sand dollars; showing that the duties are laid to prevent revenue and not to raise it. And what is this for? Not to support the Government, but to benefit a privileged class.

In proof of this, I call attention to pig iron. I mean no unkindness to this "infant industry," this little "pig" from Pennsylvania, whose infancy is perpetual. Ever since the year 1816, when the first duty was laid on pig iron, a duty of $9 a ton, it has been an "infant industry"; unless indeed it came to its maturity during the period of our revenue tariff, and is now again and still an "infant," because it has fallen into the decrepitude of its second childhood.

You will find that as the duty fell the revenue increased; and as the duty rose the revenue fell; thus the revenue from all iron was $21,922,127 in the year 1872, and it has fallen in the year 1876-77 down to $3,765,846; and the revenue from pig iron alone has fallen from say $1,500,000 in 1872 to about $557,000 in 1877. I am met, when I ask for reduction of the tax on tobacco, by the objection that by reducing the burdens on that industry we will diminish the revenue; but when I ask for a reduction of the duty on pig iron so that the consumer may get it cheaper and may thus increase revenue, they say, "Oh, no; we do not want to increase the revenue on pig iron; we want to protect our pig iron, by destroying the revenue from it." In other words, it is proper to keep the Government out of revenue on pig iron at the expense of the consumer for the benefit of the manufacturer, but very wrong to lift the burden from the tobacco interest lest we decrease the revenue!

To show that the purpose of the duty is to prevent importation and thus prevent revenue, I will read from the June, 1877, annual report of the American Iron and Steel Association, page 24, which they have done me the honor to send me. Listen to the tone of self-gratulation:

During the year 1876 we did not import a single steel rail; in 1873 we imported 159,571 net tons. Our imports of iron rails in 1876 amounted to only 287 tons; in 1871 they amounted to 515,000 tons. While these results are gratifying

That is, that the duty has excluded the importation and thus decreased the revenue

it is nevertheless a source of mortification that we should last year have bought abroad ten million dollars' worth of pig-iron, bar-iron, steel, &c., which our own iron and steel makers could have manufactured with the help of idle workingmen. So long as it is possible to import into this country ten million dollars' worth of foreign iron and steel in a year of

such great industrial depression as last year, so long will a protective tariff be a necessity to American iron and steel interests and to every American citizen whose prosperity does not depend upon the sale of foreign goods.

That is to say, the power to raise revenue by a tariff is, according to the ideas of these gentlemen who represent the iron and steel interest, to be purposely perverted from its constitutional object of raising revenue into a scheme to support the iron and steel interest by diverting revenue from the treasury and furnishing rich bounties by a tax upon the consuming classes of the country.

It is a misnomer to call this system of duties protection. Protection against what? Protection to whom? It is simply a means by which the Government makes an enforced contribution, or, as they used to call it in the days of the Stuarts, "a compulsory benevolence," in behalf of certain people who, having a fancy to go into certain enterprises which are not profitable, are by this legislation enabled to hand round the hat to eke out the profit they cannot make by their occupations.

What is the true national policy? In this era of expanding energies, of all-embracing sympathies, of far-reaching aspirations for a better and higher destiny for our race, are we to be told that our true policy is to clip the wings of our commerce, to block the wheels of our trade and industry; to cramp our enterprise, to shrivel our sympathies, to exult in the stoppage of our imports, to live within ourselves, and, hugging our petty interests within the narrow circle of our contracted selfishness, close the gates of our new world to intercourse with mankind?

Mr. Chairman, I cannot believe this is according to the Divine plan. Christianity bids us seek in communion with our brethren of every race and clime the blessings they can afford us, and to bestow in return upon them those with which our new continent is destined to fill the world.

Our lot is cast upon a virgin continent whose rich soil can feed and clothe the human family. It is ours to develop and fill the markets of all nations with the exuberant harvests of our fruitful earth. The wage of labor is high. I am thankful to God for it; that "in our Father's house there is bread enough and to spare and none need perish with hunger." There is no place for the footprint of a tramp upon the Western prairie nor upon the fields of the sunny South, whose teeming products. will abundantly feed a hungry world, clothe a naked world, and shelter a homeless world!

Now, sir, why should it be our policy to crowd labor into cities upon profitless employments and then eke out the lack of

profit and wage by governmental aid, in the shape of a compulsory benevolence or a forced contribution, to furnish a profit their enterprise cannot afford.

That people, Mr. Chairman, whose inventive genius and natural resources can best supply the needs of the world's crowded population with food and raiment and human comfort, and whose commerce reaches out to do so, will hold the van in the march of civilization; and that people which is content to supply only its own needs and limits its commerce to itself, and confines its sympathies within the sphere of its own petty interests, will shrivel into poverty and shrink into insignificance. Hence it is that in all ages, and now more than in any former age, the exports and imports of every nation are the typical tests of its prosperity and the splendid symbols of its progress. They form the great balances of international trade. They must coexist. Check the one and the other withers. Destroy the one and the other perishes.

