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(6) That the duty should be so imposed as to operate as equally as possible throughout the Union, discriminating neither for nor against any class or section.

In accordance with these principles the tariff of 1846 was passed by Congress. This tariff approached nearer to a free trade policy than any in the history of this country. It was called "a revenue tariff with incidental protection," yet, according to Prof. William G. Sumner, of Yale, under it the manufacturers made "steady and genuine progress. Industrially and economically," he said, "it was our golden age. The balance of the trade was never more regular and equal."

There were eight schedules, each with its own ad valorem rate of duty, ranging from 5 per cent. on raw materials of manufacture to 75 per cent. on spirits, the average being 25 per cent.

The protectionists made futile attempts at various times between 1846 and 1857, when the tariff was next revised, to modify the act, and, indeed, to change its fundamental character, substituting the specific principle for the ad valorem in a number of schedules.

Under the tariff of 1846 such a surplus accumulated in the Treasury by 1857 that the circulating medium of the country was reduced in amount below the needs of business. There arose a general demand for a reduction of this surplus. The manufacturing interests appealed to Congress for a reduction or abolition of duties on raw materials; the agricultural interests then became alarmed, and demanded that the duty be retained on these and that it be reduced on manufactured articles. The chief contention was over wool and woolen goods. After a long discussion, extending from the middle of January, 1857, to the close of the session (March 3), a new tariff bill was passed by which the average duty was lowered to about 20 per cent. ad valorem. It was denounced by its opponents, who hailed chiefly from the West and such wool-growing States elsewhere as Vermont, as the result of a selfish combination of Southern hemp and sugar producers, Pennsylvania iron-masters, and New England woolen manufacturers. The manufac

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POLK VS. WOOL, OR THE HARRY-CANE

From the collection of the New York Historical Society

turers denied that it was a blow at the wool growers, claiming that, on the contrary, by building up the clothmaking industry in this country, it would create a great home market for wool of every grade.

RAW VS. MANUFACTURED PRODUCTS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 14-FEBRUARY 20, 1857 On January 14 Nathaniel B. Durfee [R. I.] spoke as follows in favor of the manufacturing interests:

By the report of the Secretary of the Treasury [James Guthrie], it appears that the national revenues exceed the exigencies of an economical national expenditure by from sixteen to eighteen millions of dollars.

Two modes of reduction are proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, and are understood to be favored by the Administration: first, the admission of the raw materials of manufactures duty free; second, the admission of some articles of general consumption duty free, and a reduction of the duties upon others of that description, of some seven or eight millions of dollars. It is on the former of these two modes of reduction that I wish to make a few remarks.

The great manufacturing nations of Europe admit the raw materials of their manufactures free of duty. Now, this alone gives them a manifest and uncompensated superiority over us in all foreign markets; for, other things being equal, it is plain that the manufacturer who can procure his raw material at the cheapest rate can furnish the manufactured goods at the cheapest rate; and, therefore, under such circumstances, the manufacturer who can procure his raw material free of duty can afford to undersell the manufacturer who has to procure his raw material burdened with a duty, and exclude him from any market where both present themselves upon an equal footing. The difference in the cost of production per yard may be infinitesimally small, but in the result it is all the difference between the keeping and the losing of a market. Now, insofar as this difference depends upon the enhancement of the cost of raw materials by duties, is it clearly nothing more than common justice to remove it by the repeal of the duties unless there be some cogent reason for retaining them—as a part of the necessary revenues, or for the protection of some interest

which has an equal or greater claim than that of manufactures? In his greater abundance of capital and labor the foreign manufacturer has surely advantages enough without any assistance from our own Government. But notwithstanding these advantages, the proximity of the West Indies, and of South and Central America, would enable us to compete for these markets, at least in those coarser descriptions of manufactures, in the cheapness of producing which we already rival them, were it not for this duty upon raw materials.

The removal of this duty, then, will place us on the footing of equality with foreign manufactures in the procurement of the raw materials of manufactures. But the foreign manufacturer still has the advantage over us in the cheaper rates of money and of labor-so great that he can even drive us out of our own markets in many styles of manufactures unless we secure to ourselves some counterbalancing advantage in the shape of duties upon manufactured goods. Such a counterpoise the Secretary of the Treasury promises in the imposition of an adequate revenue tariff. Now, if the system will accomplish this, it is all that the American manufacturer can ask; it is all that the reasonable portion of them have ever asked. What they have sought, under the offensive appellation of protection, comes to them divested of its repulsive features in the prepossessing guise of revenue. That it comes in a form eminently calculated to win the favor of all classes and parties, and therefore to acquire the invaluable attribute of permanence, I am also convinced.

But objections have been raised to this system which are worthy of consideration. Under its operation foreign wool would cease to be a dutiable article. Now it is feared if the duty be taken off the raw material that, although the importations of woolen manufactures would diminish, yet the importation of the wool itself would increase in a far greater proportion and lead to a great and ruinous declension in the prices of domestic wool. If such would be the operation, it would be to favor the manufacturer at the expense of the producer, or, what is still worse, the foreign producer at the expense of the home producer.

But would such be the effect of the repeal? It is well known that certain qualities of wool cannot be grown in the United States. Our climate, our soil, or the culture of our flocks, is such as not to admit of its production. The experiment has been repeatedly tried, and never, I believe, with more than a very imperfect success. And there are certain styles of woolen

manufactures in which some admixture of these foreign wools is indispensable to give them the proper fiber or the proper finish. The duty, then, as it exists at present, does not even promote the interests of the wool grower, but by checking or destroying the manufacture of all cloths which require an admixture of foreign wool is an absolute injury to him.

What we want is a reliable, steady, increasing home market, and that a repeal of the duties on wool will instantly create. The mills will be built, the spindles and the looms abide our bidding, the labor is already on our shores, or waiting an invitation to immigrate; with us only it remains to speak the word, and, with a wonder-working potency more marvelous than the magician's spell, to gladden a thousand villages with the hum of happy industry, and whiten far and wide the grassy slopes and hillsides of our extended land with millions of bleating flocks.

On February 5 Benjamin Stanton [O.] presented the case of the wool growers.

He expressed surprise that the manufacturing interest was now considered the only branch of industry requiring protection. As to the ten per cent. duty proposed on wool he did not believe it would afford the wool-growers any protection whatever. And was their protection not necessary to the independence of the country? If the wool-growing interests were broken down, and manufactures sustained on imported wool, how, in the event of war, could we supply ourselves with the necessary woolen fabrics? He said further: it is laid down as a sound principle by intelligent agriculturists that the annual animal productions of any country should equal in value its annual vegetable productions in order that the fertility of the soil may be maintained. Hence, the production of wool is an indispensable article for scientific and profitable tillage.

In regard to the abolition of the duty on wool, he wondered in what respect the wool-grower was to be benefited. It has been argued, he said, that the repeal of this duty will send the manufacturer abroad into the markets of the world; it will increase the demand for wool, and that the foreign manufacturer will be compelled to pay an increased price for it, and that consequently he must get an increased price for his cloth, which will enable the domestic manufacturer to compete with him. But here is the fallacy: the manufacturers assume that the whole population of the country that consume woolen

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