H. OF R.} Tariff Bill. Treasury $758,170 for the privilege; and in every instance it is the product of the soil: for French brandy we exchange cotton and rice; for Holland gin, tobacco; for West India rum, flour, Indian meal, &c. : so that, in fact, it is agricultural products which are thus converted by the process of exchange, into spirits, as undeniably as if they were distilled into whiskey at home. [APRIL 8, 1828. our object should be protection-not to prohibit-at some price, not too exorbitant. Every citizen ought to be permitted to have whatever may please him, that the world affords. There is no disputing about tastes; and Mr. M. was not satisfied that the amendment would lessen, in any perceptible degree, the use of foreign spi rits or increase the consumption of grain. If not, the policy of adopting it was, in his mind, very question. I will not detain the House longer to complain of the features of a bill which is so framed as to carry self-de-able. struction in its inception; and will not insinuate that it was so designed by the honorable committee who reported it—but had they taxed their ingenuity to the utmost, the cunning of man could not have devised a system belter calculated to defeat itself. : To the Eastern States, it speaks in language not to be misunderstood you shall be shorn of your golden fleece, if you anticipate to profit by your flocks of sheep, if you rely on your extensive manufactories, carried on with skill, enterprise, industry, and economy, to derive a support for your families; you but deceive yourselves: the provisions of this bill consign you to slow, but certain ruin you shall no longer surfeit yourself with molasses; the price of it shall be raised beyond the means of the middling classes to purchase; you shall cease to use for eign spirits, the country produces whiskey enough to deluge the world, and to that beverage we restrict you. To the Southern States it says: We will strangle you with hemp, and make your winding-sheet of cotton bagging; and if you desire the luxury of a linen shirt, you shall buy it of British manufacture : for flax and its products shall be banished the land. Without an amendment, Mr. Speaker, that shall protect the manufacturer, the fate of this bill is sealed, and, I only remark, may God speed it, grant to this House an early riddance of it, and the nation a relief from the onerous burthens it would impose upon them. Mr. BUCHANAN (on whose motion this amendment had been adopted in Committee of the Whole) replied to Mr. BARNEY, and strenuously advocated it. Mr. BARNEY rejoined, and enforced his former remarks. Mr. REED took the same side-as did also Mr. STORRS, who thonght that the duty reported ought to be increased; but not to such an amount as thirty cents. Mr. MALLARY expressed his assent to the amend ment, as falling fairly within the general principle which he thought ought to govern a tariff of duties. Mr. MINER said, he was in some degree embarrassed by the proposition of his honorable colleague, [Mr. Bu CHANAN] If he supposed the effect of the amendment would be, to benefit the growers of grain, certainly he should be disposed to regard it with favour. But, from the best view I have been able to give the subject, said Mr. M. I am not satisfied guch would be its effect. In considering and re-considering the matter, my mind comes to no such conclusion. It does not appear to me that the additional tax will diminish, in any perceptible degree, the use of foreign spirits. There is now a duty on the foriegn article of more than two hundred per centum on the price of domestic spirits. The price of brandy is now six times the price of whiskey. This would seem to be ample for protection, To those who would be influenced by prices, the difference was already sufficient. Those who now prefer brandy, at six times the cost of whiskey, would prefer it at seven times the cost. Persons, whose habits are fixed, cannot be expected to change their habits. The old seaman, who has made voyages to the West Indies, or to the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the ports of France, and been accustomed to Jamaica spirits or brandy, would prefer to purchase them, at almost any price, rather than drink a different liquor, if given to him. In this free country, He would present another view of the subject. Of the foreign spirits imported, it might, he thought, be fairly assumed, that the proportion used in Pennsylvania was something less than half a million of gallons. There were, in the State, about four thousand tavern-keepers, and these, he presumed, retailed nearly one-half the quantity consumed. To resolve the matter into its parts, bring it down, so that we could the better understand it, he would consider the effect of the proposed tax in the district which he had the honor, in part, to represent. To speak in round numbers, that district might be considered as embracing one-tenth of the State, and to have within it 400 tavern keepers. These persons have a just pride to render their houses respectable, and agreeable to travellers. They are desirous of furnishing them with a proper assortment of liquors. Foreigners often pass through this State, and merchants and sea-faring men, who are used to different sorts of liquors. For the