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REPORT ON MANUFACTURES
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ALEXANDER HAMILTON'S
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Report on Manufactures
MAR
FAMOUS
ART-PUB.CO.
Co-
Made to Congress December 5. 1791,
IN HIS CAPACITY AS
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ī
SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY.
POTTER Publishing Co., BOSTON.
BOSTON, 1892:
PUBLISHED BY THE HOME MARKET CLUB,
Price, Postpaid, 20 Cents.
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​U. 8. Treasury dept.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON'S
FAMOUS
Report on Manufactures
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MADE TO CONGRESS
December 5, 1791,
In His Capacity as Secretary of the Treasury.
hahahaha
*
PROTECTION LITERATURE
Issued by the Home Market Club, Boston.
THE
HE HOME MARKET CLUB is a charted na permanent
organization, whose motto is "American Wages for American
Workmen, American Markets for the American People, Protection
for American Homes." From its organization, in 1887, to January,
1892, it issued protection literature equivalent to 25,000,000 pamphlet
pages. Among its documents are the following:
Condensed History of American Tariffs. By HON. JAMes G.
BLAINE
Labor Abroad; What SENATOR FRYE saw, and other Authentic
Information about Wages and Living in Europe and Asia,
Points from History and Experience upon the Effects of a
Protective Tariff. By J. R. LEESON
Plain Tariff Truths, for Workingmen, published in English,
French, German, Danish, Italian, and Hebrew
The American Policy, being MCKINLEY'S Speech in Congress
for the McKinley Bill
Free Trade Toilers; An American's Tour Among England's
Masses. By NATHANIEL MCKAY
Protection not Taxation; Constitutional and Historical Points.
By GEORGE BABER, a Southern Democrat
Wage Earners and How Protection Benefits Them; Wages,
Cost of Living, Savings Under both Tariff Systems;
Handy Pocket Folder
•
•
Moral Aspect of Protection, and How it Helps the Wage
Worker and Farmer. By HON. J. H. WALKER
The National Republican Platform, 1888
Manufacturers and the Tariff, by GEN. WILLIAM F. Draper,
with Addenda showing Relative Profits and Wages
Two Kinds of Tariff Protective and Free Trade. Speech of
HON. WM. MCKINLEY, JR., in Boston, November 19, 1891;
with Portrait and Addenda
The Trap for New England; a Masterly Expose. Speech of
SENATOR ALDRICH of Rhode Island, in Boston, Nov. 19,
1891
Economy of Production under Free Trade Tariffs and Protec-
tive Tariffs. An address at Brown University. By DAVID
HALL RIGE
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Pages Per 1,000
S
$2.00
24
46
24
32
16
24
со
32
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HOME MARKET CLUB,
56 Bedford St., Boston, Mass.
7.00
8.00
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8.00
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THE HOME MARKET BULLETIN
It
Published monthly, contains a variety of matter on the latest phases
of the perpetual struggle between Protection and Free Trade.
supplies points for argument. Only 50 cents a year; half price to
clubs of four or more, and they will be sent to separate addresses.
Send it to your friends. This is the best and cheapest possible way
to make Protectionists. Address the
Vignaud
2-6-28
INTRODUCTION.
A
S ALEXANDER HAMILTON is generally recognized as
the father of the protective system in America, it is well
for all students of this branch of political economy to go
to the fountain-head. His famous Report on Manufactures has
long been out of print, except in the volumes of his works. To
meet a popular demand, this more convenient pamphlet is issued.
Much of the fore part is devoted to arguments against the
widely prevalent theory of his time that manufactures were harm-
ful to society, and that a purely agricultural country would be
happiest and best. This has no bearing to-day, but is of interest,
as showing how, even then, foreign influence had worked for the
advantage of European manufacturers upon the American mind.
The latter part abounds in points almost equally pertinent
to-day, and sheds light upon the conditions of manufactures and
of ocean freights which shows that the nominally low ad valorem
rates of the earlier tariffs were relatively higher and more protec-
tive than the increased duties of the present.
The portrait is from a picture by Trumbull, painted in 1792 for
Mr. George. Cabot. This portrait has always remained in the
possession of Mr. Cabot's descendants, and was engraved for the
first time for Hamilton's Works, that were edited by Hon. Henry
Cabot Lodge, and published in the Statemen's Series by G. P.
Putnam's Sons, in 1885.
In the preface to that admirable edition, Mr. Lodge says:
The influence of the policy of Washington's administration upon
the establishment and development of this great nation of ours can-
not be over-estimated. Much of that policy was due to Hamilton
alone, and in all parts of it he made himself deeply felt. Hamilton's
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greatest work was in creating, forming, and guiding a powerful pub-
lic opinion in support of a national system, and the sentiment thus
brought into being went steadily on, with ever-increasing force, until
it prevailed over all its enemies. No statesman in our history has
ever swayed so many of the leading men among his contemporaries
as Hamilton; and, at the same time, he appealed with his pen to the
largest popular audience of any man of his time. He was the first
teacher in the school of national politics.
But there is another side to Hamilton's writings which makes them
of even wider and more lasting worth than their effect upon the peo-
ple of the United States. This is their intrinsic merit, as contributions
to the philosophy or science of government, as well as to finance and
political economy. These were questions much meditated upon at
the close of the eighteenth century, and they have engaged the best
attention of the civilized world ever since. Hamilton ranks as one
of the great thinkers in the days when political economy and the
huge mechanism of modern finance came into being. He stands
conspicuous in that all-important period, and in that broad field of
thought, side by side with such men as Turgot, Pitt, and Adam
Smith; and he does not suffer by comparison with these contempo-
raries, either in force and originality of ideas, or in practical success.
He studied Adam Smith, and then wrote the Report on Manufac-
tures, developing the theory as to the protection of nascent industries.
in its application to the United States, and standing firmly on the
doctrine that this was a question which each nation must decide for
itself.
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MANUFACTURES.
Communicated to the House of Representatives, Dec. 5, 1791.
TH
HE Secretary of the Treasury, in obedience to the order of
the House of Representatives, of the 15th day of January,
1790, has applied his attention, at as early a period as his
other duties would permit, to the subject of Manufactures, and
particularly to the means of promoting such as will tend to render
the United States independent on foreign nations for military and
other essential supplies; and he thereupon respectfully submits.
the following report:
The expediency of encouraging manufactures in the United
States, which was not long since deemed very questionable, ap-
pears at this time to be pretty generally admitted. The embar-
rassments which have obstructed the progress of our external
trade, have led to serious reflections on the necessity of enlarging
the sphere of our domestic commerce.) The restrictive regula-
tions, which, in foreign markets, abridge the vent of the increasing
surplus of our agricultural produce, serve to beget an earnest
desire that a more extensive demand for that surplus may be
created at home; and the complete success which has rewarded
manufacturing enterprise in some valuable branches, conspiring
with the promising symptoms which attend some less mature
essays in others, justify a hope that the obstacles to the growth of
this species of industry are less formidable than they were appre-
hended to be, and that it is not difficult to find, in its further
extension, a full indemnification for any external disadvantages,
which are or may be experienced, as well as an accession of
resources favorable to national independence and safety.
There still are, nevertheless, respectable patrons of opinions
unfriendly to the encouragement of manufactures. The following
are, substantially, the arguments by which these opinions are
defended:
"In every country (say those who entertain them) agriculture
is the most beneficial and productive object of human industry.
This position, generally if not universally true, applies with pecu-
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liar emphasis to the United States, on account of their immense
tracts of fertile territory, uninhabited and unimproved. Nothing
can afford so advantageous an employment for capital and labor,
as the conversion of this extensive wilderness into cultivated farms.
Nothing, equally with this, can contribute to the population,
strength, and real riches of the country.
"To endeavor, by the extraordinary patronage of government,
to accelerate the growth of manufactures, is, in fact, to endeavor,
by force and art, to transfer the natural current of industry from a
more to a less beneficial channel. Whatever has such a tendency
must necessarily be unwise; indeed it can hardly ever be wise in
a government to attempt to give a direction to the industry of its
citizens. This, under the quick-sighted guidance of private inter-
est, will, if left to itself, infallibly find its own way to the most
profitable employment; and it is by such employment, that the
public prosperity will be most effectually promoted. To leave
industry to itself, therefore, is, in almost every case, the soundest
as well as the simplest policy.
"This policy is not only recommended to, the United States by
considerations which effect all nations; it is, in a manner, dictated
to them by the imperious force of a very peculiar situation. The
smallness of their population compared with their territory; the
constant allurements to emigration from the settled to the un-
settled parts of the country; the facility with which the less inde-
pendent condition of an artisan can be exchanged for the more
independent condition of a farmer, these and similar causes
conspire to produce, and, for a length of time, must continue to
occasion, a scarcity of hands for manufacturing occupation, and
dearness of labor generally. To these disadvantages for the
prosecution of manufactures, a deficiency of pecuniary capital
being added, the prospect of a successful competition with the
manufactures of Europe, must be regarded as little less than
desperate. Extensive manufactures can only be the offspring of
a redundant, at least of a full, population. Till the latter shall
characterize the situation of this country, 'tis fain to hope for the
former.
"If, contrary to the natural course of things, an unseasonable and
premature spring can be given to certain fabrics, by heavy duties,
prohibitions, bounties, or by other forced expedients, this will
only be to sacrifice the interests of the community to those of
particular classes. Besides the misdirection of labor, a virtual
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monopoly will be given to the persons employed on such fabrics;
and an enhancement of price, the inevitable consequence of every
monopoly, must be defrayed at the expense of the other parts of
society. It is far preferable that those persons should be engaged
in the cultivation of the earth, and that we should procure in
exchange for its productions, the commodities with which foreign-
ers are able to supply us in greater perfection and upon better
terms."
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This mode of reasoning is founded upon facts and principles
which have certainly respectable pretensions. If it had governed
the conduct of nations more generally than it has done, there is
room to suppose that it might have carried them faster to pros-
perity and greatness than they have attained by the pursuit of
maxims too widely opposite. Most general theories, however,
admit of numerous exceptions, and there are few, if any, of the
political kind, which do not blend a considerable portion of error
with the truths they inculcate.
In order to an accurate judgment how far that which has been
just stated ought to be deemed liable to a similar imputation, it is
necessary to advert carefully to the considerations which plead in
favor of manufactures, and which appear to recommend the
special and positive encouragement of them in certain cases and
under certain reasonable limitations.)
It ought readily to be conceded that the cultivation of the
earth, as the primary and most certain source of national supply,
as the immediate and chief source of subsistence to man, as the
principal source of those materials which constitute the nutriment
of other kinds of labor, as including a state most favorable to the
freedom and independence of the human mind-one, perhaps,
most conducive to the multiplication of the human species, has
intrinsically a strong claim to pre-eminence over every other kind
of industry.
But that it has a title to anything like an exclusive predilection
in any country, ought to be admitted with great caution; that it is
even more productive than every other branch of industry, requires
more evidence than has yet been given in support of the position.
That its real interests, precious and important, as without the help
of exaggeration they truly are, will be advanced rather than in-
jured by the due encouragement of manufactures, may, it is be-
lieved, be satisfactorily demonstrated. And it is also believed
that the expediency of such encouragement, in a general view,
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may be shown to be recommended by the most cogent and per-
suasive motives of national policy.
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It has been maintained that agriculture is not only the most
productive, but the only productive, species of industry, The
reality of this suggestion, in other respects, has, however, not been
verified by any accurate detail of facts and calculations; and the
general arguments which are adduced to prove it are subtle and
paradoxical, rather than solid or convincing.
Those which maintain its exclusive productiveness are to this
effect:
Labor bestowed upon the cultivation of land produces enough
not only to replace all the necessary expenses incurred in the
business, and to maintain the persons who are employed in it, but
to afford, together with the ordinary profit on the stock or capital
of the farmer, a net surplus or rent for the landlord or proprietor
of the soil. But the labor of artificers does nothing more than
replace the stock which employs them (or which furnishes mate-
rials, tools, and wages), and yields the ordinary profit upon that
stock. It yields nothing equivalent to the rent of land; neither
does it add anything to the total value of the whole annual pro-
duce of the land and labor of the country. The additional value
given to those parts of the produce of land which are wrought
into manufactures, is counterbalanced by the value of those other
parts of that produce which are consumed by the manufacturers.
It can, therefore, only be by saving or parsimony, not by the posi-
tive productiveness of their labor, that the classes of artificers
can, in any degree, augment the revenue of the society.
To this it has been answered:
I. "That, inasmuch as it is acknowledged that manufacturing
labor reproduces a value equal to that which is expended or con-
sumed in carrying it on, and continues in existence the original
stock or capital employed, it ought, on that account alone, to es-
cape being considered as wholly unproductive. That, though it
should be admitted, as alleged, that the consumption of the pro-
duct of the soil, by the classes of artificers or manufacturers, is
exactly equal to the value added by their labor to the materials
upon which it is exerted, yet it would not thence follow that it
added nothing to the revenue of the society, or to the aggregate
value of the annual produce of its land and labor. If the con-
sumption, for any given period, amounted to a given sum, and the
increased value of the produce manufactured, in the same period,
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to a like sum, the total amount of the consumption and produc-
tion, during that period, would be equal to the two sums, and
consequently double the value of the agricultural produce con-
sumed, and though the increment of value produced by the
classes of artificers should at no time exceed the value of the pro-
duce of the land consumed by them, yet there would be, at every
moment, in consequence of their labor, a greater value of goods
in the market than would exist independent of it."
2. "That the position, that artificers can augment the revenue
of a society only by parsimony, is true in no other sense than in
one which is equallly applicable to husbandmen or cultivators. It
may be alike affirmed of all these classes, that the fund acquired
by their labor and destined for their support is not, in an ordinary
way, more than equal to it. And hence it will follow that aug-
mentations of the wealth or capital of the community (except in
the instances of some extraordinary dexterity or skill) can only
proceed, with respect to any of them, from the savings of the
more thrifty and parsimonious.”
3. "That the annual produce of the land and labor of a country
can only be increased in two ways— by some improvement in the
productive powers of the useful labor which actually exists within
it, or by some increase in the quantity of such labor. That, with
regard to the first, the labor of artificers being capable of greater
subdivision and simplicity of operation than that of cultivators, it
is susceptible, in a proportionably greater degree, of improvement
in its productive powers, whether to be derived from an accession.
of skill or from the application of ingenious machinery; in which
particular, therefore, the labor employed in the culture of land
can pretend to no advantage over that engaged in manufactures.
That, with regard to an augmentation of the quantity of useful
labor, this, excluding adventitious circumstances, must depend es-
sentially upon an increase of capital, which again must depend
upon the savings made out of the revenues of those who furnish
or manage that which is at any time employed, whether in agri-
culture or in manufactures, or in any other way."
But while the exclusive productiveness of agricultural labor has
been thus denied and refuted, the superiority of its productiveness
has been conceded without hesitation. As this concession involves
a point of considerable magnitude, in relation to maxims of public
administration, the grounds on which it rests are worthy of a dis-
tinct and particular examination.
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One of the arguments made use of in support of the idea may
be pronounced both quaint and superficial. It amounts to this:
That, in the productions of the soil, nature co-operates with man;
and that the effect of their joint labor must be greater than that
of the labor of man alone.
This, however, is far from being a necessary inference. It is
very conceivable that the labor of man alone, laid out upon a
work requiring great skill and art to bring it to perfection, may be
more productive, in value, than the labor of nature and man com-
bined, when directed toward more simple operations and objects;
and when it is recollected to what an extent the agency of nature,
in the application of the mechanical powers, is made auxiliary to
the prosecution of manufactures, the suggestion which has been
noticed loses even the appearance of plausibility.
It might also be observed, with a contrary view, that the labor
employed in agriculture is, in a great measure, periodical and oc-
casional, depending on seasons, and liable to various and long in-
termissions, while that occupied in many manufactures is constant.
and regular, extending through the year, embracing, in some in-
stances, night as well as day. It is also probable that there are,
among the cultivators of land, more examples of remissness than
among artificers. The farmer, from the peculiar fertility of his
land, or some other favorable circumstance, may frequently obtain
a livelihood, even with a considerable degree of carelessness in the
mode of cultivation; but the artisan can with difficulty effect the
same object without exerting himself pretty equally with all those
who are engaged in the same pursuit. And if it may likewise be
assumed as a fact that manufactures open a wider field to exer-
tions of ingenuity than agriculture, it would not be a strained con-
jecture that the labor employed in the former, being at once more
constant, more uniform and more ingenious than that which is
employed in the latter, will be found, at the same time, more
productive.
But it is not meant to lay stress on observations of this nature;
they ought only to serve as a counterbalance to those of a simi-
lar complexion. Circumstances so vague and general, as well
as so abstract, can afford little instruction in a matter of this
kind.
Another, and that which seems to be the principal argument
offered for the superior productiveness of agricultural labor, turns
upon the allegation that labor employed upon manufactures yields
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nothing equivalent to the rent of the land, or to that net surplus,
as it is called, which accrues to the proprietor of the soil.
But this distinction, important as it has been deemed, appears,
rather verbal than substantial.:
It is easily discernable that'what, in the first instance, is divided
into two parts, under the denominations of the ordinary profit of
the stock of the farmer and rent to the landlord, is, in the second
instance, united under the general appellation of the ordinary
profit on the stock of the undertaker; and that this formal or
verbal distribution constitutes the whole difference in the two
cases. It seems to have been overlooked that the land is itself a
stock or capital, advanced or lent by its owner to the occupier or
tenant, and that the rent he receives is only the ordinary profit of
a certain stock in land, not managed by the proprietor himself,
but by another, to whom he lends or lets it, and who, on his part,
advances a second capital, to stock and improve the land, upon
which he also receives the usual profit. (The rent of the landlord
and the profit of the farmer are, therefore, nothing more than the
ordinary profits of two capitals belonging to two different per-
sons, and united in the cultivation of a farm; as, in the other
case, the surplus which arises upon any manufactory, after repla-
cing the expenses of carrying it on, answers to the ordinary profits
of one or more capitals engaged in the prosecution of such man-
ufactory. It is said one or more capitals, because, in fact, the
same thing which is contemplated in the case of the farm, some-
times happens in that of a manufactory. There is one who fur-
nishes a part of the capital or lends a part of the money by which
it is carried on, and another who carries it on with an addition of
his own capital. Out of the surplus which remains after defray-
ing expenses, an interest is paid to the money lender, for the por-
tion of the capital furnished by him, which exactly agrees with
the rent paid to the landlord; and the residue of that surplus con-
stitutes the profit of the undertaker or manufacturer, and agrees
with what is denominated the ordinary profits on the stock of the
farmer. Both together make the ordinary profits of two capitals
employed in a manufactory; as, in the other case, the rent of the
landlord and the revenue of the farmer compose the ordinary
profits of two capitals employed in the cultivation of a farm.
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( The rent, therefore, accruing to the proprietor of the land, far
from being a criterion of exclusive productiveness, as has been
argued, is no criterion even of superior productiveness.) The
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question must still be whether the surplus, after defraying ex-
penses, of a given capital, employed in the purchase and improve-
ment of a piece of land, is greater or less than that of a like
capital, employed in the prosecution of a manufactory; or whether
the whole value produced from a given capital, and a given quan-
tity of labor, employed in one way, be greater or less than the
whole value produced from an equal capital and an equal quantity
of labor, employed in the other way; or rather, perhaps, whether
the business of agriculture or that of manufactures will yield the
greater product, according to the compound ratio of the quantity
of the capital and the quantity of labor which are employed in the
one or in the other.
