sary skill to produce as cheap as England? Who shall determine whether we ever can produce as cheap? It is a difficult question; and the legislature, urged by influential citizens, will find reason for continually imposing duties.

The tariff regulations have injured some portions of this country for the benefit of others-though the ultimate injury to the whole country is indisputable. The north, as well as the south, is injured, though in a less degree.

35. But a sudden transition from the restrictive to the free trade system would cause great distress in the country, by breaking up branches of industry; any such change should be gradual. The government is not bound to continue protection to the manufactures it has created; if it was, it must necessarily prohibit all improvement in the arts, for such improvements injure those whom the government formerly fostered. The tariff system has not benefitted the country, by giving employment to women and children, since the same amount of wages is distributed among a greater number.

36. A BOUNTY is precisely the same in its effects as a tariff. 37. The advocates of free trade would submit to a modification of it. Since it is important to confer stability on the employment of capital, and since, in case of war, under the free trade system, this stability would be disturbed at its completion, as it was 1815. A duty of five or ten per cent. might be imposed, provided such duty would afford protection, and this duty would be a tax, paid by the country, to obtain a permanency in the investments of capital. A higher duty, such as 50 and 100 per cent., can only be considered as a legislative absurdity, to which all the evils which might possibly accrue from free trade are preferable.

38. If a duty on imports be imposed, the best one is a duty ad valorem on every article imported; this would guard against high protection and "log rolling," but if protection be afforded to one more than another, those branches which favor the national defence should be preferred. If governments abroad should afford bounties to their manufactures, ours would be undersold and ruined; it would be expedient to afford them a bounty, too, gradually diminishing it from time to time, so as to guard effectually against "the evils of change."

Were the British to repeal the corn laws, and were corn to the amount of ten millions (which is improbable) exported from this country, our imports would be increased, which would interfere with domestic manufacturers, and they would require greater protection.

39. Two arguments have been advanced in favor of the restrictive system: 1st. It developes a greater intellectual and physical power, by increasing the number of occupations; 2d. It brings "the many" together, which is favorable to the advancement of education, &c.

Three against it: 1st. Manufactures will have more capital applied than is necessary; 2d. The fluctuations in its prices are more wavering, and laborers oftener thrown out of employment; 3d. It causes a permanently augmented circulating medium; and there may be a fourth, That prosperity, which is the least dependent on artificial regulation, will be most stable and most desirable.

40. The reason why the tariffs of 1824-28 were required was that too much capital had been employed in manufactures, and prices fell; some of the richer manufacturers were opposed to these tariffs. A duty on one article encourages the importation of others that are free. So there are two reasons why the "revenue" has increased with increased protection duties: Higher duties exacted on those imported; and more of them imported by reason of the protection afforded others.

Only such manufacturers are benefitted by protective duties as those whose sites yield rent; others get the ordinary profit, if they do not get less.

The restrictive system has been called the "American system, because it encourages American industry; but the fact of the case is quite the reverse: "free trade" is more properly the "American system.'

Mr. McDuffie's "40-bale theory" is a bad one; the producers never pay the tax-consequently, the southern planters were not, as he supposed, the only ones who suffered by the tariff. If they suffered, it was as consumers; if more than others, because a diminished exportation would cause a transfer of capital; but then it must be remembered a market would be opened at home for their cotton.

COMMERCE, STATISTICS, ETC.-SUBJECTS OF UNIVERSITY INSTRUCTION.

In a late report of the commencement of the collegiate department of the University of Louisiana, at New Orleans, it is stated:

"This being the first presentation of the University prizes, much interest was elicited regarding them. While they reflect high honors upon the liberal donors, the standard of scholarship in the University has been highly elevated thereby. "The lamented Touro and the liberal merchant Glendy Burke have set a noble example to the men of wealth in Louisiana by extending appropriate and valuable encouragement to a home institution, where our sons will not imbibe doctrines adverse to the institutions of our southern clime. The Hon. Maunsel White stands among the first of liberal donors to our State University, having

endowed a commercial professorship by a donation of fifty-six lots of land, situated in this city. The board are devising steps to render this endowment of immediate value to our commercial community. We are pleased to notice that the university is giving unequivocal testimony to the energy of the new board of administrators, who seem constant in their efforts to give us an institution second to none in the Union."

No one can hail the determination of the board with regard to the university, and especially to the commercial chair, with higher gratification than the editor of this Review; and the mention of the subject suggests some points bearing upon its particular history, which may not inappropriately be referred to.

In July, 1847, we prepared an article for the pages of the Review entitled "Commerce and Agriculture in Universities," (vol. III, p. 502,) basing ourself upon the recommendation of the Southern Commercial Convention of 1838 "to introduce commercial education among our youth." In this article it was remarked:

"Statistical and commercial information, or such as is necessary in the conduct of the mercantile operations of a country, have been least fortunate of all in attracting the regard of scholastic institutions. As separate and distinct branches of university instruction, they have until very lately scarce had a place, and even now but to a limited extent. We have educated every class of the community, most of them specially, except our merchants, and these we leave to glean what they can upon the mart or on the bourse, without any of that light and instruction which, previously imparted, would cause them to adorn their places and advance their country. Can it be wondered, then, that the mercantile classes yield to the nation so few influential and leading citizens, men of the stamp of Roscoe or Ricardo? Can it be wondered that trade is so often stigmatized a gainful craft,' instead of winning, as it deserves, the appellation of a liberal and civilizing pursuit?"

"It will be hardly necessary for us to dwell much at length upon the importance of statistical knowledge, as a study, although, indeed, we do sometimes hear it idly depreciated. Abstract arithmetic is as true as the laws of nature, and in its application to matters of fact, to the operations of men, it is as certain and reliable, if not more so, than any of this kind of knowledge."

