FEB. 1, 1832.] 30 galls. molasses, (act 1828,) 3.00 075 0 90 4 lbs. Hyson tea, do, 1 60 0 40 1 28 8 lbs. Souchong, do. 2 00 0.50 1 44 20 yds. bombasin, 1 00 0 25 0 42 15 bush. salt (act 1828) 3 00 0 75/ 1 80 6 galls. wine, instead The Tariff. 0 22 0 33 0 10 0 45 0 37 0 12 0 6 0 2 0 11 0 62 0 15 0 50 Free. [SENATE. were just commencing the business, and were investing their capital in purchasing and clearing the lands, in buying slaves, in erecting the houses and necessary appendages. It is no secret in the Eastern States, that immense fortunes have been made by these planters in the course of a few years: the planters themselves have returned and told us so. The price of sugar has since fallen; and it is gravely urged that this fall of price has been a consequence of the protection furnished by the tariff. There has been no tariff which has protected cotton for several years; and the price of cotton has been depressed equal to that of sugar. How does it happen, if the tariff on sugar is encouraging the growth of sugar in Louisiana and Florida, that twice the quantity of foreign sugar was imported into the United States in the year 1830, that was imported in the year preceding, as is shown by the returns reported from the Treasury Department? Sugar has become an article of consumption scarcely less alimentary than flour or rice: twenty years ago, in many places, foreign sugar was used as an article of luxury. It is of the first importance that it should come cheap to the consumer; and the consumer ought not to pay an extra tax for its protection, when it is produced in such abundance in so many places, where it is readily exchanged for many of the agricultural products of the Middle, Western, and Eastern States. There is no conceivable reason why I have calculated the duty on the original cost, and add- the small farmers and mechanics, the working men of the ed an advance of twenty-five per cent. on that duty, as United States, should pay a tax of fifty per cent., with the profits of the wholesale and retail dealer; for it should twenty-five cent. added as the profit of the vender, for the be kept in mind that the dealers charge and receive as protection of the rich planter of Louisiana. It has been much advance on the duties paid to the Government, as said that the people of the United States might afford to on the cost and charges. By this table, it will be seen hire all the slaves employed in the cultivation of sugar in that the farmer pays on twenty-eight articles a tax of Louisiana and Florida, at some one hundred and fifty dol$102 65, whereas, by the tariff of 1790, he would have to lars per annum a head, to do nothing, so they could be repay on the same articles only $28 99. These twenty- lieved from the tax on foreign sugar. eight articles are selected from several hundred enumerated articles on which duties are paid, many of which are articles of necessity. It is believed, if some exceed, others fall below the amount used and consumed by families that are able to pay for them. To those in affluent circumstances, the list would be much extended. $82 13 $20 52 0 15 0 4 0 25 04 $23 32 $5 67 The Senator from Kentucky complains of the "scandalous violations" of the tariff law: he says, "false invoices are made as to woollens, and the classification into minimums is constantly eluded;" and inquires "whether it be not practicable to arrest this illegitimate course of trade." He complains that the valuation is made in foreign Looking minutely into the tariff of duties, the consumer, countries, and says this kind of valuation is an anomalythe man of limited income, is enabled to see what is other that "seven-eighths of the importation of woollens into wise invisible-to see why, with all his efforts and his in- the port of New York, where more is received than in all dustry, he is continually becoming lessened in his means. the other ports of the United States together," are in the If the farmer was required, when he purchased a new hands of the foreigner. A committee of the late tariff ploughshare, to count out and pay as a separate tax convention charges these frauds on "the American oppoeighty-seven and one-half cents; a crowbar, thirty-five nents of the protective system, who (they say) have encents; a shovel, fifteen cents; a log chain, sixty cents; a cart deavored to render that law as odious as possible; in which tire, two to three dollars; a set of harrow teeth, $1 50 to they have received material aid from those foreigners $2; a yard of coarse woollen cloth, from one to two dollars; who are extensively engaged in importing from the agents for every pound of brown sugar, four cents; or, if the tax- of foreign manufacturers in this city," viz. New York. gatherer should go into the blacksmith's, or other me- I am little disposed to bandy words with the American chanic's shop, and demand another amount equal to the system advocates; but, so far as my knowledge extends, first cost of all the iron and steel, or other raw material these gentlemen are much more engaged in purchasing, necessary to carry on his business, could it be supposed importing, and vending foreign woollens, than the oppohe would cheerfully bear this burden without complaint? nents of the high tariff. It is believed there is not in the When the artisan should further consider that the effect city of Boston a dealer in woollens, interested in the large of this tax on the raw material directly tended to take woollen manufactories, who does not sell more British