Practical men understand very well this state of the case, whether they do or do not comprehend the causes which produce it.  I have in my possession a letter from a respectable merchant, well known to me, in which he says, after complaining of the operation of the tariff of 1828, on the articles to which it applies, some of which he had imported, and that his purchases having been made in England before the passage of that tariff was known, it produced such an effect upon the English market that the articles could not be resold without loss, and he adds:  “For it really appears that, when additional duties are laid upon an article, it then becomes lower instead of higher!” This would not probably happen where the supply of the foreign article did not exceed the home demand, unless upon the supposition of the increased duty having excited or stimulated the measure of the home production.

The great law of price is determined by supply and demand.  What affects either affects the price.  If the supply is increased, the demand remaining the same, the price declines; if the demand is increased, the supply remaining the same, the price advances; if both supply and demand are undiminished, the price is stationary, and the price is influenced exactly in proportion to the degree of disturbance to the demand or supply.  It is, therefore, a great error to suppose that an existing or new duty necessarily becomes a component element to its exact amount of price.  If the proportions of demand and supply are varied by the duty, either in augmenting the supply or diminishing the demand, or vice versa, the price is affected to the extent of that variation.  But the duty never becomes an integral part of the price, except in the instances where the demand and the supply remain after the duty is imposed precisely what they were before, or the demand is increased, and the supply remains stationary.

Competition, therefore, wherever existing, whether at home or abroad, is the parent cause of cheapness.  If a high duty excites production at home, and the quantity of the domestic article exceeds the amount which had been previously imported, the price will fall. * * *

But it is argued that if, by the skill, experience, and perfection which we have acquired in certain branches of manufacture, they can be made as cheap as similar articles abroad, and enter fairly into competition with them, why not repeal the duties as to those articles?  And why should we?  Assuming the truth of the supposition, the foreign article would not be introduced in the regular course of trade, but would remain excluded by the possession of the home market, which the domestic article had obtained.  The repeal, therefore, would have no legitimate effect.  But might not the foreign article be imported in vast quantities, to glut our markets, break down our establishments, and ultimately to enable the foreigner to monopolize the supply of our consumption?  America is the