gratification of these, and others who may prefer them, it is proper they should be supplied with a variety, that every taste may be gratified-their houses sought for, and the stranger be induced to call again. Suppose you allow to each, one pint of brandy, half a pint of Holland gin, one gill of spirits, and one gill of Irish whiskey, each day, Sunday excepted-the average quantity will be something more than seventy gallons a year. Some use more, some less, but that may be taken as a fair average. Thirty cents additional tax on a gallon, would be a tax on the taveru-keepers of more than twenty dollars a piece-upwards of 80,000 dollars on the whole of that class in the State; unless it could be shown that the tax would be collected from the consumer. And how would that be, Mr. Speaker? The price of brandy and spirits, retailed by small measure, has long since been fixed. It is established by custom. The present price has existed from time to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. Ask in New England for a half gill of brandy; and you are charged four pence halfpenny; in New York, six pence; in Pennsylvania, a fippenny bit. It is 6 ¡cents, even change, every where throughout this section of country. Lay this additional tax, and will it vary the retail price? Will the tavern-keeper stop to demand the other half cent, and tell his customers Congress has increased the duty? No, sir, I am perfectly satisfied the price would be the same. The consumer would not pay the duty. The tax would light and rest on the tavern-keeper. Would this be just? Would it be equitable? I still speak of home; of the effect of the amendment in our district. The tavern-keepers are obliged now, before they can enter into business, to take out a licence and pay a tax to the Government. If they fail to do this, they are visited by the strong arm of the law; not by civil process, but the indictment or presentment of a grand jury-by criminal proceedings, and are heavily fined. There is not a more valuable class of citzens in the State-one that contributes more largely to the public comfort and convenience. They spread their tables bountifully with every good thing the country and the season afford. On provisions they make little or no profit; on domestic spirits their profits are extremely small; on foreign liquor they make reasonable per centage and it is almost the only article on which they realise a just reward for their care and labour. Now it appears to me that it would be unjust to add to the burdens of the tavern-keeper. The distiller pursues his occupation, and pays no licence. It is so with the minister. The lawyer pursues his profession, and has to pay no tax. The tavern-keeper seems marked out for taxation. I do not think it would be just or fair to add to his burdens. And as I do, from a full consideration of the matter, believe that the proposed additional duty of thirty cents on brandy, spirits, and other imported liquors, would operate as a tax on the tavern-keepers of Pennsylvania, averaging twenty dollars each; as I do not believe it would be of the least benefit to the farmer; I am compelled to differ from my honorable colleague, and vote against the amendment. [H. OF R. of Pennsylvania. He wished to inquire whether the gentleman had ascertained what would be its effects upon the tapsters also? as that was an object worthy of great statistical research. Mr. MINER said, in reply, that he should be happy if the argument of the honorable gentleman from South Carolina had produced much effect upon the House-he doubted whether his wit had. Mr. WHIPPLE made a short speech in opposition to the amendment, when the question being taken, it was decided in the affirmative, by yeas and nays:-Yeas 106Nays 87. Mr. MALLARY now moved the amendment he had before offered in Committee of the Whole on the 12th February, with the alteration of inserting the words, Mr. GORHAM also opposed the amendment, as tend-carpets, carpeting," after the word "blankets," in the ing to materally injure our foreign commerce, without second line of the second clause. securing any corresponding advantage to the manufacturer of domestic spirits. Mr. BUCHANAN now said, that so many members had expressed to him a desire that he would propose a lower duty, that he was induced, for the sake of harmony, and to save the time of the House, and not because he thought the duty too high, to move to amend the amendment by striking out thirty, and inserting twenty. The CHAIR reminded him that such a motion would not be in order, in as much as the amendment of the Committee of the Whole which went to strike out ten, and insert thirty, was not divisible. He might, however, attain his object by having a vote first taken on thirty cents, and, if that should be decided in the negative, his motion for twenty would then be in order. The question was accordingly put on concuring in the amount reported by the Committee of the Whole viz to strike out ten cents, and insert thirty, and decided in the negative, by yeas and nays :-Yeas, 58Nays 131. : Mr. BUCHANAN now moved to strike out ten cents and insert twenty; and this question was also decided in the negative, by yeas and nays:-Yeas, 90-Nays 102. Mr. BUCHANAN, expressing reluctance again to trouble the