true interests of the whole people of the Union. He sees, if he sees at all, in the example of England, only that a small class of persons have, by the operation of her laws, become enormously rich, while the great mass of the people are paupers. The few rich monopolize the wealth and honors of the State; and the Secretary seeks to form such a class here, by pursuing the same policy of debt and indirect taxes. He is the Secretary only of the small class of capitalists, in whose accumulation of wealth at the expense of labor he alone recognizes national prosperity. It is now eight years since the great minister of England embodied the experience which the events of the previous forty years had taught, into that policy which parliament adopted. The exclusive and protective policy had been in operation for 150 years. Its result was, a continual increase of pauperism, until one-fourth of the British subjects were paupers, and the revenue of the government was annually failing through the impossibility of collecting taxes. This whole system was reversed. Direct taxes were imposed, and indirect taxes remitted. Since 1842, customs and excise duties have been remitted to the amount of £10,454,348, say $50,000,000; and they produced in

Thus, by diminishing the taxes, $50,000,000, their yield has been increased $5,000,000. The effect of this is a greater enjoyment of comfort by the people; the reward of industry is greater. There is a greater demand for labor, and its remuneration is greater; consequently, pauperism is diminishing. And if immense fortunes cease to increase, it is because a reversal of the policy which piled them up in the coffers of the few, is causing them to be re-distributed among the people who created them. Instead of taxing labor for the entire support of the government, property has now to bear the burden. We are now to remember that the average rate of import duties in England is ten per cent., and in the United States twenty-five per cent., which is a reduction on the tariff of 1842. This reduction has produced a considerable increase of the revenues, and swollen them to an amount sufficient to cover the large expenditures which it has been the policy of the present administration to adopt. Contrary to all the predictions of the protectionists, the reduction of the tariff here, as in England, increased the amount derived from it; because the modification of the duties upon interchange of products increased the quantities bought and sold, in a greater ratio. In the face of this experience, Messrs. Meredith and Corwin directed their efforts to exaggerate the expenditures, in order to create a pretext for again raising the rate of duties. It is the misrepresentations in this respect of which the nation has most cause to complain. We had occasion to show, last year, when remarking upon the report of Mr. Meredith, who estimated that a loan of $16,000,000 would be required to make good the deficits of the years 1850 and 1851, that he exaggerated the amount of "former appropriations" which would be required for the year, and was extravagant in his requisitions for current appropriations, while he under-estimated the revenue from the customs. The estimates of Mr. Walker, made December, 1848, for the

year 1850, and of Mr. Meredith, made December, 1849, compare with the actual returns, as given by Mr. Corwin, December, 1850, as follows:

On hand, July, 1850.... $5,040,542 Deficit......5,667,572 On hand.....6,604,544

It will be observed that Mr. Meredith increased the estimated expenditures over those of Mr. Walker ten millions, by pretending that the "former appropriations" would be required to be expended to a great extent. This trick we exposed at the time; and it turns out that the expenditures is really $4,300,000 less than his estimate, while the customs revenue is $8,500,000 more than his estimate. A mere error in a financial estimate, by a neophyte statesman, is no great affair; but we gave at that time-that is to say, one year since-our own reasons for disagreeing with Mr. Meredith's report, as follows, page 203, Vol. XXVI:

"It is, however, not alone in the expenditures that these great errors are apparent; the revenue has been as greatly under-estimated. This arises, seemingly, from the fact that not only the general prosperity of the commercial world, in relation to the business of the United States, but the condition and soundness of the internal trade of the Union, growing out of the steady currency insured by the Independent Treasury, operating upon an export trade excited by the mutual modifications of the United States and British tariffs, bringing producers and consumers into more immediate contact, bave been totally disregarded by the head of the Treasury, in forming his estimate of the product of the customs for the current year. The consequence is, that the estimates have already been exceeded by several millions; and the prospect is, that even if the enormous expenses contemplated were permitted, the sufficiency of the present tariff would overcome the contemplated deficit. The revenues for the first quarter of the current year, and those estimated for the remaining three quarters, were as follows, as compared with previous years:

Quarter.

Sept. 30.

UNITED STATES CUSTOMS REVENUE.

1846.

1847.

1848.

1849.

1850.

.$8,861,932 14.... .$6,153,826 58....$11.106,257 41....$8,991 935 07....$11,643,728 54 Sept. 30 to June 30..17,850,735 73....17,594,038 08.... 20,650,813 55....19,355,103 75....*19,866,171 46

$26,712,667 87 $23,747,864 66 $31,757,070 96 $28,346,738 82
*Secretary's estimate.