Now, suppose this House should prohibit all importations, what would be the effect on our agricultural products? They would perish on our hands. As you limit the imports of the country, which furnish the means of paying for our exports, to that extent you limit the value of our exported products and limit the prosperity of the agricultural interests in this country.

Look at the results of this policy for the privileged classes. Agriculture languishes for markets; manufactures are ruined because overproduction, induced by excessive bounties, first brings on a fall in prices and then bankruptcy; labor is thrown out of employment; ships rot at our wharves for lack of trade, and the country is in great distress from the panaceas prescribed for it by the empirical economists. What the patient needs is to "throw physic to the dogs," and let the vis medicatrix natura do its proper work. Strike the fetters from the limbs of the American Hercules, and he will with giant strides take the lead in human progress.

Here let me notice in brief the doctrine of Mr. Henry C. Carey, that the producer and the consumer are best related when closest to each other. To carry this idea to its logical conclusion, the result would be that the producer and the consumer are closest together when a man is at once both producer and consumer; so that the whole effect of Mr. Carey's policy would be to limit all human sympathy and interchange of human ideas and their products to our own dear selves.

Now, whenever by commercial treaties, as with the Hawaiian

Islands, we have established free trade with foreign countries, the immediate results have been mutually advantageous, and exports and imports in the case of the Hawaiian Islands doubled in one year. Enlarge the system, embracing all countries, and our export and import trade would soon rival that of Great Britain. Our revenues from our billions of imports at a duty of 20 per cent. would nearly double our present revenue; our debt would be diminished, our export trade would enlarge, prices would advance, and all our industries would thrive and grow in the vigor and strength of healthful maturity.

In truth, free trade, which is based on the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would that others should do to you," by commingling and intertwining the interests of all peoples through free commerce would be a guaranty and bond of peace. The antagonisms of commercial policies have bred wars which have drenched the earth with blood. Free trade, promotive of social intercourse and the interests of mutual exchanges, will spread the banner of peace over the world and promote the glory of God, in "peace on earth and good will toward men." Free trade, the product of the divine doctrines of Christianity, would be the peace-maker of the world!

How far does the proposed bill bring down the duties to the revenue standard? It is true the reduction is not what a revenue tariff requires. The duties are still too high; but the precedent of the tariff compromise of 1833 justifies a moderate and gradual reduction, and not a radical one. Still the reduction is considerable and the movement is in the right direction of a revenue tariff, and is not so radical as to convulse the manufacturing interest of the country. The duties on iron are too high and should be further reduced even now, and yet that interest is dissatisfied at any reduction.

It is much to be regretted that this system of specific duties must still be largely retained. They operate oppressively on the poor, by making the duty as large on the cheap as on the dear article. But this has been remedied as far as possible by the classification of the same kind of articles according to their value.

Some objection has been made that there is no free list. This objection is not well founded. It is according to sound principles that nothing be taxed which is not clearly intended by the express terms of the law. It is contrary to principle to require a party to exempt his property from taxation by showing terms indicating such a purpose. Let all be free which is not clearly taxed; not, let all be taxed which is not clearly free,

The onus should be on the executive officer to show that the legislature has imposed it in clear terms and should not be on the citizen to show he is excepted from the universal imposition of burden.

Mr. Chairman, we need in the present state of the country a well-defined policy. Permit me, in conclusion, to indicate some of the elements of one which it seems to me would be wise and successful:

First. We need a judicious economy in disbursements, which, while securing efficiency by commanding the services of intelligent and capable agents, will avoid the extravagance which tends to corruption through the influence of patronage.

Second. The times demand a strict adherence to the Constitution as a sacred duty, as needful to an efficient administration of the powers granted, and to prevent the evils of centralism. The danger of our future is that in the absorption of power by the Federal Government we not only incur the perils of a consolidated government, but make an effective discharge of our duties under the Constitution well-nigh impracticable. In my judgment, in the enlarged area of the country and with its increasing interests, we will have our hands full to do well what is expressly devolved upon us without attempting to exercise doubtful powers.

Third. We need to have free trade and to relieve production from the burdens of internal taxation; to lift the load which presses upon the producer and consumer of tobacco and other domestic productions, and to open our ports to an unshackled commerce with all nations, except so far as revenue for an economical administration of the Government requires the laying of duties on imports.

Let us render to Cæsar the things that be Cæsar's, but let tribute to privilege and bounty to favored classes cease forever!

Fourth. We need a sound and stable currency which will give to labor a real, and not a fictitious, value; which will shun artificial inflation, that buoys enterprise with false hopes; and avoid compulsory contraction, which crushes the debtor class by requiring more in payment than was agreed, and shrinks. values to the ruin and detriment of all classes of society.

Fifth. We need integrity to public faith-paying all which contract of honorable obligation requires and guarding jealously against all claims which justice, right, and public law do not sanction.

And then we need the cultivation among ourselves of mutual