Mr. DAVIS resumed the floor, and made some remarks ii on the protection of American industry; which will be found in the Appendix. Mr. Speaker: As the chairman of the ComWays&Means has just notified the House that this is the last dag of the session which can probably be assigne to general debate on the President’s message and the state of the Union, I propose to diverge from the discussion of the question of reconstruction to which so much time has been devoted, an to consider a subject of greater and more urgent importance to the country, namely, the protection of the labor and industry of our citizens, as connected with our finances. And I do this because I believe that every wise Government will be careful to preserve its credit by the adeption of a system of finance which, while furnishin the revenue requisite for the public service, shall protect and foster, so far as possible, the production, trade and manufactures of its own people. The wealth of a nation consists not only in the amount of gold and silver which may be boarded in its treasury, but in the power of producing, by well remunerated and general industry, all that is essential to the a ministration of its Government, the supply of its citizens with the comforts, the conveniences, and even the luxuries of life, and in that surplus of production over consumption which makes up the capital of individuals. Almost a century ago Adam Smith asserted a proposition which was true then and is true now, that no nation could long survive a sys tem of taxation or finance whic, absorbing the efltire profits ofindustry, left the cost of maintaining population a charge upon capital. To Dr. Smith, more than to any other individual, perhaps more than to all otherindividuals who have addressed themselves to the study of political economy, is due that theory of free trade which is now the boost of English states men, and upon which the American Republic is invited by England to establish its financial system. I believe that our national finances can never prosper, and I assert that they have never prospered, under any system of free trade, and that every n preach to it has proved injurious to ourpeople. Iamawarethatonalmosteveryhund it is cenceded now that to discharge our public debt and its accruing interest we must impose burdens upon our citizens heavy and grievous to be borne, and that those burdens must rest both upon what we produce at home and upon what we consume or use from abroad. Still it is not to be denied that a certain class of men ofintelligence and influence are wedded to the theory 0 free trade, and would, so far as possible, conform our action to its precepts. I desire today to advocate the cause of American industry, and to show that its just protection is one of the highest duties of an American Congress. I desire to prove that England, in its advocacy of free trade, has ever acted in view of its own existing system of labor and production; and that so long as her manufactures and productions required the protection of legislation that legislation was liestowed, and that she repealed protective statutes only when they were useless. From the time of Edward HI to the car 1846 the statute books of England will be searched in vain to find a Single not based upon the theory of real freedom in the interchange of national productions. In 1379 Par liament enacted, for the benefit of British ship builders and to encourage em 10 mentiu the commercial marine of England, that no merchandise should be imported or exported except in English ship s; and additional statutes, with rigorous penalties, for the same purpose, were enacted down to the time of Cromwell, when it was made unlawful for a British, shipper to charter or employ any vessel which was not built in England by British workmen, commanded by a British master, and manned by a crew at least 3/4th Britons. In violation of the rights of her American colonists as British subjects, England denied to them, under her navigation laws, the rights of British citizens. By her restrictive and protective policy England struck down the commercial marine of her great rival, Holland, and cen tered within the British isles almost the entire commerce of the world. As early as 1337, England inaugurated a system of legislation to protect her woolen manufactures, and this protection was extended and enforced until English producers were enabled to sell their cloths in the markets of other nations cheaper than other nations could produce them. Edward HI was a sagacious monarch, and erceived the great advantage of iiivitin skilled abor from abroad to manufacture in ugland the raw material produced by his own subjects]; and when the frugal and in ustrious Flemings under his assurance and protection, estublishc their arts of dyeing, dressmgf and Weavingwools in England, Parliament provided by lawthat no Englishman should wear wooleu cloth imported from abroad. Further to foster this domestic interest the export of English wool was prohibited, though subsequently permitted for a period, as a matter of revenue, under heavy exort duties. this not my purpose to enter into a prolix recital of English legislation for the protection of its system of manufactures and productions, but I will briefly allude to a few of the protective statutes. In the reign of Elizabeth, although British wools might be exported under heavy duties, to export Lnlish bucks, sheep, or lambs rendered the guilgtyparty liable, for the 1st offense, to the forfeiture of all his property, to a car’s imprisonment, and to the oss of his loll hand to be cut off publicly in market on a market day, and then to be nailed u for exhibition and for warning. The 2nd 0 ense was punishable with death. These severe penalties were, it is true, relaxed in the times of Charles H and of will liam of Orange, but even at the outbreak of the American Revolution, the export of wool itselfhad been again prohibited as well as the exort of sheep. The party convicted, stood liable to the forfeiture of all the property, the export of which was forbidden, and to a pen alty of 3 shillings on the pound in addition, being then about 4 times its value; all debts due to the offender were discharged, and unless the penalties imposed by fine were paid within 3 months after conviction he was to be transported for 7 years. An act of the time of Charles H was then also in full force requiring that every corpse should be buried in a shroud manufactured of English woolen. He who will investigate the history of all the manufactures of England, and the concurrent legislation designed to foster the national industry, will find howlittle credit is to be awarded to her for the assumed liberality of her boasted free trade statutes. such investigation will show that her woolens were protected till the product of her looms, after supplying her domestic' demand, alforded $20,000,000in value perannum forexport; and then. as the era of cotton dawned upon the world, and the genius of Watt and whitne, of Arkwright and Hargreaves and Cartwright introduced the mechanism necessary to its successful manufacture, England turned her attention to the protection 0 her home labor, employed not upon the productions ofher own soil, at upon raw material imported from the In dies. After the restoration of the Stuart dy nasty, Parliament