VOL. 47
THE T tllwr.
SPEECH OF HON. JOHN SCOTT,
OF I'ENNSYL VAN lA,
11: .`i.,:nate of the U. S., _''.larch 15, 1872.
The Senate hexing under consideration the bill
(11. lt. No. 173) to repeal the duties on salt—
Mr. SCOTT slid :
Mr: PnEeauttrr Having presented an
amendment putting tea and coffee on the
free liar, which, as the honorable Senator
from Ohio. the chairman of the Finance
Committee states, presents the turning
point to be decided up:)n the bill now be
ibre the Senate, I clan indulgence while
I submit the views which prompt me to
offer that amendment and ask its adoption.
The exhibit of our national finances
made by the Secretary of the Treasury de
monstrates that unless the current of busi
ness is disturbed by same unforeseen cause
we can in the next fiscal year pay 850,-
000,000 toward the extinction of our na
tional debt, and reduce taxation to an
amount ranging between thirty-six and
fifty million dollars. To be more exact
upun this subject. let me submit a few fig
ures. In the `4.3 2er et a ry's annual report the
receipts arc estimated for the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1873, at $359.000,000.
The extraordinary increase of imports has
warranted en addition to the estimate of
receipts from customs of at least $6,000,-
000. Let me state at this point the exact
increase over the estimate of the customs
to show that there is very little danger to
be apprehended of the deficit of which
warning has been given in the House of
Representatives, and which has been so
satisfactorily wet by the chairman of the
Committee on Finance.
The Secretary of the Treasury, in his
estimates t; .1. the year ending June 30,
1872, placed the receipts from customs at
$175,000,000. For the eight months that
have passed of that fiscal year, the receipts,
according to a table furnisted by the Com
missioner of Customs, arc $145,453.170,
making a monthly average of $18,181,000.
Ii that average be maintained during the
year, the recipes from customs, instead of
$175,000,000, as estimated, will be $218,-
27t),000, or an excess of $43,000,000 over
the estimate.
The expenditures, including $50,000,-
000 to be paid to the sinking fund and
upon the national debt, are estimated at
$323,025,773.99, which would wake the
excess of - receipts over expenditures $42,-
97.1.'22601. 1 have added, however, only
$6,000,000 to the excess for customs. The
chairman has added, if I recollect his
figures aright, $12,000,000 to the estimate
of t)le Secretary of the Treasury.
Yin SHERMAN. Fourteen millions.
Mr. SCOTT. Ho has added $14,000,-
000, which would be $8,000,000 over the
estimate I have made. These 88,000,000
added would make an excess of $50,074,-
000. I think the estimate of the chair
man of the committee is certainly not ex
cessive in view of the experience of the
current year.
The question presented, then, is in what
manner is this reduction or $50,000,000
commendations of the liead of our finances
are certainly first entitled to our consider
ation and respect. What are they ? First
he says
"In the suggestions I have the honor to make in
reference to the reduction of taxes, I keep in view
two important facts : first, that the ability of the
nation to pay at least 150,000,000 annually of the
principal of the public debt shall not be impaired ;
and secondly, in the change of the revenue system,
no violence shall be done to the business interests
of the country."
He proceeds :
*lt is practicable to dispense with all revenue
from internal sources, except that derived from
stamps, spirits, tobacco, and malt liquors. These
sources should furnish for the year 1572-73 a rev
enue. of about $110,000,000, making a reduction of
taxes of $16,000,000.-
Showing, then, an estimate of customs
which would' authorize a reduction of $20,-
000,000 more, making in all $36,000,000,
and which, under the increased receipts
from customs, will be safely placed at $5O,- ,
000,000. He proceeds to "recommend to
the consideration of Congress the reduc
tion of the duties on salt to the extent of
fifty per cent., the duty on bituminous coal
to fifty cents a ton, the reduction of the
duty on raw hides and skins, and the re
moval of all duties from a large class of
articles produced in other countries which
enter into dm arts and manufactures of
this cJuntry and which are not produced
in the United States, and the revenue from
which is inconsiderable." He further
states :
"The removal of duties from a lorge class of ar
ticles used in manufactures, and the reduction of
the duties upon coal, furnish en opportunity for a
moderate decrease of the rates of duties upon those
products, whose cost will be diminished by these
changes While nothing as the consequence of
legislation could be more disastrous to the public
prosperity than a policy which should destroy or
seriously disturb the manufacturing interests of the
country, it is still possible, by wise and moderate
changes, adapted to the condition of business and
labor, to reduce the rates of duties with benefit to
every class of people."
We here have the Secretary's policy,
which may be summarized thus :
1. The abolition of all internal taxes but
these ou stamps, spirits, malt liquors, and
tobacco.
2. A reduction of duties on ecal,_ salt,
raw hides and skins.
3. An enlirgement of the free list to
embrace raw materials not produced in the
United States.
4. A moderate decrease of duties on pro
ducts whose cost will be diminished by
these changes.
The first three of these recommendations
are specific or so nearly so as to leave little
room for diversity of opinion in their ap
plication. The fourth leaves room for
some difference of opinion in its application.
Let us see how much of the proposed re
duction will be effected by carrying out
the specific recommendations: first, inter
nal taxes $16,000,000; second, coal redu
ced to fifty cents per ton would cause a re
duction of $322,882; third, salt as redu
ced by the bill will make a reduction of
$558,050 OS; fourth, raw hides and skins
at the rate reported would make a reduc
tion of $671.589 09; fifth, the free list
$3,137,030 87.
• There have been a few changes made
by the committee since I made these esti
mates, which perhaps.vary the amount on
the free list t, some small extent.. These
estimates are lased upon the imparts fur
the year ending June 30, 1871, and they
make an a g gregate reducti )n $20,719,-
552 01. Now, the bill reported by the
committee proposes to reduce duties, in
addition to those specifically recommended
by the Secretary, on the following articles,
namely : by section one, on tea, coffee,
rice, potatoes, lumber, and furniture, fruit
and ornamental trees, garden seeds, lead,
ginger, twine, hemp-yarn, roots, cocoa, and
iron-wire cloth; by section two, ten per
cent. of' the existing duties is taken off the
articles therein named, being chiefly textile
and metallic productions, aggregating a
reduction of $8,274,716 51, as estimated
The 'Huntingdon 4 ournal.
upon the basis of the imports for the year
ending June 30, 1871. The whole reduc
tion of duties, as proposed by the bill. is
$22,507,353 26. It to these you add the
proposed reduction of internal taxes,
amounting to $16,000,000, the total re
duction will be 838,507,353 26. Take
the whole proposed reduction of duties,
822.507,353 26, and deduct from it the
proposed free list, $3,137,030 87, the pro
posed reduction on tea and coffee, $7,646,-
588 29, and $11,723,73.1 10 will be what
is proposed to be taken from the present
duties upon articles produced in our own
country. This takes nearly one-fourth of
the proposed reduction from duties on ar
ticles which come in competition with the
industries of our own people, and, as will
be observed by examining the articles enu
merated in sections one and two, they are
not largely made up of those which would
come within the recommendations of the
Secretary of the Treasury, namely, those
whose cost of production would decrease
by the reduction of duty upon coal and
raw materials. These modifications affect
alike the manufacturer, the agriCulturist,
the miner, and all dependent upon them.
