The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign: Why It Exists, and How It May Be ExtinguishedCarey, Henry Charles
History
The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign: Why It Exists, and How It May Be Extinguished
Carey, Henry Charles
Labor; Slave trade; Slavery; Slavery -- United States; Tariff -- United States; Working class
Among the nations of the world whose policy looks to carrying out the
views of Adam Smith, in bringing the artisan as near as possible to
the food and the wool, Russia stands distinguished. The information we
have in reference to the movements of that country is limited; but all
of it tends to prove that with the growth of population and wealth,
and with the increased diversification of labour, land is acquiring
value, and man is advancing rapidly toward freedom. "The industry of
Russia," says a recent American journal--
"Has been built up, as alone the industry of a nation can be, under a
system of protection, from time to time modified as experience has
dictated; but never destroyed by specious abstractions or the dogmas
of mere doctrinaires. Fifty years ago manufactures were unknown
there, and the caravans trading to the interior and supplying the
wants of distant tribes in Asia went laden with the products of
British and other foreign workshops. When the present emperor mounted
the throne, in 1825, the country could not produce the cloth required
to uniform its own soldiers; further back, in 1800, the exportation
of coloured cloth was prohibited under severe penalties; but through
the influence of adequate protection, as early as 1834, Russian cloth
was taken by the caravans to Kiachta; and at this day the markets of
all Central Asia are supplied by the fabrics of Russian looms, which
in Affghanistan and China are crowding British cloths entirely out of
sale--notwithstanding the latter have the advantage in
transportation--while in Tartary and Russia itself British woollens
are now scarcely heard of. In 1812 there were in Russia 136 cloth
factories; in 1824, 324; in 1812 there were 129 cotton factories; in
1824, 484. From 1812 to 1839 the whole number of manufacturing
establishments in the empire more than trebled, and since then they
have increased in a much greater ratio, though from the absence of
official statistics we are not able to give the figures. Of the total
amount of manufactured articles consumed in 1843, but one-sixth were
imported. And along with this vast aggrandizement of manufacturing
industry and commerce, there has been a steady increase of both
imports and exports, as well as of revenue from customs. The increase
in imports has consisted of articles of luxury and raw materials for
manufacture. And, as if to leave nothing wanting in the
demonstration, the increase of exports has constantly included more
and more of the products of agriculture. Thus in this empire we see
what we must always see under an adequate and judicious system of
protection, that a proper tariff not only improves, refines, and
diversifies the labour of a country, but enlarges its commerce,
increases the prosperity of its agricultural population, renders the
people better and better able to contribute to the support of the
Government, and raises the nation to a position of independence and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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