that the taxable property of Georgia is $670,000,000 and upwards, an amount not far from double what it was in 1850. I think I may venture to say that, for the last ten years, the material wealth of the people of Georgia has been nearly if not quite doubled. The same may be said of our advance in education, and everything that makes our civilization." And, speaking more generally for the South, he asks: Have we not at the South, as well as at the North, grown great, prosperous, and happy under the operation of the general Government? Has any part of the world ever shown such rapid pro gress in the development of wealth, and all of the material resources of national power and greatness, as the Southern States have under the general Government, notwithstanding all its defects?" In his oration, on the occasion of laying the corner-stone of the Capitol extension. Mr. Webster gives a comparative table to exhibit our unexampled progress from 1793, when the cornerstone of the Capitol was laid by Washington, to 1851, when that of its extension was laid, We take a few of the matters from this table, and carry them up to 1861, the year of the rebel lion: The annexed statistics of the annual export of breadstuffs for a series of years is from the Circular of MR. EDWARD BILL. The export trade of this country, in breadstuffs, to Great Britain and Ireland for the past three years, has greatly exceeded that of any former period, and its importance is duly estimated by all reflecting minds. The tables are made up to the end of the cereal year, and may be relied on for their general accuracy. In addition to the English and continental shipments, the clearances to Mexico, Brazil, and other South American ports, the West Indies, British Provinces, etc., for the last year amount to 1,325,143 bbls. flour, 85,174 bush. wheat, 599,894 bush. corn, 283,598 bash. oats, 50,889 bush. barley, 15,374 bush. rye, 134,280 bbls. corn meal, 6364 bbls. rye flour, and 29,340 bush. peas. 1859 1857 1856 .2,672,515...25.754,709...14,084,168 1860......... 717,156... 4,938.714... 2.221,857 Bushels. Bushels. Bushels. ..213.579...2,343,314..... 68.957... 435.205 .626,672...7,617,472.....332.074...1.612.926 .....142.129...3,452.496.....101,145... 347,258 ....... 49,243... 178,031..... 19.358... 13,100 51.388... 58.845..... 25,519... .303,100... 390,428..... 16.848... ..483.344...2,875,653.....543,590... 216,162 ..748,408...2,610,079..... 282.083...1,975,178 7,763... 4,972.....308,428... 35.569 106,457... 439,010... 342,013 Total.......2,625,626..19,530,290..1,688,002...4,935,398 1858...... .1,295.430... 6,555,643... 3,317,802 1855... 849.600... 7,479,401... 4,746,278 .1,641,265... 7,956,406... 6,731,161 175,209... 324,427... 6,679.138 1,846,920... 6,038,003... 6,049,371 1,600,449... 4,823,519... 1,425,278 1852. .....1.427.442... 2,728,442... 1,487,398 1,559,584... 1,496.355... 2.205.601 574.757... 461,276... 4.753,358 1849.........1,137.556... 1,140,194...12.685.260 182.583... 241,300... 4,300,226 66 1854 66 1853 66 64 1851 66 1850 66 1848. 46 1847 ...... 3.155,845... 4.009,359...17.157.659 Total, 17 years...22,983,842 123,098,318 110,315,958 Oat Meal, bbls.......... 1862. 1863. 617,308......... 687.986 .6.376.905 5.272.377 .2,016,040 1,578.458 822.060 780.756 9.024 7,212 1,020 694,999 NATIONAL BURDENS (Comparative Statement, with STATEMENT showing the Population, Private Property, rate of Increase of Wealth, Annual Product, of Interest to Population, Proportion of Annual Interest of Debt to Annual Product of Industry, United States, at Ten Periods, from 1791 to 1863. 28 12 8 5 2 ** ** ** Property to each $491 86 Person. 187 00 547 08 202 13 567 35 207 20 539 56 207 40 501 SO 195 00 707 62 206 00 719 35 220 00 826 53 266 25 Gr. Brit. and Ireland. Leone Levi.... 1858 8th Census Tables.. 1860 Note.-The United States Mint value of the British pound sterling is $4 86.3. NOTES ON THE FOREGOING TABULAR STATEMENT. 1. Estimates of the property value of Great Britain and Ireland at the several periods stated, and the "authorities" responsible for them. Colquhoun estimated the wealth of the United Kingdom in 1812 thus: Productive pri vate property.. £2,250,640,000 Unproductive..... 