Coal, salt, rice, potatoes, hides, lumber,
furniture, lead, iron, cotton, wool, fruit
trees, garden seeds, &e., all come in for
reduction.
Agreeing with the purpose of the Com
mittee on Finances to pay $50,000,000
annually of the debt, and at the same time
reduce taxes and duties to as large an
amount as safety will permit, I feel con
strained at this point to differ frbm the
majority of the committee as to the mode
adopted in effecting that reduction.
Presuming that the reduction of inter
nal taxes to the amount of $16,000,000
will be added to the bill, (and it may as
well go into this bill as into a separate one;
we have the power to add it as'well as any
other amendment), the reduction stops at
$38,000,000. Now, instead of reducing
duties on tea and coffee, add them to the
free list, and you have $12,000,000 more,
($7,000,000 having been computed as re
duction, and thi whole revenue from them
for 1871 being $19,000,000), which, if
the other feature, of the bill stand, would
carry the reduction to $50,000,00).
. ,
But there are features of the bill which
ought not to stand, and there are other
internal taxes which we can repeal if we •
do not permit those features to remain.
What are they ? Strikeout the reduction
of duties made by the first and second see
lions, and, instead thereof, make tea and
coffee free, reducing the revenue $19,-
000,000 ; permit the free list to stand as
proposed, $3,137,030 ; repeal stamp duties
$16,000,000 more, and you have an ag
gregate of $54,137,030. But in this last
proposed reduction, $16,000,000 of inter
nal revenue taxes named by the Secretary
of the Treasury, are included $6,500,000
of income tax, which he t.etimates would
remain over uncollected and be received in
the fiscal year ending June 30, 1873; and
as we can now entertain no hope of relief
from that hated incubus, which I trust
will never more be renewed, the reduction
for that year would be less than $6,500,-
000, on the Secretary's assumption that it
C n Sl " g e Y e i n hi l ' e qaia ann collected
into the next. The repeal of these inter
nal taxes it may safely be presumed will
reduce the estimated expenditures in col
lecting them at least $1,500,000. I ob
serve that-the chairman put it at $2,500,-
000 or $2,000,000, and I am below his
estimate. This, and the $6,500,000 of
income tax, will reduce the $54,137,030
to $46,137.030. If it still be insisted that
the Secretary's recommendation as to coal,
salt, and hides be adhered to, they make
them $1,582,521, and you still .have a
reduction of $47,719,551, or nearly three
million dollars less than I have shown, we
may with safety reduce the revenue.
Two modes are thus proposed. The one
is first to reduce the duties on tea and
coffee about one third of what they are at
present; second, reduce the present duties
on manufactures, ten per cent.; third,
`adopt the free list; and fourth, abolish
$16;000,000 of internal revenue taxes.
which, as I have already shown,
would ac
tually be a reduction of only $10,000,000,
if the people pay the arreurages of $6.000,-
000 of income tax. The other mode is to
wake tea and coffee free, repeal all inter
nal taxes except those on spirits, malt liq
uors, and tobacco, let the proposed free
list remain, and do not otherwise change
existing duties.
This substantially brings before the
Senate the two views of this question which
have been presented by the country ; and
as the people themselves have sent us their
views of it, instead of endeavoring to place
them in any new form, I adopt the two
forms in which they come before us in the
petitions from opposite sources.
In the first place, who are complaining
of these duties upon manufactures? Are
they our own people to any large degree ?
The petitions that have been presented
against them are principally headed thus :
“Itemonstrance of the American Free-Trade
League against the repeal of the duties on tea and
coffee.”
I use the form of one presented by the
Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Trumbull,]
either at the present or the last session.
What do they say
"To the uenate and House of Representatives of
Congress assembled:
"The American Free-Trade League respectfully
remonstrate against the repeal of the duties on tea
and coffee, and would represent to your honorable
bodies that such repeal woulu deprive the Govern
ment of over thirteen million dollars of revenue"—
This was adapted to the previous year ;
it is now $19,000,0 )0—
"axd therefore render difficult the repeal of other
far more burdensome duties which yield but little
revenue to the Government at a very much heavier
cost to the people.
"That the true object oi revenue reform is not to
repeal duties which are levied for revenue, and un
der which all the money taken from the people is
received by the Government, and contributes to
pay those expenses which the people must in some
form bear, but to reform the tariff so as to repeal
those duties which yield little revenue, and tax the
people heavily to support favored monopolies.
"The League respectfully represents that the
money which is taken from the people by the lg -
ties on tea and coffee is received by the Govern
ment, but that the duties on iron, lumber, blank
ets. coal, salt, take many millions from the people,
of which only a very small portion is received by
the Treasury, the larger part going as tribute to
favored manufacturers."
They proceed to illustrate by examples
and figuree, and then close with this prayer :
"Your remonstrance would further show that if
the duties on carpets, pig and refined iron, thread,
common window glass, paint, lumber, blankets,
clothing, leather, were repealed, the loss to the rev
enue would be about the sameas the loss occasioned
by the repeal of the duties on tea and coffee ; but
the caving to the people would be in theme of tea
and coffee only $13,000,000 ; whereas the repeal of
the duties on pig and refined iron alone would re
lieve them from a burden of over seventy-Eve
million dollars."
Now I ask attention to this :
rheteagle,therefraVtht your
honor
ablebodeswill now abolish duties"—
not reduce them—
"which keep up grievious monopolies, that oppress
the people, and violate every principle of right and
justice, and leave undisturbed equitable duties,
like those upon tea and coffee."
Here it is asserted that the duties upon
tea and coffee, which we do not produce,
are equitable, while those on carpets, pig
and refined iron, thread, common window
glass, paint, lumber, blankets, clothing, and
leather, all of which we do produce, vio
late every principle of right and justice.
Thus I have given the Free-Trade
League the benefit of its own statement of
the ease ; and before proceeding to a state.
went of the other side of the question I
wish to advert to the fact that it is well
understood that this Free-Trade League,
although called an American Free-Trade
League, is composed principally of the rep
resentatives of the manufacturing hcuses
of Great Britain, located in New York, is
sustained by their money, and that these
petitions come here at their instance.
