" acted on for a long time; but its falsity is susceptible of invincible demonstration. An impost is not strictly speaking a tax. Taxes are levied upon citizens and property within the jurisdiction of the government laying the tax. An impost is a bonus which the owner of property is required to pay for the privilege of bringing it within the territorial limits of another government for sale or use. The owner of the property upon which a tax is laid, has no option whether he will pay the tax or not; but the owner of property upon which an impost is laid, has his election, whether he will bring his property within the jurisdiction of the government and pay the impost, or keep it out of that jurisdiction and save the impost. If he chooses to pay the impost and bring it into the country, he will then sell it for the most he can get, without any regard to the impost he has paid on it. Should he attempt to regulate the price by the impost he had paid, he would be laughed at for his folly. Between buyer and seller the duty paid on an article is never inquired after or thought of; the market price is their standard. A large portion of the foreign goods sold in our market, and which have paid a duty of twenty-five or thirty per cent., are sold at auction, and do not bring a cent more than they would, if they had been imported free of duty. Up to about twenty-five or thirty per cent, there is no doubt whatever, but what the foreign producer, and not the consumer, pays, in some cases, threefourths, in others, seven-eighths, and in many cases the whole amount of the duties collected on the goods. It is not, therefore, true that the people have gained what the treasury may have lost, under the operation of the tariff of 1846. During the first year of that absurd measure, the country has lost from ten to twelve millions of dollars, and will continue to lose that much per annum as long as it shall be permitted to remain on the statute book. This has caused large deficits, and will continue to cause still larger deficits, in the treasury, which the President and his Secretary propose to supply by a tax on tea and coffee, now admitted free of duty, by a reduction in the price of the public lands, and by a loan, the present year, of $18,500,000. It is perfectly right and just to lay an impost on tea and coffee. Indeed, the true policy of this country, and of every country, is to let no article of commerce be imported without paying a small duty. The nation incurs a heavy expense, annually, for the accommodation and protection of the commerce of the country; and every person, whether citizen or alien, who participates in the benefit of that commerce, ought to pay a portion of that expense, for the same reason, that every person who transports his property on railroads and canals ought to pay toll. No foreign goods, therefore, ought to be admitted into the country without paying a duty of at least five or ten per cent. It would, therefore, be good policy to lay a specific duty of at least two cents a pound on coffee, and five and ten cents a pound on tea. Notwithstanding what the President and his Secretary may say to the contrary, yet the experience of all commercial nations proves, that specific duties, where they can be laid, are preferable to ad valorem duties. But as their theory of finance is built upon paradoxes, it was to be expected that they would reject experience. The policy of reducing the price of the public lands for the purpose of increasing the amount of revenue from them, is about as wise as reducing the rates of duty for the purpose of increasing the amount of revenue. The following quotation from the late Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, exhibits his policy in regard to the public lands, and his reasons for it. Although rather long, yet it is such a beautiful specimen of the Secretary's reasoning powers, that we have not the heart to mutilate it : "The recommendations in my first as well as second annual Report of the reduction of the price of the public lands in favor of settlers and cultivators, together with the removal of onerous restrictions upon the pre-emption laws, are again respectfully presented to the consideration of Congress. Sales at the reduced price. it is thought, should be confined to settlers and cultivators, in limited quantities, sufficient for farms and plantations, and the pre-emptior privilege extended to every bona fide settler, and embrace all lands, whether surveyed or unsurveyed, to which the Indian title may be extinguished. The lands remaining subject to entry at private sale on the first of this month wer 152,101,001 acres, and the unsurveyed lands to | the revenue from them would be increased which the Indian title has been extinguished 71,048,214 acres, (per table Z.) The adoption of these two measures, for the reasons stated in my previous reports, would augment the revenue a million and a half of dollars per annum, operating as they would on 223,149,215 acres. It would, at the same time, increase the wages of labor, by enabling a much larger number of the working classes to purchase farms at the low price, whilst it would, at the same time, augment the wealth and power of the whole country. "When the public lands have been offered a long time for a price they will not bring, the failure to reduce the price is equivalent in its effects to an enactment by Congress that these lands shall not be sold and settled for an unlimited period. The case is still stronger as to the unsurveyed lands: there being an act of Congress forbidding their sale or settlement, and denouncing as criminals, and as trespassers, the American pioneers who would desire to enter in advance into the wilderness, cover it with farms and towns, with the church and the school-house, extend over it the blessings of our free institutions, and enlarge by the axe and the