House, but referring to the importance of this subject to his constituents, moved to strike out ten cents and insert fifteen. Mr. DEGRAFF requested Mr. BUCHANAN to state to the House what was the present duty on imported spirits. This Mr. BUCHANAN declined, as he presumed the gentlemen were all acquainted with it. Mr. BARNEY then replied to Mr. DEGRAFF, and stated the average duty at 43 1-6 cents per gallon, being 150 per cent. on the cost of the article in the foreign market. He supported his amendment in a short speech, during the course of which, having adverted.to some of the arguments urged against it in Committee of the Whole he was called to order by Mr. WICKLIFFE, on the ground that this was not permitted by the rules of the House. The SPEAKER decided it to be out of order. Mr. MALLARY then resumed, and concluded his remarks. Mr. WRIGHT, of New York, said a few words as to the effect of the amendment on the duties upon wool. Mr. MALLARY spoke in reply, defending the amendment, and concluded by demanding the yeas and nays. Mr. STEWART then offered an amendment to the amendment of Mr. MALLARY in relation to articles manufactured of flax and hemp, but consented to withdraw it at the solicitation of Mr. MALLARY, who urged the gentleman from Pennsylvania not to press his amend ment, at this moment, but to reserve it to be presented in a distinct form hereafter. Mr. STEWART then rose and said, he had been deprived by sickness of the advantage of hearing most of the discussion which had been proceeding for the last three or four weeks on the subject now under debate; he was still much indisposed; but the deep interest which he felt, in common with his constituents, in the measure under consideration, forbad him to be silent. He would present to the committee, in as few words as possible, his views as to the character and principle of the bill reported by the committee, and of its effects if adopted in its present shape; he wished it, however, to be distinctly understood, once for all, that he did not object to the high duties proposed on wool hemp, flax, and other raw materials used by the manufacturer; to this he had no sort of objection. But what he did object to as being ruinous and destructive to both farmer and manufacturer was, that, while this bill imposed these heavy burdens on the raw material, it extended no corresponding or adequate proble effect would be, to crush the American manufactures, and thus destroy the only markets the farmer had for his produce, and give the British the undisputed possession of the whole field of supply. Mr. McDUFFIE said, that he rose merely as an amateur-not to enter into the argument, but to say that he should consider it a pity to destroy the present admirable symmetry of the bill, by adding the five cents protection to the manufacturer; the obvious and inevitaposed. Mr. CONDICT demanded that the question be taken by Yeas and Nays. Mr. MALLARY thought the symmetry of the bill would be in nowise impaired, and made some observations upon the character of the article, as a luxury, and the propriety of its taxation. Mr. BARNEY repeated the objections he had formerly urged, on the ground that the spirits were paid for, by our own agricultural products. Mr. MINER thought that the duty, even as now reduced, would be injurious to the tavern-keepers of Pennsylvania, who were already very much depressed. Mr. HAMILTON said, the gentleman from Pennsylvania had made very careful and minute calculations as to the probable effect of the bill on the tavern keepers There was one cardinal principle which lay at the very foundation of the protecting system, which had been wholly lost sight of by the committee; that was, to keep the duties higher on the manufactured articles than on the raw material, otherwise the foreigner would always find it his interest to work up the raw material at home, and thus oblige us to purchase and pay for, not only the raw material, but the labor employed and the provisions consumed in its manufacture. If one or the other must be imported, nothing can be more evident than that it is much better for the H. OF R.] son Tariff Bill. farmer that we should import the raw material than to Provisions, fuel, soap, tallow, &c. [APRIL 8, 1828. sel; they must sail triumphant before a prosperous breeze, or sink together in a common grave. They are bound together by ties which no friendly hand will ever attempt to sever; and the labored efforts now made to create jealousies between them, had no friendly origin; it proceeded either from a misapprehension, or a disregard of their true interest. The bill proposes to raise the present duty on coarse wool, of a species not produced in our own country, from 15 to 150 per cent.; and for this enormous increase of duty, what additional protection is offered to the manufacturer, who is already sinking under the weight of foreign competition? Only three and a third per cent. Thus an increase of more than 100 per cent. is imposed, to keep out half a million dollars' worth of wool, and three and a third per cent. to keep out eight millions of dollars' worth of woollen goods. We thus exclude a handful of raw wool, and import in its stead ten times as much made up into cloth, and all for the protection of the farmers. From