Registered tonnage........ 97,350 83-95 Enrolled and licensed.....115,841 60-95

1871.

48,998 42-95 221,112

I do not object to this bounty system in States or localities that desire thereby to diversify their production. If a city or State sees fit to tax all its inhabitants to create or encourage a new employment, other cities and States untaxed cannot complain; but the benefits of manufacturing establishments to agricultural pursuits are necessarily local. The bounties exacted of agriculture and non-protected trades and employments accrue to those portions of the Union where manufactures exist. The contributions from Alabama cottonplanters and Minnesota wheat-growers swell the profits of New England and Pennsylvania capitalists.

Our tariff laws are unjust, not only in their exactions and discriminations as to the trades and industries of the country, but in the distribution of their benefits to different sections. The southern States are chiefly engaged in the production or tobacco and cotton; the Northwest in agricultural products, while the chief export of the Pacific slope consists of the precious metals. No tariff duties can enhance the value of their products.

The northwestern States exported from their own borders in 1870, 81,627,000 bushels of wheat. I submit a table giving the surplus produced by each of those States and required by other portions of the Union, and the amount shipped to Great Britain and other foreign countries.

Table showing the surplus wheat product and deficiency for home consumption of certain States and divisions of the United States for the year 1870:

States producing surplus.
Northwestern
Bushels wheat
States.
raised.

Ohio.......

19,150,000

Indiana

20,200,000

Michigan...

15,288,000

Illinois...

27,115,000

Wisconsin.

20,485,000

Minnesota.

16,022,000

Iowa

20,445,000

Nebraska.

1,848,000

Kansas

2,343,000

Surplus.

New Hampshire.. Vermont.. Massachusetts Rhode Island. Connecticut...

Total........

New York. New Jersey. Cotton States.

New England takes 13,000,000, New York and New Jersey 11,000,000 more, and the southern cotton States nearly 19,000,000 bushels; while Great Britain and her possessions took 43,405,000 bushels of wheat and flour, computed as wheat, in exchange for her products. We actually supplied over ten million of her people with bread, which Pennsylvania refused to take, sending three fourths of a million bushels to compete with ours.

STATES BENEFITED BY THE TARIFF.

What portions of the Union receive the benefits resulting from tariff duties? Where, chiefly, are the iron, cotton, and woolen fabrics, salt and glass, and other protected articles produced?

SALT.

The salt bounty amounts annually to $2,350,000 upon 20,000,000 bushels produced, of which the Onondaga Salt Company claim to have made 8,000,000 bushels, and consequently receive a bounty of $900,000; no insignificant bonus to a single county, and appalling should the Empire State multiply its demands by the number of its Representatives.

IRON.

The secretary of the Bar Iron Association estimates the value of the pig, railroad, bar, and other iron manufactured in the United States during the year 1871 at $184,022,500. The enhancement of price upon the pig iron is $13,000,000, and upon the whole at least $40,000,000, and probably more.

Pennsylvania in 1860 produced sixty-two per cent. of the pig iron, and sixty-four per cent. of other iron manufactures in the United States. Her production has increased with the general increase in the country, so that the duties on iron secure for her citizens over $24,000,000, and more than $20,000,000 of bounty above the pro rata share of her citizens.

Our tariff laws, at present rates, exact fifty cents for every man, woman, and child in the nation to help work the mines and furnaces and support the miners and iron-workers of that State.

PAPER.

According to a statement furnished me by Mr. Augustine Smith, a very intelligent paper manufacturer of New York, there are 1,107 paper-mills in the United States, manufacturing, according to his estimate, $110,700,000 worth of paper annually.

New England has 367 mills, and three States, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, 500, being four fifths of the whole number. The duty on printing paper is twenty per cent. ad valorem, and on writing paper thirty five per cent. ad valorem. The proportion manu6,409,000 factured of each kind is not given in the state11,043,000 8.916,000 ment furnished me. It is safe to estimate that 13.566,000 the price of the whole quantity is increased 13,973,000 one fifth by reason of the duty. The bounty 12,682,000 13,224,000 paid to the paper manufacturers would exceed 1,163,000 $22,000,000. This sum is assessed upon and 651,000 paid by the readers of books, periodicals, and newspapers in the United States. 81,627,000

Total, nine States... 867 $17,340,000 $10,278,000

The other twenty-eight States and the Territories have 240 mills. Their tariff bounty received would be, according to the estimate, $4,666,000, and their contribution $14,938,000, and their readers pay $10,278,000 more than their manufacturers receive.

WOOL.

The wool tariff of 1867 was intended to give twenty cents per pound protection on fine domestic wool.