than the business out of his own, and place it in the hands of American cloths. Come this evil from what source it may, foreigners, who, not being taxed for the raw material, it is an evil that must exist whenever the tax on imports is could furnish the manufactured article much cheaper, so high as to be oppressive. To the other calamities of the would be thank you that the tax was imposed on him, not forcing system, we may add its demoralizing effect on the for the purpose of necessary revenue, but for "protection?" whole trading community. Such enormous duties as the I have mentioned the article of brown sugar, which is tariff on woollens imposes, furnish a strong temptation to an but of recent production in the United States, and is now evasion of the laws by false swearing, and all the arts of produced only in quantities in the State of Louisiana and the practised smuggler. The evasions at New York are the Territory of Florida. In 1790, when the first cost of not the worst feature in this odious business. Entire carthis article in the West India islands was probably three goes of British goods are imported by way of the river times as much as it now is, the duty was only one cent and St. Lawrence, for the purpose of being smuggled into the one-half per pound; since 1816, it has been three cents United States; and I state what I do know, when I say that per pound. It was raised at that time with the view to the professed friends of the American system in my section of temporary encouragement of the Louisiana planters, who the country are deeply engaged in this Canada trade. I SENATE.] The Tariff. [FEB. 1, 1832. know it, sir, because these men journey to and from Ca- the whole interior frontier with a cordon of armed men, nada several times in a year, and because they hate and and goods will come, as they were brought during the avoid custom-house officers quite as much as men of the embargo and war, from depots kept up at Halifax, St. same party hated and avoided custom-house officers du- John's, and St. Andrews; they will be there imported from ring the late war with Great Britain. England by American merchants, the professed friends of the "system and the whole sytem;" and they will probably find, as the same class of men found fifteen and twenty years ago, judges who will wrest the goods from the fangs of your law: certain they will never want able lawyers, ready to interpose legal quibbles to amerce in heavy damages those faithful officers who honestly aim to execute the laws. Since I came into the Senate this morning, my attention has been drawn to the memorial yesterday laid on your table of two hundred and seventy-six journeymen tailors of Philadelphia-that city which is the very focus of the protective tariff. The facts and inferences of this memorial are so apposite to my present object, that I must ask liberty to read a few paragraphs from it. And it should be recollected that these complaints come not from men who have frequently been in the habit of memorializing Congress, but from laboring men, in humble life, who surely ought not, on that account, to be turned off without a hearing! Permit me, sir, to read an extract from a letter I received since I arrived here, dated December 7, 1831, from a member of the Legislature of New Hampshire, living in that part of the State bordering on the Canada line. "At the time our Legislature was in session last June, I did not even dream that a great part of the broadcloths I saw in the stores, &c. were smuggled from Canada; but, sir, I have no doubt of the fact; and from circumstances and facts daily coming to light, there is a gang of smugglers who have been running goods through this country to Boston, Hartford, Concord, Portsmouth, Portland, &c. for eight or ten months past, and perhaps twice that length of time, and to a very considerable amount, as they convey three and four thousand dollars worth of cloths and nutmegs at a load, and frequently two and three loads have been know to pass this place in a night." Another letter, subscribed by five gentlemen of veracity and respectability, living in a town more central in New Hampshire, under date of December 13, 1831, says: "Every evidence short of absolute certainty is in our possession that smuggled goods are frequently, and to a large amount, carried through this village, by persons long since suspected, and now almost known to be engaged in that illicit traffic." After giving a history of the rise and progress, from low to high duties, on woollen cloths, and the effects of these high duties in depressing their business, the memorialists say: "The facilities of smuggling ready made clothes, and the immense advantages resulting from it to those who can avail themselves of it, hold out temptations too strong to These letters, which furnish no new information to me, be resisted by the great bulk of the community; and many were written at a time when the winter sleighing had set of us know the fact, that foreign made coats, and other in, affording facilities for rapid transport to and from Ca- garments, are now worn by the former customers of our nada. As the whole frontier lies open, those who have employers, who have found agents of foreign tailors willong pursued this illegal trade know well how to avoid the ling to supply them at a trifle more than the European few officers of the customs established at the different prices. A coat, which is here charged at $25, can be had points. It is believed that not one case in a