Mr. MORRILL, of Vermont. And at
their expense.
Mr. SCOTT. And at their expense, as
suggested by my friend from Vermont.
I now take up a petition which comes
from the working people of the country;
and, sir, they have come here in large
numbers. I have presented them, I be
lieve without exception, every morning of
the session since the holidays in regular
course as they came by mail. They say :
“The undersigned, workers in -, and citizens
of -, in the state of -, respectfully remon
strate against a change of the existing tariff laws
abating or abolishing duties upon such articles as
nre successfully produced in this country. We are
advised and believe that such action will be urged
upon your honorable bodies, by the English cap
italists who maintain the Free-Trade League.”
Showing that the workingmen of this
country understand from whence the call
for free trade comes :
'•We respectfully pray for the repeal of all duties
upon tea. coffee, and such other articles of necessi
ty or comfort as caulk be produced in the United
States; and toe further pray that as Representa
tives of tho American people, you trill Inks care
that duties shall ho so adjusted as to encourage
and defend every home industry. and to fuster . thu
honor and interests of the American laborer."
There are the opposite views presented
by fbreign capital and American labor, and
it is between these two elements that the
real contest exists which we are to decide.
The former asks you to tax tea and coffee,
now necessaries upon every man's table,
and to abolish the duties upon those arti
cles named by them, in the production and
manufacture of which American labor is
employed at good wages. The latter ask
'you to relieve them from the tax upon
their daily sustenance, and to continue
those duties under the operation of which
our Government maintained its life in war,
and is paying its debt in peace; our peo
ple Snd employment, good wages, and pros
perity, and we see the country developing
its resources, opening new farms, building
new cities, gathering new treasures from
the mine, stretching out its iron highways
and binding the hitherto widely separated
portions of the land by new ties of social
and commercial intercourse.
Foreign capital sees plainly that the con
tinuance of our present system for the half
of another generation, the permanent es
tablishment of American manufactures,
with educated, intelligent labor to conduct
them, demanding and receiving, as
intelli
gent workmen will, a Lair proportionate
dividend of the product of capital and la
hnr_ meat lead einVugpiMitt
concede au equal reward to labor there, or
that labor will leave and come here. Eith
er result is a triumph for and a blessing to
the laborer, and hence the anxiety of Eu
ropean manufacturers to command our mar
kets, to drain us of our capital, and to close
our manufactories.
I do not propose to enter into any ex
tended discussion of the theories of politi
cal economy, satisfied as I am that the true
study to engage in now is that of the has
presented to us by the employer and em
ployed, rather than the speculations of
Ricardo, Malthus, Adam smith, Stuart
Mill. If we so legislate as to secure mod
erate but sure returns to capital, steady
employment, adequate pay, a comfortable
home, and healthy food to the operative
and good schools for his children, to so de
velop our resources that our own people
can enjoy the largest blessings of peace,
and other peoples can see that if our rights
are disregarded we are so self-reliant in
our own supplies of all the c.s.,:ntial for
national derense and individual comfort
that we will never be long unprepared for
war; if we accomplish these results, we
ne(ol not be disturbed as to whether our
statutes do or do not conform to the dog
mas of those philosophic dreamers, who, in
the worship of their own theories, forget
their toiling fellow creatures.
Attempt to disguise it as you may, sin
cere as those may be who advocate the con
trary theory, the demand for a reduction
of duties is a demand for a diminution of
the wages of labor. We must meet it as
s-.ch. It comes at a time when of all others
those now charged with the interests of
the American people should ponder well
before they take any stap to the prejudice
of free labor. We are asked to abandon
the system that carried us safely through
that gigantic struggle which became at
last a Titan's contest, over which a wit
nessing world held its breath as the desti
ny of milieus of laboring men hung upon
the result.
Slavery was simple in its political or eco
nomic aspect, saying nothing of its moral
or religions bearings, a labor question.
Shall capital own or hire labor? Shall la
bor have a voice in settling its own wages,
or shall capital take all that labor earns
and give such a living to the toiler as it in
its selfishness may see proper ? This was
really the underlying question of the re
bellion. The slaveholders of the South,
keeping up what could be maintained of
feudal and baronial prestige and privileges
in a republican country, by holding large
landed estates and numerous slaves upon
them, claimed not simply to preserve those
privileges which the law had really guar
antied to them, but to spread that system
over all the Territories, and thus secure to
capital the control of labor and its wages
throughout the nation. That claim was
buried beneath the ruins of the rebellion.
It lies under the bodies of thousands of
free workingmen of the North, who resist
ed its impious war upon cur Governuient
and sealed a new covenant for the rights of
labor with their blood.
That struggle having settled that in this
Republic capital should not own labor, the
labor question now comes up in another
form, and, let it be disguised as it may, its
true form when fairly presented is this:
will American people employ and send
their money to Europe to pay for foreign
labor at lower prices, engaged in making
products which we can as well produce at
home, or will they employ and pay for the
labor of our own citizens at the fair com
pensatory prices which are fixed by the
mutual agreement of the intelligent, inde
pendent workingman and his employer?
The form in which the free-traders con
ceal the ugly part of the proposition varies
from this, but it covers the same idea. For
' instance, in the life of Richard Cobden,
page 88, it is stated thus:
HUNTINGDON, PA., MARCH 27, 1872
"The cardinal principles of free trade, so applied
to and incorporatA in financial legislation, are
that taxes, where necessary, should be laid on for
pure purposes of revenue atone ; that in their re
mission, in the choice of those to be remitted, the
interests of consumers are paramount .d alone to
be consulted: and that no tax should be levied in
the supposed interest of producers, that fur two
reasons, each one being all sufficient to bear the
conclusion common to them both t Crst, that no
protective tax does benefit the producer, and even if
it did, he—representing the minority—has no right
to enjoy it at the expense of the majority, namely,
the consumers.**
Ido not stop to discuss the announce
ment that "no protective tax does benefit
the producer." I leave that to those rev
enue reformers who think its whole design
is to benefit the producer, and that the re
sult arc such as to justify them in calling
them hard names, and declaiming against
them as •'l3loated monopolists." Neither
do I stop to discuss the other theory that
the interests of the prAncers are to be ut
terly ignored. But, in passing, I [night
perhaps appropriately quote the conclusions
of a body of business men equal in intelli
gence and practical knowledge to any vol
untary assembly that. convenes in this coun
try, that of the National Board of Trade,
held in St. Louis, in December, 1871.
They resolved, after long debate upon the
question—
"That in the revhliou of the taritr, the cost of
pro:leer:ion in this country is a proper s•.tbject for
cousideratio-a."