forbade the exortation of all leather, hides, and skins, dressed) or undressed, but not manufactured; and long before that the exportation of all metals and ores of metals, exceprt lead and tin, was prohibited bylaw, that ‘nglish labor might find employment in their manufacture. The mechanism designed to economize labor was also the subject of like restriction. In the time of William HI the knitting frames in which gloves and stockings were produced were placed under a kind of ne erect, and the exporter forfeited the property, with 40 pen alty. A fine of 200 was imposed in the reign of George HI upon the exportation of any utensils or tools used in the manufacture of cotton, linen, silk, or woolen. In 1786 models of Arkwright’s looms orjennies, manufactured for the use of Philadelphia machinists, were seized in England and confiscated under the provisions of this statute. In the reign of George I it was made a penal offense to induce any manufacturer or artificer to go beyond the sea to prosecute his craft, the punishment being by fine and imprisonment. The artifice r himself, if suspected of an intention to leave the country, was liable to imprisonment until security should be iven satisfactory to the court that he woulif not depart; and if such artificer left the kingdom Without notice, and did not return after warning of 6 months, the law denied him all right of inheritance and forfeited all his property within the realm to the King. (Smith’s Wealt of Nations, chapter 8, book four.) In the same spirit were the laws designed to prevent manufactures in the colonies. In 1699 the exportation of all woolens was prohibited from the colonies. The erection of factories within their limits was declared by Parliament as tending to lessen their dependence on the home Government. In 1750 every establishment in the colonies for the slitting, rolling, or plating of iron, or the making of steel, was declared to be a uni sance, to be abated under penalty of 500. The entire action of the British Government was based upon the principle of protecting the arts and labor of the pee le, and of securing to England the wealth an commerce incident to extensive manufactures and their transportation to other countries. I shall, in the course of my remarks, attempt to prove that the protective policy, which gave character to all these measures of English legislation, has never till.the present hour been relaxed, exec t so far as the permanent estab‘ lisliment of ritish manufactures made the successful competition of other countries impracticable and impossible. I now proceed to the consideration of the results of this policy upon the material wealth of the English nation and upon the physical power of the British empire. I on ht not to overlook those prominent facts in file history of inventive genius, and of the application of natural forces to the necessities of mankind which are connected with the employment oi coal in the working of iron and the perfection of woolen, cotton, and silk fabrics. The coal fields of England and the beds of iron stone lay undeveloped and almost useless, until the reverberatory furnaces of the Dudleys, produ cing pure iron with coal as the fuel, proved that the en] bar of the coal might be subli mated and t us iron made pure. The steam engine of Watt vs a new motive power to machinery, and qua rupled from year to year the capacit for manufactures; the spinning jennies of argrcaves and Arkwright, and the power looms of Cartwright, scarcely perfected when Watt’ s engine became a success, gave at once, when operated by the tireless power of steam, an impetus to the manufacture of cotton cloths that soon made England independent of India, save for the supply of raw material. The cotton of our own States had not yet become an important item of the necessary supply. The gm of Whitney had not by its intro duction made the cotton fields of the South the boasted seat of empire. The 18th century witnessed in its closing ears the gray dawning of an age unparalleled' in the rapid triumphs of inventive genius; and I propose to show that the dprotective policy of British statesmen, applie continuously to the British isles for more than 3 centuries, placed England in a position to secure to herself the untold advantages of the reatinventious of the 18th and 19 t centuries. The most perfect and most economical processes for the production and making of iron were those of England. The Dudfeys, the Craneges, the Darbys, Andrew Yarranton, and Henry Cort, were the names of those under whom the methods of producing and working iron had been advanced from the rude modes left by the Roman conquerors to the almost perfect system which (IrIenry Cortingrafted upon the puddling furnace and the roller. And all these were Englishmen. The only steam engines which were of practical utility in the arts were those of Watts and Boulton. These were contemporaneous with inventions of Ark wright, Hargreaves, Crampton, and Cartwright, which gave to England a monopoly of the new manufacture of cotton. The cotton gin of Eli Whitney, although the product of American genius, was a far greater oon to England than to our own country. True, it extended here vastly the culture of the cotton plant, but there it cheapened immeasurably the cost of raw material for manufacture, gave employment and suppdrt, directly and indirectly, to labor in the grain field, to labor in the ore beds of co perand iron, to labor in the coal fields, to litbor in the furnaces and machine shops dotted everywhere over the kingdom, and to labor in almost every dept of life. The cleaning of a single pound of cotton before cost the day’s labor of a man. The simple machine of Whitney performed daily the work of 300 aborers. In 1788 the 1st cotton was exported from a southern State to England, and consisted of only 1, 200 pounds. In 1791 the i quantity increased to 139, 316 pounds, and fell offin 1792 to 138, 328. In 1793 Whitney’s gin was 1st put into general use, andvin 1794 1, 601, 760, and in 1795 5, 276, 300 pounds of cotton were exported to England. McCulloch, in his British Empire, volume one, page 682, says: “The effect of the machine was all but miraculous. The export of American cotton rose to 700.000, pounds in 1840w. orth when shipped $63.870, Jl7 and it is not own too far to say that this extort not then have exceeded 45,000,00 poounds at fworeal: invention of hitney.” If we institute a brief comparison between England and the U.S. at the close of the war of independence, and if we trace out the consequences to England of her almost entire monopoly of labor saving machinery for man followmg years, we shall, I think, he sat isfie that the vast wealth, the accumulated machinery, the cheap fuel, the cheap labor which have there been found, have stood to her, and still stand in lieu of statutory protection, and enabling her to defy the competition of continental Europe and America, lead her statesmen to advocate free trade asthe economy of nations. I have been kindly referred by Dr. William Elder. of the Treasury Dept, and one of the ablest statisticians of our country, to a table prepared by him for the National Almanac of 1864, giving a statement of the comparative population, resources, &c., of GreatBritain and the U.S. from 1791 to 1863 and from this I have condensed or extracted the