A PETITION.
Petition from the Manufacturers of Candles, Wax-Lights, Lamps,
Chandeliers, Reflectors, Snuffers, Extinguishers; and from the
Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Petroleum, Kerosene, Alcohol, and
generally of every thing used for lights.
"_To the Honorable the Senators and Representatives of the United
States in Congress assembled._
"GENTLEMEN:--You are in the right way: you reject abstract
theories; abundance, cheapness, concerns you little. You are entirely
occupied with the interest of the producer, whom you are anxious to
free from foreign competition. In a word, you wish to secure the
_national market_ to _national labor_.
"We come now to offer you an admirable opportunity for the application
of your--what shall we say? your theory? no, nothing is more
deceiving than theory--your doctrine? your system? your principle? But
you do not like doctrines; you hold systems in horror; and, as for
principles, you declare that there are no such things in political
economy. We will say, then, your practice; your practice without
theory, and without principle.
"We are subjected to the intolerable competition of a FOREIGN RIVAL,
who enjoys, it would seem, such superior facilities for the production
of light, that he is enabled to _inundate_ our _national market_ at so
exceedingly reduced a price, that, the moment he makes his appearance,
he draws off all custom from us; and thus an important branch of
American industry, with all its innumerable ramifications, is suddenly
reduced to a state of complete stagnation. This rival, who is no other
than the sun, carries on so bitter a war against us, that we have
every reason to believe that he has been excited to this course by our
perfidious cousins, the Britishers. (Good diplomacy this, for the
present time!) In this belief we are confirmed by the fact that in all
his transactions with their befogged island, he is much more moderate
and careful than with us.
"Our petition is, that it would please your Honorable Body to pass a
law whereby shall be directed the shutting up of all windows, dormers,
sky-lights, shutters, curtains--in a word, all openings, holes,
chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is used to
penetrate into our dwellings, to the prejudice of the profitable
manufactures which we flatter ourselves we have been enabled to bestow
upon the country; which country cannot, therefore, without
ingratitude, leave us now to struggle unprotected through so unequal a
contest.
"We pray your Honorable Body not to mistake our petition for a satire,
nor to repulse us without at least hearing the reasons which we have
to advance in its favor.
"And first, if, by shutting out as much as possible all access to
natural light, you thus create the necessity for artificial light, is
there in the United States an industrial pursuit which will not,
through some connection with this important object, be benefited by
it?
"If more tallow be consumed, there will arise a necessity for an
increase of cattle and sheep. Thus artificial meadows must be in
greater demand; and meat, wool, leather, and above all, manure, this
basis of agricultural riches, must become more abundant.
"If more oil be consumed, it will effect a great impetus to our
petroleum trade. Pit-Hole, Tack, and Oil Creek stock will go up
exceedingly, and an immense revenue will thereby accrue to the
numerous possessors of oil lands, who will be able to pay such a large
tax that the national debt can be paid off at once. Besides that, the
patent hermetical barrel trade, and numerous other industries
connected with the oil trade, will prosper at an unprecedented rate,
to the great benefit and glory of the country.
"Navigation would equally profit. Thousands of vessels would soon be
employed in the whale fisheries, and thence would arise a navy capable
of sustaining the honor of the United States, and of responding to the
patriotic sentiments of the undersigned petitioners, candle-merchants,
&c.
"But what words can express the magnificence which New York will then
exhibit! Cast an eye upon the future, and behold the gildings, the
bronzes, the magnificent crystal chandeliers, lamps, lusters, and
candelabras, which will glitter in the spacious stores, compared to
which the splendor of the present day will appear little and
insignificant.
"There is none, not even the poor manufacturer of resin in the midst
of his pine forests, nor the miserable miner in his dark dwelling, but
who would enjoy an increase of salary and of comforts.
"Gentlemen, if you will be pleased to reflect, you cannot fail to be
convinced that there is perhaps not one American, from the opulent
stockholder of Pit-Hole, down to the poorest vender of matches, who is
not interested in the success of our petition.
