CONTENTS OF NO. VI., VOL. XXVI. ARTICLES. ART. PAGE. 1. THE STATES OF BRITISH AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES: FREEDOM OF TRADE AND UNION OF INTERESTS....... 659 681 II. ENGLISH AND AMERICAN CURRENCY. By JACOB ABBOTT, A. M... IV. DO BANKS INCREASE LOANABLE CAPITAL-AN EFFORT TO REFUTE THE V. THE QUADRATURE OF THE CIRCLE 688 702 706 VL OF ARRESTING CONFLAGATIONS IN COMMERCIAL CITIES. By ROBERT HARE, M. D., Associate of the Smithsonian Institute, etc 709 EMBRACING A FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW OF THE UNITED STATES, ETC., ILLUSTRA TED WITH TABLES, ETC., AS FOLLOWS: General state of the country-Abundance of capital-Influence of an easy money-market upon the banks-Condition of the banks in the State of New York on the 27th of March-Stimulants to overtrading and extravagance-Supply of bonds for investment-Railroad bonds as a basis for building-Resources of the State of Wisconsin-Effect of the cheapness of breadstuffs upon the demand for cotton-Prospects for cotton spinning and other manufacturing-Influence of the increased supply of gold upon the currency of the world-Reaction of the general prosperity upon the market for cereals-Deposits and coinage at the Philadelphia and New Orleans Mints Imports at New York for April -Increase in goods withdrawn from warehouse and thrown upon the market-imporis for four months-Imports of dry goods for April, and for four months-Receipts of duties at New York for April, and for four months-Exports from New York for four months-Exports of domestic cottons-New impulse to the California trade, 721-726 42 etc....... VOL. XXVI-NO. VI. ....... Condition of the Banks of New Orleans, March, 1852.-Value of property in New Orleans in 1851 735 Condition of banks in the city of New York.-Property and taxes of Chicago, Illinois.. Law of California relating to bills of exchange ........ The coinage of France.- Ragged bank-notes. Identity of indorsers.-Virginia exemption law... Capital and dividends of banks in the city of Worcester, Mass.. Mint law of New York.-Finances of New Jersey in 1852 Shipments of gold dust at San Francisco.-What are consols?.. A method of computing interest .... Commerce and navigation of the United States in 1850-51. Part II. Navigation.... Tonnage of United States and foreign, arriving from, and departing for, different countries Tonnage entered into each State and Territory of United States in 1850-51... Tonnage cleared from each State and Territory of the United States.......... Exports of cotton from United States to different countries in 1851 Commerce and navigation of Portland from 1847 to 1851 Trade between England and her colonies Coasting trade of France.-Statistics of flour trade. Import of coal at Boston.-Hops imported into United Kingdom.. Distances from London, New York, and New Orleans to the principal seaports in the world..... 760 Dangers near Assateague Light-House.-A discovery in latitude and longítude............ An enterprising woman in California.-Honesty in buying and selling.. Consumption of opium in England Notices of 39 new Books, or new Editions 769-784 HUNT'S MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW. JUNE, 1852. Art. I-THE STATES OF BRITISH AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES: FREEDOM OF TRADE AND UNION OF INTERESTS." * THERE is a larger free, white population in the States of British North America, than there was in the United States when they declared themselves independent. The population of those provinces was then about 250,000. It is now about 2,500,000. In 1776 the United States did not probably contain more than 2,800,000 inhabitants, of whom nearly half a million were slaves. Our figures are necessarily a little conjectural, but probably within the truth. The first official census of the United States was not taken until 1790, when the population was 3,929,326, including 629,697 slaves. The population of the Provinces of British America at the two periods of our comparison may be pretty accurately stated as follows: Adding for increase since the dates of the table, and for the population of the Hudson's Bay Company's territories, and we have the population as stated, which, we have reason to believe, is in fact rather understated. Mr. • Report on the Trade and Commerce of the British North American Colonies with the United States and other countries, embracing full and complete tabular statements from 1829 to 1850. Presented to the United States Senate by Thomas Corwin, Secretary of the Treasury, (Prepared by J. D. Andrews, Esq. U. S. Consul, New Brunswick,) Washington, 1851. Montgomery Martin estimates the population of Western or Upper Canada, in 1849, at 750,000; of Nova Scotia in 1850 at 300,000; of Prince Edward Island at 55,000.* We have no regular and careful census returns for our authority. There should have been a census of Eastern Canada in 1848, according to law, but it seems to have been omitted. Our figures are taken from the very able and valuable “Report on the Trade, Commerce, and Resources of the British North American Colonies," prepared by J. D. Andrews, Esq., United States Consul at St. John, New Brunswick, and communicated to the Senate by the Secretary of the Treasury. This voluminous collection of statistics embraces statements from 1829 to 1850, relative to the Fisheries, the Mines, Minerals, and Light-houses, and the Trade and Commerce of the Canadas, of Nova Scotia, of New Brunswick, of Newfoundland, of Prince Edward Island, the Trade and Commerce of the Lakes, and also miscellaneous returns of population, tonnage, shipping, and foreign trade. The statements are collected and arranged with unusual care and skill, and are as authentic and accurate as can be expected in the absence of a thorough system of statistics in the United States and in the Provinces. We shall be rejoiced when Congress shall see fit to establish a Bureau of Statistics, such as that proposed and ably advocated by Hon. Zadoc Pratt, some years ago, in the House of Representatives-a truly statesmanlike