314 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



As the thing stands now, with all the large sewing-machine 

 factories in the country, making millions of machines yearly, 

 you furnished for export in 1881, a greater value of fresh 

 and dried apples than was the amount of value of those ma- 

 chines sent abroad in that year. The same facts apply to 

 watches, an article of so large demand and use, and in the 

 manufacture of which the Americans claim the pre-eminence. 

 It is fifty years since the duties on imports were laid in a 

 way to foster and protect " our infant manufactures."' To- 

 day the duties are heavier, when we boast of American skill 

 and the perfection of American machinery, than they were at 

 the start, and now when its products amount to $5,369,579,- 

 191 per annum. 



Twenty-two years ago, a sweeping tariff and an excise 

 law were enacted as a war measure to sustain the credit of 

 the country, and to meet the expenses of the contest for the 

 Union, taxing almost everything to the utmost, and thus 

 neutralizing, in many cases, the effect of the very protection 

 desired, but putting an immense burden upon all. With all 

 its crudities and inconsistencies and faults that tariff has never 

 been materially changed. Indeed, some classes of manufac- 

 turers are clamoring for an increase, while some have actually 

 obtained it, that these " infant " productions may make more 

 millionaires. As for example : the only manufacturer of large 

 plate glass such as Ave see in shop windows, demands a pro- 

 tection of one hundred and twenty-one per cent., and he 

 lives in Indiana, beyond the Alleghany Mountains. This duty 

 prohibits those who use it from getting supplies from abroad, 

 where it is much cheaper. You were willing to sustain the 

 burden of war, in whatever shape it came, but does not the 

 peace of seventeen years' standing call for a relaxation, 

 when at the present rates of revenue, there will be no public 

 debt in twenty years, and nothing on which to base the 

 security of the national banking system, by which you have 

 a sound paper currency? What country has a better credit 

 than ours, and can it be made better by unreasonable and 

 grinding taxation, enriching the few at the expense of the 

 many ? 



See, too, the temptations, with the overflowing treasury, 

 to coirupt schemes, useless expenditures and extravagant 



