject of trade. It may be true that the high duties of other nations inflict an injury on us; but it by no means follows that we should neutralize that injury, or in any way better our condition, by adopting a similar policy. This is shown by the very example which Mr. Greely has brought to prove the antagonist position.

* The duty was, in 1829, fifty francs per quintal.

"I will," he says, "take the case of two islands which, isolated from the rest of the world, have been accustomed to trade largely with each other. One of them produces grain in great abundance; the other has a soil primarily adapted to grazing, and its surplus productions are cattle and butter. But the former [the grain island] for reasons of its own, imposes a duty of fifty per cent on all imports, and now cattle can be reared on her soil much cheaper than they can be imported. She takes no more from abroad. But the cattle-raising isle, unheeding the change in her neighbor's policy, or profoundly enamored of that system of political economy which assumes the designation of 'free trade,' still buys her grain where she can buy cheapest-that is, abroad. What will be the necessary result? Who does not see that all the specie and other movables of the 'free trade' settlement, will be drained away to pay the constantly increasing balance of trade in favor of its protecting rival ?"

The effect which is here set down is by no means that which would follow. If the islands were really isolated, that is, if they had no intercourse with any other part of the world, then, of course, they consumed between them all their own productions, making such exchanges under a system of "free trade," as they found to their mutual advantage. By. and-by, however, the grain island prohibits the importation of its neighbor's cattle, and takes the production into its own hands. What follows?

1. The inhabitants of the wheat island, deprived of their neighbor's cattle and butter, will convert some of their wheat fields into grass for the purpose of producing these articles: consequently, they have no longer any wheat to sell.

2. If they have wheat to sell, their neighbors cannot buy; for this plain reason they have nothing to buy with. They formerly had cattle and butter, but these are now refused, and they have nothing else. The trade must, therefore, cease; and the grass-growers, like their neighbors, convert some of their fields of grass to the production of grain.

But, says my opponent, they have something else; they have "specie and other movables." True; and if their neighbors are willing to sell, and they can thus carry on the trade till their island undergoes the changes which their altered circumstances require, the inconvenience and suffering which would otherwise ensue, will be greatly diminished. But how would their condition be bettered by a retaliatory duty? They now want wheat. They cannot buy it with cattle and butter, because these are refused. They muster up some "specie and other movables," which they can hardly part with, and just as they are about to accomplish a bargain, the government steps in with its "fostering, protecting care," and imposes a duty of one hundred per cent. "Gentlemen," says the customhouse officer, "you are welcome to buy this wheat, but for every dollar that you pay for the wheat, you must also pay over a dollar to me for the use of the government." I ask if, under such circumstances, the condition of these islanders would be materially improved by the retaliatory duty?

The whole position is clearly a fallacy. Allowing that the "high, invidious, protecting duties" of other nations are a great annoyance to us, yet let it be remembered, that they are still more injurious to themselves, and to adopt them, in order to retaliate their wrongs, would be like seizing an enemy, and jumping with him into the river, in order to give him a ducking. For a more full exposition of this point, I refer the reader to

the "Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons of Great Britain on Import Duties."

III. The third proposition of the "remarks" is in these words: "Protection contends that the simple facts, that an article, if produced in this country, is sold at a certain price, while its foreign counterpart is sold at a lower price, do not by any means prove that the imported is, in truth and essence, the cheaper." What he means is, I believe, that the blessings of protection are so great, that we can better afford to pay five or six dollars for a yard of cloth under its auspices, than four dollars under a system of free trade. In order to prove this position, he has introduced a table, showing that in Londonderry, near the town of Lowell, the price of apples, cider, wood, potatoes, turkeys, and other heavy produce, have risen one hundred per cent, and that the inhabitants can, consequently, pay an advance of twenty-five per cent on the few yards of cloth which they consume, and still be the gainers.

I cannot suppress a feeling of surprise at this argument. Allowing it all to be true, and what does it show? Only that men in certain locations are benefited by the tariff. This position I acknowledged and met most fully in my former article. Surely the readers of the Merchants' Magazine do not need to be told, that wherever a village or a city springs up prices rise, and the farmers find a better market for their heavy produce. But will the farmer in Pennsylvania, who has to pay an additional dollar for every yard of cloth which he consumes, in order to sustain the price of turkeys and cider in Londonderry, thank my opponent for this argument? Does his Lowell village raise the price of apples and wood in Ohio? Of what paramount benefit is it to South Carolina and Virginia, which pay so largely for its support? It is, in fact, a mere local benefit, resulting from the accident of a village which has been forced into exist ence by taxes drawn from 17,000,000 of people. It is by such specious reasoning as this that protection has been sustained. I tell my opponent that high, discriminating duties are injurious to the wealth of the nation; and he replies, that it cannot be, because it has made the farmers prosper around the village of Lowell. I contend that they are prejudicial to the general interests of production; and he says, no! see how it has raised the price of cider and turkeys in Londonderry! I marvel (to use an expression of his own) that any one reasoning thus, should talk to others about "schoolboy flippancy."