And this, too, notwithstanding one of
the eminent advocates of free trade m that
body, hailing from New England, had in
the diseuS!ion seriously complained of the
duty on pig iron, alleging that "somebody
pays it to somebody else in this country, in
order to maintain pig iron wages at two
dollars a day." That, gentleman had nev
er traveled very much through the regions
where pig iron is made, or if he had kept
either ears or eyes open he would not have
thought it much of a boon to pay those
laborers two dollarsper day. They, to quote
the language of another free4rade theorist,
"can do better."
Having quoted a writer in old England
on free tradc,let nnc 3161) quote one in New
England. Professor Walker, editor of The
Science of Wealth, written in the interest,
of free trade, page 93, says :
.At present iron eannot be so cheaply and ex
tensive!y produced in the United States as to ex
clude the foreign article. Why is this? We anmer
negatively :
"FirEt, not that we do not know how to make
it" a a r:
'Second, not that we have not euilich7t eapi•
"Third. not that n•c have not the best natural
facilities for the nianufazture." 0 0 0
"Fourth, not that the inanufnettter here lacks a
good natural protection."
After amplifying each of these negative
Iswers, he . then Proceeds
"Why, then, with all these natural facilities, do
we not produce all our iron without governmental
protection? There is but one reason. We can d o
better. We can obtain our iron with lee labor than
by making it.-
After stating that labor in Europe costs
fifty per cent. less than in this country
and capital can be had at fifty per cent. less
interest, he concludes :
"Thus it is that our unequaled natural advan
tages arising from cheap virgin lands render it un
profitable for us to make iron or engage in many
other kinds of manufactures."
The plain English of all this is, "We
ought to buy all our iron and all other
they pay less there for labor t h
anwe 3
at home ; we ought. to be agriculturists ex
clusively, because our cheap land enables
us to raise grains at a low rate, and with
our wheat we ought to pay for all other
products we need at the prices that cheap
labor in Europe will give them to us."
Who agrees to these propositions ? I
deny the soundness of the position. I af
firm that the true interests of our country
requires that we should manufacture all ar
ticles that we have the natural facilities
fur producing, that -the labor employed
should be well paid, and that we should
place such duty on foreign manufactures
coming in competition with our own as
will prevent them from driving our own
out of the market., thereby depriving the
American laborer of remunerative employ
ment.
I do not stop here to repeat the argu
ments about the home markets that are
furnished by domestic maneactories, the
advantages of a diversified industry, the
effect of competition, the national inde
pendence and security in case of war, the
effect of sending abroad annually for for
eign products more bullion than our mines
produce, and the numerous quest:ons that
at once suggests themselves and that have
become sofamiliar to the American people
by discussion from the time of Hamilton's
report in 1791, down to the present hour.
All these have often been treated as if
they concerned the capitalists alone, and
the proprietors of mills and forges have
been thrust into the fore ground as the
only interested persons. There are but a
few of those interested, and their interest
is not so great as that of the laborer, as has
been abundantly shown and testified be
fore the Finance Committee
Let us look for a moment at the differ
ence between American and European
wages. That.' may not quote entirely
from sources that may be charged with
protective leanings; I insert here a table
compiled from the report of Hon. D. A.
Wells, special Commissioner of the Reve
nue, or 1868: •
Excess of wages paid laborers in the United States
in 1867 over those paid ease laborers in Great
Britain in 1865.
Ship-builders 47.58
Paper mills
Silk hats SO.
Glass-works
Leather
Gas-works
Saws
Fire arms.
Edge tools,
Foundries.
Rolling mill:
Sugmr:ivfineries
WtTrated
Woolen-wills
Cotton-mills
Average on sixteen occupations, 5:,.56 per cent.
Thus it will be seen that there was an
average of 55.56 per cent. of excess paid
to the same classes of • laborers ih this
country in 1867 over what was paid in
1866 in Great Britain to the same classes.
From the same report I take the aver
age duties paid on imports for the years
ranging from 1861 to 1868, as follows :
1862
1803 33.20
1861 37.20
1865
1866
1867
• 1868 47.86
Average dut) 90.43 per cent.
Thus showing that the average duties
upon imports in this country from 1862 1
to 1868 were but 40.43 per cent. while we
paid an excess of 55.56 of wages to our
laborers over those of Great Britain.
Mr. MORTON. I ask the Senator if he
has any estimate, in connection with that
proposition, of the cost of transportation ?
Mr. SCOTT. I have not an estimate of
the cost of transportation, for the reason
that that would vary on each separate pro
duct, depending upon bulk, weight, Ste.,
and I suppose it would bs very difficult to
Coming down nearer to the present time
I quote on this subject from a paper edi
ted by a most accurate and accomplished
statisician, Mr. Benjamin Bannan, of the
Miners' Journal, Pottsville, Pennsylvania,
as follows :
"That the protective system is really the work
ingman's question, is apparent from the following
comparative table of wages per day in a western
mill in 1811, and in England, gold being taken at
112 :
e!.._,?-5 - a -- & - -.E.:i
i ~.-,..
.!...-,
~.5 rz ? j r
.
F:1 E i il F- i:i 1 : i ii :i
74 ' i
1 71 4 4 . 1
; 4
.:i. a 2 `,',l :i 1 1:: .. .. F 1
"Titus wages of the, rsecir ins highest, lowest,
and average rates are from two to three and a half
times in gold those paid in England. The few
lads, less than sixteen to eighteen in American
mills—and there arc ten boys in Eritish mills to
one in nn American—CM-II no mach as many skill
ed English workmen after seven years' service.
Many of the workmen in the mills of this country.
in 1809 paid income tax to the Government, thus
showing their enrningi ',everted Xl.OOO per an-
" The comparlson of wages is vveu more striking
if given by the ton. then by the day. Thus pud
dler, received, in the western mill quoted, six dol
lars per ton, gold, against ti , 2 ::7, the average price
in England. and this gain to the foreign manufac
tures of 83 03 per ton on this single item, repre
senting less than one-third the cost of wages per ton,
is more than many of onr manufaetnrers have
asked as their profit on a ton of finished iron.
The average wages, at the close of 1871, in the
item of puddling, on the Atlantic coast of the
United States and in England, were ; United
States, currency, $6 75: gold, 05 18 ; gold at 110;
England. gold, $2 .12; excess in the United States,
02 76: and this after an advance in England of
twenty to twenty-five per cent. in the rate of wages
during the year."
The Committee on Finance have been
hearing the statements of practical men,
capitalists and laborers, within the last
two months, and the testimony is uniform
from them all that the point of contest be
tween the manufacturers of other countries
and our own lies in the higher wages paid
here; that a reduction of duty simply
means a reduction of the wages of labor.