hundred is in London for $15, whilst one, for which our employers are detected; and it has been confidently asserted and pub-obliged to charge $35, can be had for £5 5, or $23 33. lished, that insurance at the rate of fifteen per cent. on The facility and cheapness of an intercourse with Canada, the original cost of the goods is readily procured against and the impossibility of closely watching the crews of vesall risk of their arrest while on the way from Montreal scls and passengers who come from Europe, present to the shelves of the woollen dealer in the United States. insurmountable barriers to any efficient system for preThe old offenders, who learned their trade during the venting smuggling; and we are fearful that, if the present war with Great Britain, in which they were then protected high duties are persevered in, smuggling will be so well by some of the State authorities, in most instances prefer established, that not even a reduction of duties to one-half the "protection" which their own shrewdness and ma- would be sufficient to break it up. nagement will give their goods, rather than the " "protect- "But it is not from smuggling alone that your petitioning duty" of fifteen per cent. paid in the shape of insurers anticipate an annual decrease of their business, under ance on smuggling. They are almost to a man strong the present high rates of duty upon woollen cloths. advocates for the American system, as well they may be; dy made clothing, of particular qualities, viz. that which for under the "protection" which this system affords is made of cloth upon which the highest rates of duty are them, a single trip to Montreal will put more "money in charged, can be imported and sold, after paying the duty their purse," at the expense of the Government and of of fifty per cent., chicaper than it can be made in this counthe honest manufacturer, than they would gain in a whole try. The inevitable effect of this must be, to lead to exyear from any honest calling. tensive importations of ready made clothing from Europe, Another method may be here mentioned of evasion of where labor is cheaper, not only on account of the great dutics. The gentlemen traders who have intercourse with competition amongst laborers, but on account of the very Canada, at each journey they take, come out with one or low prices at which the laborers are enabled to clothe more suits; pantaloons, vest, coat, surtout, and cloak, ready themselves and families. Rea made, costing, for a full suit of the best broadcloth, less "In thus representing our grievances, we cannot avoid than a hundred dollars, and worth, when brought in, one bringing into view of your honorable bodies the condition hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars. Circular bills of a very extensive and worthy class, who, from their sex, of prices, with directions how to take the measure, to be transmitted through the post office, and inviting orders, and engaging that entire suits of clothing shall be forwarded and delivered--yes, delivered, at the Montreal prices, have been seen in this city. are prevented from addressing you. We mean the tailoresses of our city, who perform the light work of the trade. For several years past, this extensive class of females have felt the injury resulting from diminished employment, and are now in a state of extreme suffering in con Were it possible to do away the evils of fraudulent in- sequence thereof. voices at New York, and secure the whole amount of duty The price of cloth is kept up by the high duties, so at the real value; if the evil be as great as is represented as to diminish the number of garments which people can by the friends of high duties, the channel of fraud will afford to wear, or to oblige families whose means are liinevitably take a worse direction. The woollen goods mited to make them up themselves, and thus deprive of a will then come direct from the British provinces by water; job the tailoresses who would otherwise have been emand armed men will be unable to keep them out. Line ployed. The effect of high prices upon the demand for FEB. 1, 1832.] The Tariff. [SENATE. clothing is well known to our profession. We have it upon tons of iron; in New Jersey there were seventy-nine forges the authority of one of our principal merchant tailors, and eight furnaces; and in Maryland, and most of the who has carried on business in this city for upwards of forty other States, iron works were very numerous, although years, that, between the years 1790 and 1797, when a the details were not so well known. Mr. Coxe estimated fashionable coat was furnished at 18 to 19 dollars, that the quantity of iron then consumed in nails and spikes at class of customers who now purchase one or two coats in 4,000,000 pounds, of which 1,800,000 only were imported, a year, used then to purchase from two to four; and the remainder being made at home." there cannot be a doubt that a reduction of the duties upon every species of woollen manufacture would greatly increase the demand for the labor of journeymen tailors and tailoresses, and, at the same time, benefit all classes, by diminishing the price of clothing. "In conclusion, your petitioners are fully convinced that a perseverance in the present policy will make their condition worse and worse; and they respectfully solicit your honorable bodies to take their case into serious consideration, and reduce the duty to the rate at which it stood by the law of 1816, that is, twenty-five per cent. ad