As the wool clip of 1870, according to the United States census, was 101,000,000 pounds, the protection, therefore, or enhanced price to consumers of wool, would be $20,000,000. This benefit accrues almost entirely to seven States in the Union. Vermont is able to obtain $448,000; Ohio, $2,717,000; Michigan, $1,151,000; Wisconsin, $446,000; and the Pacific States about two million dollars more than their own people pay. Seven States obtain from the remaining thirty States of the Union $7,000,000.

The consumption of wool is at least five pounds per capita, and perhaps more in the Northwestern States, and if the wool tariff secured the designed effect it would tax each in the garments worn by them. man, woman, and child one dollar on the wool The num ber of sheep in Illinois has diminished from 2,549,998 in 1867 to 1,073,497 in 1871. The wool tariff seeks to tax the people of Illinois $2,500,000 and pay her wool-growers $600,000, taking from her citizens $1,900,000 for the wool growers of other States. The third congressional district of Illinois had 120,178 sheep in 1867 and 48,741 in 1871. The wool-growers of that district are promised by the wool tariff $30,000, while its citizens are expected to pay $157,299, being a loss to the district of $128,054. What equity or justice is there in

this!

WOOLENS.

The best estimates of woolen manufacturers place the value of the product of their industry for the year 1870 at $175,000,000. The average duty for woolen cloths was sixty-nine per cent. in gold, which would be about equal to seventy-five per cent. in currency; so that if the tariff secures the protection designed, three sevenths of the value of this product is the increased cost resulting from the tariff. Deduct $25,000,000 as the enhanced cost of domestic and imported wool consumed by manufacturers, and two sevenths of the value of the production is tariff bounty. In other words, manufacturers of woolen goods, under the present tariff laws, secure from the people a bounty exceeding $50,000,000, of which over $20,000,000 are collected by seven States from the remaining States of the Union. Massachusetts receives over $7,000,000 from other States, besides what her manufacturers collect from her own farmers and producers.

COTTONS.

The value of the domestic cotton produced in the United States in 1870 is estimated at $165,000,000, on which the duty is equal to forty per cent ad valorem in gold, or forty-five per cent currency, and now the enhanced price charged to consumers equals $51,000,000. The cotton manufacturing is carried on principally in the same States as the woolen. Of the cotton bounty received by manufacturers, $35,728,566 is paid to those States. Rhode Island collects $7,165,262, Massachusetts $17,147,617, and the other New England States, except Vermont, $35,436,488. I submit a table showing the bounties received and contribution paid by different States and portions

of the Union under our tariff laws relating to cottons and woolens.

[Here the hammer fell.]

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Oregon [Mr. SLATER] is entitled to the floor. Mr. SLATER. I yield a portion of my time to the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. BURCHARD.]

Mr. KELLEY. The gentleman cannot cipher down the facts of the daily life of a people numbering three millions by any sum the elements of which he cannot give and no man can ascertain.

Mr. BURCHARD. I have prepared a table showing the consumption and production of woolens and cottons in the States I have enum.

plain the facts and figures. The estimates and statistics are furnished by men who are not interested in misrepresenting or overstating the amount. I take their figures and I give to

Mr. KERR. And it pays less for that wheat to-day than it did in 1860.

Mr. KELLEY. The gentleman from Illinois can get on without the aid of the gentleman from Indiana, [Mr. KERR.]

Mr. KERR. So he can without the aid of the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. BURCHARD. The table I have submitted is prepared from the reports made by the Department of Agriculture. It furnishes a statement of the production in 1870 of every State in this Union. Pennsylvania produced over seventeen million bushels of wheat, as the table will show. The aggregate produc tion of the United States was two hundred and thirty-five million bushels. Subtract from that the grain exported abroad, and used for seed, and you have the amount consumed in this country for food. Divide that by the population, and you have the per capita consump tion of every man, woman, and child.

Penn

sylvania, unless she consumes more breadstaffs than the other States did, was unable to consume all that her own farmers produced, and left a surplus in that year according to these tables of eight hundred and eighty thousand bushels, which she sent into competition with the grain of the West.

Mr. KELLEY. I speak from no tabulated statements of officers. I speak upon no theory. I speak from a knowledge of the fact when I say that there are consumed annually in the Lehigh valley alone more than six million bushels of western grain. And I add that in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, at the western base of the Alleghany mountains, more western grain has been consumed year by year for the last ten years than is consumed in the city of London with its three million population.

Mr. BURCHARD. It is possible that grain grown in the West may be consumed in the Lehigh valley and elsewhere, that western Pennsylvania may buy some of our grain moving eastward while eastern Pennsylvania ships some of her wheat to go abroad. But it is the fact that the State of Pennsylvania, according to official figures, produced more wheat than her pro rata consumption, and that she had a surplus to export from her own borders to supply New England, New York, or foreign countries.

