VI. SKETCHES OF LALLY'S CAMPAIGN IN MEXICO-(Continued).....340 VII. POLITICAL PORTRAITS WITH PEN AND PENCIL..... HON. ROBERT RANTOUL, JR., of Massachusetts. VIII. JENNY LIND.... IX. FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW... GENERAL PROSPERITY-PROTECTIONIST PROPHECIES-INTERNAL TRADE- X. STATE POLITICS.. .348 ..364 .370 ..375 STATE CONVENTIONS-Democratic Ticket-Syracuse Resolutions-Short measure of justice to Senator Dickinson-Dispersion of Free SoilismComing Election-Choice of United States Senator. XI. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS..... Phillips, Sampson & Co.-D. Appleton & Co.-Harper Brothers-Brady's Gallery-A. Hart, Philadelphia-Baker & Scribner-J. S. Redfield-Rudolph Garrique—George P. Putnam. XII. OURSELVES.... .377 ..381 OUR AGENT-Mr. T. A. Foster-Recommendation of Friends-Part of 3000 names. AMONG the most cheering indications of human progress, in respect of material well-being, are to be found the increased reward for labor, and the improved prices of raw products of industry, as compared with the rent of capital. The quantities of food and the articles of comfort which are brought to market annually, are increasing in proportion to the population of commercial countries, while the rent of capital, as indicated in the interest of money and the dividends of factory corporations, is on the decline. That is to say, industry is coming to enjoy a larger proportion of its own products, and capital to obtain a less considerable share of the general wealth. It is undeniably true, that all the wealth of the world is the product of industry, and that what is called capital is the mere accumulation, through economy, of a portion of that which has been produced by labor. The possessors of this accumulation have, in all ages, derived a profit by loaning it to producers, and the general tendency of legislation, as governments advanced, was to increase the proportion of the produced wealth which fell to capitalists, and, of course, to diminish the share which those who produced it might retain to their own use. When military conquerors, like the Norman bastard, divided among their followers and adherents the territory overrun by their arms, the occupants of the lands became the serfs of the landlords, and the whole wealth of the country, less the maintenance of the workers, belonged to its lords. As the feudal system fell into decay, and the corporations of towns freed the manufacturers and trades-people from servitude to barons, the number of independent cultivators increased, until, gradually, the whole people became personally free. A new system then developed itself. The personal service of tenants was no longer demanded by the lord, nor that of the latter required by the king as lord paramount; but monopolies succeeded to fiefs, and special trading and manufacturing privileges, rather than land tenures, became the means by which the government rallied to its support the magnates of the land. Instead of giving a military fol lower a tract of land, with the right to the produce raised upon it by its occupiers, it gave to its parliamentary supporters the exclusive right of selling to those people the supplies they must purchase with the proceeds of their labor; as the monopolists charged more than free traders, the producers were thus compelled to give up, indirectly, a portion of their labor for the support of a crown favorite. The only difference here was, that the military chief took directly from the producer a portion of that which he produced, while the crown favorite attained the same object, in the shape of a price for articles, sold to the cultivators, become free. This system was gradually refined upon, and as it became distasteful to those people who, having obtained their personal independence, wished for commercial freedom, it was called protection to industry. But, like all advantages granted by government to a class, it was at the expense of another set of persons. Thus, in 1534, the city of Worcester, and the towns of Evesham, Droitwich, Kidderminster, and Bromsgrove, petitioned Parliament to the effect that the inhabitants of the said cities were mostly employed in the manufacture of woollen cloths, and that within a few years, "divers persons, dwelling in hamlets, thorps, and villages, make all manner of cloths, and exercise weaving, feeling and shearing, within their houses, to the great depopulation of said towns." For these cogent reasons, the wise Parliament enacted, 25 Henry VIII., that "no person within Worcestershire shall make any cloth, but the proper inhabitants of said towns and city, excepting the persons who make cloths solely for their own and family's wearing." The town of Bretford, Dorsetshire, obtained a similar grant relative to rope-making, with the addition of compelling all hemp-growers in the county to sell said material only in that town. It was in this manner that the growing corporations obtained from a partial prince, advantages at the direct expense of the growers of the raw material. As these latter became more powerful, so as to make their voices heard in the national councils, such barefaced infringements of their rights could not be continued, and to prolong the same system, further disguise was necessary. The funding system, towards the close of the 17th century, developed its powers to the same general end; and, for more than 150 years, fundholders, landlords, manufacturers, and government officials, have conspired, under the plea of protection to home industry, to appropriate more effec tually than could have been done by feudal tenures, all the proceeds of the national labor. Down to the year 1842, this protective system remained in full force, producing, as the inevitable result, a nobility and gentry of enormous wealth, dazzling the world, like the phosphoric light emitted by corrupt substances, with the gorgeousness of their display, from amidst millions of paupers, entirely destitute of any portion of that immense wealth which their industry had created. The system of indirect taxes, or taxes upon articles consumed by the industrious to the exemption of the property amassed by the few, was the instrument by which all the wealth of the country had become accumulated in a few hands. Capital had, however, obtained the largest share of the general wealth, and so little was left to those who had produced it, that the government revenues began to fail. The operation of the corn laws was eminently calculated for this end. Thus there are engaged in the cotton manufacture 2,000,000 persons; these make cloths for all the world, and receive |