valorem upon woollen cloths." factures. Having no authentic account from 1794 to 1810, when the marshals were directed, while taking the census, to take also an account of the manufacturing establishments, these returns, although imperfect, are next given in the exposition: "According to these returns, there were in the United States, in the year 1810, one hundred and fifty-three iron furnaces, and three hundred and thirty forges; the former making 53,908 tons of metal, and the latter 24,541 tons of bar iron. As it required 36,811 tons of pig metal, or one-third more, to make the 24,541 tons of bar iron, there would only remain 17,697 tons of pigs and castings; in The course of my remarks has led to a digression from other words, the actual production of iron, both wrought the direct point at issue, which was, that the tariff laws of and cast, was 42,238 tons. The duties imposed on all 1824 and 1828 had been of no essential benefit to manu-descriptions of imported iron, up to the year 1810, had not got beyond fifteen per cent. ad valorem, with the If it be contended that the present flourishing state of exception of the two and a half per cent. duty, known as manufactures is owing to the protection of these tariff the Mediterranean fund, which continued during, and for laws, I answer that the articles produced in this country, some time subsequent to, the war with Tripoli. This which have been protected by the lowest duties, are at increase of duties had been progressive. The act of July this time in quite as flourishing and prosperous condition 4, 1789, commenced with seven and a half per cent. ad as those which have had the protection of the highest du- valorem, at which it remained until 1792; it was then inties. Take the following, all of which are taxed at a duty creased to ten per cent. ad valorem. Under this scale of of 30 per cent., and under, down to 12, viz. buttons, revenue duties, the manufacture of American iron had hats, cabinet wares, manufactures of wood, clocks, manu-grown up to the extent stated; and the capital employed factures of brass, brass in plates, earthen and stone wares, in the establishments necessary for its production, it is gold and silver watches, looking glasses, glass knobs, gilt well known, yielded fair and liberal profits. Some of the wares, jewelry and paste work, leather, manufactures of largest fortunes in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jerbrass, copper, iron, led, pewter, steel, and tin, not other-sey, were acquired by iron masters during this period." wise enumerated, millinery of every kind, ready made, The exposition then goes on to give various estimates nitre, spermaceti oil, whale oil, ochre, painters' colors, of the quantity of iron manufactured at the present time, printing types, quills, saddles and bridles, silk shoes, lea- and presents, as nearest the truth, the following: ther shoes, snuffs, silks, cotton stockings, twine. The "The author of the article Iron,' in the Encyclopædia duties on these articles range, as I have said, from 30 Americana, published during the present year, expressly down to 12 per cent. Many of them are successfully states that the total annual production of this metal in the manufactured in this country, and have been for years, be- United States cannot be estimated beyond 50,000 tons."" fore high duties existed. If the duties were prospec- Noticing still further the testimony made by the iron tively reduced on all of them down to 20, 15, and 10 per masters, before a committee of Congress, in 1828, the cent., it is my firm belief-and this belief is confirmed by exposition says: past experience--that the domestic manufacture would not at all be interfered with by foreign competition. "Have we not then a right to infer from this analysis of the testimony of these iron masters, that, so far from As a contrast to the foregoing comparatively moderate there having been any very great increase in the annual duties, let us turn to the duties on iron in an unmanufac-production of iron, from the year 1818 to the year 1828, tured state, taxed more than one hundred per cent.; on it is quite doubtful whether as much iron of every descripwool, and manufactures of wool, taxed from fifty to tion was manufactured during the latter as the former more than two hundred per cent., and see what are period?" 66 already, and what inevitably must be, the effects of the The exposition proceeds: "What better evidence then can be produced, than the statement just given of the unequal and oppressive operation of the present high duty on raw iron, when compared with that imposed on the importation of the various foreign manufactures of the same metal. The effect of this part of the tariff system of protection has And first as to the iron duty. After mentioning that been to almost put a stop to all further competition beiron was manufactured in this country previous to the re-tween the domestic and foreign manufactures of hardware volution, in large quantities, furnishing, besides the do- and ironmongery, and to cause many other articles of iron mestic supply, more than 7,000 tons annually for export- which had previously thereto been made at home by our ation, the exposition proceeds: smiths, to be manufactured abroad; and, instead of encou"In the year 1784, before duties were hardly known raging and protecting this important branch of domestic on imports, the annual production of iron in the United industry, has retarded the fair and natural growth of every States