Mr. DAVIS. I have moved a group of amendmentsthat are restricted to a very small space in the bill, all the subjects of which are so closely and intimately united that they may be considered together. With the Gentfrom Missouri, [Mr. HENDERsoN] I concede that as abstract propositions or in connection and as parts of a well arranged tariff bill, the propositions of increase that I make ought not to be allowed; but in connection with the bill underconsideration I consider them altogether properand legitimate; intleed, I know them to be below the rate of protection that is generallyafforded by the hif tected by it. It seems to me, Mr. President, that this tariff bill has been framed in support of a few leading and controlling interest with the purE. of giving an undue amount, if not a proibitory protection, to certain classes of capital and industry at the expense of all other interests. Hemp, in any of its forms, does not enter into this ring of high protection. On the contrary, the interests of hemp are among those to which are assigned the lowest protection by this bill. All the propositions to amend it have been to get higher protection for particular local interests. Gentlemen seem to be merely playing the game of grab. They are dissatisfied with the amount oftprotection that the bill proposes to give to their special interests, and they make a dash to capture a little more. I confess that I am acting upon the same principle, but not being an adept in the game I am apprehen sive that I shall play it without any result or advantage to my constituents. Nevertheless I maintain that the just proportionate rata protectionthat hemps as articles specified in my amendment ought to receive, in comparison withtheotherinterests that are protected by this bill, are greatly too low. Now, Mr. President, propose in connection with my amendment at this time to move to commit the bill to the ComFinance, with instructions to examineand consider it in connection with the laws to provide internalrevenue and the laws imposing duties on foreign importations, and that the committee shall report bills reducing the aggregate amount of taxes imposed by those laws in the sum of at least $100,000,000. Mr. President, it is my purpose thus to suggest a decided movement in the regulation of American industry, and the taxes imposed uponthe people and the produce of our revenuelaws. I wish this bill to be recommitted with the command of the Senate to the ComFinance to consider it, in connection With all existing laws imposing duties both on foreignimports and internal taxes, as a reve nuesystem, by o;the amount of taxes by all existing laws not less than $100,000,000, and thentoo, the laws imposing duties, to the interests proimports, and internal taxes, so to give to the people not less than that amount of Sir, reduction. ought not such a policy as that to be entered upon at once? Will not the receipts under the revenue laws now in operation authorize that amount of general reduction in the taxes of the people? What was the produce of the revenue laws last year? I am indebted for most of the facts I am about to state to my learned and industrious friend, the Senfrom Missouri. He has proceeded, with his usual diligence and accuracy, to collect and collate these facts, and he has Presented them to the Senate in connection with arguments and views so forcible that to my mind his positions and conclusions ought to receive the immediate assent of the Senate. “ As the reports of the SecyTreasury show, the produce of our revenue laws the last fiscal year was $558,000,0a fraction. The honorable Senfrom Missouri gives us a statement of the produce of the 1st quarter of the Present fiscal year, and also including a period of 5 months; and the same rate of receipts for the whole year, its aggre gate would be the rise of $540,000,000. Now, what is the object of the bill? It is to increase the taxes upon foreign importations. But for that object the bill would not have been devised. Its friends do not attempt to disguise that the purpose is, by increasing taxes upon certain articles, and numerous articles, to give an additional protection to the producers of those and similar articles at home. Notwithstanding the laws imposing taxes now in existence during the last fiscal year raised $558,000,000, and this fiscal year promise certainly to produce $540,000,000, yet the measureunder consideration has been devised still further to swell receipts into the Treasury by imposing additional heavy taxes upon the peole in the form of additional duties on foreign imports, varying from 20 to 40%. s that sound policy? Is it good statesman ship? Is it true and able financiering 2Ibe lieve it was Peter Pinder who said that “there is nothing certain but death and taxes;” and if Wolcot were now living he would have suggested at least another proposition in relation to the U.S.: which is the most terrible death or the taxes of our people? They are taxed nearly 550 million dollars by our existing laws, and the majority in Congress propose still further to pile up upon them. . people were ever before so burdened and ground down by taxes. they come! I have before me the estimates of the SecyTreasury of the public expenditures for the passing fiscal year, and they exhibit only an aggregate of $328,000,000. That