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by the cost of weaving it, this difference itself, is equal very nearly two cents per yard in all the goods made out of N° 20 cotton yarn.

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Cropper & Benson also say-" Next to the manufacturing, the planters are giving in some cases forty cents per yard for cotton bagging. This they might make themselves from cotton, as is done in the Brazils, with great advantage." (Now be it recollected that this letter was written in 1822, before the passage of the much abused Act of 1824, which laid a specific duty upon cotton bagging, and when the price of cotton was only about 11 cents per pound.)

'With these remarks we submit whatever relates to cotton to the judgment of our readers; and whatever may be the present opinion of the planters upon the subject, we are assured that the time is at hand when they will esteem the domestic manufacture of this commodity, as the farmers do the new market which they have obtained in the eastern states, because of manufactures generally, which takes off 800,000 barrels of flour, and much more of their bread stuffs than all foreign nations or people consume. Without these consumptions, we repeat it, flour would be worth one dollar less per barrel than it is, and cotton from 1 to 2 cents less per pound. We appeal to the reason of our fellow citizens for the probability of these things.'

WOOL AND WOOLLENS.

It is believed that more than eighty, and perhaps, one hundred millions of dollars, are vested in sheep and lands to feed them, and factories to make their wool into cloth, in the United States. The raising of sheep gives value to lands not suited to ordinary cultivation, and makes worn-out fields productive of profit to the farmers, if wool fetches a reasonable price.

'Such Merino wool as sold at from 3 to 4 dollars per pound during the war, may be now bought at from 40 to 60 cents.

Some of the farmers near Northampton, Massachusetts, says the Gazette, have engaged to "keep yearling wethers throughout the year, and shear them, for the wool growers, at 112 cents per head." This is poor encouragement to the farmers.

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Mr. Way, a dealer in wool, writes from Pittsburgh, that in 1826, he took in 50,000 lbs. weight of wool, at from 18 to 95 cents per lb. ; but, in the present year, for that which he gave 18, he has only given 12 to 13, and the fine quality, which brought 95, has been reduced to 50 cents per lb. He supposes that the stock of wool has very much increased, and that there is enough on hand to keep all the factories in full operation, without importations.

'At a meeting of citizens of Washington county, Pa. attended by some of the most intelligent and best practical farmers in the world, it was stated, as is believed to be within bounds, when it "is asserted, that the grain growers are indebted to the wool growers,

for ten cents on every bushel of wheat sold in that county this season." Because of a reduced supply of wheat and a greater demand for it.

By actual enumeration there were 161,000 sheep in Washington county, Pa. last year.

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By strict examination of the consumption in 50 families in Washington county, Pa. who use no foreign woollens, or other cloths than what they make out of their own wool, it appears that 5 lbs. are required for each person, annually. And allowing 6 lbs. the whole supply of the home market would require nearly 70 millions of pounds, the product of about 30,000,000 sheep. The ability to produce this quantity of wool, and support 30 millions of sheep, cannot be questioned. At present, however, the people cannot afford to consume so much cloth as the wool of 30 millions of sheep would make; and they are, generally, compelled to do with less than is used by the well clothed and comfortable farmers of the county named.

At the last state census there were about 350,000 sheep in Dutchess county, New York. The present number is supposed to exceed 450,000. Many are of the best breeds and finest fleeces. It is calculated that the farmers of this county in the past year, after supplying their families, had 500,000 lbs. of wool to sell, which at an average of 40 cents, produced them the sum of S 200,000; the household manufactures being estimated at 100,000 dollars more; and yet the number of sheep raised does not appear at all to interfere with the quantity of grain produced; indeed, rather to improve the capacity of the soil to yield more. Such seems to be the practical result in this county, as detailed in the Poughkepsie Journal.

'Three towns in Maine, containing about 5,000 inhabitants, and from 75 to 100 square miles of territory, wintered last season, 11,531 sheep, producing 3 lbs. of wool each, and having 8,770 lambs this season. Some of these sheep are of the fine woolled breed. From various details, it is believed that the sheep last wintered in Maine amounted to between 800,000 and 1,000,000, and that the present stock is 1,300,000.

' Mr. Davis, in his speech in the House of Representatives, on the 31st January last, estimated that the amount of wool worked up was 32,000,000 lbs, and that 3,200,000 yards of broad, and 32,000,000 of narrow cloths were annually produced, and about 100,000 persons are directly or indirectly employed in this business. We gather this opinion also, that more than 100 millions of capital were vested in the growth and manufacture of wool; and he put down the sheep at fifteen millions.

"The island of "Rhode Island," 14 miles long and less than 3 wide, has more than 30,000 sheep upon it. There are about 200,000 in Berkshire county, Massachusetts. Many in the western

parts of Virginia; one gentleman in Ohio county has more than 3,000; he sold his crop of wool to Mr. Rapp, at Economy, for 2,400 dollars. There are in the state of New York about four millions of sheep, between two and three millions in Pennsylvania, a million in Vermont, &c.

It has been calculated that the manufacture of wool, (including the various mechanics and labourers employed,) in the New England states, subsists about 20,000 families, or 120,000 persons, and that these will consume the surplus products of 40,000 families of agriculturalists-together about 360,000 individuals. If this is thought extravagant, reduce the manufactures one half, and throw them into the production of agricultural articles, and what would be the effect? A great market would be destroyed, and an already glutted one further overloaded. Not one cent's worth of our farmers' produce is prevented foreign exportation because of the factories. The value made up by these, then, is a clear gain to the nation.

'The home-made negro cloths are cheaper and better than the British, and steadiness in the market is mainly desired for them. Each slave is supposed to be allowed six yards. One establishment at Canton, in Massachusetts, has made 600,000 yards annually, and is prepared to make 1,000,000; 500 bales of coarse wool was received there from Smyrna, which had been paid for in domestic cottons exported.