397,000,000 £2,647,640,000 $10,940,862,320 The public property-palaces, churches, hospitals, prisons, bridges, forts, arsenals, artillery, dock-yards, military, naval, and ordnance stores, ships of war, and the like-he valued at eightynine millions of pounds. These aggregates are the results of the most comprehensive and carefully-made exploration, and the best thought-out array of the subjects of the calculation that have yet been made. The later and more fashionable "authorities," how$12,875,473,320 ever, reject his method and his conclusions, hav Product of the Year. AND RESOURCES. notes by Dr. Wm. Elder.) Public Debt, Annual Charge of Public Debt, Proportion of Debt to Property, Proportion of Debt and and relative BURDENS AND RESOURCES of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the claring that the estimates are even too low; but, overborne by the prevailing doctrines of the "dismal school," he deserts his data and his convictions, and simply adds thirty-three and a third per cent. for the increase of twenty years, for no assignable reason except that McCulloch had said, "sixty years is the shortest time in which the capital of an old and densely-peopled country can be expected to be doubled." But, according to Lowe and Porter, the wealth of the kingdom nearly doubled in eighteen years-from 1823 to 1841; according to Porter and Levi, it increased 50 per cent. in seventeen years, at which rate it would double in about twenty-nine years. Porter's estimate for 1841 is an increase over the amount at which these people put the valuation in 1812, at a rate which would double in thirtytwo years. Levi's £6,000,000,000 in 1858 is an increase of 185 per cent. in forty-six years, and would be 126 per cent. on Colquhoun's estimate, if his "extravagant hypotheses and exaggera tions" were accepted as the true valuation of 1812. Nothing can save these calculators from still greater extravagance than they charge upon Colquhoun, but their admission that his statement is moderate and just. Thus McCulloch's sixty-year period of doubling is totally demolished, even by the showing of those who have permitted themselves to be overruled by it. Pebrer quotes a report of the House of Commons in 1830, which showed that in Ireland the increase of wealth was far greater than of population. He knew that this was also true of France. He even states the general opinion of all the economists of the productive school in confirmation; yet he submits so far to the "authorities" as to assign a much lower rate of increase in the wealth than in the population of the United Kingdom for the period from 1812 to 1833. Leone Levi, one of the latest and most approved of this sect of economists, puts the increase of the nation's wealth at 122 per cent. in the period 1800 to 1841, and at 50 per cent. from 1811 to 1858, an accurately even rate of accumulation,-for as 41 is to 122, so is 17 to 50. This is arithmetic, not enumeration, estimation, or appraisement. A period, one-half of which elapsed before the modern improvements in manufactures and agriculture were fairly introduced, cannot approach such equality of wealth-producing power with that which covers all the productive agencies brought into service between 1841 and 1858. The estimates which, for want of authorities, we have supplied, are made in conformity with the doctrines and data of those quoted in the table. The results show that no concordance can be effected, and help to expose the absence of theoretic and practical truth, in the principles and process which they adopt. All the English statisticians exclude the British national stocks or funds, and all bonds, mortgages, acceptances, and other evidences of domestic debt, from their estimates of the people's wealth. Lowe rejects jewelry, household furniture, and ornaments; he admits the houses that twenty millions of people live in, and the lumber they are made of, but he excludes the wearing-apparel they live in, while he puts the ready-made manufactures at as high a figure as Colquhoun does. McCulloch's definition of capital excludes jewelry, but embraces race-horses; with him it is nothing but that portion of the produce of industry which may be made directly available, either for the support of human existence, or the facilitating of production." This is what capital means in the current language of tradesmen; but he gives it as the true definition in the science of political economy. Pebrer includes the industry of a nation in his definition as if he intended to capitalize it, but, of course, he gives only the value of implements and machinery, and not of the men and women that employ them in production. Statisticians are generally held to be eminently practical people; on the contrary, they are more given to theorizing than any other class of writers, and are generally less expert in it. 2. The annual products of industry and capital, as stated in percentage of the capital-wealth of the British Empire, look as if they might be true, and might also afford a law of the relation. They hold a pretty regular proportion to the given capital through all the periods tabled, declining