plough, the cultivated area of the American Union. In "Should the system proposed be now adopted, the surveyed as well as the unsurveyed lands opened to pre-emptors, and the Indian title extinguished within the coming year, or that which succeeds it, in addition to Iowa and Wisconsin, we should soon have two new States, Winesota and Itasca, in the great valley of the West, adjoining Wisconsin and Iowa. stead of draining the old States of their population, the graduation and pre-emption system will, in a series of years, increase their prosperity by giving them customers in the west who will carry to them their products and receive their imports or fabrics in exchange, increasing the transportation upon our railroads and canals, and augmenting our foreign as well as coastwise tonnage. The distribution of the proceeds of the sales of these lands is prevented for at least twenty years by the act of 28th January, 1847, setting apart and pledging their proceeds to the extinguishment of the public debt. So far also as distribution may have been advocated with a view to favor a protective tariff, it is now proved that a tariff for revenue not only yields a larger income than the protective system, but also advances more rapidly, in a series of years, the prosperity of the manufacturers themselves, by the augmentation of their foreign and domestic markets." The present price of the public lands is one dollar and a quarter per acre, and the Secretary thinks, if their price was reduced to seventy-five or fifty cents per acre, (although he does not say how much,) VOL. I. NO. IV. NEW SERIES. 26 one and a half millions of dollars per annum; and, according to the same reasoning, if they were reduced to twenty-five cents per acre, the revenue from them would be still greater, for the same reason that an average duty of twenty-five per cent. on imports, will produce more revenue than fifty per cent. would do. But whether there be a revenue standard of the public lands, or what that standard is, if there be one, we are not informed. Now it strikes us that the reason more lands are not sold, is because more are not wanted for settlement and cultivation, and not because of their high price. To those who want them, the public lands are very cheap at a dollar and a quarter per acre; to those who do not want them, they would be dear at twenty-five cents an acre. A certain portion of the population of the old States desire annually to emigrate and settle on the public lands. In other words, there is a market for a given number of acres of the public lands every year. The quantity wanted increases as our population increases, nor can it be essentially increased by reducing the price of the lands. If the public lands were reduced to a dime in the old States would not buy them. an acre, the great mass of the population The Secretary's project, therefore, for increasing the revenue, by a reduction in the price of the public lands, would be very likely to result as his project for increasing the revenue from imports, by reducing the rate of duty, has resulted. By reducing the price of those lands which have been a long time in the market, he would probably divert a part of the current of emigration to those lands, and thereby prevent the sale of those of higher price, which would still farther diminish the revenue. The million and a half of revenue, therefore, anticipated from this project, is not likely to be realized, and that sum will also have to be supplied by loan. All the Secretary's estimates are 'ased upon the exports, and consequen imports, of 1847, and can, therefore ever be realized except in years of amine in Europe; and yet, according to these estimates, he will want a loan of $18,500,000, to carry on the government the present year. Add to this the million and a half which he ex pects, but will not get, from the public lands, and the amount wanted will be twenty millions. Thus he says: therefore to predict, that instead of thirtyone millions of dollars from the customs, the treasury will not receive over twentysix, and probably less than twenty-five "The new tariff has now been in operation millions. Had the Secretary given us the more than twelve months, and has greatly aug- imports and exports from the first of Demented the revenue and prosperity of the country. The net revenue from duties during the cember, 1846, to the first of December, twelve months ending 1st December, 1847, confidence. Supposing, then, that all the 1847, we could have predicted with more under the new tariff, is $31,300,000, being $8,528,396 more than was received during the other estimates and calculations of the twelve months preceding, under the tariff of Secretary are correct, which they are far 1842. The net revenue of the first quarter of from being, and he will need a loan, the the first fiscal year, under the new tariff, was present year, of more than twenty-five mill$11,106,257 41 cents, whilst, in the same ions of dollars. Now an addition of sevenquarter of the preceding year, under the tariff teen per cent. to the present duties, of 1842, the net revenue was only $6,153,826 58. If the revenue for the three remaining properly distributed over the whole of quarters should equal in the average the first, our imports, would have produced just then the net revenue from duties during about that sum, and this would be a much the fiscal year of the new tariff would be more statesman-like measure, than a loan $44,425,029 64. If, however, the comparison of twenty-five millions of dollars in the is founded on all the quarterly returns for forty-present, or any other condition of public eight years, (as far back as given quarterly in credit likely to exist, under the administhe treasury record,) and the same proportion for the several quarters applied to the first tration of President Polk and Secretary quarter of the year, it would