resources, our people for the means of protection. It is a stupendous act of legislation, and, as such, should be approached with profound, mature, and disinterested deliberation.

All this we believe a tariff act to be, and if accused of exaggeration, appeal to any reflecting mind in full confidence of a favourable verdict.

Such, and so important in its consequences, being a tariff act, we apprehend that it demands pre-eminently three things: stability, precision and definiteness in its terms, and an extensive and minute enumeration of the articles subjected to duty or prohibited; in every one of which requisites, our tariff acts have been pre-eminently defective. In fact, the source from which they emanate, and the process by which they find their way into our statute books, render it almost an impossibility that they should be otherwise.

The principles of the proposed system are first examined and settled in the counting room or manufactory, as the case may be, and delivered to some counsel learned in the law, to be framed into an act. In due time it is presented to the proper committee in congress, and by them reported to the house. A day is appointed to discuss its merits; all parties prepare for war; addresses, memorials, petitions, remonstrances, pour in from every quarter; the question is fully discussed in anticipation; and on the important day our legislators repeat to each other what their petitioners and remonstrants have repeated to them. Clause after clause is altered, amended or stricken out, and in due season the bill becomes a law; but so changed, that its best friends are ready to disown it. The precision of its terms, its definiteness, its consistency, if it ever had any, are destroyed; and then, composed of two or three sections, in which a hundred articles out of the ten thousand of daily importation are specifically enumerated, and the remainder embraced or attempted so to be, under general heads, it is delivered to the comptroller for an explanation. The great duty has been performed-a new machine is set in motion, and congress disperses to watch its operations. Here, however, the difficulty but begins: by the next arrival, an article is introduced not specified in the act, and dutyable under several of its general clauses; the merchant and the collector differ in opinion, and the treasury, as the legal expounder of our tariff acts, is resorted to. After some delay, a decision is made, which, from the inherent difficulties of the case, is considered the mere ipse dixit of the department, and satisfactory to nei ther party. In the mean time the same article is introduced in another port, at a lower rate of duty, and the market in the Vol. I. Ño. VI.

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first effectually ruined. The act is found to be but a blind guide, open to all the objections of all parties, and capable of such construction as may suit the most opposite interests.

The grand error on this subject we believe to be, poverty of information in our legislators: they are, and they must be, ignorant of, or but imperfectly acquainted with, ten thousand of the articles upon which they legislate; and what information they have must be gained from foreign, and in many cases interested sources. They, too, as their laws testify, in common with the generality of men, are too apt to consider technical names as having but one plain definite meaning, and that, too, almost as precise as a mathematical truth, and consequently, to stand in no need of explanation. That this is a delusion, needs but a moment's consideration on the prodigious effects resulting from the genius and operations of multitudes, each one devoted to the improvement of some particular art; the intermixture of foreign substances, the change of material, the alteration of form, of feature and of use, and the thousand new operations to which articles of daily importation may thereby be subjected, and the effect too of common usage upon terms of common application. And we believe also, that such an examination would lead any candid mind to the result, that a legislative hall is not the place to form a tariff act; that no popular assembly ever can be collected in our country, necessarily subjected from its very form of government to party feeling and sectional interest, whose members may be considered masters of the art. Accordingly, every one of these acts, from the first to the last, is strongly marked with this feature; and as from the great extent of sea coast and border our collective districts are numerous, and furnish an army of interpreters, the consequences to our mercantile community are curious, and, in the generality of cases, oppressive.

For a series of years, sheet brass was introduced into Philadelphia free, and India Madrass handkerchiefs into Boston at 15 per cent.; while New-York paid in one case 15, and in the other 25 per cent. Our port became in consequence a shut port to these articles, and we paid 10 and 15 per cent. profit to our neighbours, under a law professing to bear equally upon all. A similar practice existed with regard to saffron. We might point out a number of other discrepancies in the former laws; but as the act of 1824 has its full proportion, at least sufficient to establish our position, we shall make a few observations on its provisions.

The intention of its framers, as a rule of construction, is, we regret to say, of frequent application in the explanation of

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this act; but what that intention is, is not so easily ascertained. As it is to be gathered from the debates in congress, a very general belief is, that the law was made for the encouragement of our domestic manufactures and the industry of the country, and that, consequently, whenever this rule of construction is applicable, this object is to be kept constantly in view, as the governing principle. Another party, however, contends that it is a simple revenue bill, and always to be construed in favour of the government, without reference to any other question. As the one or the other principle is adopted, very important consequences result in many cases to the commercial interests. For example: by the 1st section of the act, a duty of 30 per cent. ad valorem is imposed on all manufactures of wool, or of which wool shall be a component part, with certain exceptions, to wit, worsted stuff goods and blankets, which pay 25; the 2d clause of the same section imposes a duty of 25 per cent. ad valorem on all manufactures, not specified, of cotton, flax or hemp, or of which either of these materials shall be a component part, and on all manufactures of silk, or of which silk shall be a component material, coming from beyond the Cape of Good Hope; on all other manufactures of silk, or of which silk shall be a component material, 20 per cent.