Nor is this confined to one locality or to
one industry. It will no longer be said
with truth that protection is a Pennsylva
„
rrUty to put money into tue pockets of Fenn.
syl;ania . monopolists.
The cultivators of rice from Georgia
and the Carolinas come to us and say,
"We can no longer sell rice at ante-war
prices, for our labor now costs us more
than it did before the freedmen worked for
warts; we want protection for that labor
by keeping up the duties."
Virginia, too, comes, and hear what her
citizens say. I read from "the petition of
a committee of manufacturers of sumac of
the State of Virginia," asking that instead
of putting that article on the free list, as
was at first proposed by the reported bill,
"an additional duty of one cent per pound
be imposed upon it." They proceed to
give their reasons, and I ask candid Con
sideration for the arguments presentedfrom
south of Mason and — Dixson's line in favor
of free labor as well as for the facts they
state, which are better than reams of spec
ulations. They say, after the introduc
tory words of their petition :
"Before the war, the consumption of domestic
smoke was inconsiderable, the impression prevail
big extensively that the American was inferior to
the imported article. This false impression is
justly to be attributed to the then imperf et mode
of grinding and preparing the domestic article,
the low price at which the foreign article could be
purchased forbidding the outlay for the necessary
machinery to prepare sumac at home. The war
brought the necessity for our making use of our
native product, and the advancing premium on
gold acted as a protcetivo tariff. The impression
that American sumac was inferior to the foreign
was demonstrated to he erroneous. The trade be
gan to thrive; hundreds of thousands of dollar e, before sent abroad to enrich the foreign producer,
were invested in the developetnent of oar own re
sources.
" With the decline of gold, however, this trade
has for some time past languished, until at pret.ent
there is ust apprehension that it will-wholly cease
to be remunerative. Many of the largest manu
facturers are ready to sell out Leir mills, and giro
attention to sonic remunerative branch of industry.
Your petitioners, therefore, respectfully urge that
an additional duty of one cent per pound be placed
on foreign Sumac, fur the following remoun
“1. By a fair. though moderate protection, the
machinery, already much improved by the circum
stances already named, may be justly expected to
produce an artiste on our soil in every respect
equal, for its various purposes in the useful arts,
to any imported from Europe.
"2. The production of the raw material' at home,
comparatively trifling before the war, but now
teaching the amount of more than fifteen thousand
tons annually, or more than one-half of our whole
estimated comlumption. gives occupancy ton very
large number of freedmen, and of the poorest clam
of white citizens, chiefly in Virginia,'
• - -
Now conies the reason from Virginia :
"This occupancy will entirely fail them if the
duty be removed, as the cheaper la:or in southern
Europe will secure the sending in of large quanti
ties to this country.
"3. The consumer will not be injured, but bene
fited, by our protection, for the competition of the
American article, under the skill we have used it
its preparation, has alreadyeaused a decline in the
twice of the foreign. The want of the protection
we ask will again raise its value."
•
Here are facts which those who cry
'monopoly" ought to consider:
"4. Tho protective tariff we ask is by no means
large, in consideration of its being the only possi
ble means of our improving and developing this
important and growing branch of American indus
try."
Brave words, these, and sound argu
ments, from the Old Dominion, the moth
er of Presidents and statesmen. She has
breathed the air of freedom for seven years,
and now distinctly avows that her free la
bor shall not be deprived of employment
and fair wages by the cheaper .work of the
sumac-gatherers of Sicily and Italy. This
is not the voice only of her mantLacturers,
for her Legislature has recently passed re
solutions asking the same thing. That is
my information.
Missouri, too, and Illinois, Utah and
Colorado, cry out in tones which wilt here
after give a new note to those who have
heretofore played the tree-trade hurdy-gur
dy upon the one string and to the one note
of "pig iron." "Pig iron" sounding fa
miliarly as it does now not only in Penn
sylvania, but in Maryland, Ohio, Indiana,
Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri, has
found its twin "pig," and "pi. , lead' will
resound around the Iron "pig
and
263.08
Pilot Knob in Missouri, will be heard
amid the clangor of the sixty-five thousand
tons of ' metal and the ninety-one thous
and tons of rails last year produced in Ill
inois, will keep on its westward way and
echo amid the Rocky mountains, in Color
ado, Utah, and Nevada, where the hardy
miners protest against their galena being
thrown out of ahome market by low du
ties on "pig lead."
Wisconsin and Michigan, too, are heard,
and the murmur of their pine forests brings
us the same petition that conies from the
lowly sumac bushes of Virginia, "Protect
our lumber from the low wages that pre
vail - across the border."
But it is not only in the rough work of
the forest, the forge, and the mine that
labor is asking for protection. New Jer
sey came with ther samples of silk, and
from the mouths of the laborers whose skill
had woven them we learned the same troth
that was urged by her other sons who are
skillful in the manufacture of glass and of
earthenware, that the choice presented to
us was to receive and pay fur the products
of the cheap _ and ionorant labor of foreign
lands or to protect the e.er--rartd-arrtt-tir-
telligent labor of our own.
We had before us, Mr. President, in
that committee, - a laborer who learned his
trade in England, who worked at Maccles
field, and who, came- to Patterson, New
Jersey, and is now there engaged in the
manufacture of silk. I wish that the man
ner of his testimony could he witnessed
and the whole matter of it heard before
this whole Senate. I was struck with the
man's intelligence, with his practical
knowledge, and with his frankness, and
took down a few detached sentences as he
went on giving his plain,. unvarnished
story. What were they? He said:
"The wages at Macclesfield, where I worked, were :
weavers averaged weekly in 182 d 4s. fid ; girls, 2s.
8:1.; my own girl got that then In ratterson, N.
J., she now receives six dollars per week. I would
have then been better pleased to send her to sehool,
but I could not. Our poorest meals here would
have Leen sumptuous fare there, We seldom had
animal food, awl worked fifty-eight hours per week.
Prosperous times in England make it better now.
Young women get now per week five shillings:
women t nine to ten shillings; men now get fifteen
to sixteen shillings. My savings here are equal to
what my earnings were in England, afterenjoying
here three times the comforts we got there."
This is the story, Ms. President; and
we are asked-
Mr. EDMUNDS. Will my friend per
mit me on that point to read to the Senate
a condensed statement cf one of England's
most celebrated philosophers and artists,
Mr. John Ruskin, in one of the recent
lectures upon the topic of English labor
that he delivered there, which is perfectly
opposite to what my friend is saying :
"Though England is deafened with spinning
wheels, her people have not clothes; though she is
black with the digging of fuel, tbey die of cold;
and though she has sad her soul for they die
of hunger."