make its net revenue, per table C, $40,388,045. Although the net revenue from duties already received, being $15,506,257 41, during the five months of this fiscal year, would seem to indicate its probable amount not less than $35,000,000, yet it is estimated at $31,000,000 for the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1848, and $32,000,000 for the succeeding year, in view of the possible effects of the revulsion in Great Britain. Although our prosperity is ascribed to the famine there, as though Providence had made the advance of one country depend upon the calamities of another, yet it is certain that our trade with Great Britain must be greater in a series of years, when prosperity would enable her to buy more from us (especially cotton) and at better prices, and sell us more in exchange, accompanied by an augmentation of revenue." To realize the Secretary's anticipations and estimates, our exports, during the present year, must come nearly up to two hundred millions of dollars. Suppose the average tariff on all our imports to be seventeen per centum, which is nearly two per cent. more than it was last year, and that our imports do not exceed our exports more than five per cent., which they probably will not do; then to raise a revenue of thirty-one millions of dollars, will require our exports to exceed one hundred and seventy millions of dollars, which every well-informed man knows will not be the case. We undertake Walker. On the 14th of March, 1842, Sir R Peel, then Premier of England, made the following exhibit to the House of Com mons, as his estimate of the sources and amount of the British revenue, for the year ending the 5th of April, 1843:— From the above table it will be perceived that more than one hundred millions of dollars, almost one half the enormous income of England, is derived from the customs. The amount of exports and imports, upon which that enormous sum was to be collected, are not given. and we have not at hand the means of ascertaining, but we may be sure, that the imports rather fell short than exceeded two hundred millions of dollars, and of course, the average duty on the whol import exceeded fifty per centum. Tts. is the English doctrine of free trade! whic Secretary Walker lauds so highly, re duced to practice, for the British tariff has | oppressiveness of English taxation pronot since been so modified, as to reduce the amount of revenue from the customs a single million of dollars. The only material reduction in the British tariff, which our free trade party bruit so much, is the reduction of the duties on bread stuffs and provisions, which never amounted to a million of dollars a year. The population of the United States may be estimated at twenty millions, and until the last year our exports of domestic products, in value, never exceeded about one hundred millions of dollars, sometimes a little more, and sometimes a little less. The population of the British isles may be estimated at twenty-eight millions. There can be no doubt, but what the exports of the United States, in proportion to their population, are, and always have been, equal to the exports of England in proportion to her population. As England manufactures nearly everything for herself, it is natural to suppose that ours would be the largest, but suppose them to be equal; then if twenty millions of people export one hundred millions of produce, twenty-eight millions of people would export one hundred and forty millions of produce; or if we take the last year as the base of our calculations, and that twenty millions of people exported one hundred and fifty millions of produce, then, by the same rule, twenty-eight millions of people would export two hundred and ten millions of produce, so that the average of duties would still be about fifty per centum upon the whole imports of England. This exhibit of the English Premier shows what an enormous amount of revenue may be collected from imports without oppression or inconvenience to the people. Although England collects over. one hundred millions of dollars per annum from her commerce, which does not exceed the commerce of the United States more than one-third, yet this enormous sum is annually paid by somebody, with little or no complaint by the people of England, except the trifling sum collected on bread stuffs. Take away the corn laws, which have not yielded a hundred thousand pounds sterling a year for the last twenty years, and there has been little or no complaint by the people of England, about the duties on English imports. The ceeds from the excise, the land tax, the window tax, and the hearth tax-in short, from the taxes properly so called, and not from the imports, which, properly speaking, are not taxes. Except for the necessaries of life, no man pays an impost unless he pleases, and the necessaries of life are the subject of imposts to a very small extent in any country, because, as a general rule, every nation produces its own necessaries of life. A nation that depended on other nations for any considerable portion of the necessaries of life, would be in a very precarious condition, and could not long exist as a nation. Besides, the domestic product in every nation always regulates the market for the necessaries of life, such as bread and meat; and hence, the importer, or foreign producer, and not the consumer, must pay the impost on these articles. Therefore it is, that the market price of flour in England regulates the price of flour in Ohio. If a duty of one dollar a barrel is laid on flour in England, flour immediately falls a dollar a barrel in Ohio. If that duty is taken off, flour rises a dollar a barrel in Ohio; so that an English impost on flour is, in reality, a tax on the people of Ohio and others, who supply the English markets, and not on the people of England. A duty of a dollar a barrel, would not raise the