yawning gulf, dug out for lock pits-to receive them. Looking below, or above, you may see a fleet of boats, as far as the eye can reach, detained, averaging an hour each, waiting for a passage; because, with a single tier of locks, you are obliged to lock first two hours one way, and then two hours the other.

If you travelled up and down these canals in the fall of 1842, you would see thousands of people, who had erected their shanties on their borders, and were feeding their families with the fruits of their labor on the works, packing up their scanty effects in disappointment and despair, seeking another home, and other means of subsistence, they knew not where. These people had been seduced from a foreign land, by notices and publications, to which functionaries had lent their names, telling them that here they would find sure and steady employment, and a good return in wages for years to come. More than 12,000 people were thus broken up and disturbed in an inclement season, and their sufferings, so complicated, varied, and severe, as to be past any description. They awakened the charity of the people where they passed; but their numbers were too great for individuals to relieve, while they were finding a home and subsistence in Canada and the Western States.

This law made no provision, nor did that Legislature make any, for paying damages to contractors; and the consequence was, that before they ever did get any such relief, nearly all of them were ruin-. ed, and had ruined thousands of others, who yielded to this pressure of public injustice and fraud.

But, sir, no tongue can tell the immense mischiefs that ensued from this wicked law; and, were I to attempt it, I could not describe the half. The blow fell first and heaviest on contractors; then on sub-contractors; and all who relied on them for the fulfilment of engagements. And the last and most distressing was the case of thousands and tens of thousands of suffering poor.

Nor were the severities of this law at all necessary. If the Legislature had provided for the temporary loans, as they should have done, five hundred thousand dollars a year would have kept along the contracts of that and the succeeding years; and these contracts, which would not have exceeded two and a half millions, might have been now finished, the damages paid, and which must be paid for breaches, amounting, in my opinion, to full half this sum, before we get through, would have all been saved.

But all these mischiefs have been done, and it now becomes us to turn our attention to improving and completing the works, and repairing the injury thus done. That we can do this without a tax and without an increase of our present amount of debt, is very clear. To do so we have only to pay the interest, with our present income, and apply the surplus of $1,173,301, which I have before shown to exist; and even if we deduct from that surplus $200,000 to pay the General Fund, we have then over $900,000; so that we have ample and reliable means, certain prospects of success, and no intelligent man doubts that our whole debt might be extinguished nearly or quite as soon, if we complete the enlargement with all possible expedition, as by letting it remain in its present state. The most comfortable reflection

we have about this is, that the whole would be paid in a few years, by receipts of tolls from the upper states.

It is a mistaken notion to suppose that these works are justly indebted to the General Fund. It is true the Comptroller makes them so, in a statement he has made in his report, page 68; but by what rule of just reckoning does he arrive at this result? He takes first the auction duties paid into the Canal Fund before the year 1836, when they were diverted to the General Fund. The amount he puts down at $3,592,000, and makes no allowance for the increase which the canal has made to that fund, by opening the western world to New-York. If we were to make a just deduction for that increase, and a just allowance for what the canal has added, all of which has gone into the General Fund the last ten years, he would find, on settling the account, there would be no balance against the canal on account of the auction duties.

Another fund charged to the Canal Fund, claimed as belonging to the General Fund, is the salt duties prior to 1836, since which time it has gone into the General Fund. This the Comptroller makes $2,045,458. To make apparent the justice of charging the canal with the salt duties, the Comptroller deems it necessary to keep out of sight a few facts which should be taken into consideration.

In the year 1817, the amount of salt duties was $2,426. This was the year they were taken into the Canal Fund, and the duties were increased from 3 to 123 cents a bushel; and this duty was all paid by people living in the vicinity of the canal, and the increase was acquiesced in, because they knew it would be applied to open a navigable channel to their country. The limited amount consumed brought but a small sum into the Treasury; but the first year the canal was opened to Utica, at the head of Mohawk navigation, it rose to £48,000. This rise was occasioned by the means of exportation which the canal afforded, and the facilities it furnished for obtaining fuel, which was always allowed to be carried free of toll. The increased duties were as much due to the were, having been entirely produced by the canal. of salt duties which has gone into the General Fund, the last ten years, has been five times as much as if that fund had enjoyed the salt duties without the canal.

canal as the tolls And the amount

The four millions of dollars received from the General Government, called the United States Deposite Fund, which came from sales of western lands, was entirely the product of the canal; for without the Erie canal there would have been no surplus. This canal opened a passage to the Western States, and produced such rapid settlements, that receipts from lands swelled up this surplus.

