have heard; why should we not
give them a fair share of encouragement, particularly when they make
things that we are not in circumstances to make, have not the means to
make?"

"Those are certainly sensible questions," I replied, "and ought to meet
a fair answer, and I should say, that, were our country in a fair
ordinary state of prosperity, there would be no reason why our wealth
should not flow out for the encouragement of well-directed industry in
any part of the world; from this point of view we might look on the
whole world as our country, and cheerfully assist in developing its
wealth and resources. But our country is now in the situation of a
private family whose means are absorbed by an expensive sickness,
involving the life of its head; just now it is all we can do to keep the
family together, all our means are swallowed up by our own domestic
wants, we have nothing to give for the encouragement of other families,
we must exist ourselves, we must get through this crisis and hold our
own, and that we may do it all the family-expenses must be kept within
ourselves as far as possible. If we drain off all the gold of the
country to send to Europe to encourage her worthy artisans, we produce
high prices and distress among equally worthy ones at home, and we
lessen the amount of our resources for maintaining the great struggle
for national existence. The same amount of money which we pay for
foreign luxuries, if passed into the hands of our own manufacturers and
producers, becomes available for the increasing expenses of the war."

"But, papa," said Jennie, "I understood that a great part of our
Governmental income was derived from the duties on foreign goods and so
I inferred that the more foreign goods were imported the better it would
be."

"Well, suppose," said I, "that for every hundred thousand dollars we
send out of the country we pay the Government ten thousand; that is
about what our gain as a nation would be;--we send our gold abroad in a
great stream, and give our Government a little driblet."

"Well, but," said Miss Featherstone, "_what can be got in America?_
Hardly anything, I believe, except common calicoes."

"Begging your pardon, my dear lady," said I, "there is where you and
multitudes of others are greatly mistaken. Your partiality for foreign
things has kept you ignorant of what you have at home. Now I am not
blaming the love of foreign things; it is not peculiar to us Americans;
all nati