Mr. EDMUNDS. Very likely; I generally am; but having been, with a great many other Senators, born and brought up in a country where lumber is one of the chief commodities we have some personal knowledge, not derived from any interested party either, as to the respective classifications and values of lumber. Now, if the object of the committee be to obtain revenue from lumber, whitewood, which sells in the NewEngland markets at from 25 to 50 dollars 1,000, ought to. be in the higher class, so as to pay the highest rate of duty per 1,000 feet. It will be remembered that this is a specific duty and not an advalorem one; and so in order to make the higher priced and higher valued commodities pay their proper%. we must classify them as they ought to be so that whitewood ought to be in the class that pays the higher rate of duty. So much for that. Now, as to pine. Pine by my amendment is inserted in this 1st class together with the other descriptions of wood, provided the valuation in the foreign market does not exceed ten dollars per 1,000 feet. There is, as is well known to everybody who is acquainted with the subject, a certain class of pine lumber which in the foreign market and in the home market is very inferior. It is knotty, or shaky, or otherwise unsound, and it is used for the commonestand cheapest purposes of business the making of fences, the covering of cheap buildings, and of the inferior, and humble houses, so to speak, to which other cheap descriptions of lumber are applied. Therefore, it seems to me that all this class which comes in under the dollar 1000head ought to be limited in its price in the foreign market to ten dollars, and thus to pay ten%. by the tax of a dollar 1000upon it; and all the rest of the commodity that comes under the 2 dollars per 1,000 rule will be covered by the increased valuation above ten dollars per 1,000.. This is a subject in which my constituents You put whitewood in have no other interest than that which is felt by every class of the community, because they are neither great producers nor great consumers of lumber; !. from my acquaintance with the subject, and from the acquaintance with the subject which my constituents have who deal in it, and who do not particularly care, so far as they are concerned, what the duty may be, except to have it best for the country, in this view I have proposed this amendment.