"A State University being now in the course of organization in Louisiana, it seemed but fitting that we should bespeak, on the part of the great commercial interests of New Orleans and our country, a share in its results more special than has hitherto been contemplated. The university is to be located in the city of New Orleans, a site destined, in the

apprehension of the calmest reasoner, to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, commercially, in the world. It is peculiarly fitting that such a city, which lives and has its being by commerce, whose merchants are almost without number, prospering and accumulating wealth beyond precedent; it is peculiarly fitting that such a city, we say, should lead the way in establishing what our whole Union requires, a department of collegiate and university education, addressed entirely to the commercial classes. Could any department be conceived more important, or confer more inestimable advantages?"

We shall now proceed to make a brief exposition of the duties of the professorship, its organization, &c., and give the outline of its labors. In this we are without guide from any other quarter, but give our own views, the result of long and continued reflection upon the subject.

PROFESSORSHIP OF PUBLIC ECONOMY, COMMERCE, AND STATISTICS.

Embracing the Theoretic and Practical Departments.

1. THEORETIC.-Origin of Society and Government; Theory, Forms, and Ends of Government; Rights, Duties, and Relations of Governments; Sources of National Wealth and Progress, and Causes of National Decline; Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth, with the Laws appertaining thereto.

II. THE PRACTICAL AND STATISTICAL.-Statistics of Population and Wealth in their application to Commerce, Agriculture, and Manufactures.

1. History and Progress of COMMERCE, its Principles and Laws; Home and Foreign Commerce; Tariffs, Treaties, Life Insurance, Roads, Canals, Shipping, and Revenue, Systems of Reciprocity; Balances of Trade; Mercantile and Navigation Systems; Colonies and Colonial Systems; Banks, Finances, Accounts, Transportation, Book-keeping, Principles of Merchant Law; Commerce of Nations, Ancient and Modern; Geography of Commerce, Commodities of Commerce; Literature of Commerce, &c., &c.

2. Progress and Results of AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE; Principles of Agriculture; Comparative Condition of Agricultural, Commercial, and Manufacturing Communities; Statistics of Agriculture, &c.

3. Origin and Progress of the MANUFACTURING SYSTEM; its Relation to the other Pursuits; Invention and Machinery in Manufactures; Condition of the Manufacturing Classes; Statistics of Manufactures, &c.

Text books for the course, among others:

Locke's Essays on Government; Lieber's Political Ethics and Hermeneutics; Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws; Smith's Wealth of Nations; McCulloch's Commercial and Geographical Dictionary; Say's Political Economy; Vethake's Political Economy; Carey on Wealth; Stephens' Progress of Discovery and Maritime Commerce; Heeren's Commercial Researches; Vincent's Commerce of the Ancients; McGregor's Commercial Legislation; Annual Reports of American and Contemporary Governments.

"It should be required from the professorship to prepare and deliver twelve public lectures each year, free to every one, upon subjects determined in its organization. For example, upon the Sources of National Wealth and Decline;' on the History and Progress of Commerce;' on the Foreign Commercial Relations of the United States, including our Treaties;' upon Finance; on the Results of Agriculture and the Advancement of Agricultural Classes; on Manufactures;' the

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'Science of Statistics;' the Geography of Commerce;' the "Commodities of Commerce; the Literature of Commerce,' &c., &c. The lectures to be of a practical character, and perhaps to be published eventually, under the auspices of the University, as one of its text-books, and as a work to be used and consulted in every part of the Union. Such a volume, prepared with all the light afforded in the libraries and collections of the university, would be complete."

In January, 1848, the Hon. Maunsel White, an esteemed and wealthy merchant of New Orleans, whose experiences and connexions run back anterior to the American history of the city, entertaining the subject as one of wide public interest, and calculated to elevate the profession to which he was so much indebted, addressed a letter to the board of administrators of the university, (being himself a member,) announcing his determination to secure an endowment,* &c.

To use his own language, (Review, vol. V, p. 240:)

"The object of this movement is to secure an endowment for a Chair of Commerce, Public Economy and Statistics, in the University. These matters have not, so far as I am informed, been made the subject of especial study in any of the institutions of this country or of Europe. The States of the German Zoll Verein, indeed, as we learn by the foreign mail of to day, constitute an exception, as they intend a Commercial Univeritsy,' for merchants, manufacturers, and

commercial lawyers.

"It will be the proud satisfaction of New Orleans to have taken the lead of al other commercial cities of the world in this matter, and it may be confidently affirmed that this important department of knowledge could be prosecuted with higher success and efficiency in no other city. To her commerce is the all and all of prosperity, and she the spontaneous, youthful, yet vigorous offspring. "A plan for the above professorship has been drawn out, at my request, by Mr. De Bow, a synopsis of which is annexed."

The professorship having been established by the board accepting the liberal donation of Colonel White, that body proceeded at once to the election of a professor, and selected the editor of the Review, without his knowledge or solicitation, but upon the nomination of the founder of the chair.

Gratified by such a mark of favor, he entered upon the preparation of a course of twenty-four lectures, which were completed during the summer of 1848, and announced in a public programme for the coming winter. The introductory lecture of the course was delivered in the hall of the old State House and printed in the papers of the day. The sudden appearance of epidemic cholera in New Orleans, and the ravages of that terrible scourge, (who can ever forget them,) interrupted the lectures at this point, and broke up the class. As the programme of this course may, perhaps, be of some use to those who are laboring in similar fields, it is given here entire. It

* Col. White had, twelve months before, advocated this chair in a letter to the editor of the Review, published in the March No., 1847.