A mixed article, we will suppose composed of silk, cotton, and a small proportion of wool is introduced, and we assume for a moment, that the United States have not the capacity, from climate or some other cause, of manufacturing this article. Now, in ascertaining the duty on this article three different rules of construction are contended for; one, that the act is a revenue act, and therefore though there may be but a handful of wool in 10 yards of the manufacture, it is subject to the higher duty of 30 per cent., in order that the lower may not overrule the higher rate of duty, wool being a component part, and the act to be construed strictly in favour of government. The second, that the act was made for the encouragement of our domestic manufactures; and that, inasmuch as the article cannot be manufactured in this country, the intentions of congress will not be answered by the imposition of the wool duty of 30 per cent. on an article composed principally of silk; that such imposition would be oppressive, and that therefore the article is subject to the lower duty, on silk, as the regulating material. The third, without taking into view either of these principles, contend that silk, as the last in enumeration in the order of the bill, must be considered as an exception to the articles which precede it; and that, therefore, this manufac

ture, under any circumstances, and in all cases, would be subject to the lower duty of 25 or 20 per cent.

The general principles of construction are not only unsettled. and doubtful, but the act abounds in defects as to its minutiæ. Stuff goods, for instance, is a term of very unsettled meaning; so much so, that while a piece of stuff goods imported in the piece, pays by law a duty of 25 per cent., the same article, by the simple process of cutting and stamping, has been declared to lose its distinctive character, and to be subject to a higher duty as a "woollen manufacture."

In the same clause blankets are also excepted from the woollen duty. There can be no question but that congress meant to include blanketting, and yet so imperfectly is this intention expressed, that while a rose blanket is subject to but 25, blankets imported by the running yard pay 5 per cent. additional.

Carpets and carpeting are subjected to 50, 25, and 20 cents per square yard. We are by no means certain that rugs are not fairly classible under this head. If they be so, the practical result would be to subject this costly and valuable article to a duty of only about 12 per cent., while all other carpeting would pay at least three tines as much.

In the same section, we find the clause "on iron cables or chains, or parts thereof, 3 cents per pound, and no drawback shall be allowed on the exportation of iron cables or parts thereof." A question has arisen whether this clause does not impose a duty of 3 cents per pound on all chains. The Treasury has decided in the negative. As inhabitants of a commercial city, we rejoice in this decision; but were we manufacturers of trace chains, we should contend totis viribus, upon the argument that the act is a revenue act, and upon the authority of the exception contained in the latter part of the clause, that this decision violated all the rules of construction; and, more › especially, as the duty upon this article would, by reversing the decision, be increased to between 40 and 50 per cent. It is to be observed, too, that there are no limits in the clause withholding drawback, and that where a collector may err in construction, he may, at least, find a prima facie reason for refusing the drawback upon iron cables, imported before the passing of the act, upon the faith of government, and with an express view to exportation.

Farther; in the same section, " on laced boots or bootees 50 cents per pair;" we defy any man to explain this as it stands f whether the duty is imposed on laced boots or laced bootees, or on laced boots, and bootees whether laced or not.

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By the same act, cut glass, and all other glass, except window glass, bottles, vials and demijohns, is subjected to duty by weight; now there are a number of articles of extensive importation, made up of glass and some other materials, particularly, small looking glasses with paper frames, and glass knobs for furniture. In the strict execution of the law, the officers of government are compelled to do one of three things, in ascertaining the amount of this duty, either to separate the materials, or to charge duty on one or the other alone; the first is an impossibility, and the other two are frauds upon the government or the importer.""

On coach laces, &c. 35 per centum ad valorem ; on all other laces 121 per centum ad valorem." We are satisfied that had our legislators been possessed of a proper degree of information on this subject, this duty could not have been thus regulated. By the former act, thread lace was subject to but 7 per cent.; the coarser kinds to higher rates. The distinction was wisely and properly drawn, 7 per cent. being exactly that maximum which this article can bear with a due regard to the interest of the fair trader and public revenue. Five thousand dollars worth of this article can be concealed about the person without exciting suspicion; and the direct consequence must be, that this article will be driven into contraband channels, and the government, instead of receiving 71 per cent. on its introduction, will be deprived of this revenue entirely, while it demands but 12 per cent. on articles which can easily bear 25 or 30.

There is yet a long list of articles upon which the duty is still entirely unsettled, principally of mixed manufacture, and other articles of extensive consumption, and well understood, when taken individually, which in consequence of the general clauses of this and the former acts, have been enveloped in doubt and uncertainty. Perfumes are some of the most important; the distinction between those articles and medicine, has never been well understood at our Custom Houses, and they are known to be so indiscriminately applied, particularly the whole class of essential oils, that the duties have been generally imposed rather on the importer than the article. Thus, essential oils, when entered by a perfumer, pay duty as perfumes, when by a druggist, as medicine; consequently, the one pays a profit to the other on articles strictly within his own line.

We might go on and point out a number of other defects in the present act, ambiguities both patent and latent, to use a legal phrase, but we refer our readers to their friends the importers, and we promise them a rich harvest of grievances. To remedy these evils, it has been proposed to impose the