I am well aware that the self-illusions of inventors have become proverbial, but I have, nevertheless, the most complete certainty of having discovered an infallible means of bringing produce from all parts of the world into the United States, and reciprocally to transport ours, with a very important reduction of price.
Infallible! and yet this is but a single one of the advantages of my astonishing invention, which requires neither plans nor devices, neither preparatory studies, [82] nor engineers, nor machinists, nor capital, nor stockholders, nor governmental assistance! There is no danger of shipwrecks, of explosions, of shocks of fire, nor of displacement of rails! It can be put into practice without preparation almost any day we think proper!
Finally: and this will, no doubt, recommend it to the public, it will not increase the Budget one cent; but the contrary. It will not augment the number of office-holders, nor the exigencies of State; but the contrary. It will put in hazard the liberty of no one; but on the contrary, it will secure to each a greater freedom.
I have been led to this discovery, not from accident, but from observation, and I will tell you how.
I had this question to determine:
"Why does any article made, for instance, at Montreal, bear an increased price on its arrival at New York?"
It was immediately evident to me that this was the result of obstacles of various kinds existing between Montreal and New York. First, there is distance, which cannot be overcome without trouble and loss of time; and either we must submit to these troubles and losses in our own person, or pay another for bearing them for us. Then come rivers, hills, accidents, heavy and muddy roads. These are so many difficulties to be overcome; in order to do which, causeways are constructed, bridges built, roads cut and paved, railroads established, &c. But all this is costly, and the article transported must bear its portion of the expense. There are robbers, too, on the roads, sometimes, and this necessitates railway guards, a police force, &c.
Now, among these obstacles, there is one which we [83] ourselves have lately placed, and that at no little expense, between Montreal and New York. This consists of men planted along the frontier, armed to the teeth, whose business it is to place difficulties in the way of the transportation of goods from one country to another. These men are called custom-house officers, and their effect is precisely similar to that of rutted and boggy roads. They retard and put obstacles in the way of transportation, thus contributing to the difference which we have remarked between the price of production and that of consumption; to diminish which difference, as much as possible, is the problem which we are seeking to resolve.
Here, then, we have found its solution. Let our tariff be diminished: we will thus have constructed a Northern railway which will cost us nothing. Nay, more, we will be saved great expenses, and will begin, from the first day, to save capital.
Really, I cannot but ask myself, in surprise, how our brains could have admitted so whimsical a piece of folly as to induce us to pay many millions to destroy the natural obstacles interposed between the United States and other nations, only at the same time to pay so many millions more in order to replace them by artificial obstacles, which have exactly the same effect; so that the obstacle removed and the obstacle created, neutralize each other, things go on as before, and the only result of our trouble is a double expense.
An article of Canadian production is worth, at Montreal, twenty dollars, and, from the expenses of transportation, thirty dollars at New York. A similar [84] article of New York manufacture costs forty dollars. What is our course under these circumstances?
First, we impose a duty of at least ten dollars on the Canadian article, so as to raise its price to a level with that of the New York one—the government, withal, paying numerous officials to attend to the levying of this duty. The article thus pays ten dollars for transportation, and ten for the tax.
This done, we say to ourselves: Transportation between Montreal and New York is very dear; let us spend two or three millions in railways, and we will reduce it one-half. Evidently the result of such a course will be to get the Canadian article at New York for thirty-five dollars, viz.:
20 dollars—price at Montreal.
10 " duty.
5 " transportation by railway.
—
35 dollars—total, or market price at New York.
Could we not have attained the same end by lowering the tariff to five dollars? We would then have—
20 dollars—price at Montreal.
5 " duty.
10 " transportation on the common road.
—
35 dollars—total, or market price at New York.
And this arrangement would have saved us the $2,000,000 spent upon the railway, besides the expense saved in custom-house surveillance, which would of course diminish in proportion as the temptation to smuggling would become less.
But it is answered: The duty is necessary to protect [85] New York industry. So be it; but do not then destroy the effect of it by your railway. For if you persist in your determination to keep the Canadian article on a par with the New York one at forty dollars, you must raise the duty to fifteen dollars, in order to have:—
20 dollars—price at Montreal.
15 " protective duty.
5 " transportation by railway.
—
40 dollars—total, at equalized prices.
And I now ask, of what benefit, under these circumstances, is the railway?
Frankly, is it not humiliating to the nineteenth century, that it should be destined to transmit to future ages the example of such puerilities seriously and gravely practised? To be the dupe of another, is bad enough; but to employ all the forms and ceremonies of representation in order to cheat oneself—to doubly cheat oneself, and that too in a mere numerical account—truly this is calculated to lower a little the pride of this enlightened age.