statistics in the following table:. Carrying backward the rates of comparative increase, assi ed by this table, to 1776, it will appear probable that then the population of the colonies did not much, if any, exceed 2, 800,000, being about 3 and ahalf times less than the population of GreatBritain; while a similar calculation will show that the real and personal property was about 12 times ’greater than that of the colonies. The area of the United Kingdom was 120, 851square miles. That of the United Colonies was 820, 680 squaremiles. England had been cultivated for centuries. It was estimated by Arthur Youn, after long investigation and travel, in 1780, that the capital employed in agriculture in England and Wales was then 128,000,000 $640,000,000, being a greater value than all the real and persona property of the United Colonic at the same period. While, therefore, agriculture was highly developed, while wealth ISpar capita was nearly 3 times greater in nglan than with us; while the steam engine, the spinning jenny, and the power loom were all held under the restriction of Enlish patents; and while the policy of England forbade either the export of machinery or the migration of the machinist; while labor was low in an old country and high in a new one, the young republic entered the lists with England as a competitor for the supply of American markets by Amer ican ro notions. In this contest we have ever clt the power, not only of English capital, but of English ideas, and in deference to British sentiment we have too often ignored the logic of undisputed facts. I shall now in vite the attention of the committee to the consideration of the necessary results of the marked differences in culture and material wealth to which I have alluded. The various acts of Parliament restraining manufactures in the colonies had for their purpose and end the monopoly of the sales to the colonists of the home manufactures of England. The spirit and temper of the nation were illus trated by an English writer in 1750, Mr. Gee, who, in speaking of “ manufactures in our American colonies, " says: “The should not only be discouraged but prohib ited. c ought alwaysto keep a watchhil eyeover ourcoloniesto restrain them from settingup an 0 athine;manufactureswhich are carried on in Great rit and any such attempts should baorushedin the beginning.” The reason is obvious, and one of the causes of revolution was the persistent and oppressive effort of England to prevent the introduction and prosperity of manufactures beyond the Atlantic in our colonies. I appeal to distance instead of years; and I ask not the history of a century ago. I ask the present, on our western frontiers, what are the rates of interest which money there commands in this our day? I think I may say from personal knowledge that in Iowa, even in Illinois, in Minnesota, in Nebraska, and in missouri, the average interest of money is more than ten perQgnt. perannum. In several States this rate is permitted by contract, and in all it is recognized by necessity. This is the concurrent history of settlement in all new countries, and this rate is lower than the aver;ge interest in California, Oregon, Idaho, and evada; and yet in our colonial days money was far scarcer than now. Adam Smith, writing just before our inde p‘crndence, says, (chapter 3, book 5, of his calth of Nations:) "The Americans, indeed, have no gold or silver theinterior commerce of the country being carried onby a on ercurrency, and the gold andsilver which occasionaly comeamongthembeingall sent toGreat ritiun in return for o commodities which they receive from us.” It is a fact which all history will verify, that our colonial Legislatures, to remedy the scarcity of currency, resorted to issues of paper money as a legal tender till prohibited by imperial legislation. On the other hand, money was abundant in England, and scarcely exceeded 5 er cent. perannum, until the terrible terms 0 which rostrated the Bourbon dynasty swept Austria, russia, Russia, and England into the vortexof its revolution. Nor during the fiery ordeal through which England passed in the years of the Revolution an the Empire, when all Europe, combined against France, was subsidized by British gold, did the rate ofinterest in England rench so high a point as that paid by the people of the U.S. during the war of the rebellion. 4 centuries of gradual growth ofiagriculture and manufactures under rigorous protection, had given to England, at the date of our independence, rank as a leading Power of Euro e. Robert Clive had recently laid the foun ntions of Britishern ire in India on the blood field of Plassey. astings, by his reck less aringjand address, enlarged the fabric and made ngland sovereign over 100million Asiatics. The fabulous wealth of Ben gal, Code, and Bahar was transferred from ndia to London. The fabrics of England found a new and profitable market on the Hoogly and the Ganges. The 1st Congress which assembled after the adoption of the Constitution took into earnest consideration the subject of domestic manufactures and the revenue to be derived from their protection. But the country was imoverished; the financial ruin brought on by this absolute anni hilation of the continental currency had not been retrieved. Capital for any extensive sys tem of manufactures was unattainable; and in the absence of domcstic production foreign supply was indispensable. Moreover, a defense ess sea coast stretched along 1000s of miles of unsettled country. The StLawrence under the control of Britain, left a commercial avenue to the lakes; the Mississippi opened access to our western frontiers; and there was scarcely a spot from Georgia to NewHampshire where the smuggler would not prosecute his craft, under a system of high duties, with profit and safety. The tariff of 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1794, 179.5, 1796, and 1707 did something, but not much, to relieve us from the power of British coniietition, and England readily secured to itself the cotton manufacture in which we had not the capital to embark. The war of1812 made emancipation a necessity, and the tariff of 1816 17 was designed to give appropriate encouragement to American production. From the adoption of the Constitution upto the war of 1812 the value of real and personal estde of the U.S. had only risen to about $1,500,000,000, while that of Great Brit ain stood at $10, 212, 300,000. The value of our annual production was $420,000,000, including cotton exports of about $47,000,000 perannum. Hers was $1,531, 845,000. NewEngland, now the seat of factories and machine shops comparing favorably with those of Europe, turned her enterprise to the fisher ies and commerce. We had no West. The coal fields of Pennsylvania were unworked. Her iron ores were unliceded or unknown. The system of labor in the southern slavcholding States was believed, at least by its advocates, to be ill adapted to mechanical labor or manufactures. The result was natural, perhaps inevitable. So long as English capital and sagacity were aided by our own dependence and prejudices in the control of our productions and markets, we sent our cotton to England, paid freight, an import duty there, varying from 6s. 6d. sterling per 100 pounds in 1798, 73. 1011.in 1802, 163. lid. in 1809, 58. 10d. in 1831, m 28. 