was extending vigorously. According to Mr. Coxe, branch of the smithing business, diminished the employin his View of the United States, published in 1794, there ment, and reduced the wages and profits of the valuable were, in Massachusetts alone, seventy-six iron works; Vir- class of the American artisans actually engaged in, and deginia made above 5,300 tons of iron; in Pennsylvania pendent on it for their support.' there were sixteen furnaces and thirty-seven large forges, Referring to the petition of the blacksmiths to Congress, besides slitting and rolling mills, that cut and rolled 1,500 at the three last sessions, the author says: SENATE.] The Tariff. [FEB. 1, 1832. "Their last memorial is referred to as containing a most of a claim for bounties or protection of any kind; their able and conclusive exposition of both the folly and enterprise and industry, according to their own theory, iniquity of those provisions of the tariffs of 1816, 1824, and require no stimulus from the Legislature to quicken their 1828, which relate to iron and its manufactures. The development, and give them permanence and stability. statements and reasonings of this document have not been They can have no foreign competitors in the markets of met or refuted by the iron masters in their memorial to the interior; and to bring their raw iron into the markets Congress, intended as a reply to it; and, in our opinion, of the seaboard, requires much greater duties than even cannot be answered." the exorbitant ones now imposed, if such high duties could ever prove more than nominal. The Senator from New Jersey, however, has attempted an answer, which, I must confess, was not very clear to "The taxes now imposed on the American people, as me. When the smiths in England can procure as much consumers of iron, although apparently inconsiderable in iron for $22 22, as will cost the American smiths $90; reference to each individual, amount to more than four and when a ton of fryingpans can be imported from Eng-millions of dollars per annum. This is undoubtedly a land for $96 24, while a ton of sheet iron from which they heavy burden; but it is not the only evil it inflicts. The are made, in consequence of the duty, cannot be imported tax, at the same time, prevents the American smith, or for less than $155, it must be a sinister argument which can prove that the tariff protects American blacksmiths. The argument of the Senator is best answered by the memorial of merchants, manufacturers, &c. of Boston, signed by an honorable Senator from Massachusetts, and supported by him in a speech in Faneuil Hall, in the year 1820. That memorial says: other worker in iron, from extending his business and increasing his wages and profits, and denies him the opportunity of a fair and equal competition with his foreign rival at Birmingham or Sheffield; for it deprives the former of the cheap raw material, exclusively possessed by the latter, and by means of which the American workman could supply his own market on the same if not better terms. "The impost on iron is particularly injurious to indus- By throwing the market open to foreign competition, try. The article is required for the machines of manu- the consumption of iron would certainly be doubled, perfactures themselves, for all the implements of agriculture, haps quadrupled, give employment to one hundred and all the tools of the mechanic arts, and for nails, of which fifty thousand blacksmiths, the class of artisans always 6,000 tons are annually made, and chiefly from foreign most wanted, either in peace or war, in every country, iron, and which are one of the very few of our manufac- and, if done by the hand, transfer the labor now performed tures now exported. A far greater number of men are by fifty thousand British smiths to our own fellow-citizens now employed in converting this material into articles of in American workshops. For such is the disproportion of use, than in extracting it from the ore; and surely the the duty or imported hardware, in comparison with that interests of the many ought not to be sacrificed by that of imposed on raw iron, as we have already remarked, that the few." the tariff acts of the United States afford bounties sufficient actually to give employment to the above mentioned number of smiths in Britain, instead of the same number of American citizens. Since 1820, (says an eminent merchant of Boston,) the ratio of taxation by the increase of duty, and fall of iron abroad, has been nearly double. I will now continue the quotations from the exposition. Alluding to the coking process of manufacturing iron in England, for which charcoal only is a substitute in this country, it requiring one hundred and twenty acres of woodland to produce the same iron here, that in England, by the coking process, may be obtained from less than half an acre of Staffordshire main coal, the author says: "It is not possible, therefore, by the present mode of smelting iron, by charcoal and the hammer, to obtain the supply of iron required by the United States." "Such is the ridiculous effect of the present adjustment of the duty between hardware and bar iron, that many descriptions of hardware, subject to the duty of twentyfive per cent. ad valorem, are actually imported at a lower cost than the price of the raw iron from which the same articles are manufactured." "If the present duties be not speedily reduced, horse shoes and every other article, manufactured in whole or in part, not specified in the tariff