Mr. FESSENDEN. I should be a little surprised at the speech made by the honorable Senfrom Michigan if I was not aware of the accuracy of his information upon every subject, and of the fact that it is useless to set up against his broad statements any information that may be obtained from other quarters. Now, sir, as he seems to think, this is a most marvelous bill, I will state a few facts in ref. erence to how the result of which he complains was arrived at. The HoRep agreed to impose considerably larger duties on iron than we have imposed. If I recollect aright, the House put the duty at 5 dollars per ton on old iron, cast or wrought, reducing it from 8 dollars, the duty under the Present law. The Senfrom Michigan now proposes to put it at 8 dollars on cast and 12 dollars on wrought iron. We had before us a committee of iron men from Pittsburg who came to see us on the subject of this duty on iron and other things, and stated that with regard to scrap cast iron the duty of 3 dollars perton was ample; they did not want any more than that on scrap cast iron; they were satisfied with it; but on wrought scrap iron they thought the duty ought to be as high as on pig iron. We 1st put the duty on wrought scrap iron at 8 dollars per ton, and with that they exPressed themselves satis. fied, and put on a proviso which Senators will find printed in the bill “that nothing shall be deemed wrought or scrap which can be used as piles or billets in the manufacture of iron.”. After we reported it there was a meeting of iron men in this city, quite a large one, indeed I believe it was a regular convention of the Iron and Steel Association. They took the subject into consideration, and some of them exposed to us the fact that the committee had been imposed upon in regard to this proviso. They per ton on both classes was sufficient. did it of their own free will. They said that putting in the description given in the proviso would have the effect, being worded as it was, to exclude all scrap iron, and none could be imported except some very small and insignificant matters, by the use of the descriptive words “piles or billets;” so that artfully it was a trick upon us, we being ignorant of the technical terms, by which all scrap iron would be absolutely excluded from the country except some few small articles. The Iron and Steel Asso ciation took the matter into consideration and they passed resolutions and I believe that there were only 4 or 5 dissenting voices to the resolutions that a duty of 3 dono e resolutions were sent to us signed by the President and secretary. The reason they gave tended to satisfy us. There is an enormous quantity of this old iron. It is admitted into England free of duty. They get it and use it there, and by getting it free it helps to diminish the price of rails and enables them to undersell our rail making men who make rails in this country. We on the contrary demand a duty, and therefore do not get our rails so cheap. The consequence was that the men who make railroad iron said that if you imposed a heavy duty and kept out this old wrought iron the result would be that the English would get it all and it would reduce by so much the price of the manufacture of English iron, so that the struggle of our manufacturers would be still harder and more difficult. Then the other iron manufacturers said this is not to be considered at all with reference to the price of pig iron; in reality the pig iron that is imported does not come in competition with any of our iron that we manufacture. The pig imported is the soft Scotch pig metal that is not to be found in this country, is not made in this country; it does not come into compe tition; but so far as we are concerned we would just as lief you should put the pig metal down to 3 dollars if you doubt that was put up for the purpose of revenue and was kept up for that particular reason. Under these circumstances, with that object, it was thought best to put old scrap iron at what they said was enough, and that is 3 dollars perton on both descriptions. They said another thing, that there are a great many rolling mills established on the Atlantic border, in NewYork and Massachusetts and some in Maine I believe one or perhaps two. They have to bring their iron to the mills and pay freight on it, whereas the manufacturers of iron in. sylvania and other places have their iron and their coal at their door. They came to the conclusion, and they said that was the foundation of the resolution of the Iron and Steel Association sent to us, that it was no more than fair that it should come in at the same rate, that it is sufficiently guarded by the proviso we put in. That old iron has to be remanufactured. It consists entirely of broken railroad bars and old railroad bars and different kinds of things, I do not know how many. They thought it advisable that we should put the 2 together, and they sent their resolutions to that effect to the committee. I do not know how much was imported last year, but the amount was not large. From the nature of the case it cannot be very large. The greater part of it will go to England where it is admitted free, but a considerable part comes here and is used up in these mills. Nothing like the duty that is mentioned by the honorable Senator was demanded, as I said before, by the parties interested in iron manufacture; but the committee proposed origi nally to make the duty on cast scrap iron 3 dollars and on wrought scrap iron 8 dollars a ton, and we did not alter that until we were advised to do so by the vote of the Iron and Steel Association to which I have referred. I Presume of course they did not know anything about it; and I Presume the House committee knew nothing about it; and I Presume the ComFinance knew nothing about it. I will not say there was any intentional unfairness, but I leave the Senate to judge how much reliance is to be placed on the assertions of the honorable Senator, who I believe is not a manufacturer of iron himself.