The solution of either of these questions is not easy; it involves
numerous and complicated details, depending on an acurate knowl-
edge of the objects to be compared. It is not known that the
comparison has ever yet been made upon sufficient data, properly
ascertained and analyzed. To be able to make it, on the present
occasion, with satisfactory precision, would demand more previous.
inquiry and investigation than there has been, hitherto, either
leisure or opportunity to accomplish.
Some essays, however, have been made toward acquiring the
requisite information, which have rather served to throw doubt
upon, than to confirm, the hypothesis under examination. But it
ought to be acknowledged that they have been too little diversi-
fied, and are too imperfect to authorize a definite conclusion,
either way; leading rather to probable conjecture than to certain.
deduction. They render it probable that there are various
branches of manufactures, in which a given capital yields a greater
total product, and a considerably greater net product, than an
equal capital invested in the purchase and improvement of lands;
and that there are also some branches, in which both the gross
and the net produce will exceed that of agricultural industry, ac-
cording to a compound ratio of capital and labor. But it is on
this last point that there appears to be the greatest room for doubt.
It is far less difficult to infer generally, that the net produce of
capital engaged in manufacturing enterprises is greater than that
of capital engaged in agriculture.
The foregoing suggestions are not designed to inculcate an
opinion that manufacturing industry is more productive than that
of agriculture. They are intended rather to show that the reverse
of this proposition is not ascertained; that the general arguments
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which are brought to establish it are not satisfactory; and, con-
sequently, that a supposition of the superior productiveness of til-
lage ought to be no obstacle to listening to any substantial induce-
ments to the encouragement of manufactures, which may be other-
wise perceived to exist, through an apprehension that they may
have a tendency to divert labor from a more to a less profitable
employment.
It is extremely probable that, on a full and accurate develop-
ment of the matter, on the ground of fact and calculation, it would
be discovered that there is no material difference between the
aggregate productiveness of the one and of the other kind of in-
dustry; and that the propriety of the encouragements which may,
in any case, be proposed to be given to either, ought to be deter-
mined upon considerations irrelative to any comparison of that
nature.
But, without contending for the superior productiveness of
manufacturing industry, it may conduce to a better judgment of
the policy which ought to be pursued respecting its encourage-
ment, to contemplate the subject under some additional aspects,
tending not only to confirm the idea that this kind of industry has
been improperly represented as unproductive in itself, but to
evince, in addition, that the establishment and diffusion of manu-
factures have the effect of rendering the total mass of useful and
productive labor, in a community, greater than it would otherwise
be. In prosecuting this discussion, it may be necessary briefly to
resume and review some of the topics which have been already
touched.
To affirm that the labor of the manufacturer is unproductive,
because he consumes as much of the produce of land as he adds
value to the raw material which he manufactures, is not better
founded than it would be to affirm that the labor of the farmer,
which furnishes materials to the manufacturer, is unproductive,
because he consumes an equal value of manufactured articles.
Each furnishes a certain portion of the produce of his labor to the
other, and each destroys a corresponding portion of the produce
of the labor of the other. In the mean time, the maintenance of
two citizens, instead of one, is going on; the State has two mem-
bers instead of one; and they, together, consume twice the value
of what is produced from the land.
If, instead of a farmer and artificer, there were a farmer only,
he would be under the necessity of devoting a part of his labor to
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the fabrication of clothing and other articles, which he would pro-
cure of the artificer, in the case of there being such a person; and
of course, he would be able to devote less labor to the cultivation
of his farm, and would draw from it a proportionately less pro-
duct. The whole quantity of production, in this state of things,
in provisions, raw materials, and manufactures, would certainly
not exceed in value the amount of what would be produced in
provisions and raw materials only, if there were an artificer as well
as a farmer.
Again, if there were both an artificer and a farmer, the latter
would be left at liberty to pursue exclusively the cultivation of his
farm. A greater quantity of provisions and raw materials would,
of course, be produced, equal, at least, as has been already ob-
served, to the whole amount of the provisions, raw materials, and
manufactures, which would exist in a contrary supposition. The
artificer, at the same time, would be going on in the production
of manufactured commodities, to an amount sufficient, not only to
repay the farmer, in those commodities, for the provisions and
materials which were procured from him, but to furnish the arti-
ficer himself with a supply of similar commodities for his own
use. Thus, then, there would be two quantities or values in ex-
istence, instead of one; and the revenue and consumption would
be double, in one case, what it would be in the other.
If, in the place of both of these suppositions, there were sup-
posed to be two farmers and no artificer, each of whom applied a
part of his labor to the culture of land and another part to the
fabrication of manufactures,—in this case, the portion of the labor
of both, bestowed upon land, would produce the same quantity of
provisions and raw materials only, as would be produced by the
entire sum of the labor of one, applied in the same manner; and
the portion of the labor of both, bestowed upon manufactures,
would produce the same quantity of manufactures only, as would
be produced by the entire sum of the labor of one, applied in the
same manner. Hence, the produce of the labor of the two farm-
ers would not be greater than the produce of the labor of the
farmer and artificer; and hence it results that the labor of the
artificer is as positively productive as that of the farmer, and ast
positively augments the revenue of the society.
The labor of the artificer replaces to the farmer that portion of
his labor with which he provides the materials of exchange with.
the artificer, and which he would otherwise have been compelled
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to apply to manufactures; and while the artificer thus enables the
farmer to enlarge his stock of agricultural industry, a portion of
which he purchases for his own use, he also supplies himself with
the manufactured articles of which he stands in need. He does
still more. Besides this equivalent, which he gives for the portion
of agricultural labor consumed by him, and this supply of manu-
factured commodities for his own consumption, he furnishes still a
surplus, which compensates for the use of the capital advanced,
either by himself or some other person, for carrying on the busi-
ness. This is the ordinary profit of the stock employed in the
manufactory, and is, in every sense, as effective an addition to the
income of society as the rent of land.
The produce of the labor of the artificer, consequently, may be
regarded as composed of three parts; one, by which the provi-
sions for his subsistence and the materials for his work are pur-
chased of the farmer; one, by which he supplies himself with
manufactured necessaries; and a third, which constitutes the
profit on the stock employed. The two last portions seem to
have been overlooked in the system which represents manufactu-
ring industry as barren and unproductive.
In the course of the preceding illustrations, the products of
equal quantities of the labor of the farmer and artificer have been
treated as if equal to each other. But this is not to be under-
stood as intending to assert any such precise equality. It is
merely a manner of expression, adopted for the sake of simplicity
and perspicuity. Whether the value of the produce of the labor
of the farmer be somewhat more or less than that of the artificer,
is not material to the main scope of the argument, which, hitherto,
has only aimed at showing that the one, as well as the other, oc-
casions a positive augmentation of the total produce and revenue
of the society.
It is now proper to proceed a step further, and to enumerate the
principal circumstances from which it may be inferred that manu-
facturing establishments not only occasion a positive augmentation
of the produce and revenue of the society, but that they contri-
bute essentially to rendering them greater than they could possibly
be without such establishments. These circumstances are:
1. The division of labor.
2. An extension of the use of machinery.
Ad
3. Additional employment to classes of the community not or-
dinarily engaged in business.
15
4. The promoting of immigration from foreign countries.
5. The furnishi
greater scope for the diversity of talents and
d spositions, which discriminate men from each other.
6. The affording a more ample and various field for enterprise.
7. The creating, in some instances, a new, and securing, in all,
a more certain and steady demand for the surplus produce of the
soil.
Each of these circumstances has a considerable influence upon
the total mass of industrious effort in a community; together, they
add to it a degree of energy and effect which is not easily con-
ceived. Some comments upon each of them, in the order in
which they have been stated, may serve to explain their impor-
tance.
1. As to the division of labor.
It has justly been observed that there is scarcely anything
of greater moment in the economy of a nation than the proper
division of labor. The separation of occupations causes each to
be carried to a much greater perfection than it could possibly
acquire if they were blended. This arises principally from three
circumstances:
I st. The greater skill and dexterity naturally resulting from a
constant and undivided application to a single object. It is evident
that these properties must increase in proportion to the separation
and simplification of objects, and the steadiness of the attention
devoted to each; and must be less in proportion to the complica-
tion of objects, and the number among which the attention is
distracted.
2d. The economy of time, by avoiding the loss of it, incident
to a frequent transition from one operation to another of a differ-
ent nature. This depends on various circumstances; the transi-
tion itself, the orderly disposition of the implements, machines,
and materials employed in the operation to be relinquished, the
preparatory steps to the commencement of a new one, the inter-
ruption of the impulse which the mind of a workman acquires
from being engaged in a particular operation, the distractions,
hesitations, and reluctances which attend the passage from one
kind of business to another.
3d. An extension of the use of machinery. A man occupied
on a single object will have it more in his power, and will be more
naturally led to exert his imagination, in devising methods to fa-
cilitate and abridge labor, than if he were perplexed by a variety
*
16
of independent and dissimilar operations. Besides this, the fabri-
cation of machines, in numerous instances, becoming itself a dis-
tinct trade, the artist who follows it has all the advantages which
have been enumerated for improvement in his particular art; and,
in both ways, the invention and application of machinery are ex-
tended.
And from these causes united, the mere separation of the oc-
cupation of the cultivator from that of the artificer, has the effect
of augmenting the productive powers of labor, and with them,
the total mass of the produce or revenue of a country. In this
single view of the subject, therefore, the utility of artificers or
manufacturers, towards promoting an increase of productive in-
dustry, is apparent.
2. As to an extension of the use of machinery, a point which,
though partly anticipated, requires to be placed in one or two addi-
tional lights.
The employment of machinery forms an item of great impor-
tance in the general mass of national industry. It is an artificial
force brought in aid of the natural force of man; and, to all the
purposes of labor, is an increase of hands, an accession of strength,
unencumbered too by the expense of maintaining the laborer.
May it not, therefore, be fairly inferred that those occupations
which give the greatest scope to the use of this auxiliary contrib-
ute most to the general stock of industrious effort, and, in con-
sequence, to the general product of industry?
It shall be taken for granted, and the truth of the position re-
ferred to observation, that manufacturing pursuits are susceptible,
in a greater degree, of the application of machinery, than those
of agriculture. If so, all the difference is lost to a community
which, instead of manufacturing for itself, procures the fabrics.
requisite to its supply from other countries. The substitution of
foreign for domestic manufactures is a transfer to foreign nations
of the advantages accruing from the employment of machinery,
in the modes in which it is capable of being employed with most
utility and to the greatest extent.
0
The cotton-mill, invented in England, within the last twenty
years, is a signal illustration of the general proposition which has
been just advanced. In consequence of it, all the different pro-
cesses for spinning cotton are performed by means of machines,
which are put in motion by water, and attended chiefly by women
and children and by a smaller number of persons, in the whole,
17
•
than are requisite in the ordinary mode of spinning. And it is
an advantage of great moment, that the operations of this mill
continue with convenience during the night as well as through the
day. The prodigious effect of such a machine is easily conceived.
To this invention is to be attributed, essentially, the immense prog-
ress which has been so suddenly made in Great Britain in the
various fabrics of cotton.
3. As to the additional employment of classes of the community
not originally engaged in the particular business.
This is not among the least valuable of the names by which
manufacturing institutions contribute to augment the general stock
of industry and production. In places where these institutions
prevail, besides the persons regularly engaged in them, they afford
occasional and extra employment to industrious individuals and
families, who are willing to devote the leisure resulting from the
intermissions of their ordinary pursuits to collateral labors, as a re-
source for multiplying their acquisitions or their enjoyments. The
husbandman himself experiences a new source of profit and sup-
port from the increased industry of his wife and daughters, invited
and stimulated by the demands of the neighboring manufactories.
Besides this advantage of occasional employment to classes
having different occupations, there is another, of a nature allied
to it and of a similar tendency. This is the employment of per-
sons who would otherwise be idle, and in many cases a burthen on
the community, either from the bias of temper, habit, infirmity of
body, or some other cause, indisposing or disqualifying them for
the toils of the country. It is worthy of particular remark that,
in general, women and children are rendered more useful, and the
latter more early useful, by manufacturing establishments, than
they would otherwise be. Of the number of persons employed
in the cotton manufactories of Great Britain, it is computed that
four-sevenths, nearly, are women and children, of whom the
greater proportion are children, and many of them of a tender age.
And thus it appears to be one of the attributes of manufactures,
and one of no small consequence, to give occasion to the exertion
of a greater quantity of industry, even by the same number of
persons, where they happen to prevail, than would exist if there
were no such establishments.
4. As to the promoting of immigration from foreign countries.
Men reluctantly quit one course of occupation and livelihood
for another, unless invited to it by very apparent and proximate
1
18
advantages. Many who would go from one country to another,
if they had a prospect of continuing with more benefit the callings
to which they have been educated, will often not be tempted to
change their situation by the hope of doing better in some other
way. Manufacturers who, listening to the powerful invitations of
å better price for their fabrics or their labor, of greater cheapness
of provisions, and raw materials, of an exemption from the chief
part of the taxes, burthens and restraints which they endure in the
Old World, of greater personal independence and consequence,
under the operation of a more equal government, and of what is
far more precious than mere religious toleration, a perfect quality
of religious privileges, would probably flock from Europe to the
United States, to pursue their own trades or professions, if they
were once made sensible of the advantages they would enjoy, and
were inspired with an assurance of encouragement and employ-
ment, will, with difficulty, be induced to transplant themselves,
with a view to becoming cultivators of land.
If it be true, then, that it is the interest of the United States to
open every possible avenue to emigration from abroad, it affords a
weighty argument for the encouragement of manufactures; which,
for the reasons just assigned, will have the strongest tendency to
multiply the inducements to it.
Here is perceived an important resource, not only for extending
the population, and with it the useful and productive labor of the
country, but likewise for the prosecution of manufactures, without
deducting from the number of hands which might otherwise be
drawn to tillage, and even for the indemnification of agriculture
for such as might happen to be diverted from it. Many, whom
manufacturing views would induce to emigrate, would, afterwards,
yield to the temptations which the particular situation of this
country holds out to agricultural pursuits. And while agriculture
would, in other respects, derive many signal and unmingled ad-
vantages from the growth of manufacturers, it is a problem
whether it would gain or lose, as to the article of the number of
persons employed in carrying it on.
5. As to the furnishing greater scope for the diversity of talents
and dispositions, which discriminate men from each other.
This is a much more powerful means of augmenting the fund of
national industry than may at first sight appear.
It is a just
observation, that minds of the strongest and most active powers
for their proper objects fall below mediocrity, and labor without
19
M
effect if confined to uncongenial pursuits. And it is thence to be
inferred, that the results of human exertion may be immensely
increased by diversifying its objects. When all the different kinds
of industry obtain in a community, each individual can find his
proper element, and can call into activity the whole vigor of his
nature. And the community is benefited by the services of its
respective members, in the manner in which each can serve it with
most effect.
If there be anything in a remark often to be met with, namely,
that there is, in the genius of the people of this country, a pecu-
liar aptitude for mechanic improvements, it would operate as a
forcible reason for giving opportunities to the exercise of that
species of talent, by the propagation of manufactures.
6. As to the affording a more ample and various field for enter-
prise.
This is also of greater consequence in the general scale of national
exertion than might, perhaps, on a superficial view, be supposed,
and has effects not altogether dissimilar from those of the circum-
stances last noticed. To cherish and stimulate the activity of the
human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not
among the least considerable of the expedients by which the
wealth of a nation may be promoted. Even things in themselves.
not positively advantageous sometimes become so, by their ten-
dency to provoke exertion. Every new scene which is opened to
the busy nature of man to rouse and exert itself, is the addition
of a new energy to the general stock of effort.
The spirit of enterprise, useful and prolific as it is, must neces-
sarily be contracted or expanded in proportion to the simplicity
or variety of the occupations and productions which are to be
found in a society. It must be less in a nation of mere cultivators
than in a nation of cultivators and merchants; less in a nation of
cultivators and merchants than in a nation of cultivators, artificers,
and merchants.
7. As to the creating, in some instances, a new, and securing, in
all, a more certain and steady demand for the surplus produce of
the soil.
This is among the most important of the circumstances which
have been indicated. It is a principal means by which the estab-
lishment of manufactures contributes to an augmentation of the
produce or revenue of a country, and has an immediate and di-,
rect relation to the prosperity of agriculture.
20
It is evident that the exertions of the husbandman will be
steady or fluctuating, vigorous or feeble, in proportion to the
steadiness or fluctuation, adequateness or inadequateness of the
markets on which he must depend for the vent of the surplus
which may be produced by his labor; and that such surplus, in
the ordinary course of things, will be greater or less in the same
proportion.
For the purpose of this vent, a domestic market is greatly to
be preferred to a foreign one; because it is, in the nature of
things, far more to be relied upon.
It is a primary object of the policy of nations to be able to
supply themselves with subsistence from their own soils; and
manufacturing nations, as far as circumstances permit, endeavor
to procure from the same source the raw materials necessary for
their own fabrics. This disposition, urged by the spirit of mo-
nopoly, is sometimes even carried to an injudicious extreme. It
seems not always to be recollected that nations who have neither
mines nor manufactures can only obtain the manufactured articles
of which they stand in need by an exchange of the products of
their soils; and that if those who can best furnish them with such
articles are unwilling to give a due course to this exchange, they
must, of necessity, make every possible effort to manufacture for
themselves; the effect of which is, that the manufacturing nations.
abridge the natural advantages of their situation through an un-
willingness to permit the agricultural countries to enjoy the ad-
vantages of theirs, and sacrifice the interests of a mutually bene-
ficial intercourse to the vain project of selling everything and
buying nothing.
But it is also a consequence of the policy which has been noted,
that the foreign demand for the products of agricultural countries
is, in a great degree, rather casual and occasional than certain or
constant. To what extent injurious interruptions of the demand
for some of the staple commodities of the United States may have
been experienced from that cause, must be referred to the judg-
ment of those who are engaged in carrying on the commerce of
the country; but it may be safely affirmed that such interruptions
are, at times, very inconveniently felt, and that cases not infre-
quently occur in which the markets are so confined and restricted
as to render the demand very unequal to the supply.
Independently, likewise, of the artificial impediments which
are created by the policy in question, there are natural causes
{
{
3
21
}
i
!
tending to render the external demand for the surplus of agricul-
tural nations a precarious reliance. The differences of seasons in
the countries which are the consumers make immense differ-
ences in the produce of their own soils, in different years, and con-
sequently in the degrees of their necessity for foreign supply.
Plentiful harvests with them, especially if similar ones occur at
the same time in the countries which are the furnishers, occasion,
of course, a glut in the markets of the latter.
Considering how fast and how much the progress of new settle-
ments in the United States must increase the surplus produce of
the soil, and weighing seriously the tendency of the system which
prevails among most of the commercial nations of Europe, what-
ever dependence may be placed on the force of natural circum-
stances to counteract the effects of an artificial policy, there appear
strong reasons to regard the foreign demand for that surplus as
too uncertain a reliance, and to desire a substitute for it in an ex-
tensive domestic market.
To secure such a market there is no other expedient than to
promote manufacturing establishments. Manufacturers, who con-
stitute the most numerous class, after the cultivators of land, are for
that reason the principal consumers of the surplus of their labor.
This idea of an extensive domestic market for the surplus pro-
duce of the soil is of the first consequence. It is, of all things,
that which most effectually conduces to a flourishing state of
agriculture. If the effect of manufactories should be to detach a
portion of the hands which would otherwise be engaged in tillage,"
it might possibly cause a smaller quantity of lands to be under
cultivation; but by their tendency to procure a more certain de-
mand for the surplus produce of the soil, they would, at the same
time, cause the lands which were in cultivation to be better im-
proved and more productive. And while, by their influence, the
condition of each individual farmer would be meliorated, the total
mass of agricultural production would probably be increased. For
this must evidently depend as much upon the degree of improve-
ment, if not more, than upon the number of acres under culture.