The Canal Fund has also received from the General Fund the following since the system began.

That is,

Whilst the Canal Fund has paid unto the General Funds of the state, for the support of Government, $2,337,602, including what is reserved for the year 1846. Thus, it is seen, that the canals have not been a charge on Government, but have, in truth, contributed a large balance to its support.

And here, let me add, that though this famous law of 1842 professed to tax the people to pay the canal debt, only $280,503 have ever been applied to the canals, or canal debts, under that law; and yet more than double that amount has been taken since its passage, from the Canal Fund, for the support of Government.

Thus I have attempted to show, that this canal interest is by far the most important interest in the state; that it brings incalculable wealth and business to our people; has already greatly enriched our revenue; that it should be fostered and protected, and increased with the increase of the country. I have, moreover shown, I think, that it has always supported itself; is capable of discharging its own debt; and, if finished and enlarged, will bring boundless and ever-increasing revenue into the Treasury, and make this state the great mart of the western world.

1 have shown, also, that we could advance it to completion, and I may say perfection, without any increase of debt; and when finished, the debt will be a trifling affair, in comparison to its value and income, and that this income will principally be poured into our lap by the Western States.

It remains only for us to disengage it from the party thraldom with which it is now bound and fettered; to extricate it from the serpentine folds of the evil spirit of faction, which have wound around, and attempted to strangle it. This, if I am any judge of public indications, the people will before long attempt, by a force at once irresistible and prevailing.

MANUFACTURES OF CONTINENTAL EUROPE,

AND THE PRESENT WAGES OF LABOR OF EVERY KIND IN THAT QUARTER OF THE WORLD.

As very little is known in this country of the manufactures of Continental Europe, we have taken much pains to inform ourselves, not only of their present condition and progress, but also the state of the working classes-the wages paid them, and their physical and moral condition.

It has been one object of this periodical, to enlighten the working men of the United States, upon this, to them, all-important subject.

Deeply concerned as they are in this matter, and important as it has always been, that they should appreciate the value of our free institutions, which were formed principally for their benefit; it is now a matter of almost life and death to them, to understand fully the distinction between the condition of the laborers of Europe and themselves.

It is high time they should know what it is, that is to be purchased abroad cheaper than it can be had in this country, that they may justly appreciate the evil to be produced by the Tariff of 1846.

It is not cotton, nor wool, nor iron ore, that is cheaper abroad than in this country, but it is labor. The free citizens of the United States cannot consent to live on mere vegetables, lodge in hovels, and drag out a miserable physical existence, without education and moral culture of any kind; and therefore, Mr. Walker, and those who act with him, have framed a law, and shameful to relate, an American Congress has been drilled into its passage, to import this foreign cheap labor, in vastly increased quantities, while at the same time, cotton, wool, and iron, come along with it. Some of the cotton thus imported comes from British India, the wool is purchased from European farmers, and the iron from European miners.

This is the Tariff law of 1846! But we are wandering from our particular object, which is to show forth this foreign labor, as it exists on the continent of Europe, and we commence with Belgium. Our readers will have an opportunity of comparing the condition of the free labor of this country with the cheap labor of the old world.

The cotton manufacture in Belgium is said to represent a capital of 60,000,000 francs. Gand, Malines, and that district is the locality of the cotton industry; Gand being the head quarters of the spinners. The produce of the looms amounted, two years ago, to about a million and a half pieces of ginghams or coarse cotton and calicoes, and 400,000 pieces of printed cottons. An increase of about 20 per cent. has taken place since.