"We foresee your objections, gentlemen; but there is not one that you
can oppose to us which you will not be obliged to gather from the
works of the partisans of free trade. We dare challenge you to
pronounce one word against our petition, which is not equally opposed
to your own practice and the principle which guides your policy.
"If you tell us that, though we may gain by this protection, the
United States will not gain, because the consumer must pay the price
of it, we answer you:
"You have no longer any right to cite the interest of the consumer.
For whenever this has been found to compete with that of the producer,
you have invariably sacrificed the first. You have done this to
_encourage labor_, to _increase the demand for labor_. The same reason
should now induce you to act in the same manner.
"You have yourselves already answered the objection. When you were
told: The consumer is interested in the free introduction of iron,
coal, corn, wheat, cloths, &c., your answer was: Yes, but the producer
is interested in their exclusion. Thus, also, if the consumer is
interested in the admission of light, we, the producers, pray for its
interdiction.
"You have also said the producer and the consumer are one. If the
manufacturer gains by protection, he will cause the agriculturist to
gain also; if agriculture prospers, it opens a market for manufactured
goods. Thus we, if you confer upon us the monopoly of furnishing light
during the day, will as a first consequence buy large quantities of
tallow, coal, oil, resin, kerosene, wax, alcohol, silver, iron,
bronze, crystal, for the supply of our business; and then we and our
numerous contractors having become rich, our consumption will be
great, and will become a means of contributing to the comfort and
competency of the workers in every branch of national labor.
"Will you say that the light of the sun is a gratuitous gift, and that
to repulse gratuitous gifts is to repulse riches under pretence of
encouraging the means of obtaining them?
"Take care--you carry the death-blow to your own policy. Remember that
hitherto you have always repulsed foreign produce, _because_ it was an
approach to a gratuitous gift, and _the more in proportion_ as this
approach was more close. You have, in obeying the wishes of other
monopolists, acted only from a _half-motive_; to grant our petition
there is a much _fuller inducement_. To repulse us, precisely for the
reason that our case is a more complete one than any which have
preceded it, would be to lay down the following equation: + × + = -; in
other words, it would be to accumulate absurdity upon absurdity.
"Labor and Nature concur in different proportions, according to
country and climate, in every article of production. The portion of
Nature is always gratuitous; that of labor alone regulates the price.
"If a Lisbon orange can be sold at one hundredth the price of a New
York one, it is because a natural and gratuitous heat does for the
one, what the other only obtains from an artificial and consequently
expensive one.
"When, therefore, we purchase a Portuguese orange, we may say that we
obtain it 99/100 gratuitously and 1/100 by the right of labor; in
other words, at a mere song compared to those of New York.
"Now it is precisely on account of this 99/100 _gratuity_ (excuse the
phrase) that you argue in favor of exclusion. How, you say, could
national labor sustain the competition of foreign labor, when the
first has every thing to do, and the last is rid of nearly all the
trouble, the sun taking the rest of the business upon himself? If then
the 99/100 _gratuity_ can determine you to check competition, on what
principle can the _entire gratuity_ be alleged as a reason for
admitting it? You are no logicians if, refusing the 99/100 gratuity as
hurtful to human labor, you do not _à fortiori_, and with double zeal,
reject the full gratuity.
"Again, when any article, as coal, iron, cheese, or cloth, comes to us
from foreign countries with less labor than if we produced it
ourselves, the difference in price is a _gratuitous gift_ conferred
upon us; and the gift is more or less considerable, according as the
difference is greater or less. It is the quarter, the half, or the
three-quarters of the value of the produce, in proportion as the
foreign merchant requires the three-quarters, the half, or the
quarter of the price. It is as complete as possible when the producer
offers, as the sun does with light, the whole, in free gift. The
question is, and we put it formally, whether you wish for the United
States the benefit of gratuitous consumption, or the supposed
advantages of laborious production. Choose: but be consistent. And
does it not argue the greatest inconsistency to check, as you do, the
importation of iron-ware, dry-goods, and other foreign manufactures,
merely because, and even in proportion as, their price approaches
zero, while at the same time you freely admit, and without limitation,
the light of the sun, whose price is during the whole day _at_ zero?"