Mr. SPIRAGUE. There is a vast quantity of it. There are $10,000,000 probably invested in the business in this country. The consequence is that there is not today, and has not been for the past 6 months, a single mill that can start one step in this business. As I said the other day, it costs about 3 times as much as it does to make common cotton cloth. A weaver will attend 5 of those looms, here he can attend to but one. A cotton spinner will attend to 5 spindles, where a person can attend to but one in this business. You can bleach a yard of coarse cloth for half a cent a yard, and it costs 3 cents to bleach this. The result is that there cannot be one yard produced in this country after the passage of this bill in its Present, shape. The consequence of that will be that the consumption of flax, heretofore entering into this product and the report of Mr. Wells shows that after this manufacture had gone into operation, it increased the price of your hemp and flax 100%. will go back to its original condition. There is not an article in this bill but what has an advantage of 25%. over the article now in question. Sir, I have no particular interest in this thing. I simply desire to establish and perfect this branch of industry. It has a standing now and I am influenced only upon that consideration of the subject. I do not want these men to make money now when the country is suffering and when laborers are turned out of E. embut I do not want to see legislation ere that is favorable to the production of these goods on the other side of the water. The other day 2 Senators took occasion to speak of me as one interested in the manufac turing interests of this country. Well, sir, that is a fact. I am interested in this linen manufacture. When our parts were opened for the free admission of the machinery employed in the manufacture of this article I availed myself of the occasion to import that machinery. I have not been able, nor shall I be able, to make a single yard of the articles that are embraced in this clause. I did not do it to make money; I did it to start this branch of industry, as my record shows. I am a manufacturer of cottons it is true; and I am a manufacturer of woolens, of steam engines, of locomotives, everything almost embraced in this bill. I did not do it to make money; I let everybody into every interest I am connected with. If they show that there is a new principle to be developed, a saving of labor, something that will cheapen commodities, everybody has always found my interest and my willingness there. I challenge contradiction. I challenge anybody to show to the contrary. Why, sir, I am an importer. I know the operations of the importing interest. There are but few men in this country who have as large an importing interest as I have. There are but few men in this country that have as large off". distribution of goods, both foreign and domestic. I am connected with the bank interests, too; I have been connected with them for the last 15 or 20 years. I am connected with the insurance business also. Everything known in this bill, I am more or less directly connected with. I presume that I pay more than any dozen people in this country upon the articles enumerated in this bill coming from abroad which are introduced into the manufacture of our American products. I go abroad, I go into all the cities, and if I find there an improved article I endeavor with all the wits and means I have to bring it back into this country in order to develop it here or something to manufacture, or anything of that kind, I am interested simply to have it established here. If gentlemen say that I am a cotton manufacturer, they may just as well say that I am a woolen manufacturer, a linen manufacturer, and a manufacturer of steam engines. I can make the best locomotive engine in the world. I challenge anybody to compete with it. I can make the best piece of cotton cloth, and the best and cheapest calico in the world. There is no doubt about it. But, sir, I do not like to be charged with having my mind run simply in one idea. I do not like, when I advocate an interest here, to have it intimated or thought that it is because it is my interest, because I am interested in it. Sir, the interest of this whole country is my interest. I would rather today sink beneath this floor than advocate any interest here because it was mine or that I was to make money out of it. I should feel that I was undeserving the position I occupy if I were to do so. It may seem strange to Senators, but in all my life I have never asked a man to vote for me or for any proposition except in the few cases of Senators that I have called upon in reference to this linen manufacture. Contrary to the general acceptation of the fact, as regards my position politically and otherwise, I never, directly or indirectly, asked the 1st man from the time I came into political office until the Present time, or upon any measure, legislatively or otherwise, for the support of anything until this flax interest came up. I have been abroad and seen what an immense interest this flax interest was. I have seen 40 and 50 and 60 yards of this article which would only weigh a pound. I have gone down to the very gradations of that, and J have seen 100s of 1000s of people getting their livelihood from this branch of business. I have seen immigrants coming into this country in vast crowds who have heretofore been employed in that business. Is it not natural that I should feel an inclination to have it established in my own country that they might be employed here? Now, Mr. President, the facts are that this interest has never had any advocate. They have never felt strong and powerful. They have never combined together except indirectly for the purpose of showing exactly how their interests stood in reference to other commodities. I endeavored to show the other day that it was the least protected. I did not know then but that it was somewhat protected; I did not know but what there was some breakwater against the importation of these articles from foreign products; but there is not one single mill rather to the contrary to offset, what? To offset the increased price of labor in this country. I trust this amendment will prevail.