is the amount which he gives as the proximate necessary amount of revenue required for all the purposes of the Government within the passing fiscal year. When we are just out of a great war, when the industry of the country in all its branches, and especially in the middle and southern States, has been so greatly disorganized, and when the people are groaning under the weight of such enormous taxation, and when the SecyTreasury only estimates that $328,000,000 are necessary for this year to answer all the purposes of the Government, I ask why is it that new bills to burden the people with still more taxes are devised? Sir, there is no pretext of any necessity for it. It springs from a sectional and monop olizing spirit a spirit to rob the many for the benefit of the few; a spirit that exacts from the industry of the producer and the laborer for the purpose of adding to the wealth of the capitalist, the manufacturer, growers of wool, and the great manufacturers of iron. It is impossible that this aspect of the case can be disuised. It is reflected by the official papers from the Treasury Dept, and it shows that the people of the U.S. are being taxed to the amount of about 1/2 of 5 The cry is, still 140 million dollars above every legitimate demand of the Government. As was intimated by the Senfrom Missouri, this appetite for protection is not sated, but it grows, by what it feeds on. The more protection that is given above a certain whole some and legitimate point the more is rendered necessary.. The best protection in my judgment, in addition to moderate duties to prevent ruine us competition with foreign labor, is a moderate amount of capital, industry, manufacturing skill, economy, and cheap subsistence. They are the elements of cheapproduction, of prosperous manufacturing interests, and of a prosperous people generally. They are principles upon j, the whole country flourishes and grows wealthy, without any in justice or opPression from one interest upon another. The taxes of the country amount annually, as I have said, to over 550 million dollars. This enormous amount of taxes enters into the general aggregate of the prices of almost everything. It is an onerous burden upon all the people, and particularly upon the producers o the laborers, who constitute the fomass of the consumers and the tax payers. f Congress now should remove an aggregate of $150,000,000 of taxes from this people, as it well might, what a great amount of relief would be afforded to them If a reduction of but $100,000,000, as contemplated by my motion, should be made, the whole country would be made to breathe easier by it. But the abolition of an aggregate of $150,000,000 would leave $50,000,000 annually of surplus revenue, and that would be enough not only to meet all contingencies, but to make other and large reductions of the public burdens. Sir, we have had a most deplorable view of our industrial interests given in the decay of our shipping, the decrease of our tonnage; our commercial marine, which was once the largest that floated on the ocean, now being reduced more than 50%. What have the Senfrom Vermont and the Senfrom Michigan told us? What we all know and what all the gentlemen here tell us who want further protection: that labor and production are so costly in the U.S. that our prod ucts cannot come into competition with the foreign product and foreign labor. The honorable Senfrom Vermont told us that while the laborers in the British Provinces were working in the stone quarries at from 75 cents to one dollar per day, in his State they were charging 3 and 4 dollars. The same statement was made by the Senfrom Michigan in relation to the laborers in that State. It has been said here again and again, and seems to be conceded by everybody, that a mechanic or laborer skilled in the highest workmanship of manufacture wants from 4 to 5 dollars per day, while the European laborer of the same class only gets about one 4th or one 5th of the same wages. Why is it, then, that our manufactures and laborers are no longer able to compete with the manufacturers and laborers of the world as hereto fore in our market, with the same amount of reasonable protection that they were wont to receive in former years? Why is it? As you informed us, sir, there is but one principal ship on the stocks now in the U.S. Why is it that our vast magnificent commercial marine is diminishing to such an extent as to be the shame and the great loss of the whole country? It is because of the enormous amount of taxation that is bearing down the labor and the enterprise of our people; because it oppresses not only their capital and their production, but very labor and subsistence. Why is it that the man in NewBrunswick can afford to work at one dollar or 75 cents a day, and a man in Michigan or in Ver mont must have from 3 to 5 dollars per day? What are the elements of the cost of labor? Independent of the timee and muscle of the laborer, there is principally his subsistence and the subsistence of his family: Every thing upon which he can live, that is to sustain his life, and to clothe and lodge him and his family, and of the elements of the price of his labor, and every article which he uses, they are directly or incidentally heavily taxed; and the amount of accumulating taxes which this