Mr. SCOTT. I thank the Senator from
Vermont for giving me the opposite quo
tation. It lies just in that, Mr. President.
This man tells the whole story of our coun
try—better wages, and in their train edu
cation, enjoyment of the comforts of life,
self-respect, manhood, good citizenship.
Here lies the secret of that vast volume of
immigration constantly pouring from the
OI
ii tflevreig:
jntn
~ne weekly wages of the manufactories
and workshops of this country burdens our
foreign mails, and cause the ocean cable
to throb with the glad news to the loved
ones left behind that money can be saved
to bring them here to this better laud fur
the laborer.
This man was the representative of an
industry whose history in England we
might follow with interest and profit. As
we are asked by the petitions from which
I have quoted, and to some extent by the
bill which is reported, to strika down all
such industries by letting itt the products
of cheap labor, let me quote, at the risk of
being tedious, how England acted when
she was nursing the same industry. I
have been struck in reading a book, not
written upon political, economy, but'to give
the history, political social, and religious
of that remarkable people, the Huguenots,
with the development of various inustries
introduced by them into England. I re
fer now to ttis particular industry in con
nection with the testimony of this silk
weaver. I read from pale 256 of Smiles'
History of the Huguenots :
Another writer, Mr. Samuel Fortrey. describing
the international trade between England and
France in 1863, set forth the great disadvantages
at which the English manufacturers were then
placed, and bow seriously the balance of trade was
against England. Goods to the amount of above
two and a half millions sterling wore annually
im
ported from France, whereas the value of English
goods imported thither did not amount to a mil
lion." "The chief manufactures among us at this
day." said he, "are only woolen ulothes, woolen
stuffs of various sorts, stockings, ribandings, and
perhaps some few silk stuffs, and some other small
things, scarce worth the naming ; and those al
ready mentioned are so decayed and adulterated
that they are almost out of esteem both at home
and abroad."
Of the eff•Jrts to establish the silk in.
dostry, we have this 4ccount :
"The English Government had long envied
France her possession of the silk manufacture,
which gave employment to a large number of her
people and lea. a great source of wealth to the
country. An attempt was made in the reign of
Elizabeth to introduce the manufacture in Eng
land, and it was repeated in the reign of Jam. I.
The king issued instructions to the deputy lieu
tenants of counties that they should require the
landholders to purchase and plant mulberry trees
for the feeding of silkworms: and
for tyigmf, nno to one Illialn Mat
lenge to print a book of instructions for their
guidance. It appears that M. de Verton, Shear de
la Forest, commissioned by tho king, traveled all
over the midland and eastern counties selling mul
berry trees at a low fixed price (six shillings the
hundred) and giving directions as to their cultiva
tion. The corporation of the city of London also
encouraged the first attempts at introducing the
manufacture ; and we find from their records that
in 16119 they admitted to the freedom of the city
one Robert Therie, of Thierry, on account of his
skill and inventions, and as 'being the first in
England who bath made stuffs of silks, the which
was mlttle by the silkworms nourished here in Eng
land:
In a note the manner in which England
treated foreigners who came to carry on
manufictures already established is thus
given in contrast with that :
"The corporation were not alike liberol in other
cases; for we find them, in the same year in which
they admitted Thierry a freeman and citizen, ex
pelling one John Cassell 'for using the trade of art
of twisting worsted yarn, in Bartholomew Within,
in the liberties of the city, ho being no freeman,
but a stranger born, contrary to the custom of the
city. It is therefore thought fit, and so ordered
by this court, that Mr. Chamberlain shall forth
with shut un the shop windows of the said John
Cassell's shop, and shall remove within a mo ith
all his goods, furniture, &c., to other places, which
he promised to do."
England encouraged the establishment
of the manufacture which she had not, but
when a foreigner came to establish one
that she had, she drove him out and shut
up his shop. How did she encourage hers ?
I read from page 260 :
To protect the English manufactures, the import
duties on French silks were at first trebled. In
11192, five years after the revocation, the inanufae
tners of lustrings and alamotle silks were incorpo
rated by charter, under the name of the Royal
Lustring Company ; shortly after which they ob
tained from Parliament an act entirely prohibiting
the importation of foreign goods of like sorts.
Strange to say, one of the grounds on which they
claimed this degree of protection was that the man
ufacture of these articles in England had now
reached a greater degree of perfection than attain
ed by foreigners, a reason which ought to have ren
dered them independent of all legislative inter-
f:renco in their favor. Certain it is, however, that,
by the end of the century, the French manufac
tures in England were not only able to supply
the whole of the English demand, but to export
considerable quantities of their ,goods to those
countries which France had formerly supplied."
There is the doctrine of protection and
its results, a home market supplied and a
surplus for export. Thus I might proceed
to enumerate the many new industries the
Huguenots introduced in England, the
histories of which all speak in the same
language; but I forbear. Having howev
er, introduced the subject with a quotation
from Mr. Well's report, let me close it
with one from an equally eminent free
trader, showing not only his discernment
of the truth that it is a labor question we
are dealing with, but that at this peculiar
juncture of our affairs we cannot with safe
ty or justice to the industrial interests of
the country reduce our tariff duties. I
quote from the speech of Mr. Opdyke.
of New York, in the proceedings of the
National Board of Trade, held in St. Louis
in December last, in which he said :
" It is not my purpose to occupy the attention of the
Load lint a few moments in stating my general views on
this subject. It is proper that I eLould declare, at the
of free . tisle as those of an * y other citizen of the limited
Staten. I believe, after a very thorough examination of
the whole theory and pntet.ce of protection, that it is a
fallacy, and injurious to the material interests of any
country which adopt it. [AppLose.) I believe its ulti
mate effect be exprevsed in the aphorism, to misdirect
and waste the productive energies of the country that
adopts the policy.