in proportion as capital increases, which is doubtless true; but, closely examined, these annual incomes appear to come by arithmetical rules, or are at least controlled by them. They decline from 15 to 10 per cent, of the capital in sixty-five years with tolerable regularity, but there is no law of the subject in them, for they are certainly not true facts. When the distributive share of each person in the product of the year is examined, it is manifestly inadequate at once to the current support of the people and the constant accumulation of wealth, though taken at its lowest statement. We conclude that the authorized estimates of the capital and annual income of the British people need reformation, and, especially, that the doctrines of Malthus and Ricardo must be discarded by their statisticians if the facts and figures of universal experience are ever to get allowance. 3. Capital wealth and annual product of the United States and of the loyal States: The first attempt to obtain the data by actual investigation was made by the United States Marshals in 1840. Since that time we have official valuations more and more complete at the end of each census decade. That these three inventories of the property of the Union are all defective in the matters intended to be embraced, and understated also in valuation, is well known. There is not an item in which they are suspected of overstatement. We are indebted to Professor Tucker for his digest of the Census of 1840, and to him and the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Guthrie) for the like service in 1850. The valuation of property in 1860 for the Union and for the loyal States, we have from the Census Bureau. From the official returns of both 1850 and 1860, we have subtracted the value of the slaves, which was included in the official aggregates, holding them, for all the purposes of our inquiry, as producers and consumers of wealth, and not as property, otherwise than the laborers of any other country are a part of their national wealth and resources. The property value of the loyal States at midsummer, 1863, we have estimated by adding to its amount in 1860 the average increase of the decade ending that year, and not at the market-prices ruling in 1863. The estimates for the other periods in the table for which no authority is quoted, are our own, under guidance of such data as we could command. The value of the year's products in 1860 is obtained by taking the agricultural products of that year (given in quantity in the preliminary report of the Bureau, but not priced) at 90 per cent. increase upon those of 1850; by subtracting from the value of the manufactures one-third for the raw materials, which are included in the estimate of the agricultural values; and by adding 400,000,000 for the profits of commerce. We have not room, here, to describe the process by which we obtain the year's product for 1860 in the loyal States. No labor or care has been spared in obtaining it. The annual product put down in the table to the United States in the several periods, is in all instances greatly below the truth. The share allowed to each person stands at $62.28 in 1840, and at $86.41 in 1850; but the expenditure or consumption per head, in these years, cannot be estimated at less than $100; and the consumption per head in 1860 was at least equal to the amount allowed by the stated production of the year. Beside this deficiency of provision for the current subsistence of the people, there is the accumula tion of capital wealth to be accounted for, amounting to 2,410,000,000 in the former period, and to the enormous sum of 8,000,000,000, or an increase of 130 per cent., in the latter. We need not stop here to estimate the spontaneous growth of our national wealth, or that enhancement of value which occurs in real estate by the rapid settlement of our wild lands, and almost as rapid growth in the value of the fixed property in the older States, which, of course, would account for a very considerable part of the apparent disparity between the property value and the annual production, because an unquestionable deficiency in the reported products occurs in the following particulars, for which the Censustakers are not responsible: The population of the United States for every Census-year, is the official return for the date. For other years it is estimated by Tucker's rule of 3 per cent. increase per annum, except for the loyal States in 1863, to which his rule does not apply. In time of peace, with immigration at its average rate, the loyal States would have had a population of 24,500,000 in June, 1863; but allowing half a million for loss by the casualties of war, deficiency of births, and of customary immigration, considerably too large an allowance,would leave 24,000,000 as we have stated it. In the number given to the loyal States in 1860, the Census returns for that year are exactly followed, the counties which now constitute West Virginia being included. 