consumer has ultimately to pay constitute the greater part of the cost of the subsistence of himself and his family; and it has all to be saddled upon his labor. If you would unfetter him from this slavery and give him cheap and full and sure subsistence, remove the taxes from those articles which form it. In the same proportion that you abolish or reduce those taxes you reduce the price of his labor and cheapen production. You do not impoverish him by reducing his labor, because even at his Present high rate of wages the most are consumed by the payment of taxes, and he has little or no surplus of profit. The true statesman would relieve the laborers and consumers of our country from their difficulties by abolishing their taxes. To the extent of between 1200 million dollars it is your duty to abolish their taxes; they have the right and will demand it of you, and unless you accord it to them they will put other men in your places who will. The honorable Senfrom Missouri made other remarks which ought to arrest the atten.tion of the Senate and receive its most serious consideration: that one of the principal elements of the enormous prices of everything in the U.S. is our redundant currency. We now have an exclusive paper currency of upward of $900,000,000. Is not that an excessive currency, greatly beyond the demands of a healthy condition of the country and of its legitimate business? How can prices come down in the Presence of such an enormous and spurious currency? We all know, as the senator remarked, that the currency of the world is gold and silver, and that people who would enter into its trade and business generally on terms of fair competition must also have a similar currency. The idea of one people having a vicious, inflated, and irredeemable paper currency, in amount 2 or 3 times greater than the aggregate of gold currency that would be needful and useful for the business of the country, entering into an equal and successful competition with the great manufac. turing and commercial nations of the world who have a metallic currency, is preposterous. Qur paper currency was not intended to answer the purposes of times of peace. It was the straits and necessities of the war that induced the Government and people to resort to a paper currency. That great need has passed,it is time that the Government and the country were adopting measures for the resumption of specie payments. No paper currency will ever answer the necessities of a circulating medium unless it is cfonoverti.ble at the pleasure of the holder. No would want our country to come ack to that condition suddenly. But, sir, to reach it at all, there must be a beginning, and now is the time, and in my judgment the appropriate time, to make the beginning. I think that Congress ought to 2nd the views and policy of the SecyTreasury in relation to the return to specie payments. I would not have it suddenly done. I would have it proceed very slowly and gradually, so as to permit no great disorders in the business of the country and to cause no ruine us losses, or at least to as few a number of persons as possible. But let a tendency toward the resumption of specie payments now be entered ypon, and let the enlightened statesmen of Congress and of the country determine that in the course of 4 or 5 years that condition of things shall be reached; in the course of that time the resumption of specie payments could be made so gradual that no prudent man's interests need be materially affected. But, sir, a return to specie payments can never be made without producing more or less of disorder and bankruptcy. Some men must fall, and a great many before such an opera.tion. It is a necessity, though, to resume specie payments, an absolute indispensable necessity. The true, wise policy is to resume them so gradually and to reach that result with such slow approaches that the smallest number of individuals will be injured in their circumstances and business by it. That policy sooner or later must be undertaken it must be consummated. This Congress, with all its puissance, cannot long delay that day. As one of the operations for the resumption of specie payments, as well as for the relief of the people from grievous burdens of taxation and the great charge which is thus made upon their industry, the ComFinance, in my opinion, ought to consider the whole question of revenue and protection in connection with every act of Congress imposing taxes in every form, whether by internal excise or duties upon foreign imports, and they ought to fashion and adjust all such measures together. They ought to be settled upon the principle of relieving the people of. U.S., I would say from $150,000,000 of taxes, and then Congress would be enabled to determine with better judgment how much of protection against foreign imports the industry of the country requires by being brought to the scale upon which internal taxation should be adjusted. I therefore, Mr. President, move the Senate to recommit the bill under consideration to the ComFinance, to examine and consider it in connection with the laws to provide internalrevenue and the laws imposing duties on foreign importation; and that said committee report bills reducing the aggregate amount of taxes imposed by said laws upon the people by at least $100,000,000.