onsiderable change has occurred during the recess of Congress
in the condition of either our agriculture, commerce, or manufactures.
The operation of the tariff has not proved so injurious to the two
former or as beneficial to the latter as was anticipated. Importations
of foreign goods have not been sensibly diminished, while domestic
competition, under an illusive excitement, has increased the production
much beyond the demand for home consumption. The consequences have been
low prices, temporary embarrassment, and partial loss. That such of our
manufacturing establishments as are based upon capital and are prudently
managed will survive the shock and be ultimately profitable there is no
good reason to doubt.

To regulate its conduct so as to promote equally the prosperity of these
three cardinal interests is one of the most difficult tasks of
Government; and it may be regretted that the complicated restrictions
which now embarrass the intercourse of nations could not by common
consent be abolished, and commerce allowed to flow in those channels to
which individual enterprise, always its surest guide, might direct it.
But we must ever expect selfish legislation in other nations, and are
therefore compelled to adapt our own to their regulations in the manner
best calculated to avoid serious injury and to harmonize the conflicting
interests of our agriculture, our commerce, and our manufactures. Under
these impressions I invite your attention to the existing tariff,
believing that some of its provisions require modification.

The general rule to be applied in graduating the duties upon articles of
foreign growth or manufacture is that which will place our own in fair
competition with those of other countries; and the inducements to
advance even a step beyond this point are controlling in regard to those
articles which are of primary necessity in time of war. When we reflect
upon the difficulty and delicacy of this operation, it is important that
it should never be attempted but with the utmost caution. Frequent
legislation in regard to any branch of industry, affecting its value,
and by which its capital may be transferred to new channels, must always
be productive of hazardous speculation and loss.

In deliberating, therefore, on these interesting subjects local feelings
and prejudices should be merged in the patriotic determination to
promote the great interests of the whole. All attempts to connect them
with the pa