Mr. FESSENDEN. That would depend altogether on the officers of the customhouse. They ought to be able to tell whether the stone was dressed or undressed. The result of this proposition is to exclude the Nova Scotia stone altogether. That is simply the object of this amendment on the Senator's own showing. I really did not suspect that my honorable friendfrom NewJersey would repeat what we have so often heard on similar propositions, because I thought he was a little above that sort of thing; but he brings in the old story about foreign labor, &c. h. may do very well for an article in the Chronicle, and it may do very well for cases where there is no argument that can be used; but it is hardly fitted for anything beyond that. Now let us take the Senator's own statement. He says the Nova Scotia stone comes in here and sells in our market for the same price that is charged for our own stone. If it sells at the same price and does not undersell our stone, where is the injury to our own production? Unless he wants to exclude the Nova Scotia stone altogether the argument is not applicable, and I apprehend the amendment is so drawn as to produce that result, to exclude the Nova Scotia stone altogether. If it could undersell our own stone that would be one thing. If the importers were able to sell the Nova Scotia stone at a rate for which the owners of the quarries in our own country could not sell their stone it would seem to be an argument for protection; but the Senator says both sell at the same price. I have heard these broad statements about the price of labor in Nova Scotia, but I have not yet heard any authority given for them. It is taken for granted that labor there is at the very low figures which have been stated here. Now, I am informed on the contrary that in the Nova Scotia quarries laborers receive $150 a day in gold. think Senators would be a little wiser if they did not pay too much attention to these broad statements that are made by interested parties with regard to things of which no proof whatever is furnished. The only view the ComFinance had in reference to this matter was one which gentlemen in debate do not seem to recognize. The committee thought that with regard to articles of use for building purposes, which were rough materials, it was not worth while to lay on so heavy a duty as to opPress the consumer. Gentlemen forget that there are 3 parties to these compacts. There is, in the 1st place, the grower of the raw material; there is in the next place the man who manufactures out of the raw material. Senators seem to think that if these 2 parties agree the matter is settled it is all right; but I beg leave to remind them that there is a still larger class interested, and that is the people who use the material after it is brought to a State where it can be used. I think it is worth while to remember their interests as well as those of the other 2 classes, while, as I have said more than once, I am in. favor of and have endeavored to so act in arranging this tariff all through, as to afford, woith the duties which we must necessarily place imported articles, adequate protection, all that is needed to our own various manufac turing interests, I am not in favor of going be yond that merely for the sake of carrying out a principle of protecting American labor. I want. it just as far it needs protection, and I othink the tariff affords ample op to do that as it has been arranged; but I do not want to go further than that in laying burdens upon the consumer. I differ entirely with my honorable friendfrom Wisconsin [Mr. Howe] in the remark he dropped, that this, was not a tariff for a protection. And while I am up I want to state one other thing, and then of course gentlemen will do as they please; the matter does not interest me particularly more than anyone else. The tariff bill as it came from the other House was a higher tariff than this in almost every article. We have adhered to that bill in only one particular, and that is in regard to the duty on wools and woolens. In regard to all other items, I will not say all, but as a general rule on pretty much all the other items this is a protective tariff, but not so high as the tariff of duties imposed by the House bill as it came to us. A.I. a member of the House which passed that bill, and one of those who voted for it, came to me this morning and complained that we in the Senate had put on such an enormous tariff of duties. I asked him what he sent the bill here for, and he could not answer that question. Here let me state, once for all because I do not want to make any general speech on this subject; I am obliged to make too many small speeches to indulge myself or to afflict the Senate by making an extended one that we endeavored faithfully, as well as we were able, on an examination of testimony and on a study of the subject, carried through days and weeks, to arrange the duties in such a way as would afford all the protection that we judged to be needed. If we have made mistakes it is the business of the Senate to correct them; and the Senate has seemed disposed very much to correct them, because I have observed that whenever a gentleman here, at the suggestion of somebody at his elbow outside who is interested in a particular thing and wants a higher rate of duty on it, makes such a proposition, it seems to be taken for granted that he must necessarily know more and have acquired more information upon the subject than could ever have been acquired by the commissioner or by the ComFinance. Of course I cannot complain of this. Every gentleman is entitled to vote as he deems proper, but that seems to be the result. Now, sir, with regard to those building stones, I do not believe any such consequences will follow from leaving the bill as it stands, as are predicted by the Senfrom NewJersey. I have been informed, on authority that is certainly entirely satisfactory to me, and would be, I think, to the Senate if the name of my informant was stated a gentleman who is not at all interested in this business in any shape whatever that our own quarries are flourishing and have been from the beginning, and flourished even under the reciprocity treaty. I should like to know how they got along under that treaty. They established their quarries and they went on laboring, and did not particularly complain at that time. Their business flourished under the reciprocity treaty, which allowed building stones to come in free from Nova Scotia. The reciprocity treaty expired and a duty came upon the article, and they have been suffering ever since, according to their story; suffering a great deal more than they did when it came free, for then they did not complain. The thing does not look to me probable. Sir, I have stated the view which the committee took. The Senate will arrange the matter in its own way according to its own judgment.