It merits particular observation that the multiplication of man-
ufactories not only furnishes a market for those articles which
have been accustomed to be produced in abundance in a country,
but it likewise creates a demand for such as were either unknown
or produced in inconsiderable quantities. The bowels as well as
the surface of the earth are ransacked for articles which were be-
22
>
fore neglected. Animals, plants, and minerals acquire a utility
and a value which were before unexplored.
The foregoing considerations seem sufficient to establish, as
general propositions, that it is the interest of nations to diversify
the industrious pursuits of the individuals who compose them;
that the establishment of manufactures is calculated not only to
increase the general stock of useful and productive labor, but
even to improve the state of agriculture in particular, certainly
to advance the interests of those who are engaged in it. There
are other views that will be hereafter taken of the subject, which
it is conceived will serve to confirm these inferences.
III. Previous to a further discussion of the objections to the en-
couragement of manufactures, which have been stated, it will be
of use to see what can be said, in reference to the particular situ-
ation of the United States, against the conclusions appearing to
result from what has been already offered.
- •
It may be observed, and the idea is of no inconsiderable weight,
that however true it might be that a State, which, possessing large
tracts of vacant and fertile territory, was at the same time se-
cluded from foreign commerce, would find its interest and the in-
terest of agriculture in diverting a part of its population from
tillage to manufactures, yet it will not follow that the same is true
of a State which, having such vacant and fertile territory, has at
the same time ample opportunity of procuring from abroad, on
good terms, all the fabrics of which it stands in need for the sup-
ply of its inhabitants. The power of doing this at least secures
the great advantage of a division of labor, leaving the farmer free
to pursue, exclusively, the culture of his land, and enabling him
to procure with its products the manufactured supplies requisite
either to his wants or to his enjoyments. And though it should
be true that, in settled countries, the diversification of industry is
conducive to an increase in the productive powers of labor, and
to an augmentation of revenue and capital, yet it is scarcely con-
ceivable that there can be anything of so solid and permanent
advantage to an uncultivated and unpeopled country as to convert
its wastes into cultivated and inhabited districts.
If the revenue,
in the mean time, should be less, the capital, in the event, must
be greater.
To these observations the following appears to be a satisfactory
answer:
1. If the system of perfect liberty to industry and commerce
23
A
I
1
were the prevailing system of nations, the arguments which dis-
suade a country, in the predicament of the United States, from the
zealous pursuit of manufactures would doubtless have great force.
It will not be affirmed that they might not be permitted, with few
exceptions, to serve as a rule of national conduct. In such a
state of things, each country would have the full benefit of its
peculiar advantages to compensate for its deficiencies or disad-
vantages. If one nation were in a condition to supply manufact-
ured articles on better terms than another, that other might find
an abundant indemnification in a superior capacity to furnish the
produce of the soil. And a free exchange, mutually beneficial, of
the commodities which each was able to supply on the best terms,
might be carried on between them, supporting in full vigor the
industry of each. And though the circumstances which have
been mentioned, and others which will be unfolded hereafter, ren-
der it probable that nations, merely agricultural, would not enjoy
the same degree of opulence in proportion to their numbers as
those which united manufactures with agriculture, yet the progres-
sive improvement of the lands of the former might in the end
atone for an inferior degree of opulence in the meantime; and in
a case in which opposite considerations are pretty equally bal-
anced, the option ought, perhaps, always to be in favor of leaving
industry to its own direction.
But the system which has been mentioned is far from charac-
terizing the general policy of nations. The prevalent one has
been regulated by an opposite spirit. The consequence of it is
that the United States are, to a certain extent, in the situation of
a country precluded from foreign commerce. They can, indeed,
without difficulty, obtain from abroad the manufactured supplies
of which they are in want; but they experience numerous and
very injurious impediments to the emission and vent of their own
commodities. Nor is this the case in reference to a single foreign
nation only. The regulations of several countries, with which we
have the most extensive intercourse, throw serious obstructions in
the way of the principal staples of the United States.
Galle
In such a position of things, the United States cannot exchange
with Europe on equal terms; and the want of reciprocity would
render them the victim of a system which would induce them to
confine their views to agriculture and refrain from manufactures.
A constant and increasing necessity, on their part, for the commodi-
ties of Europe, and only a partial and occasional demand for their
24
}
own, in return, could not but expose them to a state of impover-
ishment, compared with the opulence to which their political and
natural advantages authorize them to aspire.
Remarks of this kind are not made in the spirit of complaint.
It is for the nations, whose regulations are alluded to, to judge for
themselves whether by aiming at too much they do not lose
more than they gain. It is for the United States to consider by
what means they can render themselves least dependent on the
combinations, right or wrong, of foreign policy.
It is no small consolation that already the measures which have
embarrassed our trade have accelerated internal improvements,
which, upon the whole, have bettered our affairs. To diversify
and extend these improvements is the surest and safest method of
indemnifying ourselves for any inconveniencies which those or
similar measures have a tendency to beget. If Europe will not
take from us the products of our soil, upon terms consistent
with our interest, the natural remedy is to contract, as fast as pos-
sible, our wants of her.
2. The conversion of their waste into cultivated lands is cer-
tainly a point of great moment in the political calculations of the
United States. But the degree in which this may possibly be re-
tarded by the encouragement of manufactories does not appear
to countervail the powerful inducements to afford that encourage-
ment.
An observation made in another place is of a nature to have
great influence upon this question. If it cannot be denied that
the interests, even of agriculture, may be advanced more by hav-
ing such of the lands of a State as are occupied under good cul-
tivation, than by having a greater quantity occupied under a much.
inferior cultivation; and if manufactories, for the reasons as-
signed, must be admitted to have a tendency to promote a more
steady and vigorous cultivation of the lands occupied than would
happen without them, it will follow that they are capable of in-
demnifying a country for a diminution of the progress of new
settlements, and may serve to increase both the capital value and
the income of its lands, even though they should abridge the num-
ber of acres under tillage.
But it does by no means follow that the progress of new settle-
ments would be retarded by the extension of manufactures. The
desire of being an independent proprietor of land is founded on
such strong principles in the human breast, that, where the oppor-
25
i
◊
I
tunity of becoming so is as great as it is in the United States, the
proportion will be small of those whose situations would otherwise
lead to it, who would be diverted from it toward manufactures.
And it is highly probable, as already intimated, that the acces-
sions of foreigners, who, originally drawn over by manufacturing
views, would afterward abandon them for agricultural, would be
more than an equivalent for those of our own citizens who might
happen to be detached from them.
The remaining objections to a particular encouragement of
manufactures in the United States now require to be examined.
One of these turns on the proposition that industry, if left to
itself, will naturally find its way to the most useful and profitable
employment. Whence it is inferred that manufactures, without
the aid of government, will grow up as soon and as fast as the
natural state of things and the interest of the community may
require.
Against the solidity of this hypothesis, in the full latitude of
the terms, very cogent reasons may be offered. These have rela-
tion to the strong influence of habit and the spirit of imitation;
the fear of want of success in untried enterprises; the intrinsic dif-
ficulties incident to first essays toward a competition with those
who have previously attained to perfection in the business to be
attempted; the bounties, premiums, and other artificial encour-
agements with which foreign nations second the exertions of their
own citizens in the branches in which they are to be rivalled.
Experience teaches that men are often so much governed by
what they are accustomed to see and practise, that the simplest
and most obvious improvements, in the most ordinary occupa-
tions, are adopted with hesitation, reluctance, and by slow grada-
tions. The spontaneous transition to new pursuits, in a community
long habituated to different ones, may be expected to be attended
with proportionately greater difficulty.
When former occupations ceased to yield a profit adequate to
the subsistence of their followers, or when there was an absolute
deficiency of employment in them owing to the superabundance
of hands, changes would ensue; but these changes would be
likely to be more tardy than might consist with the interest either
of individuals or of the society. In many cases they would not
happen, while a bare support could be insured by an adherence
to ancient courses, though a resort to a more profitable employ-
ment might be practicable. To produce the desirable changes as
26
}
↓
ļ
j
early as may be expedient may therefore require the incitement
and patronage of government.
The apprehension of failing in new attempts is, perhaps, a more
serious impediment. There are dispositions apt to be attracted
by the mere novelty of an undertaking; but these are not always
those best calculated to give it success. To this it is of impor-
tance that the confidence of cautious, sagacious capitalists, both
citizens and foreigners, should be excited. And to inspire this
description of persons with confidence, it is essential that they
should be made to see in any project which is new and for that
reason alone, if for no other, precarious—the prospect of such a
degree of countenance and support from government, as may be
capable of overcoming the obstacles inseparable from first exper-
iments.
The superiority antecedently enjoyed by nations who have pre-
occupied and perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a more
formidable obstacle than either of those which have been men-
tioned, to the introduction of the same branch into a country in
which it did not before exist. To maintain, between the recent
establishments of one country and the long-matured establish-
ments of another country, a competition upon equal terms, both
as to quality and price, is, in most cases, impracticable. The
disparity in the one, or in the other, or in both must necessarily
be so considerable as to forbid a successful rivalship, without the
extraordinary aid and protection of government.
But the greatest obstacle of all to the successful prosecution of
a new branch of industry in a country in which it was before un-
known consists, as far as the instances apply, in the bounties, pre-
miums, and other aids which are granted, in a variety of cases, by
the nations in which the establishments to be imitated are previ-
ously introduced. It is well known (and particular examples, in
the course of this report, will be cited) that certain nations grant
bounties on the exportation of particular commodities, to enable
their own workmen to undersell, and supplant all competitors in
the countries to which those commodities are sent. Hence the
undertakers of a new manufacture have to contend, not only with
the natural disadvanages of a new undertaking, but with the gra-
tuities and remunerations which other governments bestow. To
be enabled to contend with success, it is evident that the inter-
ference and aid of their own governments are indispensible..
Combinations by those engaged in a particular branch of busi-
"
27
然
​F
ļ
¿
ness in one country to frustrate the first efforts to introduce it into
another, by temporary sacrifices, recompensed, perhaps, by extra-
ordinary indemnifications of the government of such country, are
believed to have existed, and are not to be regarded as destitute
of probability. The existence or assurance of aid from the gov-
ernment of the country in which the business is to be introduced
may be essential to fortify adventurers against the dread of such
combinations; to defeat their efforts, if formed; and to prevent
their being formed, by demonstrating that they must in the end
prove fruitless.
Whatever room there may be for an expectation that the indus-
try of a people, under the direction of private interest, will, upon
equal terms, find out the most beneficial employment for itself,
there is none for a reliance that it will struggle against the force.
of unequal terms, or will, of itself, surmount all the advantitious.
barriers to a successful competition which may have been erected,
either by the advantages naturally acquired from practice and
previous possession of the ground, or by those which may
have sprung from positive regulations and an artificial policy.
This general reflection might alone suffice as an answer to the ob-
jection under examination, exclusively of the weighty considera-
tions which have been particularly urged.
The objections to the pursuit of manufactures in the United
States, which next present themselves to discussion, represent an
impracticability of success, arising from three causes: scarcity of
hands, dearness of labor, want of capital.
The two first circumstances are, to a certain extent, real; and
within due limits, ought to be admitted as obstacles to the success
of manufacturing enterprise in the United States. But there are
various considerations which lessen their force, and tend to afford
an assurance that they are not sufficient to prevent the advan-
tageous prosecution of many very useful and extensive manufac-
tories.
With regard to scarcity of hands, the fact itself must be applied
with no small qualification to certain parts of the United States.
There are large districts which may be considered as pretty fully
peopled, and which, notwithstanding a continual drain for distant
settlement, are thickly interspersed with flourishing and increasing
towns. If these districts have not already reached the point at
which the complaint of scarcity of hands ceases, they are not re-
mote from it, and are approaching fast towards it; and having,
28
"
perhaps, fewer attractions to agriculture than some other parts of
the Union they exhibit a proportionably stronger tendency
towards other kinds of industry. In these districts may be dis-
cerned no inconsiderable maturity for manufacturing establish-
ments.
But there are circumstances which have been already noticed,
with another view, that materially diminish, everywhere, the effect
of a scarcity of hands. These circumstances are: The great use
which can be made of women and children, on which point a very
pregnant and instructive fact has been mentioned — the vast ex-
tension given by late improvements to the employment of ma-
chines which, substituting the agency of fire and water, has
prodigiously lessened the necessity for manual labor; the em-
ployment of persons ordinarily engaged in other occupations
during the seasons or hours of leisure, which, besides giving occa-
sion to the exertion of a greater quantity of labor, by the same
number of persons, and thereby increasing the general stock of
labor, as has been elsewhere remarked, may also be taken into
calculation, as a resource for obviating the scarcity of hands;
lastly, the attraction of foreign emigrants. Whoever inspects, with
a careful eye, the composition of our towns, will be made sensible
to what an extent this resource may be relied upon. This exhibits
a large proportion of ingenious and valuable workmen, in differ-
ent arts and trades, who, by expatriating from Europe, have im-
proved their own condition and added to the industry and wealth
of the United States. It is a natural inference, from the experi-
ence we have already had, that, as soon as the United States shall
present the countenance of a serious prosecution of manufactur-
ers, as soon as foreign artists shall be made sensible that the state
of things here affords a moral certainty of employment and en-
couragement, competent numbers of European workmen will
transplant themselves, effectually to insure the success of the de-
sign. How, indeed, can it otherwise happen, considering the
various and powerful inducements which the situation of this
country offers-addressing themselves to so many strong passions.
and feelings, to so many general and particular interests.
J
It may be affirmed, therefore, in respect to hands for carrying
on manufactures, that we shall, in a great measure, trade upon a
foreign stock, reserving our own for the cultivation of our lands
and the manning of our ships, as far as character and circum-
stances shall incline. It is not unworthy of remark that the ob-
29
?
Sp
1
I
jection to the success of manufacturers, deduced from the scarcity
of hands, is alike applicable to trade and navigation, and yet these
are perceived to flourish, without any sensible impediment from
that cause.
As to the dearness of labor (another of the obstacles alleged),
this has relation principally to two circumstances; one, that which
has just been discussed, of the scarcity of hands; the other, the
greatness of profits.
As far as it is a consequence of a scarcity of hands, it is miti-
gated by all the considerations which have been adduced as les-
sening that deficiency. It is certain, too, that the disparity in this.
respect, between some of the most manufacturing parts of Europe
and a large proportion of the United States is not nearly so great
as is commonly imagined. It is also much less in regard to arti-
ficers and manufacturers than in regard to country laborers; and
while a careful comparison shows that there is, in this particular,
much exaggeration, it is also evident that the effect of the degree
of disparity which does truly exist, is diminished in proportion to
the use which can be made of machinery.
7
To illustrate this last idea, let it be supposed that the difference
of price, in two countries, of a given quantity of manual labor
requisite to the fabrication of a given article, is as ten, and that
soine mechanic power is introduced into both countries, which,
performing half the necessary labor, leaves only half to be done
by hand; it is evident that the difference in the cost of the fabri-
cation of the article in question, in the two countries, as far as it
'is connected with the price of labor, will be reduced from ten to
five, in consequence of the introduction of that power.
This circumstance is worthy the most particular attention.
It diminishes immensely one of the objections most strenu-
ously urged against the success of manufactures in the United
States.
W
To procure all such machines as are known in any part of Eu-
rope can only require a proper provision and due pains. The
knowledge of several of the most important of them is already
possessed. The preparation of them here is, in most cases, prac-
ticable on nearly equal terms. As far as they depend on water,
some superiority of advantages may be claimed, from the uncom-
mon variety and greater cheapness of situations adapted to mill-
seats, with which different parts of the United States abound.
So far as the dearness of labor may be a consequence of the
Ja
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30
{
}
greatness of profits in any branch of business, it is no obstacle to
its success. The undertaker can afford to pay the price.
There are grounds to conclude that undertakers of manufac-
tures in this country can, at this time, afford to pay higher wages
to the workmen they may employ than are paid to similar work-
men in Europe. The prices of foreign fabrics in the market of
the United States, which will for a long time regulate the prices of
domestic ones, may be considered as compounded of the following
ingredients: The first cost of materials, including the taxes, if any,
which are paid upon them where they are made; the expense of
grounds, buildings, machinery, and tools; the wages of the per-
sons employed in the manufactory; the profits on the capital of
stock employed; the commissions of agents to purchase them
where they are made; the expense of transportation to the Uni-
ted States, including insurance and other incidental charges; the
taxes or duties, if any, and fees of office which are paid on their
exportation; the taxes or duties and fees of office which are paid
on their importation.
A
As to the first of these items, the cost of materials, the advantage,
upon the whole, is at present on the side of the United States; and
the difference in their favor must increase in proportion as a cer-
tain and extensive domestic demand shall induce the proprietors
of land to devote more of their attention to the production of these
materials. It ought not to escape observation, in a comparison
on this point, that some of the principal manufacturing countries.
of Europe are much more dependent on foreign supply for the ma-
terials of their manufactures than would be the United States,
who are capable of supplying themselves with a greater abun-
dance, as well as a greater variety of the requisite materials.
As to the second item, the expense of grounds, buildings, ma-
chinery, and tools, an equality at least may be assumed, since
advantages in some particulars will counterbalance temporary dis-
advantages in others.
As to the third item, or the article of wages, the comparison
certainly turns against the United States; though, as before ob-
served, not in so great a degree as commonly supposed.
The fourth item is alike applicable to the foreign and to the do-
mestic manufacture. It is, indeed, more properly a result than a
particular to be compared.
But, with respect to all the remaining items, they are alone ap-
plicable to the foreign manufacture, and, in the strictest sense,
3I
t
·
To the general allegation, connected with the circumstances of
scarcity of hands and dearness of labor, that extensive manufac-
tures can only grow out of a redundant or full population, it will
be sufficient to answer generally, that the fact has been otherwise.
That the situation alleged to be an essential condition of success,
has not been that of several nations, at periods when they had
already attained to maturity in a variety of manufactures.
The supposed want of capital for the prosecution of manufac-
tures in the United States is the most indefinite of the objections
which are usually opposed to it.
It is very difficult to pronounce anything precise concerning the
real extent of the moneyed capital of a country, and still more.
concerning the proportion which it bears to the objects that invite
the employment of capital. It is not less difficult to pronouncé
how far the effect of any given quantity of money, as capital, or,
in other words, as a medium for circulating the industry and prop-
erty of a nation, may be increased by the very circumstance of
the additional motion which is given to it, by new objects of em-
ployment. That effect, like the momentum of descending bodies,
may not improperly be represented as in a compound ratio to
*
mass and velocity. It seems pretty certain, that a given sum of
money, in a situation in which the quick impulses of commercial
activity were little felt, would appear inadequate to the circula-
tion of as great a quantity of industry and property, as in one in
which their full influence was experienced.
It is not obvious why the same objection might not as well be
made to external commerce as to manufactures, since it is mani-
fest that our immense tracts of land, occupied and unoccupied, are
capable of giving employment to more capital than is actually be-
stowed upon them. It is certain that the United States offer a
vast field for the advantageous employment of capital; but it does.
not follow that there will not be found, in one way or another, a
sufficient fund for the successful prosecution of any species of in-
dustry which is likely to prove truly beneficial.
་
ד
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extraordinaries, constituting a sum of extra charge on the foreign
fabric which cannot be estimated at less than from fifteen to thirty
per cent on the cost of it at the manufactory.
This sum of extra charge may confidently be regarded as more
than a counterpoise for the real difference in the price of labor;
and is a satisfactory proof that manufactures may prosper in de-
fiance of it in the United States.
