The labor and labor-saving machinery of England has enabled her to multiply her productive ability. They constitute an element of her wealth ; her furnaces, mills, mines, railroads, ships, &c. &c. add to her means of production, while her capital in bonds, notes, gold and silver, enables her to transact vast business operations and effect exchanges which result always to her profit. Her prudence, intelligence, skill, and industry are, therefore, aided by the natural and artificial means which they have utilized. Her wealth, therefore, consists in her property. But the value of her possessions depend more on their utility or her management of them than on their cost. Her engines would be valueless and her ships would be a burden were they not profitably employed. The aim of her capitalists and statesmen, therefore, has been to make every thing pay. Sectional or selfish interests are not tolerated when they conflict with the public pros perity. Her tariff permits no importations to injure her domestic industry. If she proclaims free trade in bread-stuffs, cotton, and iron, is it not to her interest to do so ? Her operatives can make more in spinning cotton and making cloth than in cultivating the barren heath or the swampy moor ; while no other nations can compete with her in the manufacture of iron. But she does not allow the smart Yankees of New England to send her pins, screws, locks, or clocks duty free, nor do the fine manufactures of France compete with the broadcloth of England.
Her statesmen have been wiser than ours. With them the question is not how to raise the means to keep the machinery of government moving, but to increase the wealth and prosperity of the nation. " Will it pay?" seems to be the first consideration of every tariff act and every treaty ; and so far they have made few mistakes. Every ton of coal and every pound of iron dug from her extensive mines has paid a profit. Every bale of cotton and every pound of wool which she has imported has added to her vast wealth. Her ships carry for the world, and the world pays roundly for it; and as long as she continues to give her vast labor-saving machinery profitable employment by finding profitable markets, so long will her wealth increase. But should her markets fail and her ships lie idle, England's wealth will be sadly depreciated The prosperity of nations is, therefore, much like that of individuals. Industry and prudent management are almost sure to accumulate ; while idleness and ignorance or folly are sure to lead to ruin. The want of profitable employment is a misfortune.
The condition of the American people is widely different from that of the English. Their manufactures came into existence without opposition, because they led the world in improvements and were the first to put iron and steam into harness. Human thews
could not compete with limbs and wheels of iron. We, on the contrary, were forced into competition with England under the most unfavorable circumstances. She con trolled us, not only by superior manufacturing ability, but by prohibitory laws ; and, while the only people on the earth whose natural resources are equal to competition, we have been her best customers, and have paid her, first and last, thousands of mil lions ; though we have furnished her manufacturers more raw material than all the rest of the world combined.
Unlike England, we find our best markets at home. Our country is thirty times greater in extent than the island of Great Britain; our productions are more diversified. We produce the raw material, and can furnish food to any extent. Our people are as intelligent, our mechanics as skilful. Our natural wealth is also thirty times greater than hers, acre for acre, because our mineral resources are in excess. We have one square mile of coal for every fifteen of territory ; she has one for every twenty of terri tory ; while our resources in iron are equal in comparison. Our soils are naturally richer, and are capable of feeding the world. Our mountains produce gold, our fields are white with cotton, while every product of Europe finds a congenial climate here,— the grape of France, the silkworm of Italy, or the merino sheep of Spain.
With these unparalleled resources, intelligence, skill, and industry, why are we buying from Europe at this moment double the amount of our sales ? Why are we spending double our income? Why are we so much in debt to England ? Why is our vast natural wealth unavailable ? Why do we go to England for iron, while we are thirty times richer in ores and coal than she is? Simply because we send our surplus capital to Europe for goods, instead of investing it in labor-saving machinery, railroads, mines, furnaCes, and mills, and in creating and sustaining a domestic industry which would yield from ten to twenty per cent. If sent to Europe, our gold is lost to us; we receive no benefit, except in the temporary wear of a coat or a rail. But, if invested in machinery to produce the coat and the rail, we not only save their cost, but we have the means of reproduction. It becomes productive wealth. Had we manufactured all the iron we have purchased from England since the Revolution, we should not only have saved the $500,000,000, or perhaps double that amount, which we have spent for the purpose, but it would have been invested in labor-saving machinery, mills, furnaces, &c., which would net us at least ten per cent. profit and enable us to compete with England in the manufacture of iron.