laws, will, one after the other, be introduced. The blades of knives and prongs of forks are actually forged in England, and imported to be finished here; keys to have the wards cut out and finished, and parts of shovels, &c. Wheel tire can be imported for fortyfour dollars and seventeen cents a ton, whilst the bar iron of which it is made costs, in this market, from eighty to ninety dollars a ton. A ton of imported knitting needles costs two hundred and forty-six dollars and thirty-seven cents; a ton of the wire from which they are made, duty included, three hundred and eighty-nine dollars." To show that the manufacture of iron may be successfully pursued without the aid of heavy duties, I read from this exposition again: "The old process of charcoal, and the hammer, is the only one known, and the most perfect indifference has prevailed with regard to every improvement; and we have the evidence of the iron masters themselves, of their unwillingness to enter into competition with any economical or more perfect form of making iron, in their recent opposition to a company about to be formed in Pennsylvania to make iron by the coking process. It may, with perfect truth, be asserted that the tariffs of 1824 and 1828, so far from improving the manufacture of iron in the United States, have only had the effect, by removing further competition, of deadening invention, discouraging ingenuity, and actually leaving the American iron masters far behind their European brethren in the same branch of industry. As long as they are secured in the partial possession of the same market, they will make no further efforts, but continue the same rude and imperfect machinery and process, and near Long Point, on the shore of Lake Erie, in Upwhich have been wholly abandoned in England. In a per Canada, American emigrants, from the State of New word, if it be intended to advance as well as protect Ame-York, have erected large furnaces that make pig iron, rican industry, restrictions and impositions on imported stoves, machinery, and hollow ware. These castings, we foreign iron must be given up." are informed by one of the proprietors of these establish "Extensive iron works, for castings of all descriptions, have been in uninterrupted and successful operation at Trois Rivières, and other places in Lower Canada, for upwards of a hundred years. Within the last ten years, at In relation to the iron masters of the interior, the same ments, amounted, during the last year, (1831,) to the sum author, after remarking that the cost of transportation of thirty thousand dollars, and yield a handsome profit, from the seaboard to Pittsburg is more than two hundred although the duty on pig and bar iron, imported into the per cent. on the first cost of iron imported from Great province from Britain, is only seven and a half per cent. Britain, says: ad valorem, according to the Quebec table of duties now "The iron masters of the interior have not the shadow lying before us." Take, on the contrary, another foreign sample, as the effect of high duties, furnished by a Boston merchant, as extracted from the Edinburgh Review: [SENATE. and charged under the four dollar minimum, only a few hundred pieces are imported, and none are made here at these prices; and that no cloths are imported which cost higher prices than those which render them chargeable with duties under the four dollar minimum. wears three times as much as the English laborer or mechanic pays-such cloth as retails from two dollars and fifty cents to three dollars and fifty cents per yard; and at "In 1790, the duty on the importation of foreign iron the same rate on cloths which cost from four dollars to into France was two francs twenty centimes per quintal of four dollars and fifty cents. That the cloths called drabs, two hundred and twenty pounds, equal to about four dol-none of which are made in this country, costing in Englars per ton. In 1814, it was raised, for the purpose of pro- land two shillings and six pence per yard, are here raised tecting the iron masters against the cheaper foreign iron, by retail to one dollar and seventy cents and one dollar to fifteen francs per quintal, or about thirty dollars per and eighty-seven cents per yard. That, under the two dolton. This not being sufficient to secure the iron masters lars and fifty cents minimum, cloths which the English cona monopoly of home market, it was again raised, in 1822, sumer procures at two dollars and fifty cents per yard, are to twenty-five francs the quintal; thus carrying the duty here sold for six dollars and six dollars and fifty cents per up to fifty dollars a ton. These excessive duties, granted yard, and large importations of these are made--the whole in quick succession, having raised the prices of iron at production scarcely being sufficient to supply the wants of home, and reduced the importation of foreign iron, natu- the inhabitants of one of our principal cities. That the rally attracted a great deal of capital to the iron trade, and cloths denominated "fine cloths," and which are sold at occasioned a rapid extension. Not- from six to eight dollars per yard--very small quantities of withstanding this immense duty, some foreign iron still which are manufactured in the United States--pay, in the continued to be imported, thus evincing that the protect- shape of a bounty to the American manufacturer, at the ing duty, high as it was, operated entirely as a tax on the rate of eighty to ninety-five per cent. But that of the finer