I
}
32
The following considerations are of a nature to remove all in-
quietude on the score of want of capital:
The introduction of banks, as has been shown on another
occasion, has a powerful tendency to extend the active capital of
a country. Experience of the utility of these institutions is multi-
plying them in the United States. It is probable that they will be
established wherever they can exist with advantage; and wher-
ever they can be supported, if administered with prudence; they
will add new energies to all pecuniary operations.
The aid of foreign capital may safely, and with considerable
latitude, be taken into calculation. Its instrumentality has been
long experienced in our external commerce; and it has begun to
be felt in various other modes. Not only our funds, but our agri-
culture, and other internal improvements, have been animated by
it. It has already, in a few instances, extended even to our manu-
factures.
It is a well-known fact that there are parts of Europe which
have more capital than profitable domestic objects of employment.⠀
Hence, among other proofs, the large loans continually furnished
to foreign states. And it is equally certain, that the capital of
other parts may find more profitable employment in the United
States than at home. And, notwithstanding there are weighty
inducements to prefer the employment of capital at home, even at
less profit, to an investment of it abroad, though with greater gain,
yet these inducements are overruled, either by a deficiency of em-
ployment, or by a very material difference in profit. Both these
causes operate to produce a transfer of foreign capital to the
United States. It is certain, that various objects in this country
hold out advantages, which are with difficulty to be equalled else-
where; and under the increasingly favorable impressions which
are entertained of our government, the attractions will become
more and more strong. These impressions will prove a rich mine
of prosperity to the country if they are confirmed and strength-
ened by the progress of our affairs. And, to secure this advan-
tage, little more is now necessary than to foster industry, and
cultivate order and tranquillity at home and abroad.
It is not impossible, that there may be persons disposed to look,
with a jealous eye, on the introduction of foreign capital, as if it
were an instrument to deprive our own citizens of the profits of
our own industry; but, perhaps, there never could be a more
unreasonable jealousy. Instead of being viewed as a rival, it
33
1
1
ought to be considered as a most valuable auxiliary, conducing to
put in motion a greater quantity of productive labor, and a greater
portion of useful enterprise than could exist without it. It is at
least evident, that, in a country situated like the United States,
with an infinite fund of resources yet to be unfolded, every farth-
ing of foreign capital which is laid out in internal meliorations,
and in industrial establishments of a permanent nature, is a pre-
cious acquisition.
And, whatever be the objects which originally attract foreign
capital, when once introduced, it may be directed towards any
purpose of beneficial exertion which is desired. And to detain it
among us, there can be no expedient so effectual, as to enlarge
the sphere within which it may be usefully employed; though
introduced merely with views to speculations in the funds, it may
afterwards be rendered subservient to the interests of agriculture,
commerce, and manufactures.
But the attraction of foreign capital for the direct purpose of
manufactures, ought not to be deemed a chimerical expectation.
There are already examples of it, as remarked in another place.
And the examples, if the disposition be cultivated, can hardly fail
to multiply. There are also instances of another kind, which
serve to strengthen the expectation. Enterprises for improving
the public communications, by cutting canals, opening the ob-
structions in rivers, and erecting bridges, have received very ma-
terial aid from the same source.
K
When the manufacturing capitalist of Europe shall advert to the
many important advantages which have been intimated in the
course of this report, he cannot but perceive very powerful in-
ducements to a transfer of himself and his capital to the United
States. Among the reflections which a most interesting peculiar-
ity of situation is calculated to suggest, it cannot escape his obser-
vation, as a circumstance of moment in the calculation, that the
progressive population and improvement of the United States.
insure a continually increasing domestic demand for the fabrics
which he shall produce, not to be effected by any external casual-
ties or vicissitudes.
/
But, while there are circumstances sufficiently strong to authorize
a considerable degree of reliance on the aid of foreign capital, to-
wards the attainment of the object in view, it is satisfactory to
have good grounds of assurance, that there are domestic resources
of themselves adequate to it. It happens that there is a species.
34
of capital, actually existing in the United States, which relieves
from all inquietude on the score of want of capital. This is the
funded debt. The effect of a funded debt, as a species of capital,
has been noticed upon a former occasion; but a more particular
elucidation of the point seems to be required by the stress which
is here laid upon it. This shall, accordingly, be attempted.
Public funds answer the purpose of capital, from the estimation
in which they are usually held by moneyed men; and, consequently,
from the ease and despatch with which they can be turned into
money. This capacity of prompt convertibility into money causes
a transfer of stock to be, in a great number of cases, equivalent to
a payment in coin. And where it does not happen to suit the
party who is to receive to accept a transfer of stock, the party
who is to pay is never at a loss to find, elsewhere, a purchaser of
his stock, who will furnish him, in lieu of it, with the coin of which
he stands in need.
Hence, in a sound and settled state of the public funds, a man
possessed of a sum in them can embrace any scheme of business
which offers, with as much confidence as if he were possessed of
an equal sum in coin.
This operation of public funds as capital is too obvious to be
denied; but it is objected to the idea of their operating as an aug-
mentation of the capital of the community, that they serve to oc-
casion the destruction of some other capital to an equal amount.
The capital, which alone they can be supposed to destroy, must
consist of:
The annual revenue, which is applied to the payment of interest
on the debt, and to the gradual redemption of the principal;
the amount of the coin which is employed in circulating the
funds, or, in other words, in effecting the different alienations
which they undergo.
But the following appears to be the true and accurate view of
this matter:
Ist. As to the point of the annual revenue requisite for pay-
ment of interest and redemption of principal.
As a determinate proportion will tend to perspicuity in the rea-
soning, let it be supposed, that the annual revenue to be applied,
corresponding with the modification of the six per cent stock of
the United States, is in the ratio of eight upon the hundred; that
is, in the first instance, six on account of interest, and two on ac-
count of principal.
564
35
J
·
Thus far, it is evident that the capital destroyed, to the capital
created, would bear no greater proportion than eight to one hun-
dred. There would be withdrawn, from the total mass of other
capitals, a sum of eight dollars to be paid to the public
creditor; while he would be possessed of a sum of one hundred
dollars, ready to be applied to any purpose, to be embarked in
any enterprise which might appear to him eligible. Here, then,
the augmentation of capital, or the excess of that which is pro-
duced beyond that which is destroyed, is equal to ninety-two
dollars.
To this conclusion it may be objected, that the sum of eight
dollars is to be withdrawn annually, until the whole hundred is ex-
tinguished; and it may be inferred, that, in process of time, a
capital will be destroyed equal to that which is at first created.
But it is nevertheless true, that, during the whole of the interval
between the creation of the capital of one hundred dollars, and
its reduction to a sum not greater than that of the annual revenue
appropriated to its redemption, there will be a greater active cap-
ital in existence than if no debt had been contracted. The sum
drawn from other capitals in any one year will not exceed eight
dollars; but there will be, at every instant of time during the
whole period in question, a sum corresponding with so much of
the principal as remains unredeemed, in the hands of some per-
son or other, employed, or ready to be employed, in some profit-
able undertaking. There will, therefore, constantly be more
capital in capacity to be employed, than capital taken from em-
ployment. The excess, for the first year, has been stated to be
ninety-two dollars; it will diminish yearly; but there will always
be an excess, until the principal of the debt is brought to a level
with the redeeming annuity; that is, in the case which has been
assumed, by way of example, to eight dollars. The reality of this
excess becomes palpable, if it be supposed, as often happens, that
the citizen of a foreign country imports into the United States one
hundred dollars for the purchase of an equal sum of public debt,-
here is an absolute augmentation of the mass of circulating coin
to the extent of one hundred dollars. At the end of the year the
foreigner is presumed to draw back eight dollars, on account of
his principal and interest, but he still leaves ninety-two of his
original deposit in circulation, as he, in like manner, leaves eighty-
four at the end of the second year, drawing back, then, also, the
annuity of eight dollars. And thus the matter proceeds, the cap-
{
36
alade
ital left in circulation diminishing each year, and coming nearer
to the level of the annuity drawn back. There are, however, some
differences in the ultimate operation of the part of the debt which
is purchased by foreigners, and that which remains in the hands
of citizens. But the general effect in each case, though in differ-
ent degrees, is to add to the active capital of the country.
Hitherto, the reasoning has proceeded on a concession of the
position, that there is a destruction of some other capital, to the
extent of the annuity appropriated to the payment of the interest
and the redemption of the principal of the debt; but in this too
much has been conceded. There is, at most, a temporary transfer
of some other capital, to the amount of the annuity, from those
who pay, to the creditor who receives; which he again restores
to the circulation, to resume the offices of a capital. This he does
either immediately, by employing the money in some branch of
industry, or mediately, by lending it to some other person, who
does so employ it, or by spending it on his own maintenance. In
either supposition, there is no destruction of capital; there is
nothing more than a suspension of its motion for a time-that is,
while it is passing from the hands of those who pay into the pub-
lic coffers, and thence, through the public creditor, into some
other channel of circulation. When the payments of interest are
periodical and quick, and made by the instrumentality of banks,
the diversion or suspension of capital may almost be denomina-
ted momentary. Hence the deduction, on this account, is far
less than it at first sight appears to be.
There is, evidently, as far as regards the annuity, no destruc-
tion or transfer of any other capital than that portion of the in-
come of each individual which goes to make up the annuity. The
land which furnishes the farmer with the sum which he is to con-
tribute, remains the same; and the like may be observed of other
capitals. Indeed, as far as the tax, which is the object of contri-
bution (as frequently happens, when it does not oppress by its
weight), may have been a motive to greater exertion in any occu-
pation; it may even serve to increase the contributory capital.
This idea is not without importance in the general view of the
subject.
It remains to see what further deduction ought to be made from
the capital which is created, by the existence of the debt, on ac-
count of the coin which is employed in its circulation. This is
susceptible of much less precise calculation than the article which
M
37
}
..
has been just discussed. It is impossible to say what proportion
of coin is necessary to carry on the alienations which any species
of property usually undergoes. The quantity, indeed, varies ac-
cording to circumstances. But it may still, without hesitation, be
pronounced, from the quickness of the rotation, or rather, of the
transitions, that the medium of circulation always bears but a
small proportion to the amount of the property circulated. And
it is thence satisfactorily deducible, that the coin employed in the
negotiations of the funds, and which serves to give them activity,
as capital, is incomparably less than the sum of the debt negoti-
ated for the purpose of business.
It ought not, however, to be omitted, that the negotiation of
the funds becomes itself a distinct business, which employs, and,
by employing, diverts, a portion of the circulating coin from other
pursuits. But making due allowance for this circumstance, there
is no reason to conclude that the effect of the diversion of coin,
in the whole operation, bears any considerable proportion to the
amount of the capital to which it gives activity. The sum of the
debt in circulation is continually at the command of any
useful enterprise; the coin itself, which circulates it, is never
more than momentarily suspended from its ordinary functions.
It experiences an incessant and rapid flux and reflux, to and
from the channels of industry, to those of speculations in the
funds.
There are strong circumstances in confirmation of this theory.
The force of moneyed capital which has been displayed in Great
Britain, and the height to which every species of industry has
grown up under it, defy a solution, from the quantity of coin
which that kingdom has ever possessed. Accordingly, it has
been coeval with its funding system, the prevailing opinion of the
men of business, and of the generality of the most sagacious
theorists of that country, that the operation of the public funds,
as capital, has contributed to the effect in question. Among our-
selves, appearances, thus far, favor the same conclusion. Indus-
try, in general, seems to have been re-animated. There are
symptoms indicating an extension of our commerce. Our navi-
gation has certainly, of late, had a considerable spring; and there
appears to be, in many parts of the Union, a command of capital
which till lately, since the Revolution, at least, was unknown.
But it is, at the same time, to be acknowledged that other circum-
stances have concurred (and in a great degree) in producing the
J
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A
38
ty
present state of things, and that the appearances are not yet suffi-
Ľ
W
ciently decisive to be entirely relied upon.
520
In the question under discussion, it is important to distinguish
between an absolute increase of capital, or an accession of real
wealth and an artificial increase of capital, as an engine of busi-
ness, or as an instrument of industry and commerce. In the first
sense, a funded debt has no pretensions to being deemed an in-
crease of capital; in the last, it has pretensions which are not easy
to be controverted. Of a similar nature is bank credit; and, in
an inferior degree, every species of private credit.
1
SH
But though a funded debt is not, in the first instance, an abso-
2
F
鬱
​lute increase of capital, or an augmentation of real wealth, yet, by
เฟ
n
i
serving as a new power in the operations of industry, it has, within
certain bounds, a tendency to increase the real wealth of a com-
munity, in like manner as money, borrowed by a thrifty farmer to
be laid out in the improvement of his farm, may, in the end, add
to his stock of real riches.
"
بی
There are respectable individuals who, from a just aversion to
an accumulation of public debt, are unwilling to concede to it any
kind of utility; who can discern no good to alleviate the ill with
which they suppose it pregnant; who cannot be persuaded that it
ought, in any sense, to be viewed as an increase of capital, lest it
should be inferred that the more the debt the more the capital, the
greater the burthens the greater the blessings of the community.
But it interests the public councils to estimate every object as
it truly is; to appreciate how far the good in any measure is
compensated by the ill, or the ill by the good; either of them is
seldom unmixed.
Neither will it follow that an accumulation of debt is desirable,
because a certain degree of it operates as capital. There may be
a plethora in the political as in the natural body; there may be a
state of things in which any such artificial capital is unnecessary.
The debt, too, may be swelled to such a size as that the greatest
part of it may cease to be useful as a capital, serving only to
pamper the dissipation of idle and dissolute individuals; as that
the sums required to pay the interest upon it may become
oppressive, and beyond the means which a government can em-
ploy, consistently with its tranquillity, to raise them; as that the
resources of taxation to face the debt may have been strained too
far to admit of extensions adequate to exigencies which regard
the public safety.
Melay
1
39
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ལ་ང་
1
الله
1
Where this critical point is, cannot be pronounced; but it is
impossible to believe that there is not such a point.
And as the vicissitudes of nations beget a perpetual tendency
to the accumulation of debt, there ought to be, in every govern-
ment, a perpetual, anxious, and unceasing effort to reduce that
which at any time exists, as fast as shall be practicable, consist-
ently with integrity and good faith.
Reasonings on a subject comprehending ideas so abstract and
complex, so little reducible to a precise calculation, as those which
enter into the question just discussed, are always attended with a
danger of running into fallacies. Due allowance ought, therefore,
to be made for this possibility. But, as far as the nature of the
subject admits of it, there appears to be satisfactory ground for a
belief that the public funds operate as a resource of capital to the
citizens of the United States; and, if they are a resource at all, it
is an extensive one.
To all the arguments which are brought to evince the imprac-
ticability of success in manufacturing establishments in the United
States, it might have been a sufficient answer to have referred to
the experience of what has been already done. It is certain that
several important branches have grown up and flourished, with a
rapidity which surprises, affording an encouraging assurance of
success in future attempts. Of these it may not be improper to
enumerate the most considerable.
1. Of Skins. Tanned and tawed leather, dressed skins, shoes,
boots, and slippers, harness and saddlery of all kinds, portman-
teaus and trunks, leather breeches, gloves, muffs and tippets,
parchment and glue.
2. Of Iron. Bar and sheet iron, steel, nail rods and nails, im-
plements of husbandry, stoves, pots and other household uten-
sils, the steel and iron work of carriages, and for ship-building,
anchors, scale beams and weights, and various tools of artificers,
arms of different kinds; though the manufacture of these last has
diminished for want of a demand.
Nak
3. Of Wood. Ships, cabinet wares, and turnery, wool and cot-
ton cards, and other machinery for manufactures and husbandry,
mathematical instruments, coopers' wares of every kind.
4. Of Flax and Hemp. Cables, sail cloth, cordage, twine and
pack thread.
5. Bricks and coarse tiles, and potters' wares.
6. Ardent spirits and malt liquors.
40™™
"
I
4
7. Writing and printing paper, sheathing and wrapping paper,
pasteboard, fullers' or press papers, paperhangings.
8. Hats of fur and wool, and mixtures of both, women's stuff
and silk shoes.
9. Refined sugars.
10. Oils of animals and seeds, soap, spermaceti and tallow can-
dles.
II. Copper and brass wires, particularly utensils for distillers,
sugar refiners, and brewers; andirons and other articles for house-
hold use, philosophical apparatus.
12. Tin wares for most purposes of ordinary use.
13. Carriages of all kinds.
14. Snuff, chewing and smoking tobacco.
15. Starch and hair powder.
16. Lampblack and other painters' colors.
17. Gunpowder.
✓
Besides manufactories of these articles, which are carried on as
regular trades, and have attained to a considerable degree of ma-
turity, there is a vast scene of household manufacturing, which
contributes more largely to the supply of the community than
could be imagined without having made it an object of particular
inquiry. This observation is the pleasing result of the investiga-
tion to which the subject of this report has led, and is applicable
as well to the Southern as to the Middle and Northern States.
Great quantities of coarse cloths, coatings, serges and flannels,
linsey woolseys, hosiery of wool, cotton and thread, coarse fustians,
jeans and muslins, checked and striped cotton and linen goods,
bed-ticks, coverlets and counterpanes, tow linens, coarse shirtings
sheetings, towelling, and table linen, and various mixtures of wool
and cotton, and of cotton and flax, are made in the household
way, and, in many instances, to an extent not only sufficient for
the supply of the families in which they are made, but for sale,
and even, in some cases, for exportation. It is computed in a
number of districts that two-thirds, three-fourths, and even four-
fifths of all the clothing of the inhabitants are made by themselves.
The importance of so great a progress as appears to have been
made in family manufactures, within a few years, both in a moral
and political view, renders the fact highly interesting.
Neither does the above enumeration comprehend all the articles
that are manufactured, as regular trades. Many others occur,
which are equally well established, but which, not being of equal
3
41
t
importance, have been omitted. And there are many attempts,
still in their infancy, which, though attended with very favorable
appearances, could not have been properly comprised in an
enumeration of manufactories already established.
There are
other articles, also, of great importance, which, though strictly
speaking, manufactures, are omitted, as being immediately con-
nected with husbandry; such are flour, pot- and pearl-ashes, pitch,
tar, turpentine, and the like.
There remains to be noticed an objection to the encouragement
of manufactures, of a nature different from those which question
the probability of success. This is derived from its supposed
tendency to give a monopoly of advantages to particular classes,
at the expense of the rest of the community, who, it is affirmed,
would be able to procure the requisite supplies of manufactured
articles on better terms from foreigners than from our own citi-
zens, and who, it is alleged, are reduced to the necessity of paying
an enhanced price for whatever they want, by every measure which
obstructs the free competition of foreign commodities.
It is not an unreasonable supposition, that measures which
serve to abridge the free competition of foreign articles have a
tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices; and it is not to
be denied that such is the effect in a number of cases; but the
fact does not uniformly correspond with the theory. A reduction.
of prices has, in several instances, immediately succeeded the es-
tablishment of a domestic manufacture. Whether it be that
foreign manufacturers endeavor to supplant, by underselling our
own, or whatever else be the cause, the effect has been such as is
stated, and the reverse of what might have been expected.
But, though it were true that the immediate and certain ef-
fect of regulations controlling the competition of foreign with
domestic fabrics was an increase of price, it is universally true that
the contrary is the ultimate effect with every successful manufac-
ture. When a domestic manufacture has attained to perfection,
and has engaged in the prosecution of it a competent number of
persons, it invariably becomes cheaper. Being free from the
heavy charges which attend the importation of foreign commodi-
ties, it can be afforded, and accordingly seldom never fails to be
sold cheaper, in process of time, than was the foreign article for
which it was a substitute. The internal competition which takes
place soon does away with everything like monoply, and by de-
grees reduces the price of the article to the minimum of a reason-
42
able profit on the capital employed. This accords with the reason
of the thing and with experience.
