Sec. 23. The Secretary of the Treasury to publish regulations to enforce the speedy presentation of government drafts for payment.

Sec. 24. Salaries of the receivers general fixed, and the said receivers are prohibited from charging or receiving any other compensation for any official service, under pain of fine and imprisonment.

Sec. 25 The Treasurer of the United States, authorized to receive payments in advance for public lands and receipt for the same; said receipts to be taken at the land offices as cash, but not to be transferable.

Sec. 26. Ten thousand dollars appropriated for constructing offices and purchasing sites therefor.

Sec. 27. A sufficient sum appropriated for expenses other than those before provided for.

COMMERCIAL STATISTICS.

CANAL COMMERCE OF OHIO.

The following statistical tables will enable our readers to judge with accuracy of the amount of business transacted at Cleveland, Ohio. It presents a more full comparative statement of the canal business at that point, in different years, than any heretofore published. We are indebted to N. C. Winslow, Esq., for the documents from which these tables are compiled.

Receipts of Wheat and Flour and Clearance of Merchandise at Cleveland, 1839.

The aggregates of sundry articles received and cleared at Cleveland the past three years are thus exhibited:

Wheat and Flour received at Cleveland by Canal to December 1, for the

years stated. 1839.

548,206

1,228,521

1,515,800

202,957

232,745

264,842

62,857

62,838

109,843

6,026

7,282

8,828

1,452,570

1,841,483

2,439,139

8,865,687

16,946,453

17,429,556

Reducing the wheat to its equivalent in flour, viz. five bushels per barrel, and we have the following comparison of the receipts of those articles:

This amount is for the entire year 1837, and may probably include some Merchandise cleared after December 1st.

A Table of Duties on Flour, graduated by the Price of Sacks of Flour and Quarters of Wheat.

TABLE OF DUTIES.

A sack of flour weighs 240 pounds, a barrel of American flour 196 pounds; consequently, a barrel of flour is seven tenths of a sack by weight. The relative value is as follows:

MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION.

The annual election for officers of this important Institution, comprising a President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and eight Directors, will take place on Wednesday the 15th inst.

Elijah Ward Esq., we regret to state, has declined being considered a candidate for re-election to the Presidency, an office which he has filled with so much honor to himself and credit to the Association. Our intercourse with this gentleman, has been of such a nature, as to secure our highest esteem for his many private and public virtues, and we should be wanting in gratitude were we to suffer the present opportunity to pass, without thus publicly tendering to him our warmest thanks for the interest he has manifested in the success of the Merchants' Magazine, and of our humble endeavors to promote the prosperity of an institution so honorable to the liberality of the MERCHANTS OF NEW YORK, and second perhaps, in its moral, intellectual, and practical tendencies to none in the country.

DONATIONS TO THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION.

The Board of Directors have the pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of Donations. Of Books from Thomas H. Genire, William Emerson, P. Bekcart, S. F. Crawford, George Zabriskie, Freeman Hunt, Hon. Horace Mann, Cornelius Matthews, John Keese, Prof. D. Olmsted.

Of Autographs from Hon. Ogden Hoffman, Giles M. Hillyer, John H. Redfield, Hon. C. C. Cambreleng, George Zabriskie, G. L. Ford.

Of Minerals from Rev. Charles Fox, Samuel Sloan, E. C. Bramhall, James E. Goll, John H. Redfield, M. Newberry, James Sorley.

TO SUBSCRIBERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

In presenting to our numerous subscribers the first number of the second half-yearly volume of the MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW, we cannot allow the opportunity to pass without expressing our unfeigned thanks for the liberal patronage we have received, and the valuable literary assistance which has been tendered to us by many of the most eminent writers in the United States. The success which has hitherto attended our efforts to supply a deficiency in the mercantile literature of our country, and place within the reach of the great business community, the most useful information on subjects of paramount interest, has, we are gratified to say, placed the work beyond the reach of contingency; and neither pains, exertions, nor expense, will be spared on our part, to give it additional value on every point which can command attention or secure the liberal support of an enlightened community.

While it is our principal object to deal in facts, and furnish information of permanent value on all matters pertaining, in the largest and most comprehensive sense, to the great commercial interests of the country, our pages will be ever open to the liberal and temperate discussion of those important topics to which the Magazine is devoted. Several valuable papers prepared for the present number, are unavoidably postponed. Among them are

1. MERCANTILE LAW CASES.

2. THE THEORY OF PROFITS, by George Tucker, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Virginia, Member of the American Philosophical Society, and author of the "Theory of Money and Banks," etc.