such protection they might well exclaim, "Good Lord deliver us!" The bill next proposes to raise the present duty on hemp and flax, from thirty-five to sixty dollars per ton, equal to about 100 per cent. But there is not one cent of protection proposed on a single article, manufac$4 00 tured of hemp or flax, except sail duck. Now it was Thus the American farmer who purchases five yards a known and admitted fact, that the water-rotted hemp of British cloth, worth 4 per yard, actually pays for used for sails and rigging, is not produced in this country; $10 worth of British wool, $5 75 of British bread, meat, the consequence is, that you compel the manufacturer to fuel, soap, &c. and $4 25 only for profits, making in pay nearly double the present duty for his hemp, while $20, $15 75 tor foreign agricultural produce, while his he gets not a cent of additional protection on his manuown is rotting on his hands for want of a market, and factured goods. The consequence would be his immethis is the ruinous and absurd policy we are pursuing; diate and utter destruction. Then what becomes of the sending eight millions of dollars to England every year farmer? Where is the market for his hemp and flax ? to purchase woollen cloth, more than three-fourths of And where his market for grain and provisions? It is which actually went to pay for wool and other agricultu-gone, destroyed by this ruinons system of legislation; ral productions; and the same thing was in a greater or less and instead of importing raw hemp, to be manufactured degree true in relation to 20 or 30 millions of other ma- by American labor, subsisting on American grain and nufactured goods imported, viz : 4 millions of hemp and provision, we will import the manufactured goods; for flax goods; 8 millions of cottons; 5 millions of iron and who would be so stupid as to import hemp, charged its manufactures, &c. These, if manufactured at home, with a duty of 60 dollars per ton, when he could import would create a market for that amount of American labor it in a manufactured state, at a duty of 25 per cent > and capital, instead of being sent abroad. This vast sum would be kept at home to enrich our own country, and reward our own industry. This was the evil will this bill afford a remedy? In his opinion it would not; with proper amendment it might; as it now stood it was a delusion alike destructive in its tendency to both the farmer and manufacturer. Next, the bill very properly proposes to raise the duty on bar-iron, if hammered, to 20 dollars, and if rolled 30 dollars per ton. But no increase is proposed on manufactures of iron, except 10 per cent. on a few specified articles. Thus the duty on bar-iron will be about 50, while the duty on manufactures of iron is only 25 per What would be the effect? Would this exclude cent. Look at its provisions, you will find it to be a bill for iron? No; it would be imported in a manufactured the destruction, and not for the protection of American state. Even now, without this additional temptation to manufactures. What is the real state of the case? The fraud and evasion, the British are in the habit of getting American manufacturers are engaged in a struggle of their bar-iron welded together in the form of hoops, life and death, with the British. They say, without aid calling it "wagon tire," and thus bringing it under the they must go down. They call upon their country-they denomination of "manufactured iron," by which means call upon us for protection. They ask for relief, and the they get it in at about 15 dollars, instead of 30 dollars bill offers them not protection, but additional burdens. It per ton. This shows the propriety of the rule, that the proposes to increase the taxes a hundred per cent. on duty on manufactures should always be higher than the the wool, flax, and hemp, purchased by the manufactur-duty on the raw material for it was surely better, if the er, without giving him any corresponding protection; foreign article must be imported, to import it in its raw this is done under the specious and delusive pretext of state, and employ our own labor in converting it into protecting the farmers. The farmers are not to be thus articles for use, rather than to have this done abroad, by deceived; they understand their own interest better; they which foreign labor and foreign agriculture would be want no double duties of this kind, unless also granted encouraged instead of our own. to the manufacturers; they want a market, created by home manufactures; they see plainly enough that if the manufactures are destroyed, their market is gone; they have no foreign market; they can have none; their reliance, their sole reliance is on the markets at home. The idea that the interests of the farmer and manufacturer are at variance, is all a delusion; the same destiny awaits them-they must rise or fall together. Their fortunes are embarked on the same sea, and in the same ves These were some of his objections to the bill in its present form, and he now gave notice, that, with a view to remove these objections, he intended to move several amendments, the object of which would be to give protection to the manufacturer, by making the duties on manufactured goods correspondent to the duties imposed on the raw