11d. in 1838, and when the raw material had been spun by British 'ennies and woven by British looms, we kindly bought the fabric, paid return freight, a new import duty to our own Government, and rejoiced that we were a great and a wise pegficlew. England preferred commerce to manufactures, and her influence unfortunately was not lent to protection, because her interest did not dictate it. But let us look at the wakeful sagacity of England, while the commercial interests of NewEngland and the North discarded manufactures or at least failed to encourage them and while the South, blind to the evils of servile labor, neglected to initiate a system of manufactures for the staples which she raised. The following table shows the decennial increase of the import of cotton wool for the manufactures of GreatBritain from 1775 to 1864: Poundr. I have not at hand the actual amount imported in the 5 years succeeding, but the value of import is as follows: From 1861 to 1864 the import from the U.S. was reduced to a nominal amount by the war, and thus the price of cotton rose more than ten 100%. Our export of cotton, from its small beginning, for years has exceeded 1,000 million sounds, and yet in 1857, when our total prouction was 8,113, 962 bales, we manufactured within the U.S. but about 600,000 bales, furnishing to England nearly the entire residue of 2, 500,000 holes to support her labor in competition with our own. If we turn now to the Census of 1860, under the head of manufactures, we shall find in the introduction, page 20, that from 1821 to 1839, inclusive, the manufactured cottons imported amounted annually to $14, 624, 687; from 1840 to 1856 the average was $16, 795, 418, and for the last 3 of those years it was an average of $28,811,966. In 1860 we received of plain cottons from Britain alone 226, 766, 939 yards, of the declared value of $3, 849, 915, besides the other fabrics of the same material which we imported, because we were not wise enough to may c them. In 1856, it appears by statistics furnished by the reports 0 an official character in GreatBritain, that there were then in operation in spinning and weaving cotton, wool, flax, and silk, 5, 117 factories, using the power of 161, 435 horses, 33, 503, 680 spindles, 367, 208 power looms, 682, 497 hands. of these factories2, 210, employing 28,010, 217 spiudles and 379, 213 hands, were employed in the spinning and weaving of cotton alone, while 887, 369 persons were engaged in the preparation, dyeing, and printing of these fabrics and upon other textile fabrics of the kingdom. It was estimated that the entire aggregate of persons, 1,569, 856, thus employed sustained an additional population of 3,000,000 who were dependent on their labor, making about one 8th of the population at that time. But what becomes of this vast manufacture, which in a century has grown from nothingness to imperial importance? You find the answer by examining the export of manufactures. In 1884 GreatBritain manufactured of raw material 302,035,657 pounds, making the prod net worth $338, 304, 409; her home consumption was $317,794,823; leaving for export value 20,513,686, or $102, 568, 430. In 1859she manufactured 976,600,00opounds of the finished value of 71, 873, 214; her home consumption was 23, 164, 770; leaving export value, 48,208,444, or $241,042,220. Mr. Bigelow, whose elaborate work on the Tariff Question has furnished me with much valuable information, estimates the remunerative profit to English capital and labor in the manufacture of the 976, 600000 pounds of cotton in 1859 over the cost of material at nearly 200 million dollars. It is not wonderful that British statesmen should take ride in a manufacture which is conceded to have added to the national wealth within the last 50 years more than 5,000 million dollars. I might ask here, why is it that we employ to our own incalculable injury the labor of other nations to produce the fabrics which we wear from the material which we raise? But 1st let me allude in a few words to other items of production. The number of tons of pig iron produced in England and Wales was, inThe estimated value of the iron of 1864 was $711, 919, 877, equal to $55,599,385, and we exorted of iron and its productsfrom England in 1864 $16,048, 694. GreatBritain proneed in that year 1/2 of all the iron produced in the world. If we turn to coal, we find results equally astonishing and suggestive. It was stated by Mr. Taylor, in 1823, one of the most intelligent and extensive proprietors of coal mines in England, that the amount of coal consumed in GreatBritain was 15, 800,000 tons. I find by the examination of the report of the government Superintendent of offieries for the year 1865, that the production in that year was 92, 787, 873 tons, of which there were exported 7,529,341 tons, and there were consumed 85,258,532 tons. In 1860 the total coal mined in the U.S. was 14,333,922 tons, and in 1863, under the extraordinary demand made and anticipated by the Government, it did not exceed 18,000,000 tons. England has a population now nearl equal to our own. By her system oflabor an manufactures, protected against cometition until she could efy it, she has supplie the wants of her own millions, and exported of her productions and manufactures to other countries in a single year almost 700 million dollars in value. Sir, these experts have risen from the sum of 87,234,896 in 1805 to 135, 842, 817 in 1860, and we have, except during the war of 1812, been her most munificent patron. The statesmen of England know too well the great sources of their national wealth to imperil them by any policy of free trade, which has in it more than the name. England reared the throne of her empire upon coal. She made iron king, and cotton prime minister. She surrendered the sovereignty of the colonies when she could retain it no longer, but by her capital and our dependence an folly secured the control of our productions and our markets. The victories won by England over Napoleon Were achieved in her mir'ies, her workshops, and her factories. The thunder bolts which fell at Talavera and Waterloo were forged in the founderies of Britain. The glories of Tra falgar and the Nile would have been unrealized in the absence of her manufactures, which developing her resources at home and sustaining her commerce on every sea, Created the wealth by which the arms of Spain and Prussia and Russia were subsidized in that eventful conflict which convulsed Europe and the world, and whose moving spirit was lulled to sleep by the surges of the South Atlantic. Truly did Napoleon so ', beneath the willows of Longwood, ‘Great ritain conquered me not with herswords butwith her spin les; with her s indles she subsidized all Europe, and here am.” It will be well for us to remember the power which subverted his empire. ME. Speaker, Monsieur Arago, on the 8th of December, 1834, delivered before the Academy of Sciences, at Parisz an eloquenteulogium upon James Watt; and in it he alludes to the changes wrought by the steam engine and jenny in the manufacture of cotton. By their means, in the county of Lancaster alone, he says: “The spinners deliver to the calico manufacturers a (Suantity of yarn that 21,000,00colover s inners con11 not accomplish with only the aid of the rock ands indie: and 1,500,000 people now find occupation