The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 2: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session Page: 360
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360
APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
Jan. 1844.
28th Cong.. ..1st Sess.
The Tariff—Mr. Evans.
Senate.
the aristocratic capitalists against whom popular
odium is to be excited? Are the hardy miners of
the hills of Pennsylvania, ill the same category?
Now sir, these are plain, and palpable, and
• speaking facts. The benefit of this policy is not for
the few, but for the many. It puts labor in motion:
it employs the many. What is most wanted
and most necessary for a nation ambitious of attain-
ing power, and wealth, and happiness, is profitable
employment for its people. Whatever nation fur-
nishes this, will have no occasion to seek out modes
of relieving their burdens, for they have no burdens
which they cannot easily sustain. Contentment
and harmony will prevail; the laws will be respect-
ed, and government will be felt only irvthe blessings
it dispenses.
I wish to say a single word, Mr. President, in re-
gard to the excessive profits which the honorable
senator supposes some of the cotton manufactu-
ring establishments have realized. He says they
are making dividends of 30 or 40 per cent, upon
their capital? "Where does the senator obtain his in-
formation? Upon what data does he make his calcu-
tion? The census statistics, which he , used as the
ground of his computations, are known to be quite
imperfect. Without very minute knowledge upon
this matter, I nevertheless venture to affirm, that the
profits of the capital invested in cotton manufac-
tures, from the commencement of this time, has not
averaged 6 per cent.
[Mr. McDuffie asked what they were now.]
I cannot certainly inform the senator; but I am
assured that, all together, they will not average 12
per cent. Some may be more—many are less. The
honorable senator falls into errors by adopting
newspaper statements, without examining or tra-
cing out the circumstances, or the causes of what
seems to be an excessive profit, and then supposing
it to be applicable to all institutions of the kind.
There are various reasons why, in particular cases,
there should be a high dividend. Some of these es-
tablishments have suffered severe losses—to the ex-
tent, perhaps, of half their capital—and have de-
clared dividends upon their reduced capital, instead
of reserving them to restore the losses. What, in
such cases, appears to be a dividend of 12 per cent,
is, in reality, but a dividend of 6 per cent, on the
original investment. In some cases manufacturing
corporations have wholly failed; and their buildings,
machinery, and fixtures, have been sold at an enor-
mous sacrifice—perhaps for one-quarter of the ori-
ginal cost. The new purchaser makes dividends
upon the capital which he has invested; and if he
has made a favorable investment, his dividends may
be large; but that arises not because the profits of
the business are ordinarily large, but because he has
been fortunate in obtaining a valuable privilege at a
small cost. The idea that capital, in any branch of
business in this country, can realize 30 or 40 per
ccnt. for any length of time, when the ordinary
profits of every other pursuit are far below that, is
preposterous. Capital is always seeking the most
profitable investments; and if any one employment is
so much more lucrative than all others, it would be
immediately crowded with capital withdrawn from
other pursuits, until an equality should be restored.
It may sometimes happen, under peculiar circum-
stances, that a manufacturing company will realize
large profits, and make great dividends. For in-
stance: if it should purchase a large supply of the
raw material, when the price was low, and subse-
quently, from an increased demand, it should large-
ly appreciate, occasioning, ofcouise, an advance in
the price of the manufactured fabric. The profit, in
such a case, is made by the manufacturer, not be-
cause he is a manufacturer, not by the process of
manufacturing, but by the rise of the cotton on his
hands, precisely as the planter or the merchant
would have made it, if he had kept the cotton until
the rise occurred. This is no part of the profit of
manufacturing. It more nearly resembles the profits
of the merchant or the speculator. In such cases, itis
reasonable to infer that all other manufacturers, not
of cotton merely, but of wool and iron, are making
excessive profits, also? Is the business of manufac-
turing to be judged of by that standard? Are all to
be judged by the good fortune of one? Nothing
could be more unreasonable or erroneous. Then,
sir, 1 repeat, there has been no such enormous profit
in manufacturing operations, generally, not even in
cottons, as the honorable senator has assumed.
