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investment at 5 per cent, upon the dollar per annum, or less. It is a 

 fact that the young farmer usually starts out with a mortgage upon his 

 farm, and in the savings-bank centers he pays this low rate of interest, 

 and in 1860 he paid 7 per cent, or more. I am now speaking of the 

 East. The rates for both periods are higher "West, but there is this 

 corresponding difference between the two years. 



But I am asked, why maintain the tariff if prices of goods are lower 

 than in 1860, and if I claim if we reduced it there would not be a re- 

 duction in price? I do not claim there would not be a reduction in 

 price temporarily. If we make a reduction in duty the surplus goods 

 of other countries would be thrown upon us, and their manufacturing 

 industries would be stimulated and our own industries would struggle 

 for a while against it and the market would grow lower here. Our 

 manufacturers in the end would be ruined, would yield to inevitable 

 bankruptcy, our home market for our agricultural products would be 

 impaired, the foreign producers would take the field and in time adjust 

 their production and exportation to our market to the consumption and 

 control it, and prices would advance above the present rates. 



Such has been the history of the past. I for one believe that an ab- 

 solutely protective tariff upon all goods in which there can not be a 

 monopoly in the long run would be for the advantage of our people; 

 for we accumulate wealth here very fast in the production of the fruits 

 of the earth and the products of our mines, and that wealth would be 

 poured into manufacture and we would have that competition here 

 which would make very low prices; but the theory upon which we im- 

 pose customs is to protect the American producer, and yet constantly 

 force from him the lowest living prices, lest he be undersold with 

 foreign goods ajad thus make a competition between the two. I am 

 content with it. But the avowed purpose of the impending bill is to dis- 

 turb this policy, break it down; and that the majority of the commit- 

 tee did not go further is due, as I understand it, to the fact they thought 

 they could not accomplish more now. 



In reply to the gentleman from Alabama in regard to crockery, we 

 reduced the duty upon the common ware. Upon fine goods, namely, 

 those decorated, and that fairly may be classed as luxuries, we increased 

 the duties, to invite capital to develop their manufacture here, and with 

 success, and the result of the competition has been to force down their 

 price both here and abroad. 



And it is said the revenues must be reduced. "Who can tell us this 

 bill will reduce the revenues ? That is all a pretext, and gentlemen 

 know it. There is a sure and certain way to reduce revenues. You 

 can remove the internal-revenue tax from tobacco, and thus reduce the 

 revenues $25,000,000; and I assert this tax is levied directly upon the 

 poor, the article is consumed by them it is the men of wealth who 

 buy the imported article and they will have it, and there is no pre- 

 tense that the tax limits the consumption, or that the consumption 

 should be limited by it more than of tea and coffee and many other 

 articles in constant, universal use. 



You may pass a law removing the tax from all distilled spirits used 

 in manufacturing or in chemical combination that will not permit of its 

 use as a beverage. I think I understood my colleague the other day to 

 admit I had pressed the consideration of this question upon the Com- 

 mittee on Ways and Means. While you can not get at it very accu- 

 rately, I believe this would reduce the revenue $30,000,000 a year, and 

 by reducing the cost of the distilled spirits thus used would promote a 

 still further consumption in those ways and extend the consumption 

 of grain from which they are made, extend the market, and in the 

 uses I have indicated the tax adds to the cost of useful and necessary 



