VALUE OF A PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 321 



the farmer. You may not feel any particular pinch, it 

 operates so insidiously, this indirect mode of taxation, but 

 do you grow rich? Do you even make a good living out of 

 it ? Those who gather the spoils will appear if you look at 

 the large dividends of the various classes of manufacturers and 

 machinists, and implement makers, and miners, and while 

 only b\ per cent of our population is engaged in these pur- 

 suits, look at their profits, look at their accumulations in the 

 way of " plant " or investment, constantly adding mill to mill, 

 shop to shop, furnace to furnace, rolling-mill to rolling-mill, 

 out of their profits, besides the regular dividends. Look at 

 the large establishments built in this State by the accumula- 

 tions acquired by protection, which gives to certain classes a 

 practical monopoly and large assured profits. Look at the 

 large mills and factories all over this great Commonwealth, 

 see how they grow — while ftirms dwindle and diminish in 

 value. In a late debate in the United States Senate, a state- 

 ment was read from the "Hartford Courant,"of the dividends 

 and the prices of the stock of some of the manufacturing 

 companies in Connecticut, and among them, the Southington 

 Cutlery Company, whose cash dividends, the last year, were 

 twenty and a half per cent. Mr. Piatt explained that these 

 dividends were declared on their nominal capital, but their real 

 capital was, in many instances, several times as much. An 

 unfortunate explanation or admission, for whence came this 

 *' real capital," but from accumulated profits put into the busi- 

 ness (and into increased buildings and machinery piled up) , in 

 addition to large semi-annual dividends? And so it is in old 

 Massachusetts ! No wonder that our young people leave the 

 farm for the lighter work and greater emoluments of pro- 

 tected industry ! After all I have stated, I would not be 

 understood as advising, even if the people were agreed upon 

 it, any sudden.^ radical change. It should be gradual, but it 

 should be begun. I would not hastily impinge upon what 

 may almost be considered vested rights. However good 

 i\i& principle of free trade may be, " buying where we can 

 buy cheapest, and selling where we can sell dearest," we 

 have been so long building up another system, that to stop 

 it suddenly would be ruinous to all ; but now we are so 

 large and independent a nation, ought we not to rise above 