Manufacturing stock is, perhaps, at this moment
rather advancing in the market; but that is no proof
of excessive profits. Other descriptions of property
are rising also. Money is plenty, interest low.
Capitalists are seeking opportunities of investments.
The natural consequence is, that prices of stocks of
all sorts, of real estate, and of property generally,
yielding income, rise. I repeat, sir, it is wholly
out of the question, that the cotton manufactures, or
any investments in any other business, can yield,
for any length of time, a profit of 30 or 40 per cent.,
unless that be the average rate in other employments
also. While, as I have already said, I do not be-
lieve that, from, the commencement of the cot-
ton manufacture in this country, it has yield-
ed an average of 6 per cent.—less, I believe,
than the average profits of commerce—I am
very sure that, in other branches of manufacture,
much less still has been derived. How is it with
woollens? The profits there, we know, have been
very low; great losses have been sustained, and the
stock has been generally far under par. In the iron
business, the senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Bu-
chanan] has told us that many of the furnaces have
ceased operations.
With plain and conclusive facts like these before
us, with what justice or propriety can the act of
1842 be stigmatized as an act to legalize plunder
and oppression; or the policy, as a policy to enrich
the manufacturer and the capitalist at the expense of
the laborer? These are charges, sir, easily made,
but they are not sustained, ana cannot be sustained,
by any proof drawn from experience, or the practi-
cal operation of the system.
The views which I have already-presented, are
strengthened and confirmed by reference to the com-
mercial and manufacturing statistics of Great Brit-
ain. The honorable senator supposes that Great
Britain will consume forty millions more of Amer-
ican cotton, if the United States will open a market
for an equal amount of her manufactured produc-
tions: that is to say, if we will increase her manu-
factures forty millions, she will take the whole pay-
ment for it m one article, and that, cotton. Let us
see whether this is probable. The total produce of
the manufactures of the kingdom, as stated by
Spackman, for 1841, was ^£173,136,316—equal to
about $865,000,000. This is probably a far aver-
age of a series of years. Of this amount, fifty-two
millions sterling (about two hundred and sixty mil-
lions of dollars) were in manufactures of cotton.
Are gentlemen aware of the large proportion of
these manufactures which England consume at home?
Of the eight hundred and sixty-five millions pro-
duced, six hundred and thirty millions were con-
sumed in the kingdom, and only two hundred and
thirty-five millions exported to foreign places, her
vast colonial possessions included. Of the two hun-
dred and sixty millions of manufactures of cotton,
she consumes one hundred and forty millions. Now,
look at the amount of imports. The value of
the whole, from all places, colonial and foreign,
from the same period, is stated at ^64,377,962, equal
to about $320,000,000. From our own commercial
tables, it appears that the value of cotton exported
to England that year, was about thirty-six milions
of dollars—only eleven per cent, of the whole imports
of Great Britain.
We may state the proposition in various ways.
The question is, what additional demand for cotton
will an additional consumption of forty millions in
value, of British manufactures of all descriptions,
occasion? It will be noticed that the increased con-
sumption of manufactures is not confined to man-
ufactures of cotton, but extends to all kinds of com-
modities. If the eight hundred and sixty-five mil-
lions of manufactured productions require only thir-
ty-six millions worth of cotton, how much will forty
millions more add? About a million and two-thirds,
instead of forty millions, which the senator expects.
But if we should receive the whole return in cotton
fabrics, how would it stand? If two hundred and
sixty millions of manufactures consume thirty-six
millions of cotton, how much would an additional
forty millions require? About five millions. That
is to say, in order to sell five millions more to her,
we take forty millions more from her. We buy
forty millions; she pays it by adding thirty-five
millions of her labor to five millions of our labor.
