Mr. FOSTER. No; I am talking about cutlery which is classed as pocket cutlery. It is not by any means a coarse kind of goods or manufacture, but on the contrary it requires skilled labor and is an expensive style of manufacture. I will not go over the suggestions that I have made in respect to the increased cost of the manufacture of these knives. It is perfectly apparent that 55%. advalorem will be no protection. Ti. manufacture of these different articles in this country under that protection, with iron at 100 % and the increased rates on steel, must stop. I would ask gentlemen on what ground it is that bar iron is taxed 100% and the manufactures of iron, and the finest manufactures of iron, are taxed only 55%? What is the sense of. legislation? I had supposed that the idea of duties was to protect labor, and that the more labor was mixed with a commodity the higher should be the duty to protect it. That is the principle, if there be any principle in it; but on the ground upon which this bill in this particular seems to go, when the iron comes from the mine and is manufactured into a bar it shall have a duty of 100%. to protect it; and when that bar of iron is made into steel and from steel into knives, and of course has its value immensely, almost fabu lously increased, it shall have a protection of only 55%., and this is facetiously called protection to home labor! I do not believe that 55% is as good for the manufacturer of knives in this country today, paying all the duties which he is compelled to pay on the materials which go into his manufacture, as free trade would be, and I think gentlemen will see that it is not, and cannot be, for the materials which go into the manufacture are doubled in price, more than doubled, and the duty upon the manufactured article is slightly increased; and yet this is called protection 1 I confess that I shall quite despair of anything in the way of protection to labor if this be done. The country may be very much loaded, may stagger under the burden of high prices, and yet labor be wholly unprotected. It is possible to work out that result. For instance, you may load iron with such an amount of duty that no such protection as 50 5%. on the manufactures of iron will induce men to pursue the business; you must increase the protection, and you may have to raise the duty very high before any profit is made the price may rise so high that it becomes almost impossible for consumers to make purchases, and yet nobody realizes any profit. High prices ordinarily suppose that some body is making a profit; but where the manufacturer of cutlery has got to pay 2 or 3 prices for his materials, and has to compete with the foreign article paying a less amount of duty, the home manufacturer makes no r profit though he sells at a high price. It will cost the consumer enough, in all conscience; it will cost him 3 or 4 times what it ought to cost him; but the home manufacturer will make nothing, because the commodities which he has used have been so overloaded with duties before they entered into the manufacture that it was, impossible. I trust, therefore, it will be understood that although prices may be high, immensely high, there is not necessarily in that any protection to labor.