there, where, beforetheinventions of Arkwright and Watt, there were only 50,000." The cotton machinery of Lancaster in its full working power is today performing the labor of more than 50,000,000 men, while the labor of the steam engine, in its multifarious creations of power, represents the capacity of 600,000,000 people employed in manual labor. The policy of England is today what the policy of every wise nation is, to take care of itself; and these elements of power, thus existing in profusion, are not to be sacrificed toany sudden promptingsof philanthropy. England about 1826 inaugurated a modification of her corn laws, not ccause she was unwillin to protect her own producers, but because er producers could not raise an amount approximating to the wants of a nation of manufacturers; but in utter repudiation of everyidea of free trade, she made the import duty one pound sterling perquarter of 8 bushels, when the market rice was under 51 shillings, and reduce it to one shilling when the price rose to or above 73 shillings. With the exception of the reduction of duties on silks in 1824, and of corn 6 little later, but little was done in England by way of redu cing duties for any purpose until the act of 1842; in respect to which the premier, Sir Robert Pe“el, said: We have applied ourselves to jiri porfeetionsin the tariff, to makeit clear and intelligible and asfar as possible, consistent. We have sppghtto removeall prohibitions. all nbsolpte prohibitions upon the importation of fereign articles; and we have endeavored to reduce duties which are so high as to beprohibitory to such a scale as may admit of a fair competition W"ithdomesticproduce. With respectto raw materials which constitute the elements of our manufactures, our object, speaking generally, has been to reduce themto almost a nominal amount. In half manufactured materials, which enter almost as much as raw mutenals into our domestic manufacture, we havereduced the duty to a nominal amount." The various tariff acts from 1842 to 1859 reducing the duties on raw material and articles partially manufactured, as well as 011 articles of food, were intended to increase the export of her manufactures to other countries, where England by reason of her immense capital and machinery and her low labor could be a successful competitor. The reduction of duties on articles wholly manufactured, esteutationsly alluded to by her statesmen, was simply offering to other nations a proposition they could not accept in competition with anything manufacture in England, for the simple reason that England eoul manufacture cheaper than anybody else. The mean annual customs collected in the United Kingdom from 1838 to 1842 were reported at $116,645,680, all of which, except $10,542,715, were collected from silk manufactures, spirits, sugar and molasses, tea, tallow, timber, tobacco and snuff, wines, and ordinary agricultural products. In 1843 and 1844, that is, for the two years after the free trade tarilf of 1842 reducing du ties, the mean annual customs amonnted to $116,038, 720, of which all but $8,908,810 were of the list above enumerated. Now, if we pass to the 6 years, from 1854 to 1859 inclusive, we shall find that the mean annual revenne from customs was $117,797,685, all of which save $2,779,885 was collected on the enumerated list. Of the average annual duties of the 1st period, $116,645,680, the sum of $80, 411, 220 was collected from articles for consumption not raised at all in GreatBritain, being on coffee, sugar, molasses, tea, timber, tobacco, and wines. Of the $116,638,720 of the 2nd period, $86,531,410 were collected on same items; and of the $117,797,685 of the last period the sum of $92,584,301 was collecte from same sources. Butwe mustdeduct from the residue in each instance $12,000,000 more for customs on imported spirits which England does not manufacture to any extent because of her limitedproduction of grain compared with her consumption. Wheredowefind ere the evidence that free trade has opened the ports of England to foreign manufactures which compete with her own? In 1841 and 1842, before her tariff proclaimed the reduction of duties on imported articles wholly or partially manufactured, she received on finished articles but an annual revenue of $2, 397, 850, and for the mean of 1843 44, $2, 377, 625. Will these insignficent sums, not more than sufficient to cover her revenue duties on the finished non-competing manufactures of the Indies and of other countries, indicate that the world has free entry into the ports of England? In 1839 the import duties collected by GreatBritain amounte to $110,604,760. In 1859the y amounted to $123, 522, 635, which to American arithmetie would seem to prove that the rule of reduction in England ist at of “ reduction ascending." App ied to the pretense of free trade, ” a logician might style it the “ reductio adabsurdum. ” Preaching free trade to the world, England has within the last ten years once, at least, if not twice, imposed an increased duty of ten%. upon American cottons imported into er Indian empire to exclude the manufactures of NewEngland. I feel reIuctant to trespass longer on the patience of the committee in roving, both by the words and the acts of Britis statesmen, that all their theories of free trade are based upon the idea that their own manufactures are protected against our competition by their capital and superior facilities, and that our markets are to he opened to them by the alluring assu rance that theirports will be open to us. Yet I may be pardoned for citing the language of Sir obert Peel in 1840, in debate in Par liament, complaining that other countries did not comply with the disinterested desires of England. He said: “Yon have dolied the regulations of those countries. But your exports, whatever be the tnriffs of other countries, or however apparentthe ingratitude with which they havetreatedyou – your export trade has been constantly increasing. By theremission of your dutiesupontheraw material, by increasing your skill and industry.by competitionwith foreign goods.you have defied your competitors in foreign markets, and you have evenbeenable to exclude them. Not withstandingtheir hostile tariffs the declared value of British exports has increased above ten million pounds during the period which elapsed since the re axation of dutieson yourpart. I say, therefore, to you that these hostile tarifis, so far from being an objectionto continuing your policy, are an argument in its favor. But depend uponit your example will ultimately prevail.” suppose we had adopted this policy and opeiic our ports for the right of entry to those of Gi cat Britain, where would have been the benefit to us? England years ago attempted to secure the reduction of our taritf by promising the repeal of her corn laws, and held out herlproposed action as an equivalent for what she asked of us. The proposition was uotaccepted, and in 1849 she removed the duties upon grains of her own volition and for her own interest. In 1850 we exorted aparly 3 million bushels of grain ess than 1n'1849, and nearly a million less than in 1848. The following.table will show our exports from ‘1846 to 1800, and from the fluctuations which are apparent from year to year, it is a parent that we can place no reliance upon filglfllld as a steady and regular