Mr. KELLEY. The gentleman's calculation is based on the theory that the freedmen and other non-wheat-consuming people of the South, who live on Indian corn, consume as much wheat per capita as the well-paid laborers of Pennsylvania. Take the non-wheatconsuming population of the South from your divisor, and then see where the consumption of wheat of Pennsylvania will stand in comparison with her production.

Mr. BURCHARD. Well, reduce the amount consumed in the South, and increase the amount consumed in the northwestern States, where it is abundant, and you still see that in Pennsylvania the consumption above the production must be very insignificant. New England produces less grain than she consumes, and the products of her farms are consumed at home.

each man the per capita consumption throughout the Union. Doubtless we in the Northwest, in a colder region of country, consume much more largely of woolens, and therefore a higher tax is imposed upon us. Cotton goods are consumed in the southern States, but these figures will show that the bounty received by the New England States on woolen goods is $16,000,000, and on cotton goods $85,000,000, making $51,000,000; by the middle States $1,000,000 on woolens; in the border States, a large deficiency of consumption over production:

Contributions exacted.

$2,517,000

New Hampshire.

2,615,000

5,044,000

$3,686,000 7,659,000

Vermont.

620.000

620,000

Massachusetts..

6,303,000

17,147,000

23,450,000

Rhode Island,.

2,531,000

7,165,000

9,696,000

Connecticut.

3,260,000

3,564,000

6,824,000

New York..

3,572,000

3,572,000

1,759,000

1,759,000

17,000

75,000

92,000

Mr. HOAR. I desire to ask the gentleman if he is not aware that more than two fifths of the woolen industry in this country has grown up in the northwestern States since the war, and why does he leave that out of his computation?

Mr. BURCHARD. It is not true that two fifths of the woolen industry has grown up in the West. It is true that more than three fourths of the woolen bounties are received in New England, as this table will show. The border States pay of this bounty to New England $3,500,000 and $7,000,000 on cottons, making $10,500,000. The northwestern States pay $5,000,000 on woolens and $14,500,000 on cottons, making nearly $20,000,000. The cotton States pay $7,000,000 on woolens and $7,000,000 on cotton, making $14,000,000. The Pacific States pay $950,000 on woolens and $1,244,000 on cottons, making over two million dollars.

Pennsylvania statesmen are concerned for the poor laborers. Why tax the laborers and producers of other regions and States? Why should Ohio farmers pay bounties to keep Connecticut mechanics from pauperism?

$18,023,000 $35,079,000 $53,102,000

520 60 518 36 457 46

444 51

431 32 395 89 331 31 322 81 294 99 252 67 243 39 235 23

226 47 202 46 194 30

Compare these tables and observe the accumulation of wealth in manufacturing States like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and it is not difficult to comprehend where the benefits of tariff bounties are received.

DUTIES INCREASE PRICE.

But gentlemen say, You assume that the duty increases the price. We deny it. The consumer pays no higher for his goods by reason of the present tariff." Absurd as the statement appears, it is asserted with a boldness that marks sincerity of conviction.

Manufacturers themselves insist that the material they consume is increased in price to the extent of the tariff duties. Protectionists admit it to be true as to articles wholly produced abroad. These they consent shall be free, to make them cheaper. Why would not the duty enhance the price upon articles produced both at home and abroad? The object of a protective duty is to increase the price. If it does not, how is the domestic producer benefited? A reduction of duties is asked only to reduce prices. The gentlemen from Pennsylvania and Tennessee concede it, or otherwise why do they take ten per cent. off of the present rate of certain duties? Statistics show it. The true method of ascertaining the effect of duties is not to select particular years and exceptional prices, but to take the average price during different tariff rates.

The Treasury reports give prices on leading articles from 1825 to 1863. The average prices on salt and rates of duties were as follows:

Sall.

Duty, cents per bushel.

Liverpool.*

Turk's Island.*

I give no quotations for the last decade, as the price should be reduced to gold for a fair comparison; but the tariff duties amount to ten cents per bushel on salt in bulk and thirteen and a half cents in bags, and the price of Turk's Island has ranged from thirty-eight to forty-two cents.

Evidence might be multiplied. Here is the statement of Mr. Samuel Fay, superintendent of the Lowell Manufacturing Company, Massachusetts, at the second joint convention of wool-growers and manufacturers held December 20, 1871. I read from page 55 of the March number of the Bulletin of the Wool-Growers' and Manufacturers' Association. Mr. Fay observes:

"A comparison of selling prices of ingrain carpets, cost of wool, and cost of labor, in the years of 1860 and 1870, the prices of the latter year being reduced to gold which averaged 114.94, shows an increase in 1870, 37.71 per cent. in selling prices of carpets; 36.94 per cent. in cost of wool, and 48.99 per cent. in cost of labor."

