Mr. CATTELL. Only a word; and 1st in to the action of the ComFinance on the subject of saltpeter." The committee gave considerable attention to that subject and finally decided that it was one of the unnatural manufactures. We have not the raw material and we are obliged to import it. It is made from nitrate of soda and from muriate of potash, both of which we are obliged to import, one from Germany and the other from Peru. Consequently the committee on a careful examination thought that while it was forced into existence during the war by high prices it was yet one of those manufactures not susceptible of being sustained by a fair levy of import duties. e committee, however, did 2 things for that, interest: 1st, they increased the duty half a cent, making it a cent and a half; and next, the decreased the duty on both the articles which enter into its manufacture. So they went just as far as they could, consistent with revenue, to favor this very thing which in their judgment was rather an unnatural manufacture. I think the chairman of the committee will bear me out that this was about the view that was taken on that matter. It is not so with nickel. Nickel is a native ore. I have said here and say again these native ores have been taken in their immense bulk and have been shipped across the ocean, and the nickel has been manufactured from them there and brought back and sold to the people of the U.S.. We have plenty f. ore; this gentleman has no monopoly of this ore; it is spread through Connecticut and through nearly all the NewEngland States; and all that we ask now is that this enterprise shall be sustained by even a less average duty than you have given all through this bill. I desire to correctone misapprehension which the Senfrom Connecticut labors under, and that is the statement that this duty is about 50%. The price of nickel upon the other side of the water is 4 shillings and 6pence sterling and it is quite uniform in this E. 4 shillings and 6pence, as every ody knows, is, in round numbers, $1.12; 40 cents a pound on that is a mere fraction different from 35%. advalorem. The average of this bill throughout gives to every manufacturing interest of prominence in the country more than that advalorem duty; and I hope this interest will not be discriminated against.