of poor persons were usually put to death; in some cases the proportion was yet greater, that proportion being entirely dependent on the poverty of the parents. He afterwards remarks:

"The dreadful effects of this evil on society are obvious to every visitor of the rural hamlets, where the most cursory investigation reveals the small proportion of the female inhabitants. The more disastrous consequences of female infanticide and of the poverty of women occasioned thereby, may easily be imagined; but their recital cannot be permitted to offend the eye of the reader."

It is not easy to resist this mass of testimony to prove the low wages of labor in China, when estimated not merely in the precious metals, but in the necessaries of life. They show that the laborer is restricted to a vegetable diet of the cheapest character; and that even this bare subsistence is so difficult of attainment as to make infanticide frequent, and scarcely regarded as a crime.

But setting aside these witnesses, whose character and means of information are entitled to our respect and confidence, and confining ourselves to the statements made by Mr. Everett himself, what do they lead us to infer? Why, that the subsistence which the laborer can earn for himself and his family is nothing but rice with little or no animal food.

He does indeed state that the ordinary wages of day labor—a mace a-day-will do much more than, and will even purchase rice enough to support fourteen or fifteen persons; and he actually seems to suppose that the reward of labor is really higher in China than it is even in NewEngland, where, he admits, that the laborer who finds himself receives a dollar a-day.

Before I compare the rate of wages in China with that of the United States, I will correct an arithmetical error into which Mr. Everett had inadvertently fallen, and which, no doubt, contributed in some degree to mislead him.

He estimates the ordinary wages of labor at a mace, or one-tenth of a tael a-day, and the price of a pecul of rice, equal to 133 lbs. at a tael and a-half, or 15 mace; of course the laborer requires fifteen days to earn these 133 pounds of rice, or about 89-10 lbs. a day, which, allowing a pound a-day to each individual, would not be quite enough for 9 persons, instead of 14 or 15, as Mr. Everett supposes.

In the United States, on the other hand, if the laborer would be satisfied with a diet, more palatable to most than rice, and at least as nutritious, he could purchase with a single day's labor from one to two bushels of Indian corn. Allowing a quart a-day to each individual, his earnings would afford subsistence to from 36 to 72 persons, that is, from four to eight times as many as the same labor would in China.

I would however remark, that this mode of estimating the wages of labor is at once vague and delusive. Out of these wages the laborer has not only to provide his food, but also his clothing, rent, fuel, and salt, and also to pay for his subsistence on the days when he is sick and can't work, or though well, can't get employment: so that it is quite possible that his annual earnings may often not be more than sufficient to defray his own necessary expenses, and to leave nothing for the support of a family.

Adam Smith, indeed, assumes in the passage already recited, that "the lowest class of laborers must some way or other make shift to continue their race so as to keep up their annual number:" but this inference is scarcely warranted in a stationary population, as he supposes that of China to be. There all, the rich and most of those who have a

competency, have families as large, or nearly as large, as in growing countries; and to the same extent as these classes would add to their numbers, the poorer classes must fail to do so. The numbers of these last are therefore partly kept up by the increase of the classes above them. But the powerful instinct of multiplication still operates with sufficient force as, united with the increase of the other classes, to cause a redundancy of laborers, which is checked by infanticide, or starvation, or a rate of wages not always sufficient to support more than the individual laborer.

But let us look at another estimate presented by Mr. Everett, in which the dates are more precise. He puts down the wages of an ordinary laborer at 60 dollars a year-his own expenses for food, clothing and rent, at from $2 25 to $3 a month; the price of common board at from one dollar to a dollar and a half a month; the price of clothing from $4 to $5 a year. The cost, then, of supporting a family at these minimum rates, (for they are evidently so stated) are as follows:

The laborer's expenses, at $2 25 a month, is
Board of a wife and two children, at $1,50 each a month,
Clothing for the same, at $4 a year,

$27 a year.

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So that the cost of maintaining even this small family would exceed the laborer's earnings more than 50 per cent.; and this, too, without allowing anything for the purchase of medicine, utensils, any species of levy or tax, or any petty indulgences. But when it is recollected that food bears as low a money price in the United States as it does in China, and that coarse cotton fabrics, that constitute the clothing for the poor, are yet cheaper here, as they are largely exported to China, we can see how much higher the laborer's wages are with us, and that the very large excess of his annual expenditure arises not from the higher cost of what he purchases, but from his living in a style of plenty and comfort, to which the Chinese laborer can make no approach.