It has been asserted and repeated until perhaps believed that a reduction of duties results in an advance in prices abroad. Where duties on a single article have been diminished, and subsequently a temporary rise in the price of that article has occurred, it has been insisted that the reduction of the duty occasioned the advance. Even in cases of a general rise in prices affecting all commodities the general fact is overlooked, and the article upon which

*Average price.

"Iron.-The convention of the National Association of Bar-Iron Manufacturers at the same time was also in session at parlor C, Continental Hotel, James I. Bennett, esq., in the chair; Thomas Dunlap, esq., secretary.

Mr. Dunlap, secretary, then read a voluminous report, giving statistics of the production and consumption of iron throughout the world, from 1870 to 1871, as compared with the previous years, and the comparison of the wages paid in Europe and America; the number of furnaces and iron-works in England and the United States, and the number of laborers employed. The production of pig iron in the United States for 1871 will probably not exceed 1,850,000 tons, or 250,000 tons less than would have been the case had it not been for the strike of the miners in Pennsylvania in 1871, during which period thirty furnaces were out of blast.

The consumption of iron is rapidly increasing. and in all probability for 1872 it will be from ten to twenty per cent. greater than for 1871; in other words, greater than the world will be able to supply.

In the United States the production of wrought iron for 1870 was 620,000 tons rails; other than rails, 710,000 tons, or a total of 1,330.000 tons. The return for 1871, although not full, is expected to be larger than that of 1870, which was a total of 1,400,000 tons. The number of rolling-mills in the United States is between two and three hundred. The production of wrought iron for 1871 was somewhat interfered with by the coal strikes."

We have been repeatedly told that ultimately protected articles would be produced in our own country as cheaply as abroad; that protection might be withdrawn, and the industries grown to strength and maturity would be able to maintain themselves against foreign competition. Has not that favorable time now arrived? Within the last year, by reason of the disturbance of business on the continent, prices in foreign markets of all commodities have largely advanced, and goods cannot be imported as cheaply as heretofore. These high rates of duties were imposed as temporary compensation for the internal taxes since repealed. Is it not possible to make a reduction since the Treasury no longer requires high rates for its necessities? The Secretary in his report shows that a large reduction can be made without impairing the ability of the Government to meet all anticipated demands.

Taxation ought to be reduced to the lowest point consistent with the national credit. A plethoric Treasury is a fruitful source of extravagance. Until the surplus is diminished the doors of Congress will be besieged for subsidies and bounties by greedy schemers, seeking to appropriate the public treasure for private gain. We find two systems of taxation, the customs and internal revenue; the one collecting in the next fiscal year, according to the Secretary's estimates, $212,000,000, and the other $126,000,000, and with other sources of revenue permitting the payment of $50,000,000 upon the national debt, including the sinking fund, and a reduction of $36,000,000; thus raising at least $57,000,000 more than is required by the absolute necessities of the Government. Neither system will alone yield sufficient revenue. Upon which and where can conceded reductions be most judiciously and advantageously applied?

To continue the enormous bounties secured by present duties, an effort is being made to throw all the reductions upon the internal revenue and place upon the free list all arti

cles that afford revenue without protection. In furtherance of this object clamor has been raised from time to time against the internal revenue system. I have not time to enter at large upon the discussion of the relative advantages and disadvantages of the customs and internal revenue systems. It is conceded on all sides that both must to some extent be maintained.

TAXATION OF THE SYSTEMS.

First, internal revenue taxation falls upon luxuries and non-essentials, and the expenditures and the means of the rich. Customs duties chiefly tax articles of absolute necessity, comfort, or utility. Tobacco and spirits are increased in price by the one, food and clothing by the other. The internal revenue pays to the Treasury the full amount that it takes from the people. A high protective tariff does not fill the exchequer, but the pockets of the manufacturers. The perfection of an internal revenue tax is attained when the greatest amount is secured to the national Treasury by the least diversion. That protective tariff is the most efficient which exacts the heaviest contribution from the people with the least advantage to the public revenues. The taxation of the internal revenue is seen and known; customs taxation may be excessive, and yet invisible.

COMPARATIVE COST OF THE SYSTEMS.

Extravagant and erroneous statements have been made in regard to the cost of the internal revenue system. It has been charged with keeping an army of officers. The books of the Treasury Department show that it bas in the past collected its portion of the revenues at a less per cent. of expenditure than is required by the customs or State and local taxes, and fewer employés are required by the internal revenue than by the customs

revenue.