market. She will. buy of us when we can undersell others, and only then: Tableof amountof wheat, com, and all othergrains uniorted from the U.S. nlo the kingdomof Uri 1|!HI [him from 1846to 1300 inclusive, in, quarters, (eight bushels.) years, between 1848 and 1800, our exports to GreatBritain‘of' our cereals was reduced 27%., the amount imported by her from al countries increased over 19%. How insignificant is such a market for the sale of the vast cereal production for which the agriculturists of the Vest seek a sale. In 1860the western States reduced in cornaloue 470, 190,007 bushels, an of wheat 102, 251, 127 bushels; while NewEngland, which itself raised but 10, 175, 856 bushels of corn and 1,000, 804 of wheat, furnished, with the other eastern States, a market for the sale of more than 6 times the quantity of grain exported to all Europe. The western farmer who looks abroad for a permanent and regular market for his products, and demands free trade that he may buy the manufactures and productions of England untaxed, should be treated at once for op thnlmia or strabismus. Our total agricultural production of 1860 is returned at $1, 856,000,000; our total exports were $272, 282, 873, of which amount there was in cotton $101, 806, 555, showing export of other commodities to be $80, 476, 318, and proving that we consumed at home and interchanged $1,583, 717, 127. I am aware that since 1860 our exports of breadstulfs to Europe and to GreatBritain has increased, but this is a circumstancewhichby no means indicates that we can continue to expert. The wheat bearing regions of Russia, especially of her Polish douiinions, are unlimited, affording a more ready supply, and the act of emancipation of the Czar lS likely to a great extent to increase the cereal production of the empire. Speculnte as we will, we shall find that America has always furnished and will continue to furnish the largest and most reliable market for American productions. Let me allude now to the mutual relations of the American farmer and the American manufacturer, to show the folly of a free trade remedy for a dull market of our products, by citing statistics which are reliable:. Atable of the comparative number of male per mm employedin manufacturesin the several Slatednamedin No. qfmnlcs. Population. 21, 31.” An analysis of this table will showtbe immense disparity in the% age of population employed in manufactures between the eastern and the western States, and that while in 3 manufacturing States of NewEngland the number of males employed was equal to almost eight%. oft ewhole opuation, while NewYork, NewJersey, and ennsylvania had nearly 6%. of their population thus employed, Iowa had not 1%., Illinois and Indiana less than one and a half%., and Ohio a fraction over 2%. Deny to the manufacturers of the East the protection which will maintain their labor as manufacturers, and they and the millions who are dependent on them for support cease to be consumers of what others raise, but they must become producers in the broad West in competition With those who now complain of an inadequate market for their present product. Will it help the farmer of Ohio, of ndiana, of Illinois, or of Iowa to increase the number of producers and diminish at the same time the number of consumers? The practical aplication of such a doctrine will produce desoation throughout that portion 0 our country which bore u under the burdens of the war without comp uint, and which is ready to submit to any but unnecessary sacrifices for the good of the Republic. I am not here as the advocate of the manufacturing interests of NewEngland or NewYork, NewJersey or Pennsylvania, as a matter of local or sectional consideration. NewEngland is rich and powerful. She is able to take care of her own interests, and I fear she is selfish enough to do it, no matter who may suffer. She has grown rich by protected industry, until her enormous wealth constitutes protection to her great manufactures, and perhaps suggests indifference to protective legislation. Her patriotism has uniformly, I believe, been colored by her supposed interest, and perhaps till human nature is modified and reconstruct ed, the same phase will be exhibited before the country. I I quarrel not with NewEngland, unless she force the contest. I drew my 1st breath in the pure atmosphere of her mountains, and slept in childhood beneath the shadow of her pines. Her laughing rills, her rocks, and glens are photographed upon the recollections of my youth. I love her noble charities, her art, and her enterprise. Yet I speak not for her. I speak for labor, American labor, wherever within the limits of my country it requires or seeks protection. I demand this now, because the time is now, and the place is here, when and where we must determine the policy of the Government in reference to the great subject of its finances and its productions. Adebt of more than 3,000 millions will rest upon the industry of the country when all the liabilities incurred during the rebellion shall be aggregated and funded. That debt audits interest must be aid, without a mur mur, to the last dime. this sanctified by the cause for which it was created and by the purposes it accomplished. But it must be paid, not from invested capital, but from its income and from the profits of labor, and, so far as practicable, by indirect taxation imposed for the protection of labor as well as for revenue. It is doubtless necessary, under the exigencies of the day, to continue for the present all of the modes of raising revenue which have been adopted in order to insure the maintenance of the public credit. But the experience of civilized nations suggests the avoidance of direct taxation whenever practicable, and the supply of revenue by customs upon imports. Mr. McCulloch, in his elaborate Descriptive and Statistical Account of the British Empire, (volume two, page 402,) in speaking of reve nue and expenditure, says: "Direct taxeson property have been the curseof everycountryinto which they have been introduce d. To evadethem peoplethat are not poor counterfeit poverty; someof the most powerful incentivesto industry and economyare in consequence destroyed, at thesometime that inferior stock, machine, &c., are made use of.". “Though theoreticallyequal. n tux either on property or in come, or both, is practically most unequal. We may get a pretty accurate notion of the income derived from land, muses, funded property, and mortgages, but all be‘ond this is mereguess work. There are no means y which to ascertain the valueof farming, capitafstockin trade.the profitsderived from them, or the incomes of professional mon. No inquisition into the sinus of private individuals can ever discover these particulars and we need not dwell upon the impolicy ofany system of finance that sets the duty and the interest of contributorsinto opposition, and makestheprofit by concealing or perverting the truth." Speaking generally, an incomeon propertyshould not be introduced exceptupder very peculiar circumstances, and should. ifpossible, be reservedfor a derm'zrreamrtwhen the ot or or more legitimate sourcesof revenue may be insufllcient or when money must be had at all hazards." A reference to the sources of revenue in England will show that she has constantly and successfully relied on customs as