I cannot bring this protracted correspondence to a close without paying a passing tribute to the skill and talent with which Mr. Everett has supported a doctrine that I first considered utterly untenable, and repugnant to the received principles of political economy: and while I must still insist, as a general rule, that after all the good lands of a country are taken into cultivation, the price of raw produce, when compared with labor, must rise with the increasing density of population, though, perhaps, not in the same ratio, or, in other words, that it will require a greater expense of labor to procure the same amount of raw produce; yet, inasmuch as the increased density may be met for some time by an improved husbandry and the profits of foreign commerce, I am now disposed so far to qualify the general principle as to admit that, in the present and past state of the world, an increased density of population may sometimes indicate the better condition of the people, as is the case in Great Britain and most of the countries of Europe, though at other times it indicates greater poverty and difficulty of subsistence in the mass of the people, as we see in Ireland, India, and China.

It would seem that I do not always write quite legibly; and for want of such correction of my previous letters (published in 1845,) several passages of them, as printed, were at once uncouth and unintelligible. Thus I was made to speak of "parts of rice," instead of "pints" of

rice; of "rough woods," instead of "rough roads ;" of "unclassical arts," instead of "mechanical arts," &c. Nor would my misquotation of Horace, written "currente calamo," have been suffered to stand. For errors such as these, that do not manifest themselves, the author is alone the sufferer.

I am, respectfully, your obedient servant,

GEORGE TUCKER.

THE POST-OFFICE.*

THE cheap postage system has now been in operation two years, ending with the fiscal year, June 30, 1847, and the report of the PostMaster for the last year, shows the experiment to have been eminently successful. The current revenues of the department for the year were nearly equal to the expenditure, falling short only $33,677. In the first year of the operation of the cheap system, the deficit was $597,098, and for the preceding eight years under the old rates, the aggregate deficit was $1,222,249, averaging $152,781 per annum. The amount of revenues was, however, much affected by the state of general business, which, when very active and generally prosperous, promotes an enlarged correspondence, not only in relation to mere business, the multiplication of exchange transactions necessarily following enhanced sales of produce, and multifarious modes by which business correspondence is increased, but pleasure travelling is greater, and social correspondence, of course, more extensive. The high rates of postage which ruled from the formation of the government down to the act of 1844, gradually began to operate against the revenues of the government. When the country was new, and steamboats and railroads had as yet neither opened new channels of communication, nor made old ones more facile, few private enterprises could compete with the conveyances from city to city, which contracted to carry the government mail, and the rate charged by the government could not be successfully underbid. A stage coach which could carry a letter from New-York to Boston in several days journey for 18 cents, could not be successfully rivalled by private enterprise. When, however, the two cities were, through the operation of steam, brought within a few hours of each other, and the government mail carrier continued to claim 183 cents for the transportation of a letter, which a private express in the same conveyance took for 5 cents, the era of reform was reached. Notwithstanding the vast increase of population, travel and business, that each succeeding decade presented, the affairs of the post-office department seemed rather to deteriorate than improve. Up to the year 1819, the department had always been a source of revenue to the government, but from that time to 1845, it ceased to be so. In the years 1835, 1836, 1837, when all speculative business presented great activity, the department yielded large revenues, because the receipts

* Annual Report to Congress of the Post Master General.

