Mr. KASSON. IfI understand the Gentfrom Vermont [Mr. Woonnalnos] correctly, in his opinion as well as mine the title of this bill should be changed so as to read, “ A bill to prevent the diffused blessings of divine Providence from being enjoyed by the people of the U.S.” It is an attempt against the laws of Providence to force the people of this country to a more for what they need than the laws 0 providence would otherwise require. As I was going on to say, this system of protecting one of the articles that you raise the cost of by this bill, compels you to go im mediately to another interest and raise the price of that. Take the article of wool, for instance: no sooner do you propose to increase the tariff on wool than you immediately go to the manufacturers of wool and give them an increased protection on their manufactures. And thus those who raise the wool pay back a large part of the bounty that is paid for the raising of wool to contribute to the bounty given to the manufacturer, and the non-reducer of wool pays both bounties in buying is clothing. And so it is in relation to the article ofiron, or upon any other particular branch upon which you increase our tariff, you immediately go off in another irection and increase the tariff upon other collateral interests affected by it; an so you build up a gigantic system of bounties upon all: these interests upon the plea of protecting t cm., The fundamental error in this bill is this: you endeavor to make the people of this country grow rich off each other. Ircmember that upon a former occasion I illustrated my argument in this way: one man in a village was buying lots of another, and the other was buying lots ofhim. They were buying and selling with each other. As one of the m remarked, “ We are trying to row rich off each other." And thus it is in this system of protection by high bounties. You are aiming to make the people of this country grow rich, not by selling to foreign people and making their profits from abroad, for that you could do by a correct tariff; but here on are attempting to make one class of peop e in this country grow rich by the burdens you impose upon another class of pee lo. I will agree to any tariff which will one left you to sell abroad in foreign countries and make your profits off foreign people. But you now ask me to vote for a bill which is going to build u one portion of the people of this country y the impoverishment of another portion. Develop your industry in such a shape and arrange your tariff in such a manner that you can se l your goods to foreign countries, and you not only aid to make tie manufacturers of the U.S. rich off the people of foreign countries, but you also benefitthe people of this country by reducing the cost of what you manufacture to the consumers of this country. New, sir, to illustrate. Instead of granting your bounties everywhere upon the manufacture of certain articles in this country, admit on your free list most of those articles which are at the base of our manufactures. Dimin ' ish the cost of the manufactures of this country, and then you accomplish 2 purposes: you sell more chea ly, and at the same time without loss of profit to yourselves. You sell more cheaply to the people of this country; and you be 'in to preare yourselves for ship ping abroad and uncrselling foreign manufacturers in their markets. But when you pile your tarilf duties upon the raw materials, and then of necessity pile them upon the manufaclured articles, and then 0 necessity pile face of the globe that will contribute one cent them upon other dependent interests in this country to enable them to raise the means to buy your manufactures at the increased prices, you are doing nothing under heaven but cu deavoring to make one portion of the people of this country rich at the exease of another, and then turnin round an' endeavoring to enrich the latter y taking away from the for mer. The result will be the same as if you should attempt, with a capital in one interest of $50,000,000 and the same amount of capital in another interest, to take the profits that one makes and give them to the other, in order to restore the equilibrium. What you call protection, therefore, is simply a system of or rowing from one to pay to another. To this system of tariff I object; and I understand the people of the West to object to it, because thosewho produce nothing in the way of manufactures are obliged to feet all the bills of these accumulated bounties granted by this tariff bill to s ccial interests. ow, sir, take the article of railroad iron. There are some scores of millions of dollars, it is claimed, invested in the production of railroad iron in this country. To protect that interest you increase the tariff upon railroad iron. how, in the ten States and Territories of the West there are $500,000,000 ofcapital in vested in railroads. The increased profitSrea lized by the makers of railroad iron tall at once as an increased burden upon that interest of $600,000,000 an interest important to all the great interests of the West. the burden is at once felt by the pee do in the matter of increased freights resultin from the increased cost of the railroads. What which bears us down in the