The Secretary of the Treasury informed the House at this session that during the last fiscal year there were, not including those in either case in the bureaus, employed in collecting the customs, 4,409 persons, and in collecting the internal revenue 4,171; of the latter of whom 987 were gaugers, specially employed and paid by the distillers or rectifiers, and 367 surveyors, since discharged, leaving the real force at only 2,817 men. Second, the internal revenue officers are appointed by the Department and distributed through the country, while in the customs revenue we find from the same statement 1,235 subordinates in New York, 507 in Boston, 394 in New Orleans, 229 in Baltimore, 209 in San Francisco, and 249 in Philadelphia, each appointed by and dependent for the tenure of his office upon the collector of the port. The Secretary's statements, published in Executive Documents Nos. 39 and 139 of this session, show the cost of collecting the customs, including expenses for revenuecutter service and customs buildings, shares of fines," &c., for the last fiscal year, was $9,012,199 51; while, for the last calendar year, the statements show the whole expenses of the internal revenue, including the expenses of the bureau in Washington and amount of shares of fines, were $5,835,128. The internal revenue cost 4.05 per cent. of the amount it collected, and the customs 4.37 per cent. of its collections.

66

These figures show that notwithstanding the crafty attacks upon it the internal revenue system is less expensive, less corrupting to the less taxation and burdens upon industry. civil service, employs less force, and imposes

REDUCTION OF DUTIES.

There is great unanimity upon the question of reducing duties. The President and the Secretary of the Treasury recommend it. The press advocate and the people demand it. The Committee of Ways and Means agree upon this point, and each member seems to vie with the other in making the greatest strides in that direction. For what purpose is this reduc

tion? Is it simply to deplete the Treasury? Is payment of the debt an evil? Would not every citizen rejoice at its diminution if accomplished without taxation? Is not the demand for reduction universal, because it is known and felt that the duties are a tax

upon consumers? If foreign producers pay the duties, as some protectionists claim, why reduce them? The bill reported by the Committee of Ways and Means does not make as heavy reductions as some perhaps may desire. They have, perhaps, followed too closely the recommendations of the Secretary of the Treas ury as to the amount that should be taken from tariff duties. The reductions proposed in the bill would, on last year's importations, lessen the customs revenue nearly twenty million dollars.

It seemed to the committee wise to apply the reduction by a judicious and intelligent revision of the rates of duties on leading articles in general use. They desired to leave the duties upon such articles as were revised at rates satisfactory to the country, and at the same time consistent with the business prosperity of the industries affected. Stability is as essential to the manufacturer as rates of duties, and the committee hoped that such reasonable reductions would be secured as would relieve such manufacturers from the agitation of proposed changes by the next Congress. They commenced with salt, coal, leather, iron, steel, lumber, cotton, and woolens, making some changes in chemicals, and prepared a free list which embraced a number of articles from which very slight revenue had been collected.

The duty upon salt during the war was twice largely increased. The committee have reduced it to less than half the present rates. Upon manufactured articles the committee could have adopted the method proposed in the Senate bill and preferred by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, scale down duties a given per cent. But this would have been a confession of unwillingness or incapacity to adjust to a proper standard rates out of proportion or exorbitantly high.

PER CENT. REDUCTION.

On some classes present duties range above one hundred per cent., while others are only twenty or thirty. In the one case the duty now prohibitory would be still prohibitory if reduced ten per cent., and in the other, the lowest rates, already perhaps too low, would be further reduced. Would not the committee deservedly have become the derision of the House and the country had it stultified itself with a report that, after daily sessions and protracted hearings for over four months, it was incapable of making an intelligent revision or readjustment of duties upon a few leading articles? Well might the Senate assume to itself the initiation of revenue measures, if the House committee, organized solely to con. sider such subjects, confessed its utter incapacity. It would be idle for the House to insist upon a constitutional prerogative which its leading committee, or the House itself, acknowledged its inability to exercise.

COTTONS.

In the adjustment of the tariff in 1864, the specific rates on the cheaper grades of cotton were advanced from one, two, three, and four cents per square yard, according to fineness, to five cents a square yard, and the more expensive cottons from thirty per cent. ad valorem to thirty-five per cent. ad valorem, this latter being intended as the highest rate of duty. With the decline in value the specific rate became higher than the thirty-five per cent. ad valorem, and now ranges from fifty to sixty per cent. Raw cotton, both domestic and imported, was taxed five cent per pound, and was worth from sixty cents to a dollar a pound. Cheap cotton cloths were worth from twenty to twenty-five cents per square yard,

and a duty of five cents per square yard amounted only to an equivalent ad valorem of twenty to twenty-five per cent., and those rates were considered sufficiently protective.

