preferred by those who have used it, on account of its doing the work fully as well, and being much cheaper than the powders.

"The manufacture of bleaching powders has also been carried on in this country during the last ten years to a considerable extent, with a duty of one cent per pound on the imported, which is more than twenty per cent. And therefore I do not believe the article has yet been made to be profitable to manufacturers; yet the manufacture in this country of the powders, and more particularly of the liquor, is a cause of alarm to the foreign manufacturers.

"Sulphuric acid enters largely into the cost of making bleaching powders and bleaching liquor; and it is evident that the foreign maker of bleaching powders could not better attain his end than by raising the cost of making sulphuric acid in this country, at the same time that he gets a reduction of duty on his powder.

"As I have formed this opinion, I have thought proper to communi. cate it.

"I am, Sir, with high respect, your obedient servant,

"Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER."

"GEORGE GARDNER.

Here, then, on the one hand, the foreign agent prays for and urges the passage of Mr. McKay's bill; and, on the other, the American manufacturer implores us to stick to the tariff of 1842, reject Mr. McKay's bill, and suffer him to go on and get an honest living, as heretofore. They have a directly opposite interest; and as it is no matter of revenue of any considerable amount, how are we to interpret the fact, that the former is so obviously protected at the expense of the latter? How is it that, in this contest, the foreign manufacturer obtains the preference? Are the suspicions of this gentleman, whom I know to be a highly respectable man of business, entirely unreasonable? He says there must have been some one at work, having an interest foreign and hostile to the interest of the American producer of this article, and similar articles; and judge you, whether that be not the case. It is plain and manifest that it is an English provision, favorable to English labor, and prejudicial to American labor.

I am admonished that it is high time to leave these various articles; I will not call them minor articles, because they are all important. There are many more to which I might have directed the attention of the Senate. There are the articles of skins and pelts, of which nothing is said here, but which affect

a great many hundred persons employed. The same thing takes place in regard to them. The raw material is taxed higher than the manufactured articles. Now, I want somebody to show if the result of this bill be not to benefit the foreign manufacturer and laborer, at the sacrifice of our own manufacturer and laborer. I wish somebody to show where there is one case in which discrimination has been resorted to, and in which it has been in favor of the American laborer or the American manufacturer. Everywhere it is the other way.

Sir, the honorable member from Connecticut spoke, the other day, of a "petty Congress" of subordinate persons, brought together from about the custom-houses and the great marts of importation, and of the evident proofs that this bill was prepared in that "petty Congress." Mr. President, I know nothing of that; but I say, not willingly, but from a sense of duty, that the long series of provisions contained in this bill, in which discrimination is obviously made against the American manufacturer, and in favor of the foreign manufacturer, gives rise to very awkward suspicions. If there has been, in truth, such a "petty Congress" as has been mentioned, for whose benefit were its deliberations carried on? What interest, whose interest, was its "petty Senate," and its "petty House of Representatives," assiduously seeking to promote?

But I now go from these interests to articles of more prominence, and perhaps greater importance; and I wish to say, that in discussing the effects of this tariff upon the industrial labor of the country, with the single exception which I have named in regard to the new manufacture of mousseline de laine, I make no particular comment on this bill, in regard to the great interests of that part of the country with which I am connected. I leave that to the consideration of others. I will not permit myself to be supposed to be influenced, on these topics, by the interests of manufacturers around me, and amongst whom I live, and for whose prosperity and happiness I never can feel unconcerned. Driven from her original and chosen pursuit, to which she had been enthusiastically addicted, commerce, and compelled to enter upon the field of manufactures, twenty-two years ago, if it be now the pleasure of this government, if it be the sense

* Mr. Niles.

of the American people, if the South, and the Middle, and the West say so, New England can go back, and still live. You can distress her, you can cripple her, you can cramp her, but you cannot annihilate her industry, her self-respect, her capacity to take care of herself. A country of workingmen who are able, if necessity calls for it, to work fourteen hours a day, may bid defiance to all tariffs, and all miserable, false, partial legislation. They stand upon the strength of their own character, resolution, and capacity; and by this strength and that capacity they will maintain themselves, do what you please. Not, Sir, that there is one house in New England, at this moment, in which the proceedings of this day are not looked for with intensest interest. No man rises in the morning but to see the newspaper. No woman retires at night without inquiring of her husband the progress of this great measure in Washington. They ask about it in the streets. They ask about it in the schools. They ask about it in the shoemakers' shops, the machine-shops, the tailors' shops, the saddlers' shops, and, in short, in the shops of all artisans and handicrafts. They ask about it everywhere. And they will take whatever answer comes as men should take it; and they will feel as men should feel when they hear it. I therefore leave, Sir, to the Senate, all these considerations. I will not suffer myself to be subjected to the temptation of being led away by causes which might be supposed to influence me, and turning from them, therefore, I proceed to the consideration of other subjects, in which, so far as New England is concerned, if she have any interest at all, it is in favor of this bill, and against protected interests. Does she mean the less to exercise her power, little or great, or whatever it may be, in favor of those whose interests are menaced by this bill? No, Sir;

never.