consumers of the home made iron. An annual premium cloths, costing higher than eighteen shillings and sixpence, of one hundred and twelve and a half dollars per head the maximum of the two dollars and fifty cents minimum, was paid by the nation, to keep eighty thousand men employed, not for their benefit, (since they received no more wages than the average price of labor, which they would have obtained in any other occupation,) but, as with us, for the purpose of forcing an unprofitable business." "With all this encouragement, however, to the iron busi- He shows, that, on the article of flannels, which it is of ness in France, it was, in 1830, in a very depressed state; vast importance that consumers should obtain at the least partly owing to the increased price of fuel in the iron dis- possible price, the operation of the tariff of 1828 has been tricts, and partly to that over-production and bad manage- peculiarly severe; that this duty, amounting to a prohibiment commonly attendant upon a branch of business forced tion, makes the article here cost twice and three times as by prohibitions and bounties: and, according to the evi-much as it costs in England; and that the coarser flannels pay dence taken before a commission of inquiry, the produc- the higher duties. He shows that baizes, also under prohibition of iron was not more profitable than it had been un- tion, are so little manufactured in this country as to be almost der a protecting duty of about half what it then enjoyed." out of use, costing three times as much as they are sold So much, Mr. President, for the protection which the for in England, other articles being substituted for them. high tariff affords to the important article of iron. I will As to the effect of the duty on carpeting, forty cents now exhibit a few further illustrations, to show what has per square yard of the common kind, amounting almost been, and what will be, the effect of the enormously high to a prohibition, he shows the duty on coarse wool to be duty upon woollens. so exorbitant, that the domestic manufacturer has been unable, even with a protection of one hundred per cent. to furnish any substitute. That what of this article is here produced, is made either of the coarse wool of South America, or from yarn imported from England already dyed and prepared for weaving; and that this weaving, which is almost exclusively performed by workmen from foreign countries, is all that gives it a claim to the title of American goods. From the exposition of Mr. Lee, of Boston, one of the most intelligent merchants in the United States, permit me to read a few extracts. He says- "The duty on woollens under the act of 1789 was five per cent. It was subsequently advanced to seven, to twelve and a half, and, during the war, to 'twenty-seven and a half per cent. wholly, however, for revenue, and for no other purpose. In 1816, on the adjustment of the various claims that were put forward by those who had interests which had grown up under the war prices, it was thought just to give to the manufacturers of woollens twenty-five per cent., to fall, however, in three years to twenty per cent. But, before that period expired, a further time of seven years was allowed for a reduction of the duty to twenty per cent., and, during that interval, the act of 1824 was passed, by which the duty was raised to thirty-three and a third per cent. "The manufacturers, not content with this duty, which, added to the common importing charges, gave them a protection against the foreign fabric of at least fifty-five per cent., again demanded more duties, which they obtained by the act of 1828, granting them rates of forty-five to one hundred and fifty per cent., and raising generally on the articles in proportion to their coarseness; thus taxing the people, not in proportion to their wealth, but to their want of it--one of the most prominent features of what is denominated the American system." The author of the exposition, from which I have before quoted, goes into an elaborate discussion of the effect of the minimums of the tariff of 1828 on woollens. He shows that the laborer or mechanic, residing in the interior in this country, pays for the coarser cloth which he VOL. VIII.--16 The writer says: "Considering that nine-tenths of the people of the United States are ignorant of the real duties levied by the present tariff, and that none but practical men can be supposed to have accurate knowledge upon the subject, inasmuch as no higher rate of duty than forty-five cent. ad valorem is apparent upon the face of a law which exacts two hundred per cent. duty, we can feel no hesitation in pronouncing the system of minimum valuation to be a complete deception upon the people of the United States, in reference to the real amount of duties they are obliged to pay upon their woollen clothing. "We have vainly attempted, by means of hotbed protection, to compensate for the disadvantages of a sparse population, high price of labor, want of skill in our operatives, and want of local concentration of the manufactories; and, above all, we have committed an error before unheard of in manufacturing countries, viz. the imposition of enormous duties on raw materials. In England, wool is admitted from foreign countries at a duty of about two cents per pound; our duty upon foreign wool is, in some instances, above thirty cents per pound." Yet, sir, with this high duty upon wool, the manufac (turers have, during the last six months, imported that arti |