Whence it follows, that it is the interest of a community, with
a view to eventual and permanent economy, to encourage the
growth of manufactures. In a national view, a temporary en-
hancement of price must always be well compensated by a per-
manent reduction of it.
It is a reflection which may with propriety be indulged here,
that this eventual diminution of the prices of manufactured arti-
cles, which is the result of internal manufacturing establishments,
has a direct and very important tendency to benefit agriculture.
It enables the farmer to procure, with a smaller quantity of his
labor, the manufactured produce of which he stands in need, and
consequently increases the value of his income and property.
The objections which are commonly made to the expediency of
encouraging and to the probability of succeeding in manufactur-
ing pursuits, in the United States, having now been discussed, the
considerations which have appeared in the course of the discus-
sion, recommending that species of industry to the patronage of
the government, will be materially strengthened by a few general
and some particular topics, which have been naturally reserved.
for subsequent notice.
1. There seems to be a moral certainty that the trade of a coun-
try, which is both manufacturing and agricultural, will be more
lucrative and prosperous than that of a country which is merely
agricultural.
One reason for this is found in that general effort of nations
(which has been already mentioned) to procure from their own
soils the articles of prime necessity requisite to their own con-
sumption and use, and which serves to render their demand for a
foreign supply of such articles, in a great degree, occasional and
contingent. Hence, while the necessities of nations exclusively
devoted to agriculture, for the fabrics of manufacturing States, are
constant and regular, the wants of the latter for the products of
the former are liable to very considerable fluctuations and inter-
ruptions. The great inequalities resulting from difference of sea-
sons have been, elsewhere, remarked. This uniformity of demand
on one side, and unsteadiness of it on the other, must necessarily
have a tendency to cause the general course of the exchange of
commodities between the parties to turn to the disadvantage
of the merely agricultural States. Peculiarity of situation, a
Baby
43
1
climate and soil adapted to the production of peculiar commodi-
ties, may, sometimes, contradict the rule, but there is every reason
to believe that it will be found, in the main, a just one.
Another circumstance, which gives a superiority of commercial
advantages to States that manufacture as well as cultivate, consists
in the more numerous attractions which a more diversified market
offers to foreign customers, and in the greater scope which it af-
fords to mercantile enterprise. It is a position of indisputable
truth, in commerce, depending too on very obvious reasons, that
the greatest resort will ever be to those marts where commodities,
while equally abundant, are most various. Each difference of
kind holds out an additional inducement; and it is a position not
less clear, that the field of enterprise must be enlarged to the mer-
chants of a country, in proportion to the variety as well as the
abundance of commodities which they find at home for exporta-
tion to foreign markets.
A third circumstance, perhaps not inferior to either of the other
two, conferring the superiority which has been stated, has relation
to the stagnations of demand for certain commodities, which, at
some time or other, interfere more or less with the sale of all.
The nation which can bring to the market but few articles is likely
to be more quickly and sensibly affected by such stagnations, than
one which is always possessed of a great variety of commodities;
the former frequently finds too great a proportion of its stock of
materials for sale or exchange lying on hand, or is obliged to
make injurious sacrifices to supply its wants of foreign articles,
which are numerous and urgent in proportion to the smallness of
the number of its own. The latter commonly finds itself indemni-
fied by the high prices of some articles, for the low prices of
others; and the prompt- and advantageous sale of those articles
which are in demand enables its merchants the better to wait for
a more favorable change in respect to those which are not. There
is ground to believe that a difference of situation, in this particu-
lar, has immensely different effects upon the wealth and prosperity
of nations.
F
.
From these circumstances, collectively, two important inferences
are to be drawn; one, that there is always a higher probability of
a favorable balance of trade, in regard to countries in which man-
ufactures, founded on the basis of a thriving agriculture, flourish,
than in regard to those which are confined wholly, or almost
wholly, to agriculture; the other (which is also a consequence of
44
S
S
4
1
the first), that countries of the former description are likely to
possess more pecuniary wealth, or money, than those of the latter.
Facts appear to correspond with this conclusion. The importa-
tions of manufactured supplies seem invariably to drain the merely
agricultural people of their wealth. Let the situation of the man-
ufacturing countries of Europe be compared, in this particular,
with that of countries which only cultivate, and the disparity will.
be striking. Other causes, it is true, help to account for this dis-
parity between some of them; and among these causes, the rela-
tive state of agriculture; but between others of them, the most
prominent circumstance of dissimilitude arises from the compara-
tive state of manufactures. In corroboration, of the same idea, it
ought not to escape remark, that the West India Islands, the soils
of which are the most fertile, and the nation which, in the greatest
degree, supplies the rest of the world with the precious metals, ex-
change to a loss with almost every other country.
As far as experience at home may guide, it will lead to the same
conclusion. Previous to the Revolution, the quantity of coin pos-
sessed by the colonies which now compose the United States, ap-
peared to be inadequate to their circulation, and their debt to
Great Britain was progressive. Since the Revolution, the States in
which manufactures have most increased have recovered fastest from
the injuries of the late war, and abound most in pecuniary resources.
It ought to be admitted, however, in this, as in the preceding
case, that causes irrelative to the state of manufactures account,
in a degree, for the phenomena remarked. The continual progress.
of new settlements has a natural tendency to occasion an unfavor-
able balance of trade, though it indemnifies for the inconvenience,
by that increase of the national capital which flows from the con-
version of waste into improved lands, and the different degrees of
external commerce which are carried on by the different States
may make material differences in the comparative state of their
wealth. The first circumstance has reference to the deficiency of
coin and the increase of debt previous to the Revolution; the last
to the advantages which the most manufacturing States appear to
have enjoyed over the others since the termination of the late war.
But the uniform appearance of an abundance of specie, as the
concomitant of a flourishing state of manufactures, and of the re-
verse, where they do not prevail, afford a strong presumption of
their favorable operation upon the wealth of a country.
Not only the wealth, but the independence and security of a
45
1
ぶ
​;
7
country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of
manufactures. Every nation, with a view to these great objects,
ought to endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of
national supply. These comprise the means of subsistence, habi-
tation, clothing and defence.
The possession of these is necessary to the perfection of the
body politic; to the safety as well as to the welfare of the society.
The want of either is the want of an important organ of political
life and motion; and in the various crises which await a State, it
must severely feel the effect of any such deficiency. The extreme
embarrassments of the United States during the late war, from an
incapacity of supplying themselves, are still matter of keen recol-
lection; a future war might be expected again to exemplify the
mischiefs and dangers of a situation to which that incapacity is
still, in too great a degree, applicable, unless changed by timely
and vigorous exertion. To effect this change, as fast as shall be
prudent, merits all the attention and all the zeal of our public
councils; 'tis the next great work to be accomplished.
The want of a navy, to protect our external commerce, as long
as it shall continue, must render it a peculiarly precarious reliance
for the supply of essential articles, and must serve to strengthen
prodigiously the arguments in favor of manufactures.
To these general considerations are added some of a more par-
ticular nature.
Our distance from Europe, the great fountain of manufactured
supply, subjects us, in the existing state of things, to inconven-
ience and loss, in two ways.
The bulkiness of those commodities, which are the chief pro-
ductions of the soil, necessarily imposes very heavy charges on
their transportation to distant markets. These charges in the
cases in which the nations to whom our products are sent maintain
a competition in the supply of their own markets, principally fall
upon us, and form material deductions from the primitive value
of the articles furnished. The charges on manufactured supplies,
brought from Europe, are greatly enhanced by the same circum-
stances of distance. These charges, again, in the cases in which
our own industry maintains no competition in our own markets,
also principally fall upon us, and are an additional cause of extra-
ordinary deduction from the primitive value of our own products;
these being the materials of exchange for the foreign fabrics which
we consume.
Jably
6
46
;
**?
The equality and moderation of individual property, and the
growing settlements of new districts, occasion in this country an
unusual demand for coarse manufactures; the charges of which
being greater in proportion to their greater bulk augment the
disadvantage which has been just described.
As in most countries, domestic supplies maintain a very consid-
erable competition with such foreign productions of the soil as are
imported for sale, if the extensive establishment of manufactories
in the United States does not create a similar competition in re-
spect to manufactured articles, it appears to be clearly deducible
from the considerations which have been mentioned, that they must
sustain a double loss in their exchanges with foreign nations, strong-
ly conducive to an unfavorable balance of trade, and very preju-
dicial to their interests.
These disadvantages press, with no small weight, on the landed
interest of the country. In seasons of peace, they cause a serious
deduction from the intrinsic value of the products of the soil. In
the time of a war, which should either involve ourselves, or another
nation possessing a considerable share of our carrying trade, the
charges on the transportation of our commodities, bulky as most
of them are, could hardly fail to prove a grievous burthen to the
farmer, while obliged to depend, in so great a degree as he now
does, upon foreign markets for the vent of the surplus of his labor.
As far as the prosperity of the fisheries of the United States is
impeded by the want of an adequate market, there arises another
special reason for desiring the extension of mnnufactures. Besides
the fish, which, in many places, would be likely to make a part of
the subsistence of the persons employed, it is known that the oils,
bones and skins of marine animals are of extensive use in various
manufactures. Hence, the prospect of an additional demand for
the produce of the fisheries.
One more point of view only remains, in which to consider the
expediency of encouraging manufactures in the United States.
It is not uncommon to meet with an opinion, that though the
promoting of manufactures may be the interest of a part of the
Union, it is contrary to that of another part. The Northern and
Southern regions are sometimes represented as having adverse in-
terests in this respect. Those are called manufacturing, these
agricultural States; and a species of opposition is imagined to
subsist between the manufacturing and agricultural interests.
This idea of an opposition between those two interests is the
47
}
common error of the early periods of every country; but experi-
ence gradually dissipates it. Indeed they are perceived so often
to succor and befriend each other, that they come at length to be
considered as one-a supposition which has been frequently.
abused, and is not universally true. Particular encouragements of
particular manufactures may be of a nature to sacrifice the inter-
ests of landholders to those of manufacturers; but it is nevertheless
a maxim, well established by experience, and generally acknowl-
edged, where there has been sufficient experience, that the aggre-
gate prosperity of manufactures and the aggregate prosperity of
agriculture are intimately connected. In the course of the dis-
cussion which has had place, various weighty considerations have
been adduced, operating in support of that maxim. Perhaps
the superior steadiness of the demand of a domestic market, for
the surplus of produce of the soil, is, alone, a convincing argu-
ment of its truth.
1
Ideas of a contrariety of interests between the Northern and
Southern regions of the Union are, in the main, as unfounded as
they are mischievous. The diversity of circumstances, on which
such contrariety is usually predicated, authorizes a directly contrary
conclusion. Mutual wants constitute one of the strongest links of
political connection, and the extent of these bears a natural pro-
portion to the diversity in the means of mutual supply.
Suggestions of an opposite complexion are ever to be deplored,
as unfriendly to the steady pursuit of one great common cause,
and to the perfect harmony of all the parts.
In proportion as the mind is accustomed to trace the intimate
connection of interest which subsists between all the parts of a so-
ciety united under the same government, the infinite variety of
channels will serve to circulate the prosperity of each, to and
through the rest, in that proportion will it be as little apt to be
disturbed by solicitudes and apprehensions which originate in local
discriminations.
↓
It is a truth, as important as it is agreeable, and one to which
it is not easy to imagine exceptions, that everything tending to
establish substantial and permanent order in the affairs of a coun-
try, to increase the total mass of industry and opulence, is ulti-
mately beneficial to every part of it. On the credit of this great
truth, an acquiescence may safely be accorded, from every quar-
ter, to all institutions and arrangements which promise a confirma-
tion of public order and an augmentation of national resource.
}
}
48
{
But there are more particular considerations which serve to for-
tify the idea that the encouragement of manufactures is the interest
of all parts of the Union. If the Northern and Middle States
should be the principal scenes of such establishments, they would
immediately benefit the more Southern, by creating a demand for
productions, some of which they have in common with the other
States, and others, which are either peculiar to them, or more
abundant, or of better quality, than elsewhere. These produc-
tions, principally, are timber, flax, hemp, cotton, wool, raw silk,
indigo, iron, lead, furs, hides, skins, and coal; of these articles,
cotton and indigo are peculiar to the Southern States, as are, hith-
erto, lead and coal; flax and hemp are, or may be, raised in
greater abundance there than in the more Northern States; and
the wool of Virginia is said to be of better quality than that of any
other state a circumstance rendered the more probable by the
reflection, that Virginia embraces the same latitudes with the finest
wool countries of Europe. The climate of the South is also bet-
ter adapted to the production of silk.
The extensive cultivation of cotton can, perhaps, hardly be ex-
pected but from the previous establishment of domestic manufac-
tories of the article; and the surest encouragement and vent for
the others would result from similar establishments in respect to
them.
If, then, it satisfactorily appears, that it is the interest of the
United States, generally, to encourage manufactures, it merits par-
ticular attention, that there are circumstances which render the
present a critical moment for entering with zeal upon the impor-
tant business. The effort cannot fail to be materially seconded by
a considerable and increasing influx of money, in consequence of
foreign speculations in the funds, and by the disorders which ex-
ist in different parts of Europe.
The first circumstance not only facilitates the execution of man-
ufacturing enterprises, but it indicates them as a necessary means.
to turn the thing itself to advantage, and to prevent its being
eventually an evil. If useful employment be not found for the
money of foreigners brought to the country to be invested in pur-
chases of the public debt, it will quickly be re-exported, to defray
the expense of an extraordinary consumption of foreign luxuries;
and distressing drains of our specie may, hereafter, be experi-
enced, to pay the interest and redeem the principal of the pur-
chased debt.
Vlag
49
2
$
1
{
This useful employment, too, ought to be of a nature to pro-
duce solid and permanent improvements. If the money merely
serves to give a temporary spring to foreign commerce, as it can-
not procure new and lasting outlets for the products of the coun-
try, there will be no real or durable advantage gained. As far as
it shall find its way in agricultural meliorations, in opening canals
and similar improvements, it will be productive of substantial
utility. But there is reason to doubt, whether, in such channels,
it is likely to find sufficient employment; and still more, whether
many of those who possess it would be as readily attracted to ob-
jects of this nature, as to manufacturing pursuits, which bear
greater analogy to those to which they are accustomed, and to the
spirit generated by them.
To open the one field, as well as the other, will at least secure
a better prospect of useful employment for whatever accession of
money there has been or may be.
а
There is, at the present juncture, a certain fermentation of mind,
a certain activity of speculation and enterprise, which, if properly
directed, may be made subservient to useful purposes; but, which,
if left entirely to itself, may be attended with pernicious effects.
The disturbed state of Europe inclining its citizens to emigra-
tion, the requisite workmen will be more easily acquired than at
another time; and the effect of multiplying the opportunities of
employment to those who emigrate, may be an increase of the
number and extent of valuable acquisitions to the population, arts,
and industry of the country.
To find pleasure in the calamities of other nations would be
criminal; but to benefit ourselves by opening an asylum to those
who suffer in consequence of them is as justifiable as it is politic.
A full view having now been taken of the inducements to the
promotion of manufactures in the United States, accompanied
with an examination of the principal objections which are com-
monly urged in opposition, it is proper, in the next place, to con-
sider the means by which it may be affected, as introductory to a
specification of the objects, which in the present state of things,
appear the most fit to be encouraged, and of the particular meas-
ures which it may be advisable to adopt in respect to each.
In order to a better judgment of the means proper to be re-
sorted to by the United States, it will be of use to advert to those
which have been employed with success in other countries. The
principal of these are:
50
א.
I. Protecting duties
or duties on those foreign articles which
are the rivals of the domestic ones intended to be encouraged.
Duties of this nature evidently amount to a virtual bounty on
the domestic fabrics; since, by enhancing the charges on foreign
fabrics, they enable the national manufacturers to undersell all
their foreign competitors. The propriety of this species of en-
couragement need not be dwelt upon, as it is not only a clear
result from the numerous topics which have been suggested, but
is sanctioned by the laws of the United States, in a variety of
instances; it has the additional recommendation of being a re-
source of revenue. Indeed, all the duties imposed on imported
articles, though with an exclusive view to revenue, have the effect, ·
in contemplation, and, except where they fall on raw materials,
wear a beneficent aspect toward the manufactures of the country.
2. Prohibitions of rival articles, or duties equivalent to prohibi-
tions.
This is another and efficacious means of encouraging national
manufactures; but, in general, it is only fit to be employed when
a manufacture has made such progress, and is in so many hands,
as to insure a due competition, and an adequate supply on reason-
able terms. Of duties equivalent to prohibitions, there are ex-
amples in the laws of the United States; and there are other cases
to which the principle may be advantageously extended, but they
are not numerous.
Considering a monopoly of the domestic market to its own
manufactures as the reigning policy of manufacturing nations, a
similar policy, on the part of the United States, in every proper
instance, is dictated, it might almost be said, by the principles of
distributive justice; certainly, by the duty of endeavoring to secure
to their own citizens a reciprocity of advantages.
3. Prohibitions of the exportation of the materials of manufac-
tures.
The desire of securing a cheap and plentiful supply for the
national workmen, and where the article is either peculiar to the
country or of peculiar quality there, the jealousy of enabling
foreign workmen to rival those of the nation with its own mate-
rials, are the leading motives to this species of regulation. It
ought not to be affirmed that it is in no instance proper; but it is,
certainly, one which ought to be adopted with great circumspec-
tion, and only in very plain cases. It is seen at once, that its
immediate operation is to abridge the demand, and keep down the
1
51
price of the produce of some other branch of industry—generally
speaking, of agriculture-to the prejudice of those who carry it
on; and though, if it be really essential to the prosperity of any
very important national manufacture, it may happen that those
who are injured, in the first instance, may be, eventually, indem-
nified by the superior steadiness of an extensive domestic market,
depending on that prosperity; yet, in a matter in which there is
so much room for nice and difficult combinations, in which such
opposite considerations combat each other, prudence seems to
dictate that the expedient in question ought to be indulged with a
sparing hand.
4. Pecuniary Bounties.
This has been found one of the most efficacious means of en-
couraging manufactures, and is, in some views, the best. Though
it has not yet been practised upon by the government of the
United States (unless the allowance on the exportation of dried
and pickled fish and salted meat could be considered as a bounty),
and though it is less favored by public opinion than some other
modes, its advantages are these:
I. It is a species of encouragement more positive and direct than
any other, and, for that very reason, has a more immediate tend-
ency to stimulate and uphold new enterprises, increasing the chances
of profit, and diminishing the risk of loss, in the first attempts.
2. It avoids the inconvenience of a temporary augmentation of
price, which is incident to some other modes; or it produces it to
a less degree, either by making no addition to the charges on the
rival foreign article, as in the case of protecting duties, or by mak-
ing a smaller addition. The first happens when the fund for the
bounty is derived from a different object (which may or may not
increase the price of some other article, according to the nature of
that object; the second, when the fund is derived from the same
or a similar object, of foreign manufacture. One per cent duty
on the foreign article, converted into a bounty on the domestic,
will have an equal effect with a duty of two per cent, exclusive of
such bounty; and the price of the foreign commodity is liable to
be raised, in the one case, in the proportion of one per cent; in
the other, in that of two per cent. Indeed, the bounty when
drawn from another source, is calculated to promote a reduction
of price; because, without laying any new charge on the foreign
article, it serves to introduce a competition with it, and to increase
the total quantity of the article in the market.