I am now about to speak of the iron interest and the coal interest; great interests, in which several of the States are concerned, but which, by way of eminence, men are accustomed to call the great Pennsylvanian interests; and so they are. Massachusetts is a purchaser of Pennsylvania coal, and she is a purchaser of Pennsylvania iron. She is one of the best purchasers of these articles from her Pennsylvania friends. She will, to the extent of her power, maintain a just system for the preservation of these great interests, precisely as if they were her own.

And,

Sir, I do not fear that I am running any hazard at all when I say, that this feeling of Massachusetts towards Pennsylvania is entirely reciprocated by Pennsylvania towards Massachusetts. I hear it whispered about these halls, that there might come some specific for the case of Pennsylvania: that there might be an amendment moved to soothe her on the subject of iron and coal, leaving all the rest of the country to the desolation of this bill. But, Sir, no such thing can take place. Pennsylvania would not degrade herself by accepting such a boon. Pennsylvania stands, and her representatives here stand, pledged and instructed to the tariff of 1842. But I take this occasion to say for myself, that I am now arguing against this bill, this particular bill, and I have not said, and I shall not say now, what other provisions it might be advisable for the houses of Congress to adopt. But I have not the least fear in the world, Sir, that Pennsylvania is going to bend her proud neck, to take a boon from those who are inflicting this severe measure of discomfort and distress upon the country; that she will just take a sop to herself and turn her back upon her friends. There is not a Pennsylvanian who would consent to such a degrading, debasing, discreditable act of selfishness. Now let us proceed to consider these important subjects of the iron trade and coal trade of Pennsylvania.

It is well known that Pennsylvania is very rich in mineral wealth. Next to England, Pennsylvania, considering her connection east with the Atlantic and west with the Mississippi, and then considering her soil and mineral productions, is perhaps the richest spot on the face of the globe. She has greater means of supporting population than any country I know of in the world, except it be the south end of the island of Great Britain. For thirty years, the making of iron in Pennsylvania has been a considerable business. The present duty on iron, by the law of 1842, is $25 per ton for plain bar-iron. The proposed duty is thirty per cent. ad valorem on the imported article. Now, the price of iron at Liverpool at this moment is £8, or $40, per ton. The amount of duty, therefore, proposed by the bill, that is to say, a duty of thirty per cent. ad valorem, would be $12.50, or one half the present duty.

I will read the clause of the bill with respect to iron, for it is worthy of being read:

"Iron, in bars, blooms, bolts, loops, pigs, rods, slabs, or other form not otherwise provided for, thirty per cent."

rem.

Here we see, then, that the same ad valorem duty is assessed on iron as a raw material, and on all its successive stages of manufacture. There are proprietors in Pennsylvania who hold great estates in iron mountains, which are called "royalties." They sell the ore at so much a ton in the earth. This, as a raw material, is protected in the bill by a duty of thirty per cent. ad valoBut the duty, being still the same thirty per cent. ad valorem, only rises on the article in different stages of its manufacture, as the value of the manufactured article progressively rises. American labor, therefore, gets no protection over foreign labor. As the manufacture of iron advances from one degree to another, it calls, in each successive step, for a higher degree of labor. But the bill makes no discrimination in favor of this labor. English labor, in advancing the manufacture of its higher stages, is as much regarded and protected as American labor. But as labor is higher here than in England, (and long may it continue so,) if there be not a discriminating protection, the work must of course fall into foreign hands, and the loss fall on the American laborers. The question, therefore, is one which touches the interest of the American worker in iron to the quick; and it will be understood by the man who works at the furnace, at the forge, at the mill, and in all the still more advanced and finer operations.

But now let us look to the act of 1842, and see its careful enumeration and specific assessment of duties on iron, and on articles of iron manufacture. It reads thus.

Mr. Webster here read at length the first six paragraphs of the fourth section of the act of the 30th of August, 1842, by which specific duties are laid upon imported iron, in every form of the unmanufactured or manufactured article.

Here we see labor protected. The duties are specific, and they are enhanced more and more as labor constitutes more and more of the value of the article. This is the spirit of the act of 1842. No such spirit is manifested in this bill.

Let me now, Mr. President, after reading this long legal enactment, direct the attention of the Senate to the amount of capital invested in the iron interests at this time in Pennsylvania.