measure; some system, at any rate, with the necessary governmental appliances, for the regular and careful collection of facts relating to our trade, agriculture, and manufactures. If our statesmen knew how much such a measure would lighten and enlighten their own labors and inquiries, as well as those of the Merchants' Magazine, they would hardly allow another session to pass without some such enactment. The general reader who is not a professed Political Economist, will find most matter of interest in the report of Mr. Andrews, prefixed to the tables, which is something more than a mere index, or introduction to the statistics. After a historical sketch of English legislation on colonial trade, since the Revolution, Mr. Andrews gives a summary view of the present state of colonial trade, both with England and America, under the new Navigation and Corn Laws of Great Britain, and then, in conclusion, broaches an important measure of commercial policy, proposed by the Canadian Government to our own. This measure is nothing less than reciprocal free trade in breadstuffs and other natural products. The notion that this measure would hurt the grain-growers of this country, is combatted with much force. There certainly seems little danger to our farmers from competition in our own market; in the foreign market no protection can protect them from Europe or Canada. However all this may be, that this measure would be a natural political result, that it is with and not against the current of political affairs in the Provinces, both as regards their domestic policy and their relations with the United States, must strike every one who reads the colonial history of the last eighty years. He must be struck at once with their rapid and substantial growth, their steady progress in liberal government, and at the same time with the constant tendency to fusion, not of laws, but interests, the growing assimilation in trade and in ideas, with their neighbors across the lakes, which has accompanied this material and political growth. We have noticed the increase of their population. By the census of The British Colonies, p. 109. The results of the census of Canada, just taken, have not yet been made public. According to the Journal de Quebec, the population of both Canadas, by the census, will be 1,800,000. 1850, the population of the United States was 23,257,723; it has therefore increased about eight-fold since the peace of 1783, or in seventy years. The colonial increase has been about ten-fold. Increase in numbers, however, is but one phase, one branch of national growth. It is the effect-it is the cause, also, of growth of every kind-commercial, agricultural, industrial. It is the index of political health, also. And all this progress has been coincident with, and it is owing, we are persuaded, to like political causes, and to like natural advantages, as that of the United States. We call the States of British America, Colonies. That word no longer describes the footing upon which they stand; the position of political and commercial independence to which the course of events during the last eighty years has been gradually bringing them. Free and sovereign States they cannot be called; but the modern idea of a colony implies subjection and dependence. Such was the colonial relation under the system which began when Columbus first set foot on San Salvador, and the distinguishing feature of which, according to Say's rather hasty classification of colonies, was that they were planted with the mere temporary purpose of enriching adventurers, who had no design of permanent settlement, but intended to return home as soon as their fortunes were made.* The British Provinces are rather colonies, according to the ancient idea; such colonies as those with which prolific Greece lined the shores of the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean. "If treated kindly, a colony will honor the mother country; if treated unjustly, it will become estranged. For colonies are not sent out to become the slaves of those who remain behind, but to be their equals."t Such was the proud language with which a Greek colony in the days of Pericles checked the arrogance of its metropolis, or mother city, and the words of the ambassadors of Corcyra to the Athenian people, embody the spirit of the ancient colonial system. But both systems, ancient and modern, have had their day. The modern colonial relation reached its maturity a hundred years ago. It began to decay in 1776. The revolutionary war was the first decided symptom of its decay. It has been gradually sinking ever since the independence of the United States. But that event was the result of political causes not confined in their operation to the English colonies. They were at work in South America, as well as North America. In less than fifty years after the peace of 1783, all the States of South America fell away, at a blow, from a state of colonial dependence. How long that blow had been preparing, the suddenness, the completeness of the change fully showed. Nothing had been wanting but the signal and the opportunity; and Napoleon's seizure of Spain was all that was needed to precipitate an event that must have come in the political order of nature. Within five years from the 1st of August, 1823, when Bolivar's iron hail beat down the Spanish ranks of La Serna, at Ayacucho, in Peru, there was not an European colony in all the continent of South America, except the little settlements of Guiana; and the British Provinces are all that remain on the continent of North America. How far they are an exception to the spirit of the rule, a glance at their progress in liberal principles of government, at the constant and ever increasing spirit of liberality and concession which has animated the legislation of England, both in matters purely political, and, in particular, on affairs of trade, from the revolution to this day, * Say's Political Economy, Book 1., C. XIX. Thucydides, B. I., § 34. Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, I. p. 113. |