"The bulk of the trade of Canada is outwards; and the consequence is that outward freights are high, while our imports of men and other valuable commodities keep them low with us; and therefore it is that the cost of transporting wheat and flour from our side of the line is so much lower than from the other, that both now pass through New York on their way to Liverpool. Hence it is that there has arisen so vehement a desire for commercial reciprocity, and even for annexation. The protective system has thus not only the effect of bringing consumers to take their places by the side of the producer, facilitating the consumption on the land of the products of the land, and facilitating also the exportation of the surplus to foreign markets by diminishing outward freights, but the further one of producing among our neighbours a strong desire for the establishment of the same perfect freedom of trade that now exists among the several states, by becoming themselves a part of the Union. Protection, therefore, tends to the increase of commerce, and the establishment of Free Trade; while the British system tends everywhere to the destruction of commerce, and to the production of a necessity for restriction. "We see, thus, that if we desire to secure the command of that which is falsely termed 'the great grain-market of the world,' it is to be effected by the adoption of such measures as will secure valuable return freights. The most costly and the most valuable of all are men; the least so are pig-iron and coal. The more of the latter we import, the larger will be our surplus of food, the higher will be the outward freight, internal and external, the greater will be the waste, and the poorer will be the farmer. The more of the former we import, the smaller will be our surplus of food, the lower will be the outward freights, and the more numerous will be the commodities that can go to Europe, to be given in exchange for luxuries that now we cannot purchase." So much for the American views of reciprocity. Secured by her system of tariffs, which she is now about to heighten, against the effects of foreign competition, America is resolutely bent on availing herself to the utmost of all the vast natural resources which she possesses, and to render herself wholly independent of the conversion of foreign countries. By following such a course she must, as her population increases, grow in greatness and in might, as must every nation wherein labour is estimated and cherished according to its proper value, and the rights of the domestic producer and workman guarded with untiring vigilance.