52
the he
3. Bounties have not, like high protecting duties, a tendency to
produce scarcity. An increase of price is not always the immedi-
ate, though, where the progress of a domestic manufacture does
not counteract a rise, it is, commonly, the ultimate effect of an
additional duty. In the interval between the laying of the duty
and the proportional increase of price, it may discourage importa-
tion, by interfering with the profits to be expected from the sale
of the article.
*
4. Bounties are, sometimes, not only the best, but the only
proper expedient for uniting the encouragement of a new object
of agriculture with that of a new object of manufacture. It is the
interest of the farmer to have the production of the raw material
promoted by counteracting the interference of the foreign mate-
rial of the same kind. It is the interest of the manufacturer to
have the material abundant and cheap. If, prior to the domestic
production of the material, in sufficient quantity to supply the
manufacturer on good terms, a duty be laid upon the importation
of it from abroad, with a view to promote the raising of it at
home, the interest both of the farmer and manufacturer will be
deserved. By either destroying the requisite supply, or raising
the price of the article beyond what can be afforded to be given
for it by the conductor of an infant manufacture, it is abandoned
or fails, and there being no domestic manufactories to create a
demand for the raw material, which is raised by the farmer, it is
in vain that the competition of the like foreign article may have
been destroyed.
It cannot escape notice, that a duty upon the importation of an
article can no otherwise aid the domestic production of it, than by
giving the latter greater advantages in the home market. It can
have no influence upon the advantageous sale of the article pro-
duced in foreign markets-no tendency, therefore, to promote its
exportation.
The true way to conciliate these two interests is to lay a duty on
foreign manufactures of the material, the growth of which is de-
sired to be encouraged, and to apply the produce of that duty,
by way of bounty either upon the production of the material
itself, or upon its manufacture at home, or upon both. In this
disposition of the thing, the manufacturer commences his enter-
prise under every advantage which is attainable, as to quantity or
price of the raw material; and the farmer, if the bounty be im-
mediately to him, is enabled by it to enter into a successful com-
53
1
i
}
petition with the foreign material. If the bounty be to the
manufacturer, on so much of the domestic material as he con-
sumes, the operation is nearly the same: he has a motive of inter-
est to prefer the domestic commodity, if of equal quality, even at
a higher price than the foreign, so long as the difference of price
is anything short of the bounty which is allowed upon the article.
Except the simple and ordinary kinds of household manufacture,
or those for which there are very commanding local advantages,
' pecuniary bounties are, in most cases, indispensable to the intro-
duction of a new branch. A stimulus and a support, not less
powerful and direct, is, generally speaking, essential to the over-
coming of the obstacles which arise from the competitions of
superior skill and maturity elsewhere. Bounties are especially
essential in regard to articles upon which those foreigners, who
have been accustomed to supply a country, are in the practice of
granting them.
$
The continuance of bounties on manufactures long established
must almost always be of questionable policy; because a presump-
tion would arise, in every such case, that there were natural and
inherent impediments to success. But, in new undertakings, they
are as justifiable as they are oftentimes necessary.
There is a degree of prejudice against bounties, from an ap-
pearance of giving away the public money without an immediate
consideration, and from a supposition that they serve to enrich
´particular classes at the expense of the community.
But neither of these sources of dislike will bear a serious exam-
ination. There is no purpose to which public money can be more
beneficially applied than to the acquisition of a new and useful
branch of industry; no consideration more valuable than a per-
manent addition to the general stock of productive labor.
As to the second source of objection, it equally lies against
other modes of encouragement, which are admitted to be eligible.
As often as a duty upon a foreign article makes an addition to its
price, it causes an extra expense to the community for the benefit
of the domestic manufacturer. A bounty does no more. But it
is the interest of the society, in each case, to submit to the tem-
porary expense-which is more than compensated by an increase
of industry and wealth, by an augmentation of resources and in-
dependence, and by the circumstance of eventual cheapness, which
has been noticed in another place.
It would deserve attention, however, in the employment of this
5,4
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species of encouragement in the United States, as a reason for
moderating the degree of it in the instances in which it might be
deemed eligible, that the great distance of this country from Eu-
rope imposes very heavy charges on all the fabrics which are
brought from thence, amounting to from 15 to 30 per cent, on
their value, according to their bulk.
A question has been made concerning the constitutional right
of the Government of the United States to apply this species of
encouragement, but there is certainly no good foundation for such
a question. The National Legislature has express authority
"to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the
debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare,”
with no other qualifications than that "all duties, imposts, and ex-
cises shall be uniform throughout the United States; and that no
capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to
numbers ascertained by a census or enumeration, taken on the
principles prescribed in the Constitution," and that "no tax or
duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State."
These three qualifications excepted, the power to raise money
is plenary aud indefinite, and the objects to which it may be ap-
propriated a
are no less comprehensive than the payment of the
public debts, and the providing for the common defence and gen-
eral welfare. The terms "general welfare" were doubtless intended.
to signify more than was expressed or imported in those which
preceded; otherwise, numerous exigencies incident to the affairs
of a nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase
is as comprehensive as any that could have been used, because it
was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union to ap-
propriate its revenues should have been restricted within narrower
limits than the "general welfare," and because this necessarily em-
braces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither
of specification nor of definition.
It is, therefore, of necessity, left to the discretion of the Na-
tional Legislature to pronounce upon the objects which concern
the general welfare, and for which, under that description, an ap-
propriation of money is requisite and proper. And there seems
to be no room for a doubt that whatever concerns the general in-
terests of learning, of agriculture, of manufactures, and of com-
merce, are within the sphere of the national councils, as far as
regards an application of money.
The only qualification of the generality of the phrase in ques-
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#
55
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​tion which seems to be admissable, is this: That the object to
which an appropriation of money is to be made be general, and
not local; its operation extending in fact or by possibility through-
out the Union, and not being confined to a particular spot.
No objection ought to arise to this construction, from a supposi-
tion that it would imply a power to do whatever else should appear
to Congress conducive to the general welfare. A power to ap-
propriate money with this latitude, which is granted, too, in
express terms, would not carry a power to do any other thing not
authorized in the Constitution, either expressly or by fair implica-
tion.
J
5. Premiums. These are of nature allied to bounties, though
distinguishable from them in some important features.
Bounties are applicable to the whole quantity of an article pro-
duced, or manufactured, or exported, and involve a correspondent
expense. Premiums serve to reward some particular excellence
or superiority, some extraordinary exertion of skill, and are dis-
pensed only in a small number of cases. But their effect is to
stimulate general effort; contrived so as to be both honorary and
lucrative, they address themselves to different passions-touching
the chords, as well of emulation as of interest. They are, ac-
cordingly, a very economical means of exciting the enterprise of
a whole community.
There are various societies in different countries, whose object
is the dispensation of premiums for the encouragement of agricul-
ture, art, manufactures, and commerce; and though they are, for
the most part, voluntary associations, with comparatively slender
funds, their utility has been immense. Much has been done, by
this means, in Great Britian. Scotland, in particular, owes mate-
rially to it a prodigious amelioration of condition. From a similiar
establishment in the United States, supplied and supported by the
Government of the Union, vast benefits might reasonably be ex-
pected. Some further ideas on this head shall, accordingly, be
submitted in the conclusion of this report.
6. The exemption of the materials of manufactures from duty.
The policy of that exemption, as a general rule, particularly in
reference to new establishments, is obvious. It can hardly ever
be advisable to add the obstructions of fiscal burthens to the diffi-
culties which naturally embarrass a new manufacture; and where
it is matured, and in condition to become an object of revenue, it
is, generally speaking, better that the fabric, than the material,
!
Sky
56
?
should be the subject of taxation. Ideas of proportion between
the quantum of the tax and the value of the article can be more
easily adjusted in the former than in the latter case.
An argu-
ment for exemptions of this kind, in the United States, is to be
derived from the practice, as far as their necessities have per-
mitted, of those nations whom we are to meet as competitors in
our own and in foreign markets.
There are, however, exceptions to it, of which some examples
will be given under the next head.
The laws of the Union afford instances of the observance of the
policy here recommended, but it will probably be found advisable
to extend it to some other cases. Of a nature bearing some
affinity to that policy is the regulation, which exempts from duty
the tools and implements, as well as the books, clothes, and
household furniture, of foreign artists who come to reside in the
United States—an advantage already secured to them by the laws
of the Union, and which it is, in every view, proper to continue.
7. Drawbacks of the duties which are imposed on the materials
of manufactures.
اسکا
It has already been observed, as a general rule, that duties on
those materials ought, with certain exceptions, to be forborne.
Of these exceptions, three cases occur, which may serve as ex-
amples. One, where the material is itself an object of general or
extensive consumption, and a fit and productive source of revenue.
Another, where a manufacture of a simpler kind, the competition
of which, with a like domestic article, is desired to be restrained,
partakes of the nature of a raw material, from being capable, by a
further process, to be converted into a manufacture of a different
kind, the introduction or growth of which is desired to be encour-
aged. A third, where the material itself is a production of the
country, and in sufficient abundance to furnish a cheap and plenti-
ful supply to the national manufacturers.
Under the first description comes the article of molasses. It is
not only a fair object of revenue, but, being a sweet, it is just that
the consumers of it should pay a duty as well as the consumers of
sugar.
உ
C
Cottons and linens, in their white state, fall under the second
description. A duty upon such as are imported is proper to pro-
mote the domestic manufacture of similar articles in the same
State. A drawback of that duty is proper, to encourage the
printing and staining at home of those which are brought from
57
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abroad.
When the first of these manufactures has attained suffi-
cient maturity in a country to furnish a full supply for the second,
the utility of the drawback ceases.
The article of hemp either now does, or may be expected soon
to, exemplify the third case in the United States.
Where duties on the materials of manufactures are not laid for
the purpose of preventing a competition with some domestic pro-
duction, the same reasons which recommend, as a general rule,
the exemption of those materials from duties, would recommend,
as a like general rule, the allowance of drawbacks in favor of the
manufacturer. Accordingly, such drawbacks are familiar in
countries which systematically pursue the business of manufac-
tures; which furnishes an argument for the observance of a similar
policy in the United States; and the idea has been adopted by
the laws of the Union, in the instances of salt and molasses. It is
believed that it will be found advantageous to extend it to some.
other articles.
1
Ca
8. The encouragement of new inventions and discoveries at
home, and of the introduction into the United States of such as may
have been made in other countries; particularly those which relate
to machinery.
This is among the most useful and unexceptionable of the aids.
which can be given to manufactures. The usual means of that
encouragement are pecuniary rewards, and, for a time, exclusive
privileges. The first must be employed according to the occasion
and the utility of the invention or discovery. For the last, so far
as respects "authors and inventors," provision has been made by
law. But it is desirable, in regard to improvements, and secrets.
of extraordinary value, to be able to extend the same benefit to
introducers, as well as authors and inventors; a policy which has
been practised with advantage in other countries. Here, how-
ever, as in some other cases, there is cause to regret that the com-
petency of the authority of the National Government to the good
which might be done, is not without a question. Many aids might
be given to industry, many internal improvements of primary
magnitude might be promoted, by an authority operating through-
out the Union, which cannot be effected as well, if at all, by an
authority confined within the limits of a single State.
But, if the legislature of the Union cannot do all the good that
might be wished, it is, at least, desirable that all may be done
which is practicable. Means for promoting the introduction of
58
*
嘤
​foreign improvements, though less efficaciously than might be
accomplished with more adequate authority, will form a part of
the plan intended to be submitted in the close of this report.
It is customary with manufacturing nations to prohibit, under
severe penalties, the exportation of implements and machines
which they have either invented or improved. There are already
objects for a similar regulation in the United States; and others
may be expected to occur from time to time. The adoption of
it seems to be dictated by the principle of reciprocity. Greater
liberality in such respects, might better comport with the general
spirit of the country; but a selfish and exclusive policy, in other
quarters, will not always permit the free indulgence of a spirit
which would place us upon an unequal footing. As far as prohi-
bitions tend to prevent foreign competitors from deriving the
benefit of the improvements made at home, they tend to increase
the advantages of those by whom they may have been introduced,
and operate as an encouragement to exertion.
9. Fudicious regulations for the inspection of manufactured
commodities.
This is not among the least important of the means by which
the prosperity of manufactures may be promoted. It is, indeed,
in many cases, one of the most essential. Contributing to prevent
frauds upon consumers at home and exporters to foreign coun-
tries, to improve the quality and preserve the character of the
national manufactures, it cannot fail to aid the expeditious and
advantageous sale of them, and to serve as a guard against suc-
cessful competition from other quarters. The reputation of the
flour and lumber of some States, and of the potash of others, has
been established by an attention to this point. And the like good
name might be procured for those articles, wheresoever produced,
by a judicious and uniform system of inspection throughout the
ports of the United States. A like system might also be extended
with advantage to other commodities.
IO.
The facilitating of pecuniary remittances from place to
place-
Is a point of considerable moment to trade in general, and to
manufacturers in particular, by rendering more easy the purchase
of raw materials and provisions, and the payment for manu-
factured supplies. A general circulation of bank paper, which is
to be expected from the institution lately established, will be a
most valuable means to this end. But much good would also
M
I
59
Ex
1
accrue from some additional provisions respecting inland bills of
exchange. If those drawn in one State, payable in another, were
made negotiable everywhere, and interest and damages allowed in
case of protest, it would greatly promote negotiations between the
citizens of different States, by rendering them more secure, and
with it the convenience and advantage of the merchants and manu-
facturers of each.
II. The facilitating of the transportation of commodities.
Improvements favoring this object intimately concern all the
domestic interests of a community; but they may, without im-
propriety, be mentioned as having an important relation to man-
ufacturers. There is, perhaps, scarcely anything which has been
better calculated to assist the manufacturers of Great Britain, than
the melioration of the public roads of that kingdom, and the great
progress which has been of late made in opening canals. Of the
former, the United States stand much in need; for the latter, they
present uncommon facilities.
The symptoms of attention to the improvement of inland navi-
gation, which have lately appeared in some quarters, must fill with
pleasure every breast warmed with a true zeal for the prosperity
of the country. These examples, it is to be hoped, will stimulate
the exertions of the government and citizens of every State.
There can certainly be no object more worthy of the cares of the
local administrations; and it were to be wished that there was no
doubt of the power of the National Government to lend its direct
aid on a comprehensive plan. This is one of those improvements
which could be prosecuted with more efficacy by the whole than
by any part or parts of the Union. There are cases in which the
general interest will be in danger to be sacrificed to the collision
of some supposed local interests. Jealousies, in matters of this
kind, are as apt to exist as they are apt to be erroneous.
The following remarks are sufficiently. judicious and pertinent.
to deserve a literary quotation:
“Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the
expense of carriage, put the remote parts of a country more
nearly upon a level with those in the neighborhood of the town.
They are, upon that account, the greatest of all improvements.
They encourage the cultivation of the remote, which must always
be the most extensive circle of the country. They are advanta-
geous to the town, by breaking down the monopoly of the country
in its neighborhood. They are advantageous even to that part of
/
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60
the country.
Though they introduce some rival commodities
into the old market, they open many new markets to its produce.
Monopoly, besides,' is a great enemy to good management, which
can never be universally established, but in consequence of that
free and universal competition, which forces everybody to have.
recourse to it for the sake of self-defence. It is not more than
fifty years ago that some of the counties in the neighborhood of
London petitioned the Parliament against the extension of the turn-
pike roads into the remoter countries. Those remoter counties,
they pretended, from the cheapness of labor, would be able to
sell their grass and corn cheaper in the London market than
themselves, and they would thereby reduce their rents and ruin
their cultivation. Their rents, however, have risen, and their cul-
tivation has improved since that time."
Specimens of a spirit similar to that which governed the coun-
ties here spoken of, present themselves too frequently to the eye
of an impartial observer, and render it a wish of patriotism, that
the body in this country, in whose councils a local or partial spirit
is least likely to predominate, were at liberty to pursue and pro-
mote the general interest, in those instances in which there might
be danger of the interference of such a spirit.
The foregoing are the principal of the means by which the
growth of manufactures is ordinarily promoted. It is, however,
not merely necessary that the measures of government which have
a direct view to manufactures, should be calculated to assist and
protect them, but that those which only collaterally effect them
in the general course of the administration should be guarded
from any peculiar tendency to injure them.
There are certain species of taxes, which are apt to be oppres-
sive to different parts of the community, and, among other ill
effects, have a very unfriendly aspect toward manufactures. All
poll or capitation taxes are of this nature. They either proceed
according to a fixed rate, which operates unequally and in-
juriously to the industrious poor, or they vest a discretion, in
certain officers, to make estimates and assessments, which are
necessarily vague, conjectural, and liable to abuse. They ought,
therefore, to be abstained from in all but cases of distressing
emergency.
All such taxes (including all taxes on occupations) which pro-
ceed according to the amount of capital supposed to be employed
in a business, or of profits supposed to be made in it, are una-
I
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voidably hurtful to industry.
It is in vain that the evil may be
endeavored to be mitigated, by leaving it, in the first instance, in
the option of the party to be taxed, to declare the amount of, his
capital or profits.
A
Men engaged in any trade or business have commonly weighty
reasons to avoid disclosures which would expose, with anything
like accuracy, the real state of their affairs. They most frequently
find it better to risk oppression, than to avail themselves of so in-
convenient a refuge, and the consequence is, that they often suffer
oppression.
-
When the disclosure, too, if made, is not definite, but control-
lable by the discretion, or, in other words, by the passions and
prejudices, of the revenue officers, it is not only an ineffectual
protection, but the possibility of its being so is an additional reason
for not resorting to it.
Allowing to the public officers the most equitable dispositions,
yet, where they are to exercise a discretion without certain data,
they cannot fail to be often misled by appearances. The quantity
of business which seems to be going on is, in a vast number of
cases, a very deceitful criterion of the profits which are made; yet
it is, perhaps, the best they can have, and it is the one on which
they will most naturally rely. A business, therefore, which may
rather require aid from the government, than be in a capacity to
be contributory to it, may find itself crushed by the mistaken con-
jectures of the assessors of taxes.
Arbitrary taxes, under which denomination are comprised all
those that leave the quantum of the tax to be raised on each per-
son to the discretion of certain officers, are as contrary to the
genius of liberty as to the maxims of industry. In this light they
have been viewed by the most judicious observers on government,
who have bestowed upon them the severest epithets of reproba-
tion, as constituting one of the worst features usually to be met`
with in the practice of despotic governments.
It is certain, at least, that such taxes are particularly inimical
to the success of manufacturing industry, and ought carefully to
be avoided by a government which desires to promote it.
The great copiousness of the subject of this report has insen-
sibly led to a more lengthy preliminary discussion than was
originally contemplated or intended. It appeared proper to in-
vestigate principles, to consider objections, and to endeavor to
establish the utility of the thing proposed to be encouraged, pre-
K
62
vious to a specification of the objects which might occur, as merit-
ing or requiring encouragement, and of the measures which might
be proper in respect to each. The first purpose having been ful-
filled, it remains to pursue the second.
In the selection of objects, five circumstances seem entitled to
particular attention; the capacity of the country to furnish the
raw material; the degree in which the nature of the manufacture
admits of a substitute for manual labor in machinery; the facility
of execution; the extensiveness of the uses to which the article
can be applied; its subserviency to other interests, particularly
the great one of national defence. There are, however, objects to
which these circumstances are little applicable, which, for some
special reasons, may have a claim to encouragement.
A designation of the principal raw material of which each
manufacture is composed, will serve to introduce the remarks
upon it; as, in the first place,
T
IRON.
