Mr. EDMUNDS. I do not know that they do. Perhaps they have turned their attention, being pretty far down on the northeastern frontier, to importing coals and making oil; perhaps they find that more profitable; I cannot say. Then Vermont has exhaustless stores of it; Tennessee is full of it, and the beautiful marble which adorns many of the staircases of this Capitol is from there; California has fine uarries of it of the most beautiful description. Then when you take the prucciated marble; another description, Vermont has it, Maryland has it, and so has Tennessee. So that every description of marble which is known among There has been no in men, excepting the antiques, as they are called, from the lost quarries, are to be found in abun. dance in this country. Every description of it is worked. Millions of capital are invested in it, and 1000s upon 1000s of the industrious inhabitants of this country earn their daily bread in working in it in one form or another. It is entitled to prooction; it is entitled to encouragement; and let me tell my friendfrom Maine that it is no easy thing, no light thing to open a marble quarry. Some marble quarries, like every other description of business, are very profitable; others are not so. The general average of the marble business is not exceedingly profitable, and we must legislate for the general average of that description of occupation. We find, then, that the importer of this foreign marble can well share his enormous profits with the Government by paying a little E. tax. We find that it will not be a tax upon the consumer, although that consumer who uses the foreign marble is your rich man and not your poor one, because there is not one house in 50 in the U.S. that contains any marble article of furniture or ornament whatever, unless it may be some little mantel ornament, a vase or something of that kind that is made from a kind of stucco prepared from marble dust; but of real marble there is not one house in 50 among the habitations. of the citizens of the U.S. that has a particle of it inside of its doors. It comes almost under the same head that champagne and claret and Burgundy and cigars do; things that the rich or those who have money to spend for luxuries, whether rich or not, choose to have. Therefore it ought to be taxed more than other articles; and as I have demonstrated, on account of the great extent of the product in this country and the great amount.”capital and labor already invested in it, there is no danger that there will not be a sufficient supply, and no danger that the price will be en o by increasing this duty. The only result will be that while you thus stimulate to a larger degree home production, you will increase your revenue and not increase the price.