A carpet manufactory in Jersey City, (owned in New York,) has a capital of 400,000 dollars, and employs 100 hands, making 2,500 yards weekly. The spinning and preparing the yarn employs another 100 persons.

'Messrs. B. Wells & Co. at Steubenville, have a flock of sheep amounting to about 6,500. The fabricks manufactured by them are equal to about 50 yards of broad cloth daily, averaging 2 lbs. of wool to the yard, worth S 3. 50. We have tabular statements of the purchases of wool for this factory for each of the years from 1820 to 1827, from which we take the following items :

'In 1820, none of the 1st quality; 5,867 2d quality; 5,097 7-8ths, &c. and total 38,202 lbs. unwashed wool.

'In 1825, 3,841 lbs. 1st quality; 20,813, 2d quality; 25,086 7-8ths, and total 90,524 lbs. unwashed wool.

'In 1826, 3,491 lbs. 1st quality; 13,682 2d quality; 17,688 7-8ths, and total 69,673 lbs. part washed on the sheep.

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In 1827, 2,586 lbs. 1st quality; 11,910 2d quality; 17,408 7-8ths, and total 74,669 lbs. washed on the sheep.

'The chief value of this statement is to shew the progress made in the growth of fine wools. No common wool has been purchased for the factory since 1822; all the sorts are becoming finer, and the finest improving.

'The cotton and woollen cloths made in New York were valued last year at from 15 to 18 millions of dollars.

'A great deal has been said against even the lowest minimum [only 40 cents] proposed in the woollens bill that was before Congress at its last session, and certain persons have represented that it would operate severely on the poor. They do not state that there is already a minimum at 33 cents, and that in 1824, no less than 21 of the 24 members of the Pennsylvania delegation, then present, voted to raise the minimum to eighty cents.

Many more yards of flannel are now manufactured in the United States than were imported a few years ago, according to the returns at the custom houses. In five towns in Massachusetts, within a space of 17 miles square, 2,100 persons are employed in making flannels, and operating on a capital of 950,000 dollars.

'It is supposed that all the woollen goods imported into Boston in a year, would not have laden fully one ship of 400 tons. But the neighbouring manufacturers give employment to many thousand tons of shipping, transporting articles in and out, foreign and coastwise.

'The woollen manufacture in Great Britain employs about. 1,250,000 persons, and, after supplying the home demand, the export averages the value of more than six millions of pounds sterling; more than the average of all the exports of the United States, cotton excepted.

'There are about forty millions of sheep in Great Britain and Ireland, and the annual product of wool is estimated at 140 millions of pounds. We can easily feed 50 millions of sheep, in the United States; and there is no doubt that we shall export millions of pounds of wool, raw or wrought, before many years. Our bread and meat must, in this way, obtain a market.'

Thus for the Reporters to the Harrisburg Convention. When we consider the immense population, which in England is dependent on the iron, cotton and woollen trades, this account of American industry is well calculated to excite anxiety and alarm. The workshops of America are still inadequate to the supply of their domestic and foreign demand; their manufactures are still inferior to the manufactures of Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, and a large proportion of the people of the United States are discontented with the prohibition of cheaper and superior goods. That this prohibition is impolitic and unwise, no one at all acquainted with the principles of political economy, can entertain a doubt. But unless we can procure some relaxation of the laws by which it is enacted, it will be of little service to us to demonstrate its folly and inexpediency. We must look about us to ascertain what means we possess of influencing the determination of Congress, we must not only enlist the enlightened portion of the American community in our cause, but likewise stimulate the

activity of those who are already opposed to the Tariffs, by proving that we are in a condition to retaliate with energy and effect. It is mortifying to observe the confidence with which the reporter on the cotton manufacture asserts our dependance on America. His argument, in truth, amounts to this: that whereas a large portion of British cotton piece goods, hitherto imported into the United States, has been manufactured from the raw produce of the East Indies; for the future, either the competition of the Americans will drive the English from the markets, or the English must submit to use no cotton wool but of American culture. By this reasoning, it is hoped to allay the discontent of the growers of Virginia and Carolina, who apprehend, from the new tariffs, the loss of the English market; an apprehension which would be perfectly well founded, were it not for the notorious inferiority of every description of East Indian produce, an inferiority which nothing but the employment of European skill, capital, and ingenuity, in the cultivation of India, can possibly remove. Some bales, too, of American cotton goods have been imported into Canton; and they would drive the like British or India goods out of Calcutta, if their importation were liberally allowed. It is new to us, that the importations of the Americans at Calcutta are not liberally allowed: for as far as our experience extends, they are treated with much more liberality than the English; but respecting the imports at Canton, we know that the Company's supercargoes have long complained of the alarming inroads' on their trade, occasioned by American invasion, and in the traffic of the islands of the Archipelago, they had, before the establishment of the settlement at Singapore, no rivals but the Dutch. The trade with the north-west coast of America, with the emancipated colonies of Spain, and with Brazil, the carrying trade between Asia and Europe, the supply of China, and the Eastern Archipelago, of India, and even of the United States, are all, in some degree, dependant on the speedy and effectual improvement of our East Indian territories, and the abolition of the remaining privileges of the Company. If these privileges had expired in 1824, a period, beyond which, Mr. Canning, at the last renewal of the charter, contended that it was unwise to fetter the discretion of Parliament, our commercial policy might, by this time, have been framed on a general, comprehensive, well-connected view of the just bearing and relations between the interests of other countries and our own dominions; the rice, the cotton, and the tobacco of India, would have already been materially improved, and England would be in a condition to dispense with the friendship of America.

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