5036. MANUFACTURES, Labor and.—
In general, it is impossible that manufactures
should succeed in America from the high
price of labor. This is occasioned by the
great demand of labor for agriculture. A
manufacturer, going from Europe, will turn
to labor of other kinds if he finds more to
be got by it, and he finds some employment
so profitable that he can soon lay up money
enough to buy fifty acres of land, to the culture
of which he is irresistibly tempted by the
independence in which that places him, and
the desire of having a wife and family around
him. If any manufactures can succeed there,
it will be that of cotton.—
To Thomas Digges. Washington ed. ii, 412.
Ford ed., v, 27.
(P.
1788)