The manufactures of this article are entitled to pre-eminent
rank. None are more essential in their kinds, nor so extensive in
their use. They constitute, in whole or in part, the implements
or the materials, or both, of almost every useful occupation. Their
instrumentality is everywhere conspicuous.
It is fortunate for the United States that they have peculiar ad-
vantages for deriving the full benefit of this most valuable material,
and they have every motive to improve it with systematic care.
It is to be found in various parts of the United States, in great
abundance, and of almost every quality; and fuel, the chief instru-
ment in manufacturing it, is both cheap and plenty.
This par-
ticularly applies to charcoal; but there are productive coal mines
already in operation, and strong indications that the material is to
be found in abundance in a variety of other places.
The inquiries to which the subject of this report has led have
been answered with proofs that manufactories of iron, though
generally understood to be extensive, are far more so than is
commonly supposed. The kinds in which the greatest progress
has been made have been mentioned in another place, and need
not be repeated; but there is little doubt that every other kind,
with due cultivation, will rapidly succeed. It is worthy of remark
that several of the particular trades of which it is the basis are
capable of being carried on without the aid of large capitals.
Iron works have greatly increased in the United States, and are
63
prosecuted with much more advantage than formerly. The aver-
age price, before the Revolution, was about sixty-four dollars per
ton; at present, it is about eighty—a rise which is chiefly to be
attributed to the increase of manufactures of the material.
The still further extension and multiplication of such manufac-
tures will have the double effect of promoting the extraction of
the metal itself, and of converting it to a greater number of profit-
able purposes.
Those manufactures, too, unite, in a greater degree than almost
any others, the several requisites which have been mentioned as
proper to be consulted in the selection of objects.
The only further encouragement of manufactories of this article,
the propriety of which may be considered as unquestionable,
seems to be an increase of the duties on foreign rival commodities.
Steel is a branch which has already made considerable progress,
and it is ascertained that some new enterprises, on a more exten-
sive scale, have been lately set on foot. The facility of carrying
it to an extent which will supply all internal demands, and furnish
a considerable surplus for exportation, cannot be doubted. The
duty upon the importation of this article, which is, at present,
seventy-five cents per cwt., may, it is conceived, be safely and
advantageously extended to one hundred cents. It is desirable,
by decisive arrangements, to second the efforts which are making
in so very valuable a branch.
The United States, already, in a great measure, supply them-
selves with nails and spikes. They are able, and ought certainly,
to do it entirely. The first and most laborious operation, in this
manufacture, is performed by water mills; and of the persons.
afterwards employed, a great proportion are boys, whose early
habits of industry are of importance to the community, to the
present support of their families, and to their own future comfort.
It is not less curious than true, that, in certain parts of the coun-
try, the making of nails is an occasional family manufacture.
The expediency of an additional duty on these articles is indi-
cated by an important fact. About one million eight hundred
thousand pounds of them were imported into the United States
in the course of a year, ending the 30th of September, 1790. A
duty of two cents a pound would, it is presumable, speedily put an
end to so considerable an importation. And it is, in every view,
proper that an end should be put to it.
The manufacture of these articles, like that of some others, suf-
}
64
+4
fers from the carelessness and dishonesty of a part of those who
carry it on. An inspection in certain cases might tend to correct
the evil. It will deserve consideration whether a regulation of
this sort cannot be applied, without inconvenience, to the expor-
tation of the articles, either to foreign countries, or from one State
to another.
The implements of husbandry are made in several States in
great abundance. In many places it is done by the common
blacksmiths. And there is no doubt that an ample supply for the
whole country can, with great ease, be procured among ourselves.
Various kinds of edged tools for the use of mechanics are also
made; and a considerable quantity of hollow wares, though the
business of castings has not yet attained the perfection which
might be wished. It is, however, improving, and as there are
respectable capitals, in good hands, embarked in the prosecution
of those branches of iron manufacture which are yet in their in-
fancy, they may all be contemplated as objects not difficult to be
acquired.
To insure the end it seems equally safe and prudent to extend
the duty, ad valorem, upon all manufactures of iron, or of which
iron is the article of chief value, to ten per cent.
Fire-arms and other military weapons may, it is conceived, be
placed, without inconvenience, in the class of articles rated at
fifteen per cent. There are already manufactories of these articles,
which only require the stimulus of a certain demand to render
them adequate to the supply of the United States.
It would also be a material aid to manufactures of this nature, as
well as a means of public security, if provision should be made
for an annual purchase of military weapons, of home manufacture,
to a certain determinate extent, in order to the formation of
arsenals; and to replace, from time to time, such as should be
drawn for use, so as to always have in store the quantity of each
kind which should be deemed a competent supply.
But it may, hereafter, deserve legislative consideration, whether
manufactories of all the necessary weapons of war ought not to
be established on account of the government itself. Such estab-
lishments are agreeable to the usual practice of nations, and that
practice seems founded on sufficient reason.
There appears to be an improvidence in leaving these essential
implements of national defence to the casual speculations of in-
dividual_adventure—a resource which can less be relied upon, in
65
this case, than in most others; the articles in question not being
objects of ordinary and indispensable private consumption or use.
As a general rule, manufactories on the immediate account of gov-
ernment are to be avoided; but this seems to be one of the few ex-
ceptions which that rule admits, depending on very special reasons.
Manufacturers of steel, generally, or of which steel is the article
of chief value, may, with advantage, be placed in the class of
goods rated at seven and a half per cent. As manufactures of
this kind have not yet made any considerable progress, it is a
reason for not rating them as high as those of iron; but as this
material is the basis of them, and as their extension is not less.
practicable than important, it is desirable to promote it by a some-
what higher duty than the present.
A question arises how far it might be expedient to permit the
importation of iron, in pigs and bars, free from duty. It would
certainly be favorable to manufactures of the article; but the
doubt is, whether it might not interfere with its production.
Two circumstances, however, abate, if they do not remove, ap-
prehension on this score; one is the considerable increase of price
which has been already remarked, and which renders it probable
that the free admission of foreign iron would not be inconsistent
with an adequate profit to the proprietors of iron works; the other
is the augmentation of demand which would be likely to attend
the increase of manufactures of the article, in consequence of the
additional encouragements proposed to be given. But caution,
nevertheless, in a matter of this kind is most advisable. The
measure suggested ought, perhaps, rather to be contemplated sub-
ject to the lights of further experience, than immediately adopted.
A
COPPER.
The manufactures of which this article is susceptible are, also,
of great extent and utility. Under this description, those of brass,
of which it is the principal ingredient, are intended to be included.
The material is a natural production of the country. Mines of
copper have actually been wrought, and with profit to the under-
takers, though it is not known that any are now in this condition.
And nothing is easier than the introduction of it from other coun-
tries, on moderate terms and in great plenty.
Coppersmiths and brass founders, particularly the former, are
numerous in the United States; some of whom carry on business
to a respectable extent.
66
To multiply and extend manufactories of the materials in
question, is worthy of attention and effort. In order to this, it
is desirable to facilitate a plentiful supply of the materials; and a
proper means to this end is to place them in the class of free
articles. Copper, in plates, and brass, are already in this predica-
ment; but copper, in pigs and bars, is not; neither is lapis calam-
inaris; which, together with copper and charcoal, constitute the
component ingredients of brass. The exemption from duty, by
parity of reason, ought to embrace all such of these articles as are
objects of importation.
An additional duty on brass wares will tend to the general end
in view. These now stand at five per cent, while those of tin,
pewter, and copper are rated at seven and a half. There appears
to be a propriety, in every view, in placing brass wares on the
same level with them; and it merits consideration, whether the
duty upon all of them ought not to be raised to ten per cent.
LEAD.
There are numerous proofs that this material abounds in the
United States, and requires little to unfold it to an extent more
than equal to every domestic occasion. A prolific mine of it has
long been open in the southwestern parts of Virginia, and under a
public administration during the late war, yielded a considerable
supply for military use. This is now in the hands of individuals,
who not only carry it on with spirit, but have established man-
ufactories of it at Richmond, in the same State.
The duties already laid upon the importation of this article,
either in its unmanufactured or manufactured state, insure it a
decisive advantage in the home market, which amounts to con-
siderable encouragement. If the duty on pewter wares should be
*raised, it would afford a further encouragement. Nothing else
occurs as proper to be added.
FOSSIL COAL.
This, as an important instrument of manufactures, may, without
impropriety, be mentioned among the subjects of this report.
A copious supply of it would be of great consequence to the
iron branch. As an article of household fuel, also, it is an inter-
esting production, the utility of which must increase in proportion
to the decrease of wood, by the progress of settlement and culti-
vation. And its importance to navigation, as an immense article
67
}
of transportation coastwise, is signally exemplified in Great Britain.
It is known that there are several coal mines in Virginia now
worked; and appearances of their existence are familiar in a nùm-
ber of places.
3
The expediency of a bounty on all this species of coal, of home
production, and of premiums on the opening of new mines, under
certain qualifications, appears to be worthy of particular examina-
tion. The great importance of the article will amply justify a
reasonable expense in this way, if it shall appear to be necessary
to, and shall be thought likely to, answer the end.
WOOD.
Several manufactures of this article flourish in the United States.
Ships are nowhere built in greater perfection, and cabinet wares
generally are made little, if at all, inferior to those of Europe.
Their extent is such as to have admitted of considerable exporta-
tion.
An exemption from duty of the several kinds of wood, ordinarily
used in these manufactures, seems to be all that is requisite by
way of encouragement. It is recommended by the consideration
of a similar policy being pursued in other countries, and by the
expediency of giving equal advantages to our own workmen in
wood. The abundance of timber proper for ship-building in the
United States does not appear to be any objection to it. The in-
creasing scarcity and growing importance of that article, in the
European countries, admonish the United States to commence,
and systematically to pursue, measures for the preservation of
their stock. Whatever may promote the regular establishment of
magazines of ship timber is in various views desirable.
SKINS.
There are scarcely any manufactories of greater importance
than of this article. Their direct and very happy influence upon
agriculture, by promoting the raising of cattle of different kinds, is
a very material recommendation.
It is pleasing, too, to observe the extensive progress they have
made in their principal branches, which are so far matured as
almost to defy foreign competition. Tanneries, in particular, are
not only carried on as a regular business, in numerous instances,
and in various parts of the country, but they constitute, in some
places, a valuable item of incidental family manufactures.
68
}
"
Representations, however, have been made, importing the ex-
pediency of further encouragement to the leather branch, in two
ways: one by increasing the duty on the manufactures of it which
are imported; the other, by prohibiting the exportation of bark.
In support of the latter, it is alleged, that the price of bark, chiefly
in consequence of large exportations, has risen, within a few years,
from about three dollars to four and a half per cord.
These suggestions are submitted, rather as intimations which
merit consideration, than as matters the propriety of which is
manifest. It is not clear that an increase of duty is necessary;
and in regard to the prohibitions desired, there is no evidence of
any considerable exportation hitherto; and it is most probable,
that whatever augmentation of price may have taken place, is to
be attributed to an extension of the home demand, from the in-
crease of manufactures, and to a decrease of the supply, in conse-
quence of the progress of settlement, rather than to the quantities
which have been exported.
It is mentioned, however, as an additional reason for the prohi-
bition, that one species of the bark usually exported, is in some
sort peculiar to the country, and the material of a very valuable
dye, of great use in some other manufactures, in which the United
States have begun a competition.
There may also be this argument in favor of an increase of
duty. The object is of importance enough to claim decisive en-
couragement, and the progress which has been made leaves no
room to apprehend any inconvenience on the score of supply,
from such an increase.
It would be of benefit to this branch if glue, which is now rated
at five per cent, were made the object of an excluding duty. It
is already made, in large quantities, at various tanneries, and, like
paper, is an entire economy of materials, which, if not manufac-
tured, would be left to perish. It may be placed, with advantage,
in the class of articles paying fifteen per cent.
GRAIN.
Manufactures of the several species of this article have a title
to peculiar favor, not only because they are, most of them, im-
mediately connected with the subsistence of the citizens, but
because they enlarge the demand for the most precious products.
of the soil.
Though flour may with propriety be noticed as a manufacture
흩
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<P>
}
of grain, it were useless to do it, but for the purpose of submitting
the expediency of a general system of inspection throughout the
ports of the United States, which, if established upon proper
principles, would be likely to improve the quality of our flour
everywhere, and to raise its reputation in foreign markets. There
are, however, considerations which stand in the way of such an
arrangement.
Ardent spirits and malt liquors are, next to flour, the two prin-
cipal manufactures of grain. The first has made a very extensive,
the last a considerable progress in the United States. In respect
to both an exclusive possession of the home market ought to be
secured to the domestic manufacturers as fast as circumstances
will admit. Nothing is more practicable, and nothing more
desirable.
The existing laws of the United States have done much towards
attaining this valuable object, but some additions to the present
duties on foreign distilled spirits and foreign malt liquors, and
perhaps an abatement of those on home-made spirits, would more
effectually secure it, and there does not occur any very weighty
objection to either.
An augmentation of the duties on imported spirits would favor
as well the distillation of spirits from molasses as that from grain;
and to secure to the nation the benefit of a manufacture, even of
foreign materials, is always of great, though perhaps of secondary
importance.
A strong impression prevails in the minds of those concerned
in distilleries (including, too, the most candid and enlightened),
that greater differences in the rates of duty on foreign and domes-
tic spirits are necessary completely to secure the successful manu-
facture of the latter and there are facts which entitle this impres-
sion to attention.
It is known that the price of molasses for some years past has
been successively rising in the West India markets, owing partly
to a competition which did not formerly exist, and partly to an
extension of demand in this country; and it is evident that the
late disturbances in those islands, from which we draw our prin-
cipal supply, must so far interfere with the production of the
article as to occasion a material enhancement in price. The
destruction and devastation attendant on the insurrection in His-
paniola, in particular, must not only contribute very much to that
effect, but may be expected to give it some duration. These
Į
#
70
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circumstances, and the duty of three cents per gallon on molasses,
may render it difficult for the distillers of that material to maintain
with adequate profit a competition with the rum brought from the
West Indies, the quality of which is so considerably superior.
The consumption of geneva, or gin, in this country is extensive.
It is not long since distilleries of it have grown up among us to
any importance. They are now becoming of consequence, but
being still in their infancy, they require protection.
It is represented that the price of some of the materials is
greater here than in Holland, from which place large quantities
are brought; the price of labor considerably greater; capitals
engaged in the business there much larger than those which are
employed here; the rate of profits at which the undertakers can
afford to carry it on much less; the prejudices in favor of import-
ing gin strong. These circumstances are alleged to outweigh the
charges which attend the bringing of the article from Europe to
the United States and the present difference of duty, so as to
obstruct the prosecution of the manufacture with due advantage.
Experiment could, perhaps, alone decide with certainty the
justness of the suggestions which are made; but in relation to
branches of manufacture so important, it would seem inexpedient
to hazard an unfavorable issue, and better to err on the side of
too great than of too small a difference in the particular in
question.
It is, therefore, submitted, that an addition of two cents per
gallon be made to the duty on imported spirits of the first class
of proof, with a proportionable increase on those of higher proof;
and that a deduction of one cent per gallon be made from the
duty on spirits distilled within the United States, beginning with
the first class of proof and a proportionable deduction from the
duty on those of higher proof.
It is ascertained that by far the greatest part of the malt liquors
consumed in the United States are the produce of domestic
breweries. It is desirable, and in all likelihood attainable, that the
whole consumption should be supplied by ourselves.
The malt liquors at home, though inferior to the best, are equal
to a great part of those which have been usually imported. The
progress already made is an earnest of what may be accomplished.
The growing competition is an assurance of improvement. This
will be accelerated by measures tending to invite a greater capital
into this channel of employment.
▸
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}
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71
To render the encouragement of domestic breweries decisive, it
may be advisable to substitute to the present rates of duty, eight
cents per gallon, generally; and it will deserve to be considered
as a guard against evasions, whether there ought not to be a pro-
hibition of their importation, except in casks of considerable
capacity. It is to be hoped, that such a duty would banish from
the market foreign malt liquors of inferior quality, and that the
best kind, only, would continue to be imported, till it should be
supplanted by the efforts of equal skill or care at home.
Till that period, the importation, so qualified, would be a useful
stimulus to improvement, and, in the meantime, the payment of
the increased price for the enjoyment of a luxury, in order to the
encouragement of a most useful branch of domestic industry,
could not reasonably be deemed a hardship.
As a further aid to manufactures of grain, though upon a smaller
scale, the articles of starch, hair powder, and wafers may with
great propriety be placed among those which are rated at fifteen
per cent.
No manufactures are more simple, nor more com-
pletely within the reach of a full supply from domestic sources;
and it is a policy as common as it is obvious, to make them the
objects either of prohibitionary duties or of express prohibition.
FLAX AND HEMP.
Manufactures of these articles have so much affinity to each
other and they are so often blended, that they may, with advan-
tage, be considered in conjunction. The importance of the linen
branch to agriculture, its precious effects upon household indus-
try, the ease with which the materials can be produced at home,
to any requisite extent, the great advances which have been
already made in the coarser fabrics of them, especially in the
family way, constitute claims of peculiar force to the patronage of
government.
Pa
This patronage may be afforded in various ways; by promoting
the growth of the materials, by increasing the impediments to an
advantageous competition of rival foreign articles, by direct boun-
ties, or premiums upon the home manufactures.
Ist. As to promoting the growth of the materials.
In respect to hemp, something has been already done, by the
high duty upon foreign hemp. If the facilities for domestic pro-
duction were not unusually great, the policy of the duty on the
foreign raw material would be highly questionable, as interfering
72
with the growth or manufactures of it. But making the proper
allowances for those facilities, and with an eye to the future and
natural progress of the country, the measure does not appear, upon
the whole, exceptionable.
A strong wish naturally suggests itself, that some method could
be devised, of affording a more direct encouragement to the growth
both of flax and hemp; such as would be effectual, and at the
To this
same time, not attended with too great inconveniences.
end, bounties and premiums offer themselves to consideration, but
no modification of them has yet occurred, which would not either
hazard too much expense, or operate unequally, in reference to
the circumstances of different parts of the Union; and which
would not be attended with very great difficulties in the execution.
2d. As to increasing the impediments to an advantageous com-
petition of rival foreign articles.
To this purpose an augmentation of the duties on importation
is the obvious expedient, which, in regard to certain articles, ap-
pears to be recommended by sufficient reasons.
The principal of these articles is sail-cloth-one intimately con-
nected with navigation and defence, and of which a flourishing
manufactory is established at Boston, and very promising ones at
several other places.
It is presumed to be both safe and advisable to place this in the
class of articles rated at ten per cent. A strong reason for it re-
sults from the consideration that a bounty of two pence sterling,
per ell, is allowed in great Britain upon the exportation of the
sail-cloth manufactured in that kingdom.
It would likewise appear to be good policy to raise the duty to
seven and a half per cent on the following articles: Drillings, osna-
burgs, ticklenburgs, dowals, canvass, brown rolls, bagging, and
upon all other linens, the first cost of which, at the place of ex-
portation, does not exceed thirty-five cents per yard. A bounty
of twelve and a half per cent, upon an average, on the exportation
of such or similar linens from Great Britain, encourages the man-
ufacture of them in that country, and increases the obstacles to a
successful competition in the countries to which they are sent.
The quantities of tow and other household linens, manufactured
in different parts of the United States, and the expectations which
are derived from some late experiments, of being able to extend
the use of labor-saving machines, in the coarser fabrics of linen
obviate the danger of inconvenience from an increase of the duty
Apli
པཱནཾ
73
upon such articles, and authorize a hope of speedy and complete
success to the endeavors which may be used for procuring an in-
ternal supply.
