hich these articles must bear.

Is it true that protection, which avowedly raises prices, and thus
injures you, proportionably raises the rate of wages?

On what does the rate of wages depend?

One of your own class has energetically said: "When two workmen run
after a boss, wages fall; when two bosses run after a workman, wages
rise."

Allow me, in similar laconic phrase, to employ a more scientific,
though perhaps a less striking expression: "The rate of wages depends
upon the proportion which the supply of labor bears to the demand."

On what depends the _demand_ for labor?

On the quantity of disposable capital seeking investment. And the law
which says, "Such or such an article shall be limited to home
production and no longer imported from foreign countries," can it in
any degree increase this capital? Not in the least. This law may
withdraw it from one course, and transfer it to another; but cannot
increase it one penny. Then it cannot increase the demand for labor.

While we point with pride to some prosperous manufacture, can we
answer, whence comes the capital with which it is founded and
maintained? Has it fallen from the moon? or rather is it not drawn
either from agriculture, or stock-breeding, or commerce? We here see
why, since the reign of protective tariffs, if we see more workmen in
our mines and our manufacturing towns, we find also fewer vessels in
our ports, fewer graziers and fewer laborers in our fields and upon
our hill-sides.

I could speak at great length upon this subject, but prefer
illustrating my thought by an example.

A countryman had twenty acres of land, with a capital of $10,000. He
divided his land into four parts, and adopted for it the following
changes of crops: 1st, maize; 2d, wheat; 3d, clover; and 4th, rye. As
he needed for himself and family but a small portion of the grain,
meat, and dairy produce of the farm, he sold the surplus and bought
iron, coal, cloths, etc. The whole of his capital was yearly
distributed in wages and payments of accounts to the workingmen of the
neighborhood. This capital was, from his sales, again returned to him,
and even increased from year to year. Our countryman, being fully
convinced that idle capital produces nothing, caused to circulate
among the working classes this annual increase, which he devoted to
the inclosing and clearing of lands, or to improvements in his farming
utensils and his buildings. He deposited some sums in reserve