multiplied faster than the expenses were enhanced. From that time, the reverse has been the case, until the last two years. In fact, the department seems to have been the prey of extortionate contractors, who demanded from the government sums very much larger than they would require from individuals for performing the same service. When railroad and steamboat lines came to be established, the superior facility which they offered in delivering letters promptly, seemed to impose a sort of necessity upon the government to employ them in that service. These lines did not fail to take advantage of that apparent necessity, in charging the government ten times the amount for carrying 1000 pounds of mail matter, for which they would be glad to carry 1000 pounds of merchandise. In fact, the carrying of the mail was looked upon as a kind of bonus always urged upon the public by projectors of railroad or steamboat enterprise. This difficulty appears now to be in some degree removed, inasmuch as in the same manner that competition of private expresses forced upon the department a reduction of rates, so has the multiplication of railroads and steamboats reduced their charges for the mail service in some localities. The whole department was overrun with abuses; the contractors seemed to act under the impression that they had a sort of pre-emption right to the government business, and that the department was under obligations to pay them a large bonus if any change was made. These abuses became intolerable, and have in a manner wrought out their own cure. One of the objects in conferring upon government the monopoly of post routes, is to have the business done with regularity, precision, and at least as cheaply as it can be done by private enterprise. It is self-evident, that to perform the service as cheaply as private individuals, the government must have its work done on as favorable terms. As long as the department was looked upon as a source of plunder, by which contractors could get much pay for little labor, it is evident that, to preserve the rule of making the department pay for itself, the public must pay exorbitant postages in order to supply the means of feeding the rapacity of the contractors. When, however, cheap postage was insisted on by the public, one of two things must take place, either that a reform in the patronage of the department should be effected so as to bring the expenses within such reasonable limit that low charges would cover the aggregate, or that the deficit should be made good from the federal treasury. There never yet existed any system of corruption, but the reformers were vilified in every possible way, and for the obvious reason, that no very active party interests itself in a reform, from which it derives no special benefit. Thus the public insisted upon cheap postage and then stopped, all other parties cried out cheap postage also; but when cheap postage involved economy in expenditure, the most inveterate opposition was conjured up by the contractors and mail carriers. These parties would not lightly forego the plunder to which they had been accustomed, and they were joined by protectionists and that class of the old Federal party who favored large government expenditure. These united favored cheap postage, and wished to have the deficit paid out of the federal treasury, because it would enhance the annual expenditure, and, as was openly asserted by influential men in New-England, make high duties necessary to supply the outgo.. By these means a vast engine of corruption would have been created that ultimately would have defeated the object wished for by the people in cheap postage. The abuses in contracts, and consequent increased burdens upon the treasury, would at least have prevented a further reduction in rates. The only way in which the reform of

rates could be placed on a sure footing, was to commence with the expense of transportation, and as soon as that should be brought within reasonable limits, the department would be on a sound foundation, and its future movements be influenced by the increasing revenue, which diminished charges on letters would inevitably bring about. This, however, as we have intimated, was a Herculean task; the whole rotten system was to be changed, and the enmity of the contractor and carrier deprived of accustomed plunder, was to be encountered as well as adverse public opinion, poisoned through the influence of an unprincipled and venal press in the interests of speculators.

The practice seems to have been, under the old law, for the contractors to enjoy a sort of monopoly, and in putting in their bids, it was under the pledge of the department, that should any new contractor underbid them, he should be compelled to purchase of the old or superseded contractor the stock necessary to transport the mail, or in other words, to pay the incumbent an exorbitant bonus for the good will, under the pretence of buying his stock. To this abuse the new law, passed March 3, 1845, applied a remedy; its 18th section declaring, that "in all future lettings for t he transportation of the mail," the Post-Master, in every case, should let to the lowest bidder," without reference to the old contractor. It appears that the Union was divided into four post districts, in one of which the lettings fall due every year, as thus the contracts being for four years, the eastern lettings fell due in the spring of 1845, the western in 1846, the southern in 1847, and the middle in 1848; consequently the eastern lettings came round a few weeks after the law passed, and all the contractors met at Washington, claiming, that as the new law did not take effect until July, that they were entitled to enter into new contracts for four years more under the old system. These contractors drew up a memorial of their grievance, which is certainly a curiosity. They complained that they suffered injury, because the new contractors were admitted to bid against them without being obliged to buy their old carts and horses, and went on as follows:

"Another result of the Post-Master General's circular, which must operate injuriously upon contractors, and which cannot now be averted, arises from the increased competition it has called forth among a class of men that otherwise would not have embarked in the business of mail contractors. The effect of this unusual competition will inevitably be to reduce the price of coach service below what it would have been under the usual advertisement for mail proposals."

This certainly is as cool a statement of "grievance" as could well be desired. They complained that their exorbitant overcharges would be reduced, by admitting the public to open competition. The Post-Master, however, was vigilant and firm, and the result was, that those lettings took place at a reduction of $252,732, or 35 per cent. under the prices previously paid; and it is not a little remarkable that these low bids were in some cases made by the same men who had so long been enjoying the higher prices under the old law. Under the lettings of the western routes, $220,000 was saved, and this year on the southern routes, $108,697. The falling in and reletting of all the sections will produce a saving of $1,000,000 in the annual expenditures. As an instance of the extent to which the new contractors were oppressed by the requirement of buying out the stock of those they superseded, it may be stated that the department required from contractors a statement of the value of the stock employed. Only 60 per cent. of the contractors made replies. The results, with an estimate of the remaining 40 per cent. were as follows: