Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

and are carried on to advantage; but they are gene rally such as require only a few hands, or whereir. great part of the work is performed by machines. Goods that are bulky, and of so small a value as not well to bear the expense of freight, may often be made cheaper in the country than they can be imported; and the manufacture of such goods will be profitable wherever there is a sufficient demand. The farmers in America produce indeed a good deal of wool and fax, and none is exported-it is all worked up; bự it is in the way of doinestic manufacture, for the use of the family. The buying up quantities of wool and flax, with the design to employ spinners, weavers, &. and form great establishments, producing quan tities of linen and wouilen goods for sale, has been several times attempted in different provinces; but these projects have generally failed, goods of equal value being imported cheaper. And when the go. ve nments have been solicited to support such schemer by encouragements, in money, or by inposing duties en importation of such goods, it has been generally refused, on this principle, that if the country is ripe fo. the manufacture, it may be carried on by private persons to advantage; and, if not, it is folly to think of forcing nature. Great establishments of manufac ture require great numbers of poor do the work fo small wages; those poor are to be found in Europe, but will not be found in America, till the lands are all taken up and cultivated, and the excess of peo ple who cannot get land want employment. The manufacture of silk, they say, is uateral in France, as that of cloth in England, because each country produces in plenty the first material; but if England vill have a manufacture of silk as well as that of eloth, and France of cloth as well as that of silk these unnatural operations must be supported by mutual prohibitions, or high duties on the importa tions of each others goods; by which means the workmen are enabled to tax the home consumer by greater prices, while the higher wages they receive makes them neither happier nor richer, since they only drink more and work less. Therefore the govemment in America do nothing to encourage such

projects. The people by this means are not imposed on either by the merchant or mechanic: if the merchant demands too much profit on imported shoes, they buy of the shoemaker; and if he asks too high a price, they take them of the merchant: thus the two professions are checks on each other. The shoemaker however has, on the whole, a considerable profit upon his labour in America, beyond what he had in Europe, as he can add to his price a sun nearly equal to all the expenses of freight and com mission, risk or assurance, &c. necessarily charge by the merchant. And the case is the same with the workınan in every other mechanic art. Hence it is, that the artisans generally live better and more easily in America than in Europe; and such as are good economists make a comfortable provision for age, and for their children. Such may, therefore move with advantage to America.

In the old long-settled countries of Europe, all arts, trades, professions, farms, &c. are so full, that it is difficult for a poor man who has children to place them where they may gain, or learn to gain, a decent livelihood. The artisans, who fear creating future rivals in business, refuse to take apprentices, but upon conditions of money, maintenance or the like, which the parents are unable to comply with. Hence the youth are dragged up in ignorance of every gainful art, und obliged to become soldiers, or servants, or thieves, for a subsistence. In America the rapid in crease of inhabitants takes away that fear of rivalship, and artisans willingly receive apprentices from the hope of profit by their labour, dur.ng the remainder of the time stipulated, after they shall be instructed. Hence it is casy for poor families to get their children instructed; for the artisans are so desirous of apprentices, that many of them will even give money to the parents, to have boys from ten to fifteen years of age bound apprentices to them, till the age of twenty-one; and many poor parents have, by that means, on their arrival in the country, raised money enough to buy land sufficient to establish themselves, and to subsist the rest of the family by agriculture.

These contracts for apprentices are made before magistrate, who regulates the agreement according to reason and justice; and, having in view the forma. tion of a future useful citizen, obliges the master to engage by a written indenture, not only that, during the time of service stipulated, the apprentice shall be duly provided with meat, drink, apparal, washing and lodging, and at its expiration with a complete new suit of clothes, but also, that he shall be taught to read, write, and cast accounts; and that he shall be well instructed in the art or profession of his master, or some other, by which he may afterwards gain a livelihood, and be able in his turn to raise a family. A copy of this indenture is given to the apprentice or his friends, and the magistrate keeps a record of it, to which recourse may be had, in case of failure by the master in any point of performance. This de sire among the masters to have more hands employed in working for them, induces them to pay the sage of young persons of both sexes, who, on their ar rival, agree to serve them one, two, three, or four years; those who have already learned a trade, agreeing for a shorter terin, in proportion to their skill, and the consequent immediate value of their service; and those who have none, agreeing for a longer term, in consideration of being taught an art their poverty would not permit them to acquire in their own country.

pas.

The almost general mediocrity of fortune that prevails in America, obliging its people to follow some business for subsistence, those vices that arise usually from idleness, are in a great measure prevented. Industry and constant employment are great preser vatives of the morals and virtue of a nation. Hence bad examples to youth are more rare in America, which must be a comfortable consideration to pa rents. To this may be truly added, that serious re ligion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practised. Atheism is unknown there; and infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country without having their piety shocked by meeting with

either an athiest or an infidel. And the Divine Pe ing seems to have manifested his approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness with which the different sects treat each other, by the remarkable prosperity with which he has been pleased to favour the whole country.

THOUGHTS ON COMMERCIAL
SUBJECTS.

Of Embargoes upon Corn, and of the Poor.

IN inland high countries, remote from the sea, and whose rivers are small, running from the country, and not to it, as is the case with Switzerland; great distress may arise from a course of bad harvests, if public graneries are not provided, and kept well stored. Anciently, too, before navigation was so general, ships so plenty, and commercial transac tions so well established; even maratime countries might be occasionally distressed by bad crops. But such is now the facility of communication between those countries, than an unrestrained commerce can scarce ever fail of procuring a sufficiency for any of them. If indeed any government is so imprudent as to lay its hands on imported corn, forbid its exportation, or compel its sale at limited prices, there the people may suffer some famine from merchants avoiding their ports. But wherever commerce is known to be always free, and the merchant absolute master of his commodity, as in Holland, there will always be a reasonable supply.

When an exportation of corn takes place, occa sioned by a higher price in some foreign countries,

is common to raise a clamour, on the supposition that we shall thereby produce a domestic famine. Then follows a prohibition, founded on the imaginary dis tresses of the poor. The poor, to be sure, if in distress, should be relieved; but if the farmer could have a high price for his corn from the foreign demand, must he by a prohibition of exportation be compelled to take a low price, not of the poor only, but of every one that eats bread, even the richest? The duty o relieving the poor is incumbent on the rich; but by bis operation the whole burden is laid on the farmer VLO is to relieve the rich at the same time. Of the oor, too, those who are maintained by the parishes have no right to claim this sacrifice of the fariner: as while they have their allowance, it makes no differnce them, whether bread be cheap or dear.— Those working poor, who now mind business only five or four days in the week, if bread should be su dear as to oblige them to work the whole six required by the commandment, do not seem to be aggrieved, so as to have a right to public redress. There wil then remain, comparatively, only a few families is every district, who from sickness or a gr at number of children, will be so distressed by a high price of corn, as need relief; and these should be taken care of by particular benefactions, without restraining the farmer's profit.

Those who fear, that exportation may so far drain the country of corn, as to starve ourselves, fear what never did, or never can happen. They may as well, when they view the tide ebbing towards the sea, fear that all the water will leave the river. The price of corn, like water, will find its own level. The more we export, the dearer becomes at home; the more is received abroad, the cheaper it becomes there and as soon as these prices are equal, the exportation stops of course. As the seasons vary in different countries, the calamity of a bad harvest is never uni. versal. If, hen, all ports were always open, and all commerce free, every maritime country would generally eat bread at the medium price, or average of all the harvests; which would probably be more equal than we can make it by our artificial regulations, and

« ZurückWeiter »