Little profit is derived from this then as an
article of exchange for the produce and manufactures of France.
Whale oil might be next in importance; but that is now prohibited.
American Rice is not yet of great, but it is of growing consumption
in France, and being the only article of the three which is free, it
may become a principal basis of exchange. Time and trial may add a
fourth, that is, timber. But some essays, rendered unsuccessful by
unfortunate circumstances, place that at present under a discredit,
which it will be found hereafter not to have merited. The English
know its value, and were supplied with it before the war. A spirit
of hostility, since that event, led them to seek Russian rather than
American supplies. A new spirit of hostility has driven them back
from Russia, and they are now making contracts for American timber.
But of the three articles before mentioned, proved by experience to
be suitable for the French market, one is prohibited, one under
monopoly, and one alone free, and that the smallest and of very
limited consumption. The way to encourage purchasers is to multiply
their means of payment. Whale oil might be an important one. In one
scale is the interest of the millions who are lighted, shod or
clothed with the help of it, and the thousands of labourers and
manufacturers who would be employed in producing the articles which
might be given in exchange for it, if received from America.
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