price of flour to the consumer ten cents a barrel. balance of the impost would have to be paid by the producer. Hence, the hundred millions of dollars of revenue, which England annually collects from her commerce, is not paid by the people of England, but by the people of the whole world with whom she deals. This is one of the main-springs of England's power. She levies tribute upon the whole world, but pays tribute to nobody. She merely humbugs the nations with the phantom of free trade. The So long as no duty is imposed on tea, coffee, and spices, an opulent farmer and a comfortable liver in our country will be under no necessity of consuming a single article in his family on which either a tax or a duty has been paid by anybody. How absurd then to talk about an impost being oppressive to the people. What we call the comforts and luxuries of life, are the principal subjects of duties, and these are usually prized in proportion to their cost. The stronger an article smells of money, the more distinction its use will confer, and the more it will be coveted by those who have the means of paying for it. There is therefore no danger that high duties will ever prevent the importation of foreign products, to the full amount of our exports. The history of English commerce furnishes abundant proof of this fact. A duty of four or five hundred per centum does not prevent the consumption of tobacco in England, from which the government derives an enormous revenue. The greater portion of this revenue, it is true, is paid by the consumers, but up to some thirty or forty per cent. the producer would pay a part. So a duty by our government, of two or three hundred per cent. on wine and silks, would not prevent them from being imported and consumed in large quantities. Who ever heard of an article of luxury being so dear, that nobody would buy it? High duties are as much and even more complained of by producers, than by consumers; but if the duties are included in the price the consumer pays for the goods, the producer would have no cause to complain of the duty. If a duty of a dollar a barrel on flour raised the price of flour a dollar a barrel in the English market, what cause would the American producer have to complain of the duty? Every nation strives, by treaty or otherwise, to have its products subjected to as low a duty as possible by foreign governments; but if the consumer pays the duty, they need give themselves no trouble on that subject. If, then, England collects a revenue of over a hundred millions of dollars on her commerce, how easily could the United States collect half that sum on their commerce. But Mr. Secretary Walker will find that this cannot be done by reducing the duties on imports. For what purpose the following fanfaronade was put into the Secretary's Report we are at a loss to conceive. Perhaps he thought he could darken counsel by a cloud of statistics and big figures, and thus conceal his blunders from the public eye; but if this was his object, he will find himself mistaken. His facts in the followqquotation are all false, and his conclu P sions absurd, as we shall proceed to show. We owe an apology to our readers, for so long a quotation of such stuff, but we could not well abridge or divide it without marring its beauty. The Secretary says: In my report of July 22, 1846, it was shown that the annual value of our products exceeds three thousand millions of dollars. Our population doubles once in every twenty-three years, and our products quadruple in the same period pounding itself quarter yearly at six per cent. -that being the time within which a sum com ex interest will be quadrupled-as is sustained here by the actual results. Of this $3,000,000,000, only about $150,000,000 was ported abroad, leaving $2,850,000,000, used at home, of which at least $500,000,000 is annually interchanged between the several States of the Union. Under this system, the larger the area, and the greater the variety of climate, soil, and products, the more extensive is the commerce which must exist between the States, and the greater the value of the Union. We see then here, under the system of free trade among the States of the Union, an interchange of products of the annual value of at least $500,000,000 among our twenty-one millions of people; whilst our total exchanges, including imports and exports, with all the world besides, containing a population of a thousand millions, was last year $305,194,260, being an increase since the new tariff over the preceding year of $70,014,647. Yet the exchanges between our States, consisting of a population of twenty-one millions, being of the yearly value of $500,000,000 exchanged, make such exchange in our own country equal to $23 81 per individual annually of our own products, and reduces the exchange of our own and foreign products, (our imports and exports,) considered as $300,000,000 with all the rest of the world, to the annual value of thirty cents to each individual. That is, one person of the Union receives and exchanges annually of our own products as much as seventy-nine persons of other countries. Were this exchange with foreign countries extended to ninety cents each, it would bring our imports and exports up to $900,000,000 per annum. and our annual revenue from duties to a thirty cents each to the consumption of our sum exceeding $90,000,000. An addition of products exchanged from State to State by our own people, would furnish an increased market of the value only of $6,300,000 ; whereas an increase of thirty cents each, by a system of liberal exchanges with the people of all the world, would give us a market for an additional value of $300,000,000 per annum of our exports. Such an addition cannot occur by refusing to receive in exchange the products of other nations, and demanding the $300,000,000 per annum in specie, which could never |