5. British debt. The authority for the amount of British debt and annual charge (interest and management), is the financial reports presented to Parliament and published by order of the House of Commons, except for the year ending March 31, 1863, which is taken from the Royal Almanac for 1864, in which, however, the capital of the unfunded debt is not given. We have calculated it from the rates of interest which its items severally bear. It must be observed that the Exchequer bills required to meet deficiencies of the last quarter of the current year, and which are issued in the first quarter of the ensuing year, are not included in the first statement of the debt and interest. This deficiency was, in March, 1862, nearly 2,000,000 pounds sterling. Moreover, very considerable differences of the total amount of the debt and annual charge are met with in the best authorities. Some of them capitalize the terminable annuities, adding the amount to the "debt;" some chargo them to the annual interest account, and some overlook them. Properly they have no principal, nor do they represent the interest of cash bor rowed and paid into the Exchequer. They generally express the depreciation of loans, or part of the depreciation of loans sold at a nominal price above their market value. Generally, they are compensatory payments. Nevertheless their arithmetical principal is as much a part of the debt proper as are the consols, which are perpetual annuities, have no principal demandable by the holders, and whose capital is simply the marketprice at which they sell at the brokers board. They differ from the United States debt in this, that the Exchequer is under no contract to pay or reimburse the capital of the debt at any time. The very considerable variance of the debt and annual charge in 1858 and 1861, was occasioned by the expiry of terminable annuities in 1859 and 1860. They take no account of the current consumption of our agriculturists and of their families and employees. In 1840, this class amounted to three-fourths of the total population, and approached the same proportion in 1850; nor are any manufacturing or mechanical products of the year returned whose annual value falls below $500. Beside all this, which probably amounts to one-fourth of the total annual product, no account is taken of the labor employed in clearing and improving land, in building railroads, canals, houses, manufactories, steamships, and other vessels; nor of the labor employed in coal-mines; nothing of the products of the fine arts, nor of a large portion of the products of the useful arts; all of which may be very safely stated as equal to half the value of the agricultural and manufacturing products noticed by the Census-takers. Some of these appear in the valuation of the property of the country in the decennial Census The increase of the capital of the debt in 1858 appraisements, and help to swell the obvious dis- over its amount in 1850 was produced by a loan parity. The very considerable increase of the of £16,000,000 taken in April, 1855, by the Messrs. values of 1863 over those of 1860, is owing to the Rothschild at the rate of £100 in consols for every fact that the growth of wealth in the loyal States £100 cash subscribed, and a terminable annuity is so much greater than the average enhancement for thirty years of 148. 6d. for every £100 of stock, in the whole Union before the severance of the-that is, at the rate of 3.725 per cent. for thirty estimates given in the tabular statement. The years, and 3 per cent. thereafter. This is reckoned most surprising of our statements are precisely as equivalent to a loan in consols at 87, which is those which have been most carefully considered the same thing as saying that the loan was con and best verified. tracted at 3.425 per cent. The increase of the debt in 1863 over the amount in 1860-1, may be accounted for by an excess of expenditure over ordinary revenue in 1861 and 1862, resulting, in 1863, in an increase of the total debt of about $15,000,000. 4. Population column. No official enumeration of the people of England, Wales, and Scotland was made previons to the year 1801, and no complete enumeration in Ireland till 1821. The population of the United Kingdom for other years statel, is obtained by calculation. The annual charge in 1863 was lessened as com |