$31,500,000 00

"When this estimate of $19,866,171 46! as the customs revenue from September 30, 1849, to June 30, 1850, was made, the general prosperity of the national trade was apparent to all; cotton was rising rapidly in value, and the financial aspect abroad was such as to indicate a large sale of American produce, and, consequently, that an increased amount of goods, at the advancing prices here, would arrive in payment of the produce sold, to swell the revenues over those of last year. Nevertheless, the estimates were put down at the same as last year, with a ludicrous affectation of exactness, to 46 cents!

"Now it will be observed, that the revenues of the last quarter of 1849 are larger than ever before in that quarter, and are double that of the same quarter under the tariff of 1842. Thus for the first half of the fiscal year the revenue

has been $18,851,788, which, deducted from Mr. Meredith's estimate of $31,500,000 for the year, leaves $12,648,212, against $14,168,884 in 1849 for the second half, which experience shows usually exceeds the first half of the year. The receipts at the port of New-York alone, for January, are $3,026,000, or $1,150,000 more than for the same month last year. At Philadelphia, the January duties are $503,329, against $210,041 last year. At the same rate of increase, the customs revenues for the year will be $40,000,000-that is to say, sufficient to meet the whole expense proposed by the Secretary, and leave nearly $4,000,000 surplus, instead of a deficit of $5,828,121, as estimated by him for July, 1350.

Our own estimate, based upon the same principles as those of Mr. Walker, reached nearly the same result, except in relation to the customs; and in that we had the benefit of the information of the state of the markets at home and abroad; the probable amount of exports of the United States' domestic products, and the state of exchanges; all of which were a guide to the quantity of goods that must, of necessity, come home in return for United States farm produce sold abroad. With these facts before us, which were equally at the command of Mr. Meredith, we estimated the customs at $40,000,000. They turned out to be $39,668,686, or $332,000 less than our estimate, and $8,168,000 more than Mr. Meredith's. Mr. Corwin, after keeping back his report until long after the usual time, at last produced it, charged with nearly the same class of errors as Mr. Meredith's,-having, in fact, made that report his model. By thus holding the report back, he has had the advantage of longer experience in relation to the customs, and he estimates the receipts of the three last quarters of the fiscal year at $30,000,000, or $2,000,000 more than last year, making, with the actual receipts of the first quarter, $45,000,000 from the customs, and from other quarters with the balance on hand July 1, a total sum of $54,312,574, as the means at his disposal for the year 1851. The expenditures he places at $53,855,597, thus leaving a balance of $458,997 at the close of the year, against $6,604,544 on hand at its commencement; or, in other words, he proposes to spend, in a year of peace, over $6,000,000 more than a large revenue. This revenue, however, he informs us is inadequate, and he desires to increase the taxes, in order to make the tariff, which he says is the sole source of revenue, more productive. Now, since the formation of the government, we have had many tariffs. The one which imposed the highest rates, and was supposed, under all circumstances, best to meet the views of those who advocate protection with revenue, was that of 1828. That attained its full development in 1831, before the modifications of 1832, and it yielded $36,596,118, which was higher by $5,000,000 than the customs have yielded in any year before or since; but it is $3,000,000 less than the customs of 1850, and $9,000,000 less than Mr. Corwin places the revenue at for 1851. Yet he would return to the system which strangled trade, impoverished the great farming interests of the country, and diminished the revenue! While admitting this large revenue, he attempts to strain the expenditures up to it. In so doing, he adds to the appropriation of Congress ($37,040,920) all the outstanding former appropriations, ($16,812,677,) and the whole sum reaches $53,853,597. This is Mr. Meredith's trick, and, as we have seen, was not carried out in his case by several millions, and will not be in the present case. He alleges the Mexican war as the necessity for these large expenses,-with what truth a single item will demonstrate. In the last glorious year of the war, when

our victorious army had marched hundreds of miles, at immense expense, into the heart of the enemy's country; when the purchases of the govern ment for transports had raised the price of ships in all our ports, and the navy was concentrated in the Gulf to cover the army operations, there were in the field, marching, fighting and eating, 47,150 men; and they cost, under the head of "army proper," $18,939,155. The quarter-master now reports 12,000 officers and men of all arms in the service, and the cost is as follows:

The cost of the army per man at home on our own soil is more than double what it was in Mexico, with all the munitions of war to transport. The navy in aid of the army in war cost $1,500,000 less than in time of peace, when it is doing nothing. The impudence of estimating such expenditures in time of peace, and then constructing upon them an attack upon the administration of Mr. Polk, could only have occurred under the shield of ignorance.