the principal means of filling her Treasury, and she has never yet adopted a system of duties which has not augmented her receipts. While, therefore, I believe it would be unwise to dispense with our excise and income taxes at the present time, I believe that our duty consists in seeking a liberal revenue from imports, and that such imports should be so adjusted as to encourage our own industry, and thus increase our internalrevenue from the profits or income of reduction. Nature with muni icent rofusion has show ered the elements of wea th over slope and mountain, valley and lain, from the shores of the Atlantic to the golden gates of the Pacific. All that our country now requires is peace, followed or accom anied by the developments of remunerated labor. English statesmen long since based their claims to commercial supremacy on the cools and machinery of the kingdom, and on the control of the manufactures of cotton and of iron. “Iron and coal, the sinews of manufacture, ” said Sir Robert Peel, “give us advantages over every rival in the great competition of industry. Our capital far exceeds that others can command. N ingenuity, in skill, in energy, we are inferior to none.” “The large capitals of this country, ” said a commission reporting to Parliament in 1854, “ are the great instru ments of warfare against the competing capital of foreign countries, and are the most essential instruments now remaining by which our manufacturing supremacy can be maintained, the other elements, cheap labor, abundance of raw material, means of communication, and skilled labor being rapidly equalized.” What element of wealth has England that we have not? How many elements have we of which she is denied? Her coal fields are rich and so are ours. Hers are limited, ours are in exhaustible. Tomlinson, in his Encyclopedia of Science in 1852, estimates the principal coal fields in the United Kingdom available for working at about 10,000 square miles. The coal fields of Iowa and IlHHOIS alone exceed 50,000 s uare miles, while Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, irginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Tennessee, NCarolina, Michigan, Georgia, Alabama, Indiana, and Arkansas make a coal field as great in area as all England. The vast beds of ores ofiron located in every art of the country, and in association with tocoal, far exceed in extent and richness the ores of England. The 2 cardinal elements of power are ours; and beyond the iron, the coal, the gold, and silver regions of the West, the copper mines of the North, the lead of Illinois, Missouri, NewJersey, and other inctnlliferous formations, show an extent of variety of raw mate rial for the employment of labor with which England furnishes no comparison. The cotton hint is ours; not imported, but the product of our fields. By the application of free labor and under a system we'll organized the product of 5 million holes may be increased if need be to ten or 20 millions. Sugar, tobacco, rice, wheat, corn, rye, hemp, flax, he s, are the growth of our varied climate and soi. The steam power which vitalizes every part of England, performs in her mines, her mills, her machine shops. her founderies, upon her railways, the daily labor of 600 million people, and gives support to the greatest mer cantile marine upon the seas. With a poulation of 30 millions, her exports excee 700 millions in value, upon a old basis, while ours were less than 250 millions, with a population in excess of hers and on a 'depreciated currency. Why, with ever element for the maintenance of profitable abor, shall we submit to the fallacy of British free trade, that she may supply us with her manufactures, and pay us, not what we may demand, but what she may consent to give, for our agricultural productions? Give us protected labor; give to manufactures and agriculture mutual protection by encouraging in every agricultural community where practicable the establishment of manufactures. Why not encourage manufactures by the side of producers? The great city of Chicago, represented upon this floor by my distinguishe friend, [ Mr. Wssrwowru, ] already alive to her own interests, has reared within her limits manufacturing establishments which would do honor to NewEngland. I have no apprehension, sir, if eve people of the West would imitate her exam e, an thus make a profitable division of labor between agriculture and manufactures at their own doors. The interior of Iowa and of Illinois, before the days of railways, have seen the time when corn in the field was not worth the labor of the harvest, because no home market existed, and the cost of transportation to a distant market was prohibitory. I have heard the pioneers of Illinois state the fact that until the construction of the Galena, China , and Union railroad from Chicago toward ‘lgin, wheat could not be taken to Chicago from a distance of 50 miles for its market value on arrival. I have watched the gradual extension of her railways across her plains to the Missouri, and her corn and wheat, her pork and her beef now find a market which is available; in other words, internal improvements have brought her nearer market. Suppose Dubuque he should become another Providence, Des moines a 2nd Lowell, and Keokuk another Cincinnati, what would he the local effect upon the agriculture of the State? Does any man doubtit? There is no man of enterprise and wealth the resident of any town in this country who has not advocated the introduction of manufactures and machinery into his own town to enhance its value and importance, and every argument has been based upon the employment oflabor which would furnish a marliet for neighboring production. This principle thus applied locally by all is just as true of the nation as of a community, especially of a nation whose facilities for intercourse are as great as those with which nature and art have favored our own people. The manufactures of Pittsburg pass by unbroken water communication to StPaul, StLouis, to the Yellowstone, up the Arkansas, to NewOrleans, to Nashville, to Chattanoo a, to NewYork, and Quebec, while 35,000 miles of railway, with crossing and interlacing lines, render every part of the country aceessible to internal commerce. The Hudson, the Erie, and Champlain canals, and the at lake navigation, connect the valley of the ississippi, an the great Northwest with the Atlantic. The railway lines which are even now surmounting the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky mountains will soon Open a new outlet to the cereals of the West and vastly extend mining and manufacturing enterprise on the Pacific coast. Protection to labor is the watchword to American advancement. Its athway hith erto has ever been bordered by the flowers of prosperity. Its abandonment has ever been the blight of our industry. Pennsylvania has hitherto been the great iron State. In 1842we enacted a tariff to protect the iron manufacture. At that time there were 213 furnaces of all kinds, which had been the growth of 60 years. In the 4 years to 1846 103 new furnaces started into life, involving an investment of more than $6,000,000, and the increased annual production of iron for the 4 years averaged 216, 171 tons, or nearly one quarter of the whole production of pig iron in the U.S. in 1860. Under the act of 1842the taxes upon iron were specific, with the advalorfiesometimes in addition. They Were on th llowing articles: perton. Bars and bolts not rolled. 