material; he, would, therefore, move, in the first place, to give a progressive increase of five per cent. per annum on woollen manufactures, until it arrived at fifty per cent. so as to correspond with the proposed increase of the duty on wool; still leaving it the advantage over cloth of seven cents per pound, specific duty equal to about thirty per cent. on common wool. The second amendment he proposed, would be to add a progressive duty of fifteen per cent. to the present duty on all manufactures of hemp and flax. This would raise the duties in the end to forty per cent. which would fall considerably short of the proposed duty of 60 dollars per ton on the raw material. Next he would ask the committee to add a like increase to the present duties on all manufactures of iron and steel, by which these duties would also be raised to forty per cent. The propriety of these amendments would be obvious, by adverting to the present state of our importations, to which the committee, he thought, had not sufficiently attended. 1st. As to woollen goods, we import about ten millions of dollars a year while of wool we import less than half a million. 2d. Of manufactures of hemp and flax, we import about four millions dollars, and of raw hemp and flax, little more than half a million. 3d. Of manufactures of iron, we import about three millions dollars a year, and of bar-iron, about one and a half; it was, therefore, evident, that the great evil consisted in the importation of the manufactured goods, and not of the raw material. This was the great error in the bill that, while it proposed heavy duties on the raw material, it gave no protection to the manufactured article. The committee were all anxiety to exclude a few pounds of wool, while they permitted the importation of twenty times the amount in a manufactured shape. The bill would betray the farmer, whom it affected to favor:-it would tempt him, by this high duty on wool, to increase his flocks, while it would destroy even the existing mar. kets, and leave him without any. This would be the plain and practical operation of the bill in its present shape, and it was proper that the people should know it in time to avoid it. [H. OF R. manufacturers are engaged in a struggle of life and death, a struggle for the American market-what a contrast does the policy of the two countries present? We see Mr. Huskisson coming forward in Parliament with a bill to repeal all the duties affecting the manufacturer—to repeal even the penny a pound on wool, while our committee recommend an increase of twenty per cent. ad va. lorein, with a specific duty of seven cents per pound, equal to more than one hundred per cent. of increase on coarse wool. Mr. Huskisson reduces the duty on hemp and flax, we increase it-he reduces the duties on all kinds of dye stuff's, indigo, &c. expressly for the purpose of favoring the manufacturers, who, he says, can no longer go ahead in the race of competition, unless every pound of burden is taken off them. Do we follow his example? No sir: whilst Mr. Huskisson takes the last feather off the back of his old and experienced coursers to run against us, what does our Committee on Manufactures propose? Do they propose to lighten our burdens also? No, sir, they propose to throw bags of sand upon our backs, then clear the way, a fair race. With such inequality it is impossible that we can maintain the competition ; our establishments must inevitably go down unless some additional protection is afforded to countervail the effect of these heavy duties imposed on the raw materials. We have heard the highest eulogies pronounced on Mr. Huskisson, for his liberal and enlightened policy, by gentlemen opposed to the tariff; they tell us that while we are imposing heavy duties in this country, Mr. Huskisson is taking them off, and thus "freeing trade of its shackles." Do gentlemen deceive themselves, or do they wish to deceive others? True, Mr. Huskisson recommends the repeal of duties, but for what purpose? Not to leave the manufacturer without protection, but to increase his security. He begged gentlemen to look at Mr. Huskisson's speech of 1824, which had been so much admired as a powerful defence of the principles of "free trade." Sir, it is any thing else. In the very first sentence of this profound and elaborate speech, Mr. Huskisson distinctly announces his object, which was, he There was no country in the world as exclusively en- said, to repeal the duties levied on the importation of gaged in manufactures as Great Britain; her manufac "materials employed in some of our principal manufactures were the main stay of the nation; they were the tories;" he then proceeds, in detail, to recommend the great source of her immense revenue, the grand pillar reduction of the duties on wool, iron, copper, lead, &c. that supported her agriculture, and the aliment that fed In consequence of the high duties on these raw materials, and sustained her extensive commerce. There the man- foreigners could undersell them, and he states the fact, ufacturers pay an excise annually to the Government of that "extensive orders received at Birmingham had been no less than one hundred and thirty-eight millions of dol- transferred to the Continent, because the British manulars, while