of Sea,' has rightly said that the commercial supremacy the world must ultimately pass from the United Kingdom to the United States. The territory at their command is, in comparison with the narrow area of the United Kingdom, unlimited, and it possesses every natural advantage. The soil is fertile; the mineral wealth is inexhaustible; and the increase in the population has been so rapid that Professor Huxley has predicted that, when the second centenary of the republic is celebrated, the American people will have increased from 40,000,000 to 200,000,000. Sir J. Hawk shaw's testimony her people. gress of The marvellous energy of this vast population, in utilising the great resources of their country, called forth the approving testimony of Sir John Hawkshaw to the proin his report on the Exhibition at Philadelphia: The 70,000 miles of railway already constructed, the ramifications of the electric telegraph, and its application to uses more extended and varied even than in our own country, the crowd of steamboats wherever navigation is possible and public convenience can be promoted, the building of cities like Chicago, which, after the great fire, in four or five years has arisen out of its ashes a more beautiful city than before-all these tell of the increase of wealth, and speak still more strongly of the public and patriotic spirit of the people. To me who visited the United States on a former occasion, but so long ago that Chicago was then but a village, and Philadelphia had not more than one half its present population, when its railways were only beginning to be made, with wooden bridges and tem American laboursaving porary works, when its vast mineral wealth was nearly untouched, and wood was burned where coal is now consumed, the astonishing changes, and the vast progress since made, appear greater than perhaps to others whose visits have been more frequent.' That the United States must hereafter command a dominant position is certain, but there is no immediate prospect of a competition which can be injurious to our own manufacturers. The American export trade is continually increasing, both in bulk and value; but hitherto the growth in the export of manufactured goods has been unimportant. Agricultural products constitute the great bulk of their export trade. The success of the American manufacturers, in so far as it depends on the effective application of labour, is certainly not due to the low scale of wages. On the contrary it is the high price of labour, which has been the main incentive to the application of the national genius to the invention of labour-saving machinery. The surprising economical results, which followed the outbreak of the Civil War, are thus described by machinery. Mr. Wells: The outbreak of Civil War in 1861, and its vigorous prosecution until 1865, acted as an immense stimulus to invention and discovery in the Northern States, and led to an application of labour-saving machinery and methods to the work of production which, taking time into consideration, has probably no parallel in the world's experience. With certainly not more than five millions of male adults engaged in agriculture, mechanic arts, manufactures, and transportation in the Northern States in 1860, the close of the war, in 1865, found more than a million of adults enrolled in the service of the Northern armies. But the industrial products of these same States, especially the products of agriculture, did not in general decrease during the war period by reason of the diversion of labour noted, but, on the contrary, and mainly through the invention and use of labour-saving machinery, they largely increased. Thus, for example, the amount of wheat raised in Indiana in 1859 was 15,219,000 bushels, but in 1863, notwithstanding that this State, out of a population in 1860 of 1,350,000, had furnished to the army more than 124,000 fighting men, its product of wheat exceeded 20,000,000 bushels ; and what was true of Indiana was also true of Iowa, Illinois, and other agricultural States, and in respect to productions other than wheat.' By ingenious mechanical labour the Americans are now competing successfully against the cheap manual labour of Switzerland; and we learn from the report of Mr. Beauclerk, the Secretary of the Legation at Berne, for the year 1878, that the diminished exportation of watches to the United States has inflicted severe losses on the hand-workers in Switzerland. in the States. Industry and ingenuity have enabled the Americans Farming to conquer in a remarkable degree the many difficulties Western which obstruct their industrial development; but while a wide extent of soil remains untilled, the most profitable and congenial occupation of the people must be pastoral and agricultural rather than manufacturing. The natural expansion of the population over the Kansas. plains of the West was for a time arrested by the high protective duties, which secured excessive profits to manufacturers, and led to a development of production beyond the requirements of the country. A reaction has naturally followed from the excessive development of manufacturing industry. Of 716 furnaces in existence in 1877, 446 are out of blast, and the workmen are rapidly leaving the factories and ironworks and resorting to the unsettled lands in the Western States. Growth of The rapid growth of Kansas may be taken as an example of the impetus given to an agricultural State by the extensive migration from the manufacturing districts. The population has increased since 1875 from 531,000 to 700,000. In 1872 the entire number of acres under cultivation in the State was 2,476,862, and the value of the product thereof 25,265,109 dollars. In 1877 the acres under cultivation reached 5,595,304, and the value of the product therefrom 45,597,051 dollars. In 1878 the acres under cultivation exceeded 6,500,000, the increase being nearly a million acres in a single year. A similar movement, though of course on a smaller scale, is taking place in our own country, where agricultural labour is gradually returning from the furnaces to the farms. Migration of artisans: The migration from the industrial centres to the agricultural States of the West is prominently noticed in the annual report of the American mercantile agency of Messrs. Dun & Co., quoted by the Economist' in the annual review of the trade of 1878. The sales of land by the national government increased from 3,338,000 acres in the year ending the 30th of June, 1877, to An equal 7,562,000 acres in the succeeding year. fluence on Wages can never long remain at a low level in the its inUnited States, while the working man can transport wages. himself and his family from the irksome employment of the factory to the free life of the Western plains. The profits realised upon agriculture in the Mississippi Valley, as the 'Economist' observes, exercise a paramount influence in determining the average rate of wages in the manufacturing industries of the United States. The prospects of agriculture in the West were never more favourable than at the present time, and we have, therefore, reason to believe that the cost of industrial labour will be sustained for some time to come on the existing scale. As an evidence of the attractions of an agricultural life to populations engaged in factories and ironworks, I may refer to the fact mentioned by Mr. Henderson in his recent paper in the Contemporary Review,' that, on the average, the working staff of the American factories is changed once in three years. Having given an extract from the Economist which describes in somewhat gloomy terms the condition of the agriculturists of the United States, it may not be uninteresting to show that a more cheerful view An Ameri can's view of agricul tural life. |