3. LIFE INSURANCE, by E. W. Stoughton, Esq.

4. Full and accurate Reports of the Lectures on Meteorology delivered by Professor Dennison Olmsted, before the Mercantile Library Association of New York, etc.

HUNT'S

MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1840.

ART. I. THE THEORY OF PROFITS.- No. I.

I KNOW not whether the science of political economy is more fruitful of controversy because it is comparatively new, or because it treats of wealth, which in so many ways interests both our patriotism and our self-love, or, lastly, by reason of its inherent difficulty; but so it is, that no other branch of knowledge has, of late years, given rise to so much disputation as this. It abounds in controverted theories and unsettled problems; with its best established truths there mingle divers doubts and qualifications; and the honest inquirer into its principles, on consulting its most approved teachers, is sure to find that diversity which has so characterized other doctors as to have grown into a proverb. For the truth of these remarks, one has only to recollect the various theories of rent, wages, and profits - the conflicting opinions on the policy of poor laws, the numerous answers that have been given to Malthus's views on population and lastly, the countless systems and speculations on paper credit and banks.

To whatever cause we may ascribe all this discordance, the effect has been unfortunate. While so much of the science has been debateable ground for its adepts, the lookers on, constituting the mass of the community, have come to the conclusion, that such frequent controversy proves the inherent uncertainty of the subject itself; and they turn away from the angry disputants under the conviction that the complicated concerns of national wealth are not capable of being reduced to the regular form of a science, or if they are, that the work has not yet been achieved. To this cause of the want of faith in the precepts of political economy, may be added the occasional variance between some prevalent theories and well known facts, or the current events of trade. The result has been, that hundreds of intelligent minds, who have not made this branch of knowledge the subject of their particular study, regard it with somewhat of the same distrust as cautious men have always regarded the search after the philosopher's stone, or as those of our day, who are

not imbued with sanguine credulous tempers, view the pretensions of phrenology and animal magnetism.

But however the votaries of the science may deplore the discredit into which it has fallen, as creating a serious obstacle to its advancement, let them not despair. If they believe as I do, that every important principle involved in the science is capable of satisfactory demonstration, and that every question now agitated will in time be definitively settled, let them persevere in their investigations, and, confident that truth will finally prevail, let them redouble their efforts to hasten a consummation so auspicious to the best interests of society. To effect this, it is not enough that they succeed in discovering truth, they must also be able to exhibit her to others in her just colors and fair proportions; in other words, they must reason logically as well as think rightly.

Political economy is essentially a science of analysis, and its principles never can be settled until its phenomena have been carefully analyzed and traced up to their elements, which are to be found partly in the physical condition of each country, and partly in the moral nature of man. Much, indeed, has been done in this way, but much yet remains to be done; and, where a theory or problem is yet unsettled, the fact may always be traced to a faulty or defective analysis—either some important element has been omitted, or some unessential concomitant has been supposed to be an element. These inaccuracies, however unimportant they may at first seem, may, when applied to details, branch out into numerous, and often serious, errors. Of this, the theory of profits, as derived from that of rent, and which has been so extensively adopted both in England and this country, appears to me to afford a striking illustration.

Believing that theory to be altogether unsound, and that the profits of capital have never been subjected to a just or philosophical analysis by the modern school of political economy, I propose now to examine the subject; but, for that purpose, it will be first necessary to consider the theory of rent, with which, according to the doctrines of that school, the theory of profits is inseparably connected.

Rent is the profit which the owner of land receives for its temporary use, and it has its origin in the following circumstances: All mankind derive the means of their subsistence from the earth, and though its spontaneous products are few and scanty, they are capable of being greatly augmented by human labor employed in cultivation. When thus aided, they are able, in fertile land, to yield annually enough to support the labor that cultivated it, and a large surplus besides. This surplus the owner of the soil may convert into a profit or rent as soon as he can find purchasers for it; and these he is sure to find, by reason of the tendency of mankind to increase until they have reached the level of subsistence. Those who are without land, impelled by the strongest of all impulses, will give their labor, or the products of their labor, in exchange for food, and the demand thus created will, soon or late, absorb the surplus, however large. If the owner of land does not choose to cultivate it himself, he can generally obtain the same, or nearly the same, profit from others, in the form of rent for its temporary use.

Rent, therefore, arises from two causes: first, the fertility of the soil, whether native or adventitious; and secondly, the physical and moral nature of man, which make him dependent on the earth for his sustenance, and impel him to the multiplication of his species. To the first, the