Upon the more expensive goods, unbleached, valued at sixteen cents a square yard, bleached at twenty, and printed, colored, stained, or painted, at twenty-five, the higher rates of duties were imposed at thirty-five per cent. ad valorem. The subsequent decline in the price of cotton, and consequently of cotton goods, bringing down the cheap fabrics to ten cents per square yard, brings the same specific duty to an ad valorem of forty-five to fifty per cent., making the duties upon cheap goods prohibitory and largely increasing their cost to the poorer and middle classes who chiefly use them. The bill before the House applies these reductions to the exorbitant rates, leav ing the thirty-five per cent. duties unchanged upon cotton fabrics.

WOOL AND WOOLENS.

The committee bill makes a reduction in wool of twenty per cent. applied both upon the specific and the ad valorem, reducing wool costing less than thirty-two cents per pound from ten cents a pound and eleven per cent. ad valorem, to eight cents a pound and nine per cent. ad valorem. In the wool tariff of 1867, the wool manufacturer was compensated for the supposed increased cost of wool occasioned by the tariff by a specific duty upon cloth of fifty cents a pound. The duties upon woolen goods prior to the war had been fifteen per cent. ad valorem, and during the war increased to twenty-five per cent. ad va lorem. In asking for the enactment of this tariff in 1867, the manufacturers claimed that ten per cent. should be allowed them as compensation for the internal revenue six per cent. tax they were compelled to pay upon their manufactures. They confessed that twentyfive per cent. was all the protection they required. They said in their report, asking for the enactment of the present law

"The provisions proposed by the committee, and rendered necessary by the proposed change in the duties on wool, aim to accomplish two objects: first, to fix the specific duties at rates which shall be simply compensatory for the duties on the wool and other materials; and secondly, to establish an ad valorem duty which, besides providing for the revenue tax on manufactures, shall leave the manufacturer simply a net protection of twenty-five per cent. With some exceptions, the reason for which will be specially explained hereafter, the ad valorem duty on manufacturers of wool and worsted is fixed at thirty-five per cent., ten per cent. being fixed as an equivalent for the internal revenue tax of six per cent. on manufactures and on articles consumed in manufacturing, and twenty-five per cent. as protection to the manufacturer.'

The six per cent. internal revenue tax was repealed in the following year. The commit tee have not recommended at the present time that this ten per cent. should be entirely repealed. The bill proposes to take off but five per cent. from this tax, leaving the duties still specific and ad valorem, but reduced.

HIDES AND LEATHER.

Hides have been placed upon the free list, and leather reduced from thirty to twenty per cent., sole leather from thirty-five to fifteen per cent. These reductions are in the interest both of the manufacturers and consumers of boots and shoes. The tanners appearing before the committee conceded that if hides could be free, ten to fifteen per cent. was all the protection that their business would require. These reductions exhaust ten million dollars of the sum proposed by the committee to be applied upon the tariff duties. As the domestic production of similar articles is from five to six times the imports, the estimated advantage and real reduction of taxation to the people exceeds $50,000,000.

The committee could have gone further and made some reductions upon the excessive duties upon glass, crockery, and many other articles of ordinary use, but there has been a disposi. tion to reduce, if not wholly repeal the duties

on tea and coffee. The committee did not suppose that the House intended that all tariff reductions should be made upon tea and coffee.

I desire to say but a word more in conclusion. It is not necessary nor proper that I should now enter upon a discussion of the details of the bill that is before this committee. I have endeavored to present the principal reasons that actuated the Committee of Ways and Means in adopting their method of making reductions in the present tariff duties. A bill is now pending which some gentlemen perhaps advocate which proposes to put these reductions chiefly and firstly upon the internal revenue system, and to make all the reductions that are to be made upon, about the same articles that the committee's bill proposes, but upon a different principle.

We ask that this reduction shall be applied intelligently and wisely, so that the consumers in the country may be benefited, while the resources of the Treasury shall be as little interfered with as possible. I have made these remarks thus hastily at this time because it seemed to be desirable that some of these facts should be presented for the consideration of this committee. I do not claim that in all cases the bounty received is to the extent of the tariff rate; but the intention and purpose is to give that bounty and protection, and it is in that proportion. If the advantage on cotton is to the manufacturer thirty instead of forty per cent., the tariff rate, three quarters of the bounty, shown by these tables, go to the eastern manufacturers, and are paid by the rest of the country.

The reductions upon manufactures proposed by the bill are not heavy. No industry can be disturbed by them. Many Representatives, perhaps a majority of the House, will feel that the rates of duties should have been still lower.

If the reductions proposed by the bill are not sufficiently heavy, as appears to be claimed by members of the committee, if it is deemed prudent to reduce the revenues to the extent of fifty or seventy-five million dollars, there are other items, such as glass, earthenware, and other articles of general use upon which some of the present duties are exorbitantly high. The five per cent. duties imposed by the act of 1864 upon manufactures other than those embraced in our bill might be reduced.