•`Atter laving'snada that clear, positive and sincere de
claration, I desire to add that I am, the the present, entire
ly opposed to any change in the mriff. There may seem
to be a contradiction in that, but to my mind both posi e,
tions are entirely sound. As has been said by many mem
bers of this body. including myself, the present condition
of our currency is an offset to almost any tariff of duties
levied by our Government, as I will explain in a very few
words
Ae I said before, and evinced by the enhanced cost of
labor, or machinery, of raw material, and of everything in
this country, the manufacturer cannot to-day product, his
finished articles short of an increased cost of at least sixty
per cent. over what they cost before the issue of our irre
deemable piper money. The Importers, it class of which
I hare always belonged myself until recently—the impor- ,
ter to-day can go abroad and buy .his manufactured pro
ducts for gold. at the value of gold now, and, save the
slightly increased coat of production, he can buy at the
ea,oe cost virtually as before we adopted our paper-money
currency. Ile brings his imports to our custom-houses
and pays an average tlnty of fifty per cent. on the foreign
cost in gold Both the cost abroad and the duty paid here
are paid in gold. lie sells these COM7llo4iitiC3 for currency
and takes his currency and buys the gold at feu or eleven
Tor cent. premium, toper the foteign cost sad the duty.
herefore, he can import to-day within ten per cont. as
cheaply as he could import before the scar. The manu
facturer, as I have said, cannot produce his finished com
mdities short of an increased cost, of about sixty per
cent You will readily p rceivr, therefore, that the con
sequence is, that tide ho.ff of duties, overag.ing about flf.y
per cent. is simply an onset la the die:ids - wage created by
the present anomalous condition of our currency, or, rath
er, the anomaly which extsts of forty or fifty per cent.
difference between the appreciation of labor and the ap
preciation of gold.'
Mr. Opdyke has struck the fact to which
the country must give heed, and it is this:
gold went up during the war; labor went
up with it; commodities went up also;
but from two hundred and eighty-seven
which it reached, gold has fallen to ten
per cent. premium; commodities have fall
en aLo ; but while gold and commodities
have fallen, labor has not followed them in
the fall; and, air, it will not follow them.
What Mr. Opdyke calls "the anomaly which
exists of forty or fifty per cent. difference
between the appreciation of labor and the
appreciation of gold" will continue so long
as to lose its character as an anomaly. La
bor will never recede to the figure at which
it could be employed in former times, even
when our currency shall be again upon a
specie basis, unless we yield to the clamor
for free trade, deluge our market with for
eign goods, and thereby close our mann
fral its accustomed
into unaccustomed Clam:Ai, and — EcTmper it
to accept employment at such wages as
will enable capital to compete with the
product of the labor of Europe. As the
majority of our people are in one form or
another laborers, and laborers for wages,
such a calamity, if it come at all, cannot
long endure where the ballot is universal.
Education has accomplished too much for
that. In all our northern States the free-
school systems have been in operation for
a generation ; in some longer. Last year
Penns) lvania spent over eight million dol
lars for educational purposes. The people
in the southern States are demanding ed
ucation. Property is, it is true, in many
instances, rebelling against the tax neces
sary to give it, but it will be given, and
what will be the result ? Just what it is
where the b Is of a generation ago are :lc=
tive men on the theatre of life now. Their
fathers may have gone to their daily toil
for fifty cents a day, and retired at night
to rest, passing the abodes of wealth and
luxury and failing to reason out, or per
haps not starting the inquiry, whether that
halt' dollar was a fair divide of the product
of their toil as between capital and labor.
But the boy who, in 1836 or 1840, was a
connuon,school scholar and has been read
ing the daily newspaper ever since, is not
only a worker but a thinker. If' he leaves
his toil at the Battery in New York with
his one dollar and a half or two dollars for
his day's work in his pocket, and passes up
Broadway to his home, as he goes by the
Astor House or the Fifth Avenue Hotel,
the thought strikes him that• there is, per
haps, some adjustment needed of the rela
tions between capital and labor when he
reflects that his employer lives in the ho
tel at an expense for himself alone of from
five to ten dollars per d iy upon the products
of that toil which maintains a family upon
one dollar and a half or two dollars per day.
I do not say the disparity is in itself a
wrong to be remedied by our legislation,
but it exists, and intelligent labor is con
sidering it, and we must meet it; and
how ? By paying such wages as will en
live comfortably with his family, to clothe
them decently, feed them plentifully, and
furnish them books, and spare their labor
in their younger years so that they may
go to school and fit themselves for the du
ties of citizenship and the struggle of life.
In this way only can we make labor con
tented and capital secure.
Mr. President, this country cannot af
ford cheap labor, for it implies want, pri
vation, ignorance, and discontent. Our
form of government demands, and it is our
duty to pursue the policy which will se
cure virtuous, educated, intelligent, useful.
and contented citizens. I will not proceed
to draw the contrast which exists between
the well-fed. and comfortable laborer and
his family here, and the ill-fed, and discon i
tented laborer in European countries. The
tables of wages I have given must suffice
to suggest the consequences which follow
from them.
It is the labor question I present. It is
not the interest of capital that are involv
ed so much as those of labor. Capital can
generally take care of itself. If a man
ufactory stops t.-day, the product of
past labor in the hands of the prop
rietors wild enable them to live through
the period of depression, but the work
men have as a general rule no such
dependence, and when the little store
is gone, if new employment cannot be
found, the alternative is distress or work
at lower wages.
You are asked then to reduce duties.
What for, if not that foreign products may
be imported at lower prices and take the
place of domestic manufactures 7 Look
at the results. The duty on pig iron was
reduced two dollars per ton in July, 1870,
going into effect January 1, 1871, and we
were told "that will take that much off the
NO. 13.
price ; that much per ton will be saved to
the consumer, and no longer go into
the hands of pig iron monopolists. How
was the prediction verified r The Secre
tary of the Treasury tells us that in the
first six months of 1871 there was an in
crease in the importation of pig iron of
one hundred and twenty per cent. as com
pared with the first six months of 1870.
The value of pig iron entered for consump
tion from June 30, to December 31, 1870,
was 81,211.322 ; from December 31, to
July 1, 1871, $2,046,311. The tons im
ported in 1870, were 157,215, and in eight
months of 1871, 1h8,660. or more than
for the whole year of 1870.
Now, how as to price ? When that duly was
reduced it was selling at from $3O to $32 or
$32 to $34 per ton,
according to quality. To
day it is selling at from $4O to $42 and from
$42 to $44 for the same qualities. Consult the
markets in New York, Pittsburg, Philadel
phia, and Boston—l have the quotations here,
but will not take the time to read them—and
you will find that the promised reduction of
$2 a ton to the people has resulted in an in
crease of from eight to ten dollars per ton.
That decrease of duty prevented compet Con
at home. Foreign demand put up the price.
We could not supply the additional demane
proach to free trade. That I put as — a practi
cal answer to the allegation in the free traders
petition that the people pay the additional
duty to the manufacturers instead of into the
Treasury. If that be the result of free trade
the people will determine for themselves
which they prefer—pig iron reduced by cam
petition, or pig iron put up to $44 per ton by
a free trade theory carried into practice by a
reduction of the tariff. By reducing the duty
$2 a ton, they succeeded in putting up the
price from eight or ten dollars.
,This experience in pig iron, the scape-goat
upon which free-traders pile all the sins of
protection. serves as a practical refutation of
their theories as to all protected interests.