617 Bars and bolts rolled. 2.5 Pi iron. 9 Ol scrap iron. By the tariff of 1846 the specific duties were changed on almost the entire iron list to 30%. advalorcm at the port of foreign ship ment, and the result was the almost universal rostration and bankruptcy of the iron manu actures of the country. The fatal principle of advalorcm duties thus introduced gave the “inside track” to every foreign manufacturer havin a partner or an agent in this country, and Ied as well to the pe etration of enormous frauds in the invoices of the exporters. Nor were other efforts wantin to break down the American manufacturer. The complaint made to Parliament in 1854 of the low wages paid to British laborers was met by the report of a commission of inquiry with the declaration that “The laboring classes encrully in the manufacturing districts, and especiaiily in the iron and coal distriots, are very little aware of the extent to which they are often indebted for their being employed at aulnl ttaoritlhye immense losses which their employersvol incur in bad times in order to destroy foreign competition, and to gain and keeppossession 0 foreignmarkets." Sir, from 1846 to 1861 our domestic industry did not receive the protection which was due to its imrtance orits necessities; and even if it was, the protection received was due to the depreciation of our currency from a gold basis, and to the enormous Government demand for our productions rather than to legislative in the position. the return of peace and the suspension of increasing loans by the Government tend to bring the gold and the currency near to the same value, and our manufacturers are now struggling against the evils of inadequate protection. With a country whose resources for agricultural and mineral productions are unequaled on the globe; in whose coal fields, yet scarcely explored, slumbers the motive power necessary to propel the machinery which a population as dense over the whole realm as that which now crowds every square mile of the British isles may require; with the energy, the inventive genius, and the industry essential to the erection, the extension, ‘and the preservation of empire, we need but wisdom in the adminis tration of our finances, in the development of nature’s beauties, and in the measures designed to restore harmony and union, to render the Ameriam reblic the proudest boast of civilization. The Internalrevenues on which we so largely rely to meet the current expenses of the Government, and from which the last car we received $211, 129, 529 17, and from which it was anticipated that the receipts for 1866 would be $272,000,000, cannot be maintained unless our manufactures on which they are largely dependent shall be preserved in their efficiency. 3/4ths of all this internalrevenue are derived directly or indirectly from manufactures. Today your rolling mills, your fonuderies, your machine shops, your factories, are either closed or working at a loss to the proprietors. Your collieries are suspended, and 1000s of unemployed laborers await the action of Congress, which is lamentably delayed till the very close of your session. Where is your revenue ifyour manufactures are stricken down? Moreover, we must bear in mind how largely the amount of incomes will be reduced by our return toward a specie basis, while the public debt must be paid at its face, the creditor, and not the Government, deriving the benefitof its enhanced value. And here.I desire to submit a table showing the total internalrevenue, and internalrevenue from manufactures in the years 1863, 1864, and 1865, and the ercentage as compared with the revenue from eptember 1, 1862, when the act took effect, to June 30, 1863, being the end of the fiscal year, is, for ten months, only Total revenue. Manufactures.%. 1864 1865. Showing that even in the last year the direct income from manufactures was 49.83‘%. of total recei ts, irrespective of the income tax or the pros of manufactures or of the in come from freight, travel, insurance, and other sources growing out of the business of manufacturing. Sir, the internalrevenue on cotton fabricsin 1865 was $7, 331, 148; woolen fabrics yielded $7, 947,094; iron manufactures $8, 494, 989; railroad freights $5, 917.293. But it is certain that in the absence of protection, and increased protection, these manufactures and the income directly and indirectly deendent upon them cannot be maintained, an we shall find our selves in America supporting by our policy the free trade theory of England, which means subservicncy to her interests, and forgetfulness of our own.Mr. Speaker. I desire to see the labor of America so ported on no system which defrauds the laborer of the means of providing for the education of his children. that they may take their places of responsibility in the care of the Republic. I am unwilling to witness its degradation to the level of those European systems which support life only to make it a term of endurance. I speak in no spirit of hostility to England. I will admire whatever in her is cod and noble. I will sympathize with her in every effort to elevate the standard of her people. Not even the envy of her nobility, nor the ignorant hatred of her lower classes toward us in our struggle to throw off the cursed system of human servitude which her on idity fastened upon our soil, nor her master yv inactivity in the enforcement of her laws of neutrality shall make me forgetful of her Burke and Cbatham; of Wilberforce; of Bright, and of Cobden; nor will I be unmindful of the noble spirit of forbearance which her workers in cotton manifested under the serious cmbarrassments arising from the cm bargo upon our great southern staple. I seek not, as did old England, prohibition upon exports; I seek not prohibition upon imports; but I would, were it in my power, establish, as a matter of duty, such a system as should maintain our own credit, protect our own industry, and invite to a country where land is cheap and where labor is remunerative the surplus population which England can spare, and for which we can provide. I would build in all the wasted South, upon the streams where power now sports with solitude, the factories in which free labor shall work out the fortunes of free men. I would enslave, not man but nature; not human bones and, muscle, but the water fall and the int power of the steam engine to redeem soutern fields from the desolations of war and restore to a misguided people the freedom that they spurned and the' prosperity which they destroyed. I would till up the prairies with new and increasing population, that a land i lying waste for long generations may contribute by its fertility to the advancement. of happiness. I would invite industry and skill to the rich mines and ores which require but labor to convert them into the life blood of commerce, and then as decade after decade, rolling away, should bear the rebellion, its crimes, and its retribution further and still further to the past, I should feel an abiding confidence that the burdens that now oppress 30 millions would be unfelt by 100 million of true and people holding peaceful, undivided, and uployiasl puted power from the Atlantic to the Pacific.