Page:Report on Manufactures (Hamilton).djvu/42

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42
REPORT ON MANUFACTURES.

foreign artists who come to reside in the United States—an advantage already secured to them by the laws of the Union and which it is in every view proper to continue.

7. Drawbacks of the Duties Which are Imposed on the Materials of Manufactures.

It has already been observed, as a general rule, that duties on those materials ought, with certain exceptions, to be forborne. Of these exceptions three cases occur which may serve as examples. One, where the material itself is an object of general or extensive consumption and a fit and productive source of revenue. Another, where a manufacture of a simpler kind, the competition of which, with a like domestic article, is desired to be restrained, partakes of the nature of a raw material from being capable, by a further process, to be converted into a manufacture of a different kind, the introduction or growth of which is desired to be encouraged. A third, where the material itself is a production of the country and in sufficient abundance to furnish a cheap and plentiful supply to the national manufacturers.

Under the first description comes the article of molasses. It is not only a fair object of revenue, but, being a sweet, it is just that the consumers of it should pay a duty as well as the consumers of sugar. Cottons and linens in their white state fall under the second description. A duty upon such as are imported is proper to promote the domestic manufacture of similar articles in the same State. A drawback of that duty is proper to encourage the printing and staining at home of those which are brought from abroad. When the first of these manufactures has attained sufficient maturity in a country to furnish a full supply for the second the utility of the drawback ceases.

The article of hemp either now does, or may be expected soon to, exemplify the third case in the United States.

Where duties on the materials of manufactures are not laid for the purpose of preventing a competition with some domestic production the same reasons which recommend, as a general rule, the exemption of those materials from duties would recommend, as a like general rule, the allowance of drawbacks in favor of the manufacturer. Accordingly such drawbacks are familiar in countries which systematically pursue the business of manufactures, which furnishes an argument for the observance of a similar policy in the United States; and the idea has been adopted by the laws of the Union in the instances of salt and molasses. It is believed that it will be found advantageous to extend it to some other articles.

8. The Encouragement of New Inventions and Discoveries at Home and of the Introduction Into the United States of Such as May Have Been Made in Other Countries, Particularly Those Which Relate to Machinery.

This is among the most useful and unexceptionable of the aids which can be given to manufacturers. The usual means of that encouragement are pecuniary rewards, and for a time exclusive privileges. The first must be employed according to the occasion