V
3d. As to direct bounties or premiums upon the manufactured
articles.
To afford more effectual encouragement to the manufacture,
and at the same time to promote the cheapness of the article, for
the benefit of navigation, it will be of great use to allow a bounty
of two cents per yard on all sail-cloth which is made in the United
States, from materials of their own growth. This would also assist
the culture of those materials. An encouragement of this kind, if
adopted, ought to be established for a moderate term of years, to
invite to new undertakings, and to an extension of the old. This
is an article of importance enough to warrant the employment of
extraordinary means in its favor.
COTTON.
There is something in the texture of this material which adapts
it, in a peculiar degree, to the application of machines. The
signal utility of the mill for spinning of cotton, not long since in-
vented in England, has been noticed in another place; but there
are other machines scarcely inferior in utility, which, in the dif-
ferent manufactories of this article, are employed, either exclu-
sively, or with more than ordinary effect. This very important
circumstance recommends the fabrics of cotton, in a more partic-
ular manner, to a country in which a defect of hands constitutes
the greatest obstacle to success.
The variety and extent of the uses to which the manufactures
of this article are applicable is another powerful argument in their
favor. And the faculty of the United States to produce the raw
material in abundance and of a quality, which, though alleged to
be inferior to some that is produced in other quarters, is never-
theless capable of being used with advantage in many fabrics, and
is probably susceptible of being carried by a more experienced
culture to much greater perfection, suggests an additional and a
very cogent inducement to the vigorous pursuit of the cotton
branch in its several subdivisions. How much has been already
done has been stated in a preceding part of this report.
In addition to this, it may be announced, that a society is form-
ing, with a capital which is expected to be extended to at least
half a million of dollars, on behalf of which, measures are already
74
in train for prosecuting, on a large scale, the making and printing
of cotton goods.
K
These circumstances conspire to indicate the expediency of re-
moving any obstructions which may happen to exist, to the ad-
vantageous prosecution of the manufactories in question, and of
adding such encouragements as may appear necessary and
proper.
The present duty of three cents per pound on the foreign raw
material is undoubtedly a very serious impediment to the progress.
of those manufactories.
The injurious tendency of similar duties, either prior to the
establishment or in the infancy of the domestic manufacture of the
article, as it regards the manufacture, and their worse than inutility,
in relation to the home production of the material itself, have been
anticipated, particularly in discussing the subject of pecuniary
bounties.
Cotton has not the same pretensions with hemp, to form an ex-
ception to the general rule.
Not being, like hemp, a universal production of the country, it
affords less assurance of an adequate internal supply; but the chief
objection arises from the doubts which are entertained, concerning
the quality of the national cotton. It is alleged that the fibre of
it is considerably shorter and weaker than that of some other
places; and it has been observed, as a general rule, that the nearer
the place of growth to the equator, the better the quality of the
cotton. That which comes from Cayenne, Surinam, and Demar-
ara, is said to be preferable, even at a material difference of price,
to the cotton of the islands.
While a hope may reasonably be indulged, that with due care
and attention, the national cotton may be made to approach
nearer than it now does to that of regions somewhat more favored
by climate; and while facts authorize an opinion that very great
use may be made of it, and that it is a resource which gives
greater security to the cotton fabrics of this country, than can be
enjoyed by any which depends wholly on external supply, it will
certainly be wise, in every view, to let our infant manufactures.
have the full benefit of the best materials, on the cheapest terms.
It is obvious that the necessity of having such materials is propor-
tioned to the unskilfulness and inexperience of the workmen em-
ployed, who, if inexpert, will not fail to commit great waste, where
the materials they are to work with are of an indifferent kind.
75
养
​To secure to the national manufactures so essential an advan-
tage, a repeal of the present duty on imported cotton is indispen-
sable.
A substitute for this, far more encouraging to domestie produc-
tion, will be to grant a bounty on the national cotton, when
wrought at a home manufactory; to which a bounty on the ex-
portation of it may be added. Either, or both, would do much
more towards promoting the growth of the article, than the merely
nominal encouragement, which it is proposed to abolish. The
first would also have a direct influence in encouraging the manu-
facture.
The bounty which has been mentioned, as existing in Great
Britain, upon the exportation of coarse linens, not exceeding a
certain value, applies also to certain descriptions of cotton goods
of similar value.
This furnishes an additional argument for allowing to the na-
tional manufactures the species of encouragement just suggested,
and, indeed, for adding some other aid.
One cent per yard, not less than of a given width, on all goods
of cotton, or of cotton and linen mixed, which are manufactured
in the United States, with the addition of one cent per pound.
weight of the material, if made of national cotton, would amount
to an aid of considerable importance, both to the production and
to the manufacture of that valuable article. And it is conceived
that the expense would be well justified by the magnitude of the
object.
*
The printing and staining of cotton goods is known to be a dis-
tinct business from the fabrication of them. It is one easily ac-
complished, and which, as it adds materially to the value of the
article in its white state, and prepares it for a variety of new uses,
is of importance to be promoted.
As imported cottons, equally with those which are made at
home, may be the objects of this manufacture, it will merit con-
sideration, whether the whole, or a part of the duty, on the white
goods, ought not to be allowed to be drawn back in favor of those
who print or stain them. This measure would certainly operate
as a powerful encouragement to the business; and though it may,
in a degree, counteract the original fabrication of the articles, it
would probably more than compensate for this disadvantage, in
the rapid growth of a collateral branch, which is of a nature sooner
to attain to maturity. When a sufficient progress shall have been
?
}
76
made, the drawback may be abrogated, and by that time the
domestic supply of the articles to be printed or stained will have
been extended.
If the duty of seven and a half per cent on certain kinds of
cotton goods were extended to all goods of cotton, or of which it
is the principal material, it would probably more than counterbal-
ance the effect of the drawback proposed, in relation to the fabri-
cation of the article. And no material objection occurs to such
an extension. The duty, then, considering all the circumstances
which attend goods of this description, could not be deemed in-
conveniently high; and it may be inferred, from various causes,
that the prices of them would still continue moderate.
Manufactories of cotton goods, not long since established at
Beverly, in Massachusetts, and at Providence, in the State of Rhode
Island, and conducted with a perseverance corresponding with the
patriotic motives which began them, seem to have overcome the
first obstacles to success; producing corduroys, velverets, fustians,
jeans, and other similar articles, of a quality which will bear a
comparison with the like articles brought from Manchester. The
one at Providence has the merit of being the first introducing into
the United States the celebrated cotton mill, which not only fur-
nishes materials for that manufactory itself but for the supply of
private families, for household manufacture.
Other manufactories of the same material, as regular businesses,
have also been begun at different places in the State of Connecti-
cut, but all upon a smaller scale than those above mentioned.
Some essays are also making in the printing and staining of cotton
goods. There are several small establishments of this kind al-
ready on foot.
WOOL.
In a country, the climate of which partakes of so considerable a
proportion of winter, as that of a great part of the United States,
the woollen branch cannot be regarded as inferior to any, which
relates to the clothing of the inhabitants.
Household manufactures of this material are carried on in dif-
ferent parts of the United States, to a very interesting extent; but
there is only one branch, which, as a regular business, can be said
to have acquired maturity. This is the making of hats.
Hats of wool and of wool mixed with fur are made in large
quantities, in different States; and nothing seems wanting, but an
77
སྐ
✓
继
​Į
*
}
I
*
adequate supply of materials, to render the manufacture commen-
surate with the demand.
A promising essay towards the fabrication of cloths, cassimeres,
and other woollen goods, is likewise going on at Hartford, in
Connecticut. Specimens of the different kinds which are made, in
the possession of the Secretary, evince that these fabrics have at-
tained a very considerable degree of perfection. Their quality
certainly surpasses anything that could have been looked for in so
short a time, and under so great disadvantages; and conspires,
with the scantiness of the means, which have been at the command
of the directors, to form the eulogium of that public spirit, perse-
verance and judgment, which have been able to accomplish so
much.
I
To cherish and bring to maturity this precious embryo must
engage the most ardent wishes and proportionable regret as far
as the means of doing it may appear difficult or uncertain.
Measures, which should tend to promote an abundant supply of
wool of good quality, would probably afford the most efficacious
aid that present circumstances permit.
To encourage the raising and improving the breed of sheep at
home would certainly be the most desirable expedient for that
purpose; but it may not be alone sufficient, especially as it is, yet,
a problem, whether our wool be capable of such a degree of im-
provement as to render it fit for the finer fabrics.
G
Premiums would probably be found the best means of promot-
ing the domestic and bounties the foreign supply. The first may
be within the compass of the institution, hereafter to be sub-
mitted. The last would require a specific legislative provision. If
any bounties are granted, they ought, of course, to be adjusted
with an eye to quality as well as quantity.
}
A fund for the purpose may be derived from the addition of
two and a half per cent to the present rate of duty on carpets and
carpeting; an increase to which the nature of the articles suggests
no objection, and which may, at the same time furnish a motive
the more to the fabrication of them at home, towards which some
beginnings have been made.
SILK.
1
The production of this article is attended with great facility in
most parts of the United States. Some pleasing essays are making
in Connecticut, as well towards that, as towards the manufacture
78
of what is produced. Stockings, handkerchiefs, ribbons, and
buttons are made, though as yet but in small quantities.
A manufactory of lace, upon a scale not very extensive, has
been long memorable at Ispwich, in the State of Massachusetts.
An exemption of the material from the duty which it now pays
on importation, and premiums upon the production to be dis-
pensed under the direction of the institution before alluded to,
seem to be the only species of encouragement advisable at so early
a stage of the thing.
GLASS.
The materials for making glass are found everywhere. In the
United States there is no deficiency of them. The sands and
stones called tarso, which include flinty and crystalline substances
generally, and the salts of various plants, particularly of the sea-
weed, kali or kelp, constitute the essential ingredients. An ex-
traordinary abundance of fuel is a particular advantage enjoyed
by this country for such manufactures. They, however, require
large capitals, and involve much manual labor.
P
Different manufactories of glass are now on foot in the United
States. The present duty of twelve and a half per cent on all im-
ported articles of glass amounts to a considerable encouragement
to those manufactories. If anything in addition is judged eligible,
the most proper would appear to be a direct bounty on window
glass and black bottles.
The first recommends itself as an object of general convenience;
the last adds to that character the circumstance of being an im-
portant item in breweries. A complaint is made of great de-
ficiency in this respect.
M
GUNPOWDER.
No small progress has been, of late, made in the manufacture of
this very important article. It may, indeed, be considered as al-
ready established; but its high importance renders its further ex-
tension very desirable.
The encouragement which it already enjoys, are a duty of ten
per cent on the foreign rival article, and an exemption of salt-
petre, one of the principal ingredients of which it is composed,
from duty. A like exemption of sulphur, another cheap ingre-
dient, would appear to be equally proper. No quantity of this
article has yet been produced from internal sources.
made of it in finishing the bottoms of ships, is an additional in-
ducement to placing it in the class of free goods. Regulations for
The use
79
躞
​the careful inspection of the article would have a favorable
tendency.
PAPER.
Manufactories of paper are among those which are arrived at
the greatest maturity in the United States, and are most adequate
to national supply. That of paper-hangings, is a branch in which
respectable progress has been made.
Nothing material seems wanting to the further success of this
valuable branch, which is already protected by a competent duty
on similar imported articles.
In the enumeration of the several kinds made subject to that
duty, sheathing and cartridge paper have been omitted. These
being the most simple manufactures of the sort, and necessary to
military supply, as well as ship-building, recommend themselves
equally with those of other descriptions, to encouragement, and
appear to be as fully within the compass of domestic exertions.
PRINTED BOOKS.
The great number of presses disseminated throughout the Union,
seem to afford an assuranee that there is no need of being in-
debted to foreign countries for the printing of the books which are
used in the United States. A duty of ten per cent, instead of
five, which is now charged upon the article, would have a tendency
to aid the business internally.
It occurs as an objection to this, that it may have an unfavor-
able aspect toward literature, by raising the price of books in
universal use in private families, schools, and other seminaries of
learning. But the difference, it is conceived, would be without
effect.
As to books which usually fill the libraries of the wealthier
classes and of professional men, such an augmentation of price as
might be occasioned by an additional duty of five per cent, would
be too little felt to be an impediment to the acquisition.
And with regard to books which may be specially imported for
the use of particular seminaries of learning and of public libraries,
a total exemption from duty would be advisable, which would go
far towards obviating the objection just mentioned. They are
now subject to a duty of five per cent.
As to the books in most general family use, the constancy and
universality of the demand would insure exertions to furnish them
at home, and the means are completely adequate. It may also
80
be expected ultimately, in this as in other cases, that the exten-
sion of the domestic manufacture would conduce to the cheapness
of the article.
It ought not to pass unremarked, that to encourage the printing
of books is to encourage the manufacture of paper.
REFINED SUGARS AND CHOCOLATE
Are among the number of extensive and prosperous domestic
manufactures.
Drawbacks of the duties upon the materials of which they are
respectively made, in cases of exportation, would have a bene-
ficial influence upon the manufacture, and would conform to a
precedent which has been already furnished in the instance of
molasses, on the exportation of distilled spirits.
Cocoa, the raw material, now pays a duty of one cent per
pound, while chocolate, which is a prevailing and very simple
manufacture, is comprised in the mass of articles rated at no more
than five per cent.
There would appear to be a propriety in encouraging the
manufacture by a somewhat higher duty on its foreign rival, than
is paid on the raw material. Two cents per pound on imported
chocolate would, it is presumed, be without inconvenience.
The foregoing heads comprise the most important of the several
kinds of manufactures which have occurred as requiring, and, at
the same time, as most proper for public encouragement; and
such measures for affording it as have appeared best calculated to
answer the end, have been suggested.
The observations, which have accompanied this delineation of
objects, supersede the necessity of many supplementary remarks.
One or two, however, may not be altogether superfluous.
Bounties are in various instances proposed as one species of
encouragement.
It is a familiar objection to them that they are difficult to be
managed, and liable to frauds. But neither that difficulty nor
this danger seems sufficiently great to countervail the advantages.
of which they are productive when rightly applied. And it is
presumed to have been shown that they are, in some cases, par-
ticularly in the infancy of new enterprises, indispensable.
It will, however, be necessary to guard, with extraordinary cir-
cumspection, the manner of dispensing them. The requisite pre-
cautions have been thought of, but to enter into the detail would
G
SI
swell this report, already voluminous, to a size too inconvenient.
If the principle shall not be deemed inadmissible, the means of
avoiding an abuse of it will not be likely to present insurmount-
able obstacles. There are useful guides from practice in other
quarters.
It shall, therefore, only be remarked here, in relation to this
point that any bounty which may be applied to the manufacture
of an article, cannot, with safety, extend beyond those manufac-
tories at which the making of the article is a regular trade. It
would be impossible to annex adequate precautions to a benefit
of that nature, if extended to every private family in which the
manufacture was incidentally carried on; and, being a merely in-
cidental occupation which engages a portion of time that would
otherwise be lost, it can be advantageously carried on without so
special an aid.
The possibility of a diminution of the revenue may also present
itself as an objection to the arrangements which have been sub-
mitted.
But there is no truth which may be more firmly relied upon,
than that the interests of the revenue are promoted by whatever
promotes an increase of national industry and wealth.
In proportion to the degree of these, is the capacity of every
country to contribute to the public treasure; and where the capac-
ity to pay is increased, or even is not decreased, the only conse-
quence of measures which diminish any particular resource, is a
change of the object. If, by encouraging the manufacture of an
article at home, the revenue which has been wont to accrue from
its importation should be lessened, an indemnification can easily
be found, either out of the manufacture itself, or from some other
object which may be deemed more eonvenient.
The measures, however, which have been submitted, taken
aggregately, will, for a long time to come, rather augment than
decrease the public revenue.
There is little room to hope, that the progress of manufactures
will so equally keep pace with the progress of population, as to
prevent even a gradual augmentation of the product of the duties
on imported articles.
As, nevertheless, an abolition in some instances, and a reduction
in others, of duties which have been pledged for the public debt,
is proposed, it is essential that it should be accompanied with a
competent substitute. In order to this, it is requisite that all the
82
additional duties which shall be laid, be appropriated, in the first
instance, to replace all defalcations which may proceed from any
such abolition or diminution. It is evident, at first glance, that
they will not only be adequate to this, but will yield a considera-
ble surplus. This surplus will serve :
First. To constitute a fund for paying the bounties which shall
have been decreed,
Secondly. To constitute a fund for the operations of a board to
to be established, for promoting arts, agriculture, manufactures,
and commerce. Of this institution, different intimations have
been given in the course of this report. An outline of a plan for
it shall now be submitted.
Let a certain annual sum be set apart, and placed under the
management of commissioners, not less than three, to consist of
certain officers of the government and their successors in office.
Let these commissioners be empowered to apply the fund con-
fided to them, to defray the expenses of the emigration of artists
and manufacturers in particular branches of extraordinary im-
portance; to induce the prosecution and introduction of useful
discoveries, inventions, and improvements, by proportionate re-
wards, judiciously held out and applied; to encourage by pre-
miums, both honorable and lucrative, the exertions of individuals
and of classes, in relation to the several objects they are charged
with promoting; and to afford such other aids to those objects as
may be generally designated by law.
The commissioners to render to the Legislature an annual
account of their transactions and disbursements; and all such sums
as shall not have been applied to the purposes of their trust at the
end of every three years, to revert to the treasury. It may, also,
be enjoined upon them not to draw out the money, but for the
purpose of some specific disbursement.
It may, moreover, be of use to authorize them to receive volun-
tary contributions, making it their duty to apply them to the
particular objects for which they may have been made, if any
shall have been designated by the donors.
There is reason to believe that the progress of particular manu-
factures has been much retarded by the want of skilful workmen.
And it often happens, that the capitals employed are not equal to
the purposes of bringing from abroad workmen of a superior
kind. Here, in cases worthy of it, the auxiliary agency of gov-
ernment would, in all probability, be useful. There are also
་
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83
valuable workmen in every branch, who are prevented from emi-
grating, solely, by the want of means. Occasional aids to such
persons, properly administered, might be a source of valuable
acquisitions to the country.
→
Kat
The propriety of stimulating by rewards the invention and in-
troduction of useful improvements, is admitted without difficulty.
But the success of attempts in this way must evidently depend
much on the manner of conducting them. It is probable that the
placing of the dispensation of those rewards under some proper
discretionary direction where they may be accompanied by col-
lateral expedients, will serve to give them the surest efficacy. It
seems impracticable to apportion, by general rules, specific com-
pensations for discoveries of unknown and disproportionate utility.
The great use which may be made of a fund of this nature, to
procure and import foreign improvements, is particularly obvious.
Among these, the article of machines would form a most impor-
tant item.
The operation and utility of premiums have been adverted to,
together with the advantages which have resulted from their dis-
pensation, under the direction of certain public and private so-
cieties. Of this, some experience has been had, in the instance of
the Pennsylvania Society for the promotion of manufactures and
useful arts; but the funds of that association have been too con-
tracted to produce more than a very small portion of the good to
which the principles of it would have led. It may confidently be
affirmed, that there is scarcely anything which has been devised,
better calculated to excite a general spirit of improvement than
the institutions of this nature. They are truly invaluable.
In countries where there is great private wealth, much may be,
effected by the voluntary contributions of patriotic individuals, but
in a community situated like that of the United States, the public
purse must supply the deficiency of private resource. In what
can it be so useful, as in prompting and improving the efforts of
industry?
216 APR 30
GTA SARATA
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THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
DEC 05 2000
DEC 27 1990
AUG 30 2001
DEC 1 3 2002
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OCT 3 1 2001
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