A fund for the purpose may be derived from the addition of 2½ per cent to the present rate of duty on carpets and carpeting, an increase to which the nature of the articles suggests no objection, and which may at the same time furnish a motive the more to the fabrication of them at home, toward which some beginnings have been made.
SILK.
The production of this article is attended with great facility in most parts of the United States. Some pleasing essays are making in Connecticut as well toward that as toward the manufacture of what is produced. Stockings, handkerchiefs, ribbons, and buttons are made, though as yet but in small quantities.
A manufactory of lace, upon a scale not very extensive, has been long memorable at Ipswich, in the State of Massachusetts.
An exemption of the material from the duty which it now pays on importation, and premiums upon the production to be dispensed under the direction of the institution before alluded to, seem to be the only species of encouragement advisable at so early a stage of the thing.
GLASS.
The materials for making glass are found everywhere. In the United States there is no deficiency of them. The sands and stones called tarso, which include flinty and crystalline substances generally, and the salts of various plants, particularly of the seaweed kali, or kelp, constitute the essential ingredients. An extraordinary abundance of fuel is a particular advantage enjoyed by this country for such manufactures. They, however, require large capitals and involve much manual labor.
Different manufactories of glass are now on foot in the United States. The present duty of 12½ per cent on all imported articles of glass amounts to a considerable encouragement to those manufactories. If anything in addition is judged eligible the most proper would appear to be a direct bounty on window glass and black bottles.
The first recommends itself as an object of general convenience; the last adds to that character the circumstance of being an important item in breweries. A complaint is made of great deficiency in this respect.
GUNPOWDER.
No small progress has been of late made in the manufacture of this very important article. It may indeed be considered as already established, but its high importance renders its further extension very desirable.
The encouragement which it already enjoys are a duty of 10 per cent on the foreign rival article and an exemption of saltpeter, one of the principal ingredients of which it is composed, from duty. A like exemption of sulphur, another chief ingredient, would appear to be equally proper. No quantity of this article has yet been produced from internal sources. The use made of it in finishing the bottoms of ships is an additional inducement to placing it in the class of free goods. Regulations for the careful inspection of the article would have a favorable tendency.