the whole revenue of this Government facturer could not fill them on the terms required, in amounted to about twenty millions. It was stated, by wri- consequence of the high duty on the raw material;" he ters of reputation and authority, that their consumption then proceeds to recommend a reduction of the duties of agricultural produce amounted to one thousand four on a great variety of articles used by the manufacturer, hundred and eight millions of dollars per annum; indescending to the most minute and trifling items-indigo, that country, where the policy of protecting and sup- logwood, madder, sumac, verdigris, fustic, &c. These porting manufactures is perfectly understood, what is the duties, he says, operate as a premium to encourage the system adopted? It is precisely the reverse of that re- inhabitants of other countries to do for themselves, that, commended by this bill; instead of putting duties on which, greatly to our own advantage, we should otherthe raw material, they have taken them off to the last far-wise have continued to do for them; and he held himthing. After the restoration of peace in Europe in 1816, when those countries turned their attention from war to the cultivation of the arts, when, in consequence of this, Great Britain found her foreign markets greatly diminished, and herself, in fact, struggling with powerful rivals, what did she do? Look at her legislation--we see her ministers recommending the repeal of every duty which imposed a burden on her manufacturers. When we, in 1816, extended protection to our cotton manufactures, she reduced, soon after, her duty on raw cotton, from a penny half penny per pound, to six per cent. ad valorem. When we protected woollens, in 1824, she immediately defeated the whole of our protection by reducing the duty on raw wool from six pence sterling to one penny per pound; and now, when the American and British Vol. IV.-140 self at liberty, he says, "to propose a still further reduction of these duties should this be found insufficient to enable the British manufacturers to preserve their foreign markets;" and concludes this branch of the subject with a general provision, fixing the duties on all raw materials unspecified, 30 per cent. lower than on manufactured goods. As to wool, Mr. Huskisson says, "the duty is now one penny per pound on all foreign wool. It has been stated to me, that even this rate of duty presses heavily upon the manufacturers of coarse woollens, in which we have the most to fear from foreign competition, and that considerable relief would be afforded by reducing it to one half penny per pound." Mr. Huskisson, it is true, proposes to reduce the duties on some articles of manufacture, but it is expressly H. OF R.] Tariff Bill. [APRIL 8, 1828. bait, and are actually referring to this very speech of Mr. Huskisson, as evidence that the protecting policy is abandoned in England, and we, they say, should follow this bright example. on the ground that they are so firmly established, that | the effect: for gentlemen on this floor have caught the the protection is no longer necessary for instance, as to cotton, he says, "it will not be denied that in this manufacture we are superior to all other countries, and that, by the cheapness and quality of our goods, we undersell our competitors in all the markets in the world, open alike to us and to them. I do not except (he continues) the market of the East Indies, (the first seat of the manufacturer) of which it may be said to be the staple, where the raw material is grown, where labor is cheaper than in any other country, and from which Eng-plated for a few years longer the happy consequences land and Europe were, for a long time, supplied with cotton goods; now, however, British cottons are sold in India, at prices lower than they can be produced for by the native manufacturers. If any doubt could possibly remain, that they had nothing to fear from foreign competition, especially in their own markets, it must vanish, when I stated the fact, that we exported last year £30,795,000 sterling of cottons, (equal to $138,000,000) yet, such has been the fears of jealous monopoly, and such the influence of old prejudices, that in our book of rates, the duties, will the committee believe it?" exclaimed Mr. Huskisson, “stand at this moment, (1824) at 751. per cent. on certain goods, on others at 677. 10s. on a third class 50l. per cent. But what does Mr. Huskisson himself say as to his object? Can any one who will examine the subject, fail to see through his policy? He says, "let foreign countries look on and see our course, and I have no doubt, when the Governments of the continent shall have contemof the system in which we are now proceeding, that their eyes will be opened." Yes, sir, their eyes will be opened. "They will then believe,” says Mr. Huskisson, “but at present they do not, that we are sincere and consistent in our principles." No doubt, sir, very sincere in reducing duties no longer necessary. "They will then imitate us," he says, "in our present course, as they have of late been adopting our cast-off systems of restrictions and prohibitions. That they have hitherto suspected our sincerity, and looked upon our professions as lures to ensnare them, is not very surprising, when they compare those professions with those codes of prohibition which I am now endeavoring to pare down and modify to a scale of moderate duties." These were Mr. Hus"It is impossible," he says, "not to smile at the dis-kisson's own declarations; and if he could succeed by criminating shrewdness, which made these distinctions, such means in inducing us to arrest our tariff, and to and which could discover, that, with a protection of put our foot in the trap he has so artfully set for us, we 671. 