tyrants, and mixed with the demagogues are "gentle optimists," who say, "let men alone and things will regulate themselves," and with the tyrants are many worthy men who ask only for law and order in society. Whichever party gains the day, tyrants or demagogues are most sure to take the offices.*

P. What are your objections to the free trade system?

A. We have said before we are optimists, but you will observe, we recognize in the nature of men and things, a disposition and means of improvement by creating more and more perfect organizations. To break down.

*Thousands of instances much like the following may be quoted, as every one can witness, and so can even worse, as late developements have proved in court. In the Manor of Pelham, a man not even fit to be a customer to a grogery, and who lost his eye in being expelled from one, and whe was brought up begrimed with filth to match a negro's vote, turned the scale and elected all the officers to one of the richest towns in this state. Bad men thus turn the scale, and men of honor are too generally overlooked or laughed to

scorn.

laws and constitutions, without building up a better system, is to demolish your old homestead before the new is built. We must have where to lay our heads, even if it be no better than a rookery. Necessity must always be considered first. Men not practical, too often ask of statesmen what cannot be, consistently with the nature of things. In their wild love of freedom, they would break down the fences on the brinks of pecipices. Free trade in absolute perfection, cannot possibly be had without some certain, precise and exact regulations, which we advocate.

P. What for instance?

A. There must be a new mercantile system and a new kind of money or bill of exchange introduced. The want of this is the source of one of your complaints at the commencement. You saw effects as, others do, but not the cause. P. What difficulties are there in the present system and medium of exchange?

A. The difficulties are so great that it is absolutely impossible for the great body of producers, even if men have the best possible

dispositions, ever to arise to a competency under them, while they use that system and medium. Any given amount of money, represents any amount of articles having exchangeable value, by a certain scale of prices, which is high or low, as there may be more or less money in circulation, out of the banks or mines. Consequently, the position tacitly assumed by Dr. Adam Smith, Say, Ricardo, M'Culluch and others, that the prices in any country are an indication of the value of the articles to the people of any country, or that they indicate the advantages or disadvantages of any nation to produce or manufacture, is false. For example :-Ireland is densely populated, and often has famines, while the United States has an immense territory of soil unoccupied, and fertile, and yet we have imported beef, butter, hay and potatoes from Ireland, -starving them and glutting us-simply because her absentees draw out their incomes and spend them abroad, and thus make prices low in Ireland; while our bankers issue paper money excessively, and create high prices and

induce excessive imports on the principle of Adam Smith, Ricardo, Wayland and others, buying cheap and selling dear, and leaving THINGS to regulate themselves. Alas! poor "things" they die, for men are held as operative things, and thus are regulated, straightened for the grave, their only hope. There is a district in Ireland remarkable for its cattle, and the houses of the peasantry have been razed to the ground to give place to brutes, which are sold dear to the contractors for the foreign armies of Great Britain. If one ox consume as much as may sustain five men, then for every beast exported, a family is robbed of bread, in a densely populated country.

Moreover, excessive production and excessive population so much complained of in Great Britain is, according to my view of the subject, grossly misunderstood, even by her statesmen. The appearance of these evils, which have caused the monarch to tremble on his throne, from the heavings of the mass, on which the whole superstructure is reared up, arises solely from the use of the money of the

d

free trade theory, on the principle of prices rising and falling as money increases in proportion to goods, or goods in amount in proportion to money: Whenever the machinery is improved, or the people are more than ordinanarily industrious, goods increase faster than the money, to keep up their money price, and they must fall of course. The master manufacturer cannot then continue to have more and more produced, or he would be certain to fall to ruin himself. He therefore discharges his hands to consume their little savings, and then starve. Thus the great body of the people can

never hope to arise to a competency.

The evils which you have in part depicted and complained of, thus arise from the unfitness of the present system of commerce and medium of exchange, and I know too well they are absolutely appalling in the contemplation and prospect. There is no amelioration to be expected from extraordinary exertion on the poor man's part, nor can improvement in machinery assist him. Machinery as you observe, becomes his rival. It is a nightmare, an in