Mr. WADE. I certainly do not wish to prolong the discussion on this subject, but I do not like to rest under the imputation of acting upon merely selfish views. The gentleman himself has raised this sectional question. I do not know that I alluded in my remarks either to the East or the West, the North or the South. I stated some general principles that I thought were right and sound in political economy. I thought those principles ap: F. to the question under consideration and avored my side of it. The Senator differs oly from me on fundamental principles, I noi. I do not disguise the fact that I am what is called a protectionist. I will, so far as I can do it without detriment to the interests of the country or to any particular interest, protect the labor of our own citizens against that of any other nation in the world. If that be self. ishness, I confess that in my progress I have not outgrown it. My 1st duty I conceive to be to my own country, and where protection comes in question or competition between the interests of my own country and a foreign country I am just so selfish as to prefer my own. The gentleman also said that I was not only very selfish, but that I ridiculed the idea of the commerce of F. nations, and he cited some very countries that he supposed had become rich and powerful by commerce alone. Now, sir, that was a caricature on all that I did say. I said that commerce was a very good thing, a necessary thing to a prosperous nation, but that a nation that was not prosperous at home could never have any commerce; that it could have nothing to make commerce out of, unless in exceptional cases, as where a nation happens to be so situated between bel ligerents that on principles of international law it may become, as Holland did for a time, the carrier of the world, and as we did prior to the war of 1812. When Europe was in a blaze of war, and we were almost the only neutral commercial nation in the world, we did very much prosper by being the carriers of all Europe, and almost of the world; but that was a temporary condition springing from a peculiar state of circumstances that does not occur once in a century. For a gentleman to base himself upon that as a settled principle of political economy, that you must legislate to secure the carrying trade of the world, is a principle that I do not recognize as sound. I said nothing detrimental to commerce. I said that while different nations and different climates produced commodities that were consumed in all, commerce would spring up, and was legitimate and right upon those commodities;. I did doubt whether a Government would prosper the more because it legislated in favor of commerce in such commodities as she herself was as well calculated by soil, climate, and oelse to produce as any other nation. you get commerce upon that, it is illegitimate; it is unsound; it is not good political economy. But then I was selfish I I selfish for asking you to encourage the growth and production of this article of flaxseed How many of my constituents are personally interested in this trade? Not one where there are 100 engaged in other occupations. The Senator says I do not regard the rights of the consumer. Sir, are not my constituents, 3 millions in the State of Ohio, as much consumers of all kinds of products as anybody else? Why am I selfish and not regardful.of the consumers? I stand here the representative of as many consumers almost as any other Senator, and I am as regardful of their rights. But let me say to the Senfrom Maine that he argues this question upon an exceedingly narrow basis. look to the prosperous wealth of the country in the future as well as in the present. I know we have got to look for a large revenue to meet present demands; but I know we shall not prepare ourselves to meet these demands any the better by encouraging the growth and production of commodities that are exceedingly valuable in the quarter of the world the furthest removed from us, and in that way encouraging the miserable, starved coolie labor of India; for that is what we encourage by it. if I am selfish and my principles are selfish principles they are sel fish, not for my particular constituents, but for the growth of my own country, choosing betweenthat and a nation as far removed from us as the earth could make it. Let me say in this connection also that I do not agree with gentlemen who are so desirous of sinking down to nothing the wages of labor. Labor commands no higher reward than I am glad to see it. I hope to God it never will be any cheaper than it is; for now the real manual laborer gets but a scanty portion of that which he earns. I hope the time will never be when he will be less rewarded than he is now. I am not one of those who will adopt a policy that will sink, his labor one.cent less than it is now, if I can help it. Sir, on the prosperity of the laborer here depends the prosperity of your country; for, God be praised, we are pretty much all laborers, and I hope we always shall be. I am not in favor of monopolies. I will not advocate nor promote by my vote any doctrine that sinks the wages of the laborer of this country for the benefit of anybody else. I do not know what the price of labor in India is; I presume it is the merest pittance, from what I read in the newspapers this day, that, a million of those poor inhabitants, probably engaged in the raising of this very article, have starved to death this very season, and 1000s more of them are in that miserable condition today; and yet you want to bring their starved labor in competition with ours, and tell me I am selfish because I am not willing you should do it. Sir, I glory in that kind of selfishness.