The number of spindles in the cotton mills of Belgium, just before the revolution, amounted to 300,000 in Gand, and about 100,000 out of Gand. A diminution took place after that event, to which Mr. Baines alludes in his work on the cotton trade, p. 526, and the spindles in activity were reduced by at least 25 per cent., up to the first of January, 1835, when 301,145 only were in activity. At the present time, the number employed exceeds 400,000. The steam engines represent about 1,000 horse power.

M. de Bast, of Gand, is of opinion, that though the labor of individuals is cheaper in Belgium than in England, the advantage has been greatly overrated; because, first, the Belgian work people work like mere automata, mechanically, whereas, he believes, in England, they are far more skilled and interested in the art, and are able to explain the machinery, which they are not in Belgium. Again, he is of opinion, that owing hitherto to the decided inferiority of Belgian to English machinery, many more persons are needed in Gand than in Manchester to perform the operations which come in the class of preparations. This disadvantage is, however, on the point of being forthwith entirely removed; and new carding and drawing machinery, modelled on a combination of the best and most recent English inventions, is now in progress for more than one of the largest mills of Belgium.

Mules are almost universally preferred to throstles, because requiring less power. They calculate that one horse power drives 500 mule spindles, but only 200 throstle spindles; and, as the object with them is the greatest possible produce, quality being a secondary consideration, they seldom adopt throstles at all.

In one mill in Gand, where we took an exact account of the produce,

it was found that each spindle produced 30 decagrammes per 72 hours of No. 30's; that is 33ths of an English lb., equivalent to 19 hanks per week! The drum wheel of a Gand cotton mill makes 150 revolutions, whilst in England the drum makes but 130.

Mons. de Bast states, that they frequently buy their cotton at Liverpool, in order to have a better choice. He complained bitterly of being unable hitherto to obtain a foreign market for their cotton twist, but he relied confidently on doing so when their new machinery was completed, which, he expects, will give an immense impulse to their trade.

Flax forms one of the main sources of Belgian industry. The two Flanders produce alone, the value of 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 francs per annum. The damasks of Courtrai, and many other towns, are too widely celebrated to require mention. Of common linen cloth, 750,000 pieces, value about 100,000,000 francs, were sold in 1836 in the different market towns in Belgium.

The spinning of flax by power is engaging the active attention of the Belgian capitalists, as well as of other nations. Mr. Cockerill, the late iron king, of Liege, and who engaged in nearly every department of industry in existence, had a very prosperous flax spinning mill at Liege, of which the engine was of 90 horse power. Two more are building at Gand. The English have not the same advantages for the purchase of this raw material as they enjoy in the cotton trade. Not only do France and Belgium produce the finest flax within sight of their rising mills, but the river Lys is invaluable for its bleaching qualities. The flax industry, first and last, employs 400,000 persons in Belgium.

Next to the linen, the cloth trade is the most lucrative of the textile manufactures of Belgium.

A capital of at least 80,000,000 is embarked in this branch; and about 14,000,000 are yearly expended in the purchase of foreign wool ; the indigenous wool barely reaching a figure of 200,000 francs.

Verviers is the seat of the plain cloth manufacture, in which Mr. Cockerill was much interested.

A report from the Chamber of Commerce, in 1833, represented the workmen employed there in the cloth manufacture to amount to 40,000; the annual production was calculated at 100,000 pieces of cloth, of a value of nearly 25,000,000 francs, or £1,000,000 sterling.

In 1812, the trade and population of Verviers amounted to not onehalf the present amount. The looms were one-half, but the produce has been tripled.

There is a very large carpet manufacture at Tournai, of 90 looms, where every description of carpeting is made. The wages average three francs per day for the good weavers, and 2 francs 25 cents for the second class. Seven-eighths of the whole produce are exported. The total length of carpeting produced annually averages 120,000 metres, or about 1,573,333 yards.

Mr. Smith, of Manchester, recently gave the following correct account of the extraordinary cheapness of the Saxon hosiery, which we have been at some pains to verify :

Saxony already manufactured as large an amount of cotton hosiery as Great Britain; and she exported 1,500,000 doz. pairs, while the export from England was only 430,000 pairs. Saxony exported to the