The Secretary in proposing a return to a high tariff, feels bound to attempt some show of argument in support of the protective notion, but as we have intimated, he only comes up to the position of commercial science as it stood fifty years ago; and he states that so "lamely and unprofitably," that the opponents of commercial freedom can take no comfort in his advocacy of their theory.

In relation to the operation of a tariff, the Secretary states as follows:

"The primary object to be kept in view in levying duties upon imports is admitted to be revenue. It is equally well established as the policy and duty of the government so to discriminate in the levying of duties as, without falling below the necessary amount of revenue, to give the greatest encouragement possible to all the industrial pursuits of our own people."

A New-York paper most noted for its persevering support of the manufacturing interests by means of protection, stated thus on the day previous to the appearance of the report:

"Unless useful and salutary as a measure of industrial protection, no tariff is defensible. A revenue tariff is a most unequal and capricious assessment of the expenses of government on individual citizens; and he who says he is for a tariff for revenue, but not for protection,' has not an inch of ground under his feet that will bear thorough testing."

This admission of the newspaper was drawn from it through the forma tion of a free-trade league" in New-York, the object of which is to advocate entire free trade; but the admission brings the protective champion in direct collision with the neophyte statesman. The Secretary attempts to show, like most young reasoners upon the subject, that the higher the duties, the more the revenue will be. He has much, however, to learn upon that subject. He admits that the present rate of duty tempts persons to fraud, and when we reflect that of every three yards of broadcloth or tons of iron that are brought home in exchange for pork or

flour sold abroad, the government seizes one, the temptation to fraud appears strong enough in all conscience. The Secretary says that some 4,000 invoices had been "marked up" in consequence of these attempts. When we consider that the number of invoices entered is nearly one million, and that of these only 4,000, with the utmost vigilance, could be considered wrong, and that even these did not succeed, we must at once admit the present system to be the best possible in use; more particularly when we see the awful state of demoralization to which the high duty system has reduced other countries. The Secretary thinks that frauds would not be attempted under a specific system. Probably not the same frauds, but another class would most certainly supplant the present attempts the more so, that he proposes to increase the temptation and the reward of dishonesty by raising the duties.

The leading idea which runs through the report in relation to the duty of the government, is identical with that of Mr. Meredith, and the silly one usually entertained by those who have not thought much upon the subject. It is, that an apparent excess of imports is a positive national loss, and is to be paid for by some means that will be very disagreeable. He discourseth thus:

"During the last fiscal year we imported of foreign merchandise, including specie, $178,136,318; and we exported, of domestic products, foreign goods, and specie, $151,898,720, leaving a balance against us of $26,247,598.

"A large proportion of this balance has doubtless been paid by our domestic stocks, which find a ready sale at this time in European markets. These last, however, as they only postpone a present payment in coin, cannot be expected to liquidate similar balances for coming years, even if it were the wish of the Government to create a large foreign debt of this kind. The impolicy of such a measure will not be questioned, and it is doubtless the true interest of the country to avoid it.

"In regulating our commerce with foreign nations, we are therefore compelled to take, as the true basis of safe importation from all countries, the amount of our own products, which we may reasonably calculate may find a market abroad.

"It is certain that the increased ability of this country to consume foreign goods, will at this time safely admit a larger importation than in former years, yet the experience of the last year has shown that our imports have been greatly beyond our exports, which last must be regarded as the true measure of our ability to consume, for any given number of years.

"If upon the large importations of the past year the increase should continue at the same ratio as that of the past quarter, which, as already stated, is $18,000,000, the aggregate amount for the current fiscal year, ending 30th June, 1851, will not fall much short of $250,000,000. A survey of the markets of the world, it is believed, furnishes no reason to expect that our exportations will exceed those of the last year, which we have seen, were a fraction less than 152 millions. This would leave, on the trade of the current fiscal year, with foreign countries, an alarming balance, which could not fail to be felt in results fatal to all branches of business at home, and highly injurious to the revenue of succeeding years."

This idea of an "alarming balance" is what besets him. Now there is no such thing as a "balance," unless as in the years 1835-6, large quantities of goods are sold to persons who consume them on long credit; when that is the case, no rate of duty can check sales-they go on until as then -they end in failure and no payment at all, and the result would not