108. more was necessary to make the balance in- will deserve the fate that would await us. But, in concline on the side of the British manufacturer in the mar-clusion, Mr. Huskisson takes special care to assure the ket of his own country: these absurd duties, and absurd Parliament, that all the reductions he proposed were distinctions, attach alike upon the productions of our own "right and proper in principle, and calculated to afford subjects in the East Indies as upon those of other coun- encouragement and assistance to their manufactures;" tries." which was, in fact, the legitimate end and object of every tariff. After all this, gentlemen tell us that Mr. Huskisson and Mr Canning have yielded to the liberal system of free trade, and that we should follow their example. They were repealing the duties imposed by Edward and Elizabeth, by Pitt and Fox-duties that protected and raised the British manufacturing skill and industry to its present unexampled height; constituting the foundation and basis of the power and the glory of the British empire; and now, when they have acquired such skill and power, perfection and extent, that they are fairly beyond the reach of competition, her ministers cry out to those who are wisely following their footsteps to wealth and independence; stop! you are wrong! you are wrong to follow our example! It is unwise and unmanly to resort to artificial regulations to protect yourselves against us, we are willing to meet you in the open field of fair competition. Yes, sir, the giant may well tell the stripling to lay aside the pistol and meet him in the open field with the weapons which nature's God had supplied. Well might Napoleon dispense with arms when he had conquered the world; and well might Mr. Huskisson recommend free trade when it would make the world tributary to England. Here we see Mr. Huskisson proposing to reduce the duties on cottons; and why? Because they are no longer necessary; they had acquired such perfection as to fear no competition; still he retained a duty of ten per cent. Was it candid or fair in Mr. Huskisson thus to ridicule "the discriminating shrewdness" of those wise statesmen who went before him? Sixty-seven and a half per cent., he sneeringly says, was deemed necessary to protect the domestic manufacture of cotton, and yet he himself had but just stated the reason why these duties were necessary at the time of their adoption-it was to protect the British manufacturer against the Indies, from whence, he says, thay were then supplied with cotton goods, where the raw material was grown, and where labor was cheaper than in any other country. Hence it was necessary then to adopt these "absurd" duties of seventy-five and sixty-seven and a half per cent. to protect the infant manufactures of England against the old establishments of India, in the same manner that it is now necessary here, to protect our infant manufactures against the old establishments of Great Britain. And, sir, I have no doubt the time will come, and it is not perhaps distant, when we too will no longer require these protecting duties; when we will be able to export to all the world, and when Mr. Huskisson will find it ne Mr. S. said he would now proceed to notice some of cessary again to resort to these sixty-seven and a half the few arguments which he had had an opportunity of per cent. duties to exclude American cottons, as his an- hearing on this subject, advanced by his colleague [Mr. cestors had to do to exclude those of India. I repeat, STEVENSON] and Mr. WRIGHT, of New York, who had sir, it was neither candid nor respectful in Mr. Huskis-framed this bill. In the first place, they attempt to susson thus to denounce as "absurd and ridiculous" what tain it as a measure for the benefit of the farmers, and he well knew was indispensable, and laid the foundation endeavor to array the farmers and manufacturers against of their present prosperity. But his motive is not en- each other. The attempt of the latter gentleman to pertirely concealed; these duties having answered their vert the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, and to purpose, and being no longer necessary, are repealed; show that the Secretary wished to protect the manufacfor the sake of what? The example to other countries; turer at the expense of the farmer, was uncandid and ilthat they may be induced, he says, to follow our exam-liberal; it was utterly unworthy of the gentleman from ple, and abandon the protecting system; and what New York. No impartial man, he affirmed, could read then? Why, England would have the undisputed pos- that able and luminous report without rising from its session of the market; and he judged correctly as to | perusal with a full and thorough conviction that it was |