against evasions, whether there ought not to be a prohibition of their importation except in casks of considerable capacity. It is to be hoped that such a duty would banish from the market foreign malt liquors of inferior quality, and that the best kind only would continue to be imported, till it should be supplanted by the efforts of equal skill or care at home.
Till that period the importation, so qualified, would be a useful stimulus to improvement, and in the meantime the payment of the increased price for the enjoyment of a luxury in order to the encouragement of a most useful branch of domestic industry could not reasonably be deemed a hardship.
As a further aid to manufactures of grains, though upon a smaller scale, the articles of starch, hair powder, and wafers may with great propriety be placed among those which are rated at 15 per cent. No manufactures are more simple nor more completely within the reach of a full supply from domestic sources; and it is a policy as common as it is obvious to make them the objects either of prohibitionary duties or of express prohibition.
FLAX AND HEMP.
Manufactures of these articles have so much affinity to each other, and they are so often blended, that they may with advantage be considered in conjunction. The importance of the linen branch to agriculture, its precious effects upon household industry, the ease with which the materials can be produced at home to any requisite extent, the great advances which have been already made in the coarser fabrics of them, especially in the family way, constitute claims of peculiar force to the patronage of Government.
This patronage may be afforded in various ways—by promoting the growth of the materials, by increasing the impediments to an advantageous competition of rival foreign articles, and by direct bounties or premiums upon the home manufactures.
First. As to promoting the growth of the materials.
In respect to hemp, something has been already done by the high duty upon foreign hemp. If the facilities for domestic production were not unusually great, the policy of the duty on the foreign raw material would be highly questionable as interfering with the growth or manufactures of it. But making the proper allowances for those facilities and with an eye to the future and natural progress of the country the measure does not appear, upon the whole, exceptionable,
A strong wish naturally suggests itself that some method could be devised of affording a more direct encouragement to the growth both of flax and hemp, such as would be effectual and at the same time not attended with too great inconveniences. To this end bounties and premiums offer themselves to consideration, but no modification of them has yet occurred which would not either hazard too much expense or operate unequally in reference to the circumstances of different parts of the Union, and which would not be attended with very great difficulties in the execution.
Secondly. As to increasing the impediments to an advantageous competition of rival foreign articles.