The reductions in the bill of the duties upon but six classes of manufactures lessen the revenue not quite ten million dollars, but lighten taxation $55,000,000. A comparison of the domestic production with the imports will show as follows:

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, my colleague on the committee, says that he desires to reduce taxation $75,000,000. I desire to reduce taxation double that sum $150,000,000, and it can be done without reducing the customs revenues $30,000,000. He has offered his scheme of reduction; it is adroitly arranged to avoid reductions upon manufactured articles. His assaults are intended to be made firstly upon internal revenue duties to deplete the Treasury lest prohibitory duties should be lowered. He would relieve suffering chewers and smokers though their ill clad children are pinched with cold. He would relieve $16,000,000 taxation upon tea and coffe, costing each consumer but fifty cents a year, but has no word of sympathy for the burdened laborers, taxed four dollars for each person they support on the clothing

they wear, to pay $120,000,000 annually to cotton and woolen manufacturers and their operatives, while the Treasury receives but $40,000,000. If tea and coffee can be made free, Pennsylvania's annual iron bounty of $20,000,000 perhaps will remain unharmed.

Do gentlemen propose to reduce the taxes on tobacco, which are paid by the consumer and not in the States where the tobacco is raised, and leave these high bounties on manufactured products? Do the Representatives of the southern States suppose it right that there should be no reduction of duties on woolens, and on cottons, and that the whole reduction shall be made on tobacco and the internal revenue system? Do they propose to aid any plan to further that idea?

I appeal to New England. Her career has been glorious in the past in her resistance to wrong and oppression; her voice loud and earnest in protest against injustice and the infringement of personal rights. Do her Representatives insist upon the maintenance of the present excessive duties? Must other portions of the Union continue the annual tribute of $56,000,000 on but three items of her manufactures, paper, cottons, and woolens? Is not eighteen dollars bounty for each of her inhabitants more than she should exact? Will Massachusetts Representatives not accept the olive branch this bill offers, or do they desire to await the statistics of the Census Bureau to arouse a tribute-paying people? Shortsighted is the protectionist's policy who refuses moderate reductions toward a revenue standard. Wise and timely concessions have averted revolutions.

The Republican party increased these duties during the war on account of the necessities of the Government. Being no longer required for revenue, a Republican Congress should propose their reduction. Legislators of every political faith ought to unite in an honest effort to reduce excessive and unnecessarily high rates of duties and equalize the burdens of their taxation.

Mr. SLATER. Mr. Chairman, now that a general revision of our tariff laws is under consideration, it will be well to consider the condition of the country as affected by its fiscal operations and legislation in the past and up to the present time. It is a time, sir, that should engage the attention of each member upon this floor, and should secure his best efforts to correct acknowledged wrongs and manifest abuses, which affect the country through its legislation and the administration of its affairs.

It will not be denied, I think, that there is discontent abroad in the land, that the people are chafed and wearied with the burdens which the laws and their administration im. pose upon them. This is fully attested by that cry which comes up to this Capitol imploring and demanding relief, retrenchment, and reform.

Wherefore, sir, is it that our ship-yards are idle, that our commerce has declined, and that our carrying trade is now in foreign hands? How is it that the profits of labor and capital are so unequally divided, that capital concentrated in monopolies is favored and protected, while labor is forced to an unequal contest and with difficulty ekes out a scanty and precarious subsistence? These, sir, are the questions of the hour; they concern the people, and the evils they suggest find their root in your fiscal legislation, and their thrift in an extravagant, profligate, and vicious administration of public affairs.

It is not enough that your Treasury is filled to overflowing by excessive taxes wrung from the sweat and toil of the people, but, after all the legitimate needs of the Government are supplied, swelled to extravagant proportions, there is retained in its vaults from year to year a surplus of many millions of the public funds, equaling forty per cent. of our annual reve

nues, which is thus rendered unproductive and idle, for no other apparent reason than to invite to extravagant appropriations and reckless expenditure. Spies and informers stalk abroad, infesting every avenue of business, filching through moieties, fines, and penalties, wrung from their victims, often by deception, bribery, and corruption. Incompetent and dishonest men find asylum and office in every grade of the civil service, while the Federal Executive and his chief officers are openly accused, and not without reason, of complicity with rings formed or existing for the purpose of furthering peculating schemes upon the Treasury. Sir, this is a picture of the demoralization of public affairs more truthful than pleasing, and presents a condition of the country, in all its varied machinery of governmental administration and its multiplied relations with business, which challenges the considerate attention of its legislators, both as to the cause of these public disorders and as to the remedy to be made use of to effect their cure.