IV. Under his fourth head the author of the "remarks" takes the broad ground that neither discriminating duties nor any other duties are injurious to the general well-being of mankind. He does not however attempt to sustain his opinion by any argument; and as it is pretty generally understood that expensive governments and heavy taxes are not among the choicest of Heaven's blessings, I shall not undertake further to controvert his views on this head. In the course of his remarks, however, he makes some observations which are better deserving of notice. For example-"] "I hold it demonstrable," he says, "that even real, genuine free trade* between a barbarous and an enlightened, a rudely agricultural and a refined manufacturing and commercial people, will almost infallibly im

Mr. Greeley supposes "free trade" in its proper sense to mean a trade equally taxed in all countries, and not free on one side of the Atlantic and taxed on the other.

poverish the former and enrich the latter." This position is sustained by the following argument:—

"Let us suppose a settlement, equal to the state of Missouri, were now in existence in the Oregon-its rude, half-civilized inhabitants engaged wholly in agriculture, clearing, building, &c.-and a good road led from St. Louis to its capital. Trade is brisk enough in one direction; silks, jewelry, spices, finery and foolery of all kinds are sure to be constantly on the way over. But what is there to come back? They have mountains of grain, beef, wood, and all the substantials of life; but none of these will pay a tenth of the cost of bringing them to St. Louis. The settlement is constantly plunging deeper in debt and embarrassment. Eventually, through revulsion, calamity, and depression of prices, it will arrive at the manufacture of whatever it shall want: but if it would have reached this end more directly by the imposition of a strong tariff, it would have avoided much disaster and suffering."

Now plausible as this seems, it is most certainly incorrect. A young mechanic, a young merchant, and a young country are all liable to get in debt, but their debts are often the very cause of their prosperity. How frequently does it happen that a mechanic reaches his majority without a shilling! He has, however, a good character, and under such circumstances is trusted for a chest of tools with which he goes on to make his fortune. It may be that the merchant who thus furnished his outfit has charged him exorbitantly, but he has, nevertheless, done him a substantial kindness; for without the tools he must long have struggled on in poverty. The parallel holds good with other pursuits, and especially with the new country.

Take the case of this very Oregon settlement. I will not, however, trouble the writer for his great St. Louis road, which seems to have been invented for the very purpose of making transportation impracticable. Laying this ingenious contrivance aside, what is the actual condition of things in the new settlement? The Oregonians are, of course, poor, for all new countries must necessarily be so. They are without what political economists call fixed capital-without substantial houses-without factories— without ships. Every thing is to be done: the forests must be cleared, the crops put in, saw-mills and grist-mills must be built; and although they have not the means of manufacturing them, yet they must have ploughs, rakes, cradles, knives, axes, cloths, cotton goods, powder, shot, muskets, and a host of other things which are absolutely necessary to their wellbeing. To make these things is impossible in the nature of things. A country so rude has neither the skill nor the capital. It would, besides, require ten-fold more time than it would require to fabricate them in another country, and time too, every moment of which is needed for other purposes. How then are they to be obtained? Anybody besides my opponent would have said, suffer them to be brought from abroad-let the shipping which trades to the Pacific and wants your supplies furnish them from other countries-barter your "mountains of grain and beef" which you cannot consume for those articles which you so pressingly need-burn your wood into potash, and trade it for cotton and woollen goods-exchange those things which you do not want for those things which you do want.

No, says my opponent, keep them out by a strong tariff. As sure as you exchange what you do not want for what you do want, it will make You poor and only enrich others. Close your ports, and see to it that

nothing is brought from abroad, for depend upon it these exotics will be your ruin. Strange doctrine indeed! As if in all fair trade both parties were not the gainers. Is the Indian who trades away his cartload of skins, which are of no earthly use to him, for a keg of powder and a gun, impoverished by the trade? Is a new country which has "mountains of grain, and beef, and wood," which it cannot use, and does not want, impoverished by a traffic which supplies to it the essentials of its existence ? Is the farmer who pays his ten bushels of wheat, which are a drug in his granary, for a plough, on which his well-being depends, impoverished by the bargain? This policy of my opponent would not only tend to make savages and barbarians of the Oregonians, but would greatly retard their accumulation of wealth.

But I am told, in another place, that to advance the price of the domestic product is not the end of protection. This, my opponent attempts to show by the case of France and England, on page 433. But his argument disproves his own position. The duty being taken off, he informs us that "the heavy British importation and forced sale at once knocks every thing down fifty per cent." What was it that "knocked" every thing down fifty per cent? The want of protection? Restore the protective duty and the price rises. What other purpose is the duty required to serve? Nor does it by any means follow that the removal of the protective duty in the case cited would be the destruction of the French manufactures. If, according to the terms of the argument, the goods could be produced equally cheap in both countries, then the moderate duty required for the support of government would prove a sufficient protection, and give the advantage to the home producer.

But I am weary of answering positions which seem to me so obviously erroneous. In conclusion, I may say that I am as strongly desirous that our country should improve and develop all its resources as any advocate of the tarriff can possibly be. I am, of course, not opposed to manufactures, to the production of silk, or to any thing else which will aid in giving employment to our industry. I believe, with my opponent, that "the great end of all political economy, is to provide each individual constantly with the employment best suited to his capacities, and secure to him an adequate reward." But all this, I hope, will not commit me to the logic, that it is either justice or sound economy to tax the seventeen millions of consumers throughout this vast empire, in order to benefit the farmers and manufacturers of Londonderry, or even of all New England.

ART. VI.-PROFITS OF MARINE INSURANCE.

THE MUTUAL SYSTEM OF INSURANCE.

An article from a practical insurer in Boston appeared in the "Merchants' Magazine" for the month of May, which seems to require a passing notice, as its reference to the mutual system of insurance, and comparison of the claims of that system with those of joint-stock companies, to the public favor and confidence, form the prominent subject of discussion; and, as might be supposed from the position occupied by its author, pre-eminence is claimed for the latter.