Mr. CONNESS. This is abill in which I take a great deal of interest, necessarily. We considered the question involved in it with some considerable care in the ComMining, having there some of the best minds of the Senate; among them my honorable friendfrom Kentucky, [Mr. Upon the question of taxation, GUTHRIE? it was with 1 a good deal of difficulty that I was brought to the consideration of favoring any amount of tax to be imposed upon the mining industry. Senators will remember that 2 years since it was proposed by the HoRep to impose agross tax of 5%. n on mining, which alarmed the entire mining in us try of the nation. That tax would have destroyed it; butitwas during the war, at a period when our friends, such as the honorable Senfrom Ohio, than whom there is none who so serious] considered the question of providing funds or carrying on the war, were looking to every possible source from which reve nue might be derived. At that time we finally arrived at a compromise on the subject, agreeing to a tax of 1/2 of 1%, to be collected by stamping bullion at the U.S. mints and at the assay offices in the country. That tax was increased last year by the ComFinance, without my knowl edge, to 5 eighths of 1%. They added an 8th of 1%. without my knowing anything of it. I think that additional tax should not have been put on without calling the attention of the Senate to it. I must have been in my place, but it was done a rency. Almost all of them who have written in such a manner as not to challenge my attention. Now. sir, for the representative of a mining constituency to agree to any tax upon the product of the mines is a pretty serious rop ifition. Iwill not undertake to exten this ebate or the consideration of this question by entering into an estimate of what the production of gold costs. It would be more guessing at best, and consequently time not wisely spent; but I undertake to say that there is no commodity which the enterprise and commerce of our own country and of the world requires so much as the addition to our circulation of the precious metals. I need not waste a word in stating how it incites the trade and commerce of the country and of the whole world; and therefore any tax imposed upon its production is necessarily a drawback upon that production, and particularly when it is borne in mind, if it can be, by Senators that all effort at mining is not profitable, that only a small proportion of the effort directed at mining is profitable, and that notwithstanding but a small 'proportion of that effort is profitable, yet the sum total of the product of the precious metals tells largely in favor of inciting every other industry belonging to and growing out of civil society. To have agreed to any tax then was to me at least a disagreeable proposition; and I should far sooner vote to strike out the 3%., leaving out at the same time the 5 8ths ofonc%. charged upon the production of gold and silver, than agree to substitute 5 for 3, as now moved by the Senfrom Ohio. Mr. President, we recently repealed the tax imposed upon crude ctroleum. Why did we do it? We did not 0 it carelessly. We did it after an experience which convinced the entire country and ourselves that its production was abusiness so problematical, requiring so much of effort, attended with so much want. of success, that a tax upon the product, crude etroleum, was a tax upon the effort engaged in producing it and a, restriction consequently upon its production; and the Senate by unan imous consent agreed to repeal that part of the internalrevenuc law. Certainly, crude petroleum is not more needed to this country and its industries than gold and silver. If my friendfrom Ohio liVed where I do and had the practical acquaintance that I have with the production of gold and silver, no inducements to put money in the Treasury from taxation would get him to agree to tax the production of gold and silver. I am quite satisfied of that. I ho c that this amendment will not be made and that my friendfrom Ohio will not persist in it.