How long can we stand such a process as that? But
what is England to do with forty millions more of
cotton? about double her present demand. Can
she double her domestic consumption of the man-
ufactured fabrics? She consumes now one hundred
and forty millions. Can she then consume two
hundred and eighty millions? Because we consume
forty millions more of her manufactures, can she
consume one hundred and forty millions more? Can
i she double her exports? Do other nations require
such an increase? Great Britain will not take forty
millions more of the raw material, until she finds
consumers for the additional mass of manufactures
made from it—unUl she finds purchasers of five hun-
dred and twenty millions, instead of two hundred
and sixty. The raw cotton imported into England,
appears to be about 11 per cent, of the whole im-
ports. If England could export forty millions more,
as the senator desires she should, she could import
forty millions more undoubtedly, and would prob-
ably do so; but it would be in the same commodi-
ties and the same relative proportions in which she
now imports, because her imports are according to
the wants of the people. This would give an ad-
ditional import of four millions and a half only of
cotton. For the sake of selling four and a half mil-
lions of our productions, we must take forty mil-
lions of her productions. The balance must be
paid in some other way—in something she could
exchange with other nations, to meet the imports
she would make from them; and if we have nothing
else she wants, we must pay in money.
Look at these facts in another point of view.
Much as Great Britain manufactures for other na-
tions, she manufactures more for herself. Of her
cotton manufactures, we take ten millions, or near-
ly that, out of two hundred and sixty millions.
Who does not see that the great solicitude of her
manufacturers, must be to keep up prices at home?
If we are to depend mainly on her for our supply,
when prices are high there, in her greatest and best
market, we must pay high. When they are low,
we shall be inundated with the surplus of her pro-
ductions. Prices will be perpetually fluctuating.
But, sir, I fear I have wearied the Senate by dwell-
ing so long on this branch of the subject. To dis-
cuss it as it ought to be discussed, would require
much more time than it would be proper for me,
under any circumstances, and especially now, to
exact from the Senate; and I proceed, therefore, to
another topic.
The senator from South Carolina attributes to the
tariff an unequal and unjust operation on differ-
ent sections of the country. He says: While it im-
poses burdens on the people of the whole country,
it imposes them on the people of the South in an
undue degree, and to such an unequal extent that
he cannot but look on this government as more
iniquitous, unjust, and disastrous, to that section
of the Union, and to its commerce, than all the pi-
rates and plunderers that ever infested the ocean.
Now, sir, the act of 1842, and the policy of which
it is a part, can only affect the South in one of two
ways. It can only operate injuriously by enhancing
the price of the articles they consume, or by di-
minishing the price of those they sell. [Mr. Mc-
Dufeie said, both.] The honorable senator says
both. I will endeavor to show the reverse—that it
does not operate injuriously in either way. If the
price of articles purchased has been enhanced, point
us to the instance. When and where, and of what
commodity, has this been the case? Exhibit the
proof. Show us the prices current. It is quite
notorious that that the great majority of imported
merchandise has declined in price. Whether the
act of 1842 has occasioned it or not, in point of
truth and fact a reduction in almost all articles
of consumption, whether imported or made here,
has since taken place. The grievance is not, there-
fore, in the enhanced price of commodities which
the South has to buy. On the other hand, the
price of the staple export of the South has also
increased. I give the fact. Look at the price of last
year. A newspaper published at New Oileans has
been handed to me this morning, giving the price
current at this time, and in January last year:
I'licus of Jail . IS43. Tiices oi Jon., 1811
Inferior - - 4 to 41 7i to 7?
Ordinary - - 44 to .) 8" to 8-J
Middling - - 5" to 51 81 to 8|
Middling fair - 51 to 6 J 9 to 9J
Fair - - -6 to 6; 9; to 9;
Good fair - - to 7; 101 to 1UJ
Good and fine -8 to 9] 111 to —
Thus it will be seen that, on the inferior qualities,
prices have advanced at New Orleans since last Jan-
uary, 75 or 80 per cent.; on the middling qualities,
40 to 50 per cent.; and on the best, 20 to 30. I have
been informed that, at this moment, some of the
manufacturers in Massachusetts are paying 50 per
cent, more than they paid last year; so that it will
not be extraordinary if there should be a rise in the
price of manufactured fabrics. I believe such an ad-
vance has actually taken place. If so, I hope it is
not to be set down to the prohibitory character of
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United States. Congress. The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 2: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session, book, 1844; Washington D.C.. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2368/m1/370/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.