West is, as I stated yesterday, the terrific cost of gettin. our products to market. You repose to increase this cost. You tell the armers of the West that they are to get their compensation by building up cities in the East to buy their breadstuffs, yet you embarrass the construction of proper lines of communication; the very means by which we are to get our breadstutfs to those cities. What you call protection amounts, therefore, simply to a system of equal robbery; taking from one home interest to pay to another. When you have done.this you say that you have framed an equal tariff law, and that its equal protection is diffused over all the different interests. I say that this is illogical; it is absurd. You must change your theory of a tariff or else you must perpetually fail in your effort to gain a system that shall actually make the U.S. rich. If that is your object you must diminish the cost of the production of your manufactures; and when you have done that you have taken a great step toward protecting. both the manufacturers and the pee 10 of the U.S. But if we go on in he present plan of adding to the cost of everything we produce, there is not another country on the to enrich the people of the U.S or be able to buy a single article of our production. Now, sir, when the claim is made here, as it is so frequently, that these interests in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are in danger of ruin, I appeal to the evidence of my own eyes, and I deny it. Upon every line of railroad over which business or duty calls me, I see improvements everywhere going on for the development of manufactures. You cannot. 0 from here to Baltimore, from Baltimore to Philadelphia, from Philadelphia to the West; you can‘ not go to NewEngland, you cannot go any where that you will not see new manufacturing establishments going up; and if any are oing to ruin themselves it is in this way. If t llS is min then we had better let them go on in the direction of this action; for I never saw, and I do not believe in any part of the world to da there is such wide spread success and genera rmperity asin the northern Statesof the Union. but you will point me to this establishment and to that, and tell me that it has been obli ed to stop. I admit that. I know there are oolish, investments made in all States of the Union. If:1.capital of $300,000 be put in the‘erection f of a mill where it ought not to be put, and you there attempt to compete with mills on the line, of railroads, near coal, iron. water, and raw materials, your mill must be by comparison a failure. You should not protect bad investments by making the balance of the country pay for them. That is the only species of suffering I have seen or heard of in any part of the manufacturing previon the result of misplaced, or mismanaged, or extravagant investments. But suppose you do not make as much this year as last; it is so with farmers. I know one spring we sell corn at a dollar and the next spring at 50 cents, and then again we burn it as cheap fuel. Do we go about mourning and complaining to the American Congress askin for bounty to stop our losses? No, we stan to the laws of Providence and the changes of trade. We know that in the current ofyears no other country in the world can compete with us of the West in the production of all the necessaries of life. Sir, this protection to these special interests is all wrong. You are demanding for these interests what you never think of giving to the agriculture of the West. When you at your tarilf upon farm products and on catt e what do we care for that? There is no country upon the American continent, except possibly lllexico no, not even Mexico, for exas can furnish them as cheaply as Mexico can compete with us in the production of beefand pork. But then you strike at us on packing the articles by putting an enormous tariff upon salt. Ifthere be one necessary thing to human existence it is salt. Yet that interest comes here and asks increase of protection so that we cannot pack or use our beef and pork except at this enormous increase of expense. It is rather hard, for in Iowa and many other arts of the West we are not near salt works. at I say to these salt gentlemen that when our railroad gets to the Salt Lake they will require at least 5 times the bounty they ask in this bill to keep their salt works going, for there you have nothing to do but to rake it u and grind it. There, again, you' are underta 'ing a war against divine Providence. Sir, we must abandon this peculiar conception of a protective tariff, an for that reason I want the bill sent back to the ComWays&Means in order that it may be fundamentally changed. We must have freer admission into the country of certain bases of manufacture, which are indispensable and must be free to make our manufactures successful. I want to press this upon the attention of the House. For then you not only help the manufacturer, but you diminish the cost to the consumers on the one hand, and on the other you enable the manufacturer to compete with those who sell the same article abroad, and induce him to draw his wealth from foreign " countries, in part, instead of seizing it by force of law exclusively from our own people.