It requires no argument to demonstrate the proposition that if the ills and misfortunes which now afflict the country are to be cured or abated, it can alone be done by a prompt and effectual removal of their promoting cause. This may be said to be self-evident. Wisdom, then, would dictate that thorough search be made for such promoting cause, and when found, that it be at once and effectually removed, root and branch.

Mr. Chairman, it may be boldly asserted as a proposition susceptible of proof to reasonable minds that the disorders and evils so much complained of, such as the depression of labor, the rapid growth and dominance of monopolies, the decline of American tonnage and commerce, and the unequal division of the joint accumulations and profits of labor and capital, have their origin directly and solely in the financial legislation of the country and in the administration of those laws. An examination of the financial operations and fiscal legislation of the country for the past few years will most fully verify this declaration.

At the close of the last fiscal year the volume of currency in the United States could not have exceeded $1,000,000,000. In this are included gold and silver, national bank notes, currency, and fractional currency.

Over $700,000,000 of this volume was the representative of money, a mere shadow of the substance, and rested for its ultimate redemption upon less than $300,000,000 of metallic currency. The fiscal operations of the Government for that single year required seventy per cent. of all the gold and silver in the country to pass through the hands of its receivers of customs in payment of the duties upon foreign importations, and full thirty-eight per cent. of all the money in the United States, whether metallic or paper, was required of the labor and industries of the country in the payment of Government taxes.

But we gain an inadequate conception of the magnitude of these fiscal operations, and their necessary effect upon the business of the country, if we confine our view to a single year. It is only when a period of years are grouped together that the vast proportions of aggregates and results are clearly made apparent. The last six years of fiscal operations in the United States present, in the magnitude of results and effects, a spectacle without a parallel in the history of fiscal opera tions in this or any other country. The value of figures is lost in the magnitude to which aggregates are swelled, as the mind is incapa. ble of grasping the total of results.

During the period of six years ending June 30, 1871, and to the present time, there has been no want of experiment in the direction of taxation. Under the operation of your fiscal legislation the tax-gatherer has been

omnipresent, exacting tribute from every class and condition of society. He has been made to relentlessly pursue the people, and to exact contribution of their substance in the increased cost of every article of prime necessity or luxury. Rising up or sitting down, waking or sleeping, in their enjoyments and in their necessities, in health and in sickness, in life and in death, they have known no escape from assessments and exactions made and effected through the operations of your laws. Excessive taxation, producing enormous revenues, has invited its concomitant evil, extravagant and reckless expenditure in wasteful and unusual appropri ations of the public funds; and yet, with all the profligacy of a confessedly corrupt administration of the public revenues, there has been for the past six years constantly retained in the Treasury unused a vast surplus of public funds.

Mr. Chairman, during the past six years ending June 30, 1871, there was drawn from the labor and industries of the country from all sources of taxation the sum of $2,608,823,003-a sum equal to more than two and a half times the entire volume of the cir culating medium of the country, including all the gold and silver, with all the green backs, all the national bank notes, and all the fractional currency of the country. Of this amount the sum of $1,180,780,027 was derived from duties upon foreign imports, and was paid in gold, being an amount equal to about four times the volume of the metallic currency in the United States. It is also to be remembered that during this entire period from thirty to forty per cent. of the metallic currency, and from twelve to sixteen per cent. of the combined currency of the country was withdrawn from circulation and business and retained in the Treasury.

This surplus so withdrawn from circulation and the business of the country is stated by the Secretary of the Treasury at the close of each year of this period. The balance was, in

Making an average surplus of $141,437,265 constantly retained in the Treasury after deducting the sum of $28,101,122 deposited with the States. Is it a matter of surprise that there is a restiveness among the people in view of these facts? Is it to be wondered at that the industrial interests of the country are and have been depressed, and that a demand comes up from the toiling millions, and is somewhat imperative, for immediate relief, when the mag nitude of the burdens imposed upon them by legislation here enacted is considered?

Mr. Chairman, let us glance at some of the industrial and commercial interests of the country and see how they have prospered during this period of excessive taxation and enormous fiscal operations, and discover, if possible, to what extent these interests have been depressed by taxation. In the year ending June 30, 1865, the year preceding the commencement of the period referred to, the Register of the Treasury reported our total tonnage at 5,096,781 tons. The same officer reports our tonnage in 1871 at 4,282,607 tons, showing a decline in our tonnage of over 800.000 tons, equal to fifteen per cent. of our entire tonnage.

But while this positive decline resulted in six years there was an increase in our population of at least fifteen per cent.; so that to have maintained our relative rank of tonnage with population there should have been an increase in our tonnage corresponding to the increase in our population. It is therefore apparent that the actual and relative decline of our tonnage in the six years was equal to thirty per cent. From the same source we learn that in the year 1865 the tonnage of vessels built in our