So I might proceed with coal. It is urged
that the duty of $1 25 per ton on bituminous
coal is added to the cost, and that every ton
of either bit.prninous or anthracite consumed
in the country pays thatadditional $1 25. Such
is the allegation of this free-trade petition.. Lot
me state now the enormity of the proposition.
Look at the statistics in regard to coal. The
Coal Register for 1871 shows that the annual
product of 1870 was, anthracite sent to market,
15,368,437 tons; home consumption, 3,847,876
tons, making a total of 19,211,313 tons of an
thracite. Of bituminous coal there were, with
out giving the details, 14,968,40 tons making
the whole product of coal for that year 34,179.-
778 tons. The free-traders argue that the
people paid to the producers of coal, under the
system of duties, about forty two million dol
lars of tribute, urging that that duty of $1 25
was paid upon every ton. If this were so,
there would bo reason for complaint; but let
us see whether it is true or not. In the year
that tariff bill went into effect-1866-6xingthe
duty at $1 25, the average price ofbitaminous
coal was $8 5 per ton in Boston, and of an•
thracite in Philadelphia was $5 80 per ton.
have before me the price of coal in New York
on the 31st of January last, as follows
"New YORK January 3l.
"One hundred and twenty thousand tons of
Scranton coal were sold at auction to day. The
following prices obtained show a considerable de
dine from last month lump coal 8,000 tons $3 35
to $3 42$ ; steamboat, 9000 tons at $3 70 to $3 85 ;
grgte• ' 19,000 tons at $3 55 to $3 75; egg, MOH
at .9345 to 93 60 ; stone, 50,000 tons at 94 05 to
94 17i ; chestnut, 16,000 tons at $3 30 to $3 45."
The average price of bituminous coal in
Boston for the year 1871 was $6 54. These
figures speak for themselves as to the duty
increasing prices.
• • • •
But I wish now to come to the other point
about the $1 25 that is put on every ton. Mr.
President, I have a rropospinn to make on
strnject; There before me the coat of
mining bituminous coal, and it is upon that the
duty exists. The mining cost seventy cents
per ton ; it takes twenty-five cents a ton to pay
the other expenses of surperintendence, cars,
fie., and twenty-five cents a ton is paid for
royalty, making $1 20 as the cost of the coal
at the mouth of the mine. It is now alleged
that $1 25 is added to that for the produce
'upon every ton that is taken to market. Now,
sir, if this Free-Trade League be the benevo
lent organization which it pretends to be, if it
wishes to relieve the people of this country from
this oppressive taxon., ~ I feel authorized by
the statements of responsible men who are in
the bituminous coal business to say that every
ton of bitum,naus coal mined in the Cumber
land region, in the Broad Top reg on, in the
Alleghany mountain region, in the valley of
the Monongahela and the Ohio, will be deliv
ered at the month of the mine to the Free-
Trade League, if they take the contract for
the whole of it for the year 1872, at $1 50 per
ton. Take the cost of $l2O at the mouth of
the mine ; take the cost of transportation, fix
it at the market price at Philadelphia, at New
York, at Boston, or at any other point, and
no room is left for this $1 25 that these peti
tions allege is paid by the consumers to the
producers. The producers themselves will
deliver the coal at the mouth of the mine at
the price of $1 50 per ton, being just thirty
cents over the cost of mining, royalty, and
superintendence, leaving the rest for taxes,
accidents, and contingencies. There is an op
portunity for the Free-Trade League to give
praitical effect to its alleged benevolent feel
ings toward the tax-payers of this country.
No I might go on with every article in this
bill; but I will not do so. You may take
them all up ; you may take up lumber, pig
lead. rice, cotton, and woolens, and other
articles that are in this bill, and upon . which
it is proposed to reduce the .Ntaettirtladdia
histo . ry Of all of them shows that the
lions of duties, not excepting those on woolens,
or cotton, or iron or steel, gives to the people
to-day those products cheaper than they were
in 1860, before the opening of the war. It is
the competition that brings them down. What
is there in this cry of "monopoly?" They
want the duty off for the purpose of bringing
in foreign goods. They say that or manu
facturers have a monopoly, and that when
they have monopoly they put up the price; but
the theory which they advocate is to destroy
our own manufactories, stop them, and give
the foreign manufacturer a monopoly, thus
making a distinction between American hu
man nature and British human nature, casting
VaYiltrettifiiptrderttlirtne 'Brant vaantr- --
facturer, which neither his nature nor his his
tory has ever deserved.
Sir, he entered into the war against free
labor in this country. We fought against his
Alabamas on the sea and the southern foe of
free labor on the land, and having conquered
on the sea and on the land, are we to surren
der to him now and place the industries ofonr
country at his mercy, rather than in the - hands
of our own citizens, even if that were the
choice ? Is it true that if American manufac
turers commanded the market they would
oppress and rob their fellow citizent? It is
true that if the British manufacturer com
mended the market he would be so benevolent
as to give them goods at first cost? No, Mr.
President, there is nothing in it but this
question of labor. All o in' reds
and protective, however ey may reason, re
veal, if closely scrutinized, that the whole
question is one of labor.
I have here a very interesting letter written
to me by a venerable correspondent on this
subject, a man of larger intelligence and lib
eral views, in which he gives his experience,
from 1812 down to the present time, in regard
to the various troubles and revulsions of 1837,
1847, and 1957. Without quoting him in fall,
but glad to add the testimony of one who has
lived an active business life for more than half
a century to the knowledge of those who are
now willing to let well enough alone, I adopt
his language to express my own opinions. He
says:
"In the compromise act 0f1533 we had an illustration of
the working of a percentage reduction to duties on 1..
ports and of its disastrous requite, and, Limy jurlAme.,,e
should pause fur a long while before trying it over again.
"Although our present tariff is in the main highly pro
tective, it is not in any fair sows at all prohibit. ry. Our
importations are larger than over belore, our laboring
people and artisans aid! sorts have foil employment at
good e.g.; they are well chid, well housed; their chil
dren receiving the benefits of education, and within the
r.rcle of my observation which in pretty large one,l do not
find any who complain of the taxation paid under the tar
iff. Hot pi esant it ra . ses too much revenue, increase the
free list *dill fur are by . including in it tea and coffee,
which are the necessar.ea, not the litxurleF,of the poor and
the laboring. The new movememt for so-called revenue
reformer* *tomes chiefly fromavowed free-tmdersand from
mannfitcturers whose oststill.hment have been built np by
protection, but who now feel so strong that they think
thom•elves able to hear foreign cntupetition, and de-ire to
shut out all others teem building mills Le, -.here they
(Concluded on fourth page.)