Summary of leading articles and their reduction.

$2,348,639 2,919,309 322,881 615,522

2,175,191

747,950 37.763 559.823 4,085,980 214,545 778,075 761,801 584,386 30,219 1,607,130 .$18.348,704

No quantities now returned; no estimate can be made.

Mr. BROOKS, of New York. I rise to oppose the amendment. I do not want to have the rate of duty cut down to five cents. I ask the attention of the committee and especially 529,490 of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. KELLEY, who has spoken very pathetically this morning, to a few questions. I ask, what is the use of giving the people of the country free tea and coffee, if for the benefit of the people represented by that gentleman you keep up the duty on ranges and stoves on which you boil your tea and coffee at seventy per cent. ad valorem? What is the use of giving them free tea and coffee if you keep up the duty on the kettle and hollow ware at forty-six per cent. ad valorem? What is the use of giving them free tea and coffee if on the tin cup from which they drink it you keep up a duty of thirty-five per cent. ad valorem? What is the use of giving free tea and coffee if upon the copper kettle you keep up a duty of forty-five per cent. ad valorem? What is the use of giving free tea and coffee if for the toasting-fork, the very toasting-fork you use for toasting your bread, a duty is kept up of seventy-two per cent. ad valorem?

$6,720,000 2,573,123 2,250,000 1,250,000 100,000

.$12.893,123 .$18,348,704 12,893,123 ..$31,241,827

NOTE.-The above reductions made on basis of quantities under the present tariff; if on amount of duties received, there will be to add on the above additional on tea $1.277.077, on coffee $2,021,170, and Dig iron $137,211-total, $3,435,458.

Mr. MAYNARD. Mr. ChairmanMr. BROOKS, of New York. Hush! [Laughter.]

What is the use of giving free tea and coffee

1.607.130 $18,348,704

No estimate can be made of reduction.

if upon the pan in which the poor man fries his cakes you keep up a duty of forty-six per cent. ad valorem? What is the use of free tea and free coffee if upon the hollow ware you use in your kitchen you keep up a duty of forty-six and a half per cent. ad valorem? Talk not to me of free tea and coffee when upon the very coal the poor people use to kindle their fires you keep up a duty of forty-three per cent. ad valorem, and upon the very fire-wood imported across the line from Canada and New Brunswick you keep up a duty of twenty per cent. ad valorem.

Mr. PETERS. Fire-wood is on the free list. Mr. BROOKS, of New York. There is a duty of twenty per cent. ad valorem on firewood.

What is the use of free tea and coffee if upon the very soap with which you wash your plates and cups and saucers, you keep up a duty of forty-five per cent. ad valorem? If upon the very woolen rags with which you wash your iron dishes and kettles you keep a duty of twelve cents per pound and one hundred and eighty per cent. ad valorem? If upon your towels, with which you dry your dishes, if of linen, you keep up a duty of forty per cent., and if of cotton a duty of from sixtyfive to seventy per cent.? Upon the very water which is used in your kitchen, if not drawn

out of wells, if in the cities it runs through pipes, you keep up a duty of two and three quarter cents per pound on the lead of the pipe, and of thirty-five per cent. upon the brass faucet through which you draw it; and upon the very water-pail in which you bring water, upon the iron hoops upon those pails you levy a duty of from one and a quarter to one and three quarter cents per pound. That will do for the present; more hereafter.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. KELLEY. What is the use of having iron mines? What is the use of having coal beds? What is the use of having furnaces, forges, rolling-mills, and workshops of any kind? What is the use of doing anything in the way of developing the resources of the country? What is the use of keeping public schools, and having children go to them, and paying their parents such wages for their work that they can keep them there? Why, sir, they do not do that in England. They do not do it in Ireland, with which the gentleman from New York [Mr. BROOKS] draws contrasts. Why should you have your working people well clothed and well housed? What is the use of it, as the gentleman says about all these various protections? What is the use of raising the laboring people above the idle, unemployed, and ragged bog-trotter? What is the use of having them at work, when they could be living idle in your work-houses and almshouses, as fourteen hundred thousand British citizens are to-day?

I ask again, what is the use of all this? If you will answer me that it is to make your country great and powerful, to make her citizens prosperous, then you answer all the questions put by the gentleman from New York, [Mr. BROOKS.] The use of imposing the duties to which the gentleman refers is precisely that of enabling us to develop our resources, to people our country by bringing hither the oppressed of all lands, bringing here their hopes, their aspirations, their skill, their genius, and under our free institutions becoming men themselves, and making enlightened American citizens of their children; making our country what this decade, when it shall close, will show it to be, the foremost nation of the world in productive industry, in internal commerce; and also, at the rate our imports and exports have increased and are now increasing, and with the decadence of Great Britain going on rapidly as it is, foremost in foreign trade.

These are the uses of free tea and coffee, and high duties upon those articles in which the ill-paid laborer of Europe could compete with the American artisan in any department of life. I think I have shown the gentleman from New York [Mr. BROOKS] that there is some use in something, at any rate.

Mr. WOOD. I had supposed that we had discussed this question of free tea and free coffee, that we had acted upon, and that it was entirely disposed of. Both Houses have passed a bill making tea and coffee free, and the President has approved the bill; and therefore it is really not a proper question for discussion at this time. I have not risen, therefore, for the purpose of rediscussing a question which I thought was disposed of by Con. gress. I desire to say a word in reply to my friend from Kentucky, [Mr. BECK,] who expressed very great surprise at finding me, as he says, acting with the protectionists of Pennsylvania in favor of protecting their pig iron.

consumers of the country; because I have in following this rule selected these articles, tea and coffee, as proper to be placed upon the free list, the gentleman thinks I am acting in the interest of the protectionists. Well, sir, if I were unkind enough to retort in that same spirit, I could say that the motive which prompts him is to protect a certain class of articles imported by English importers in the city of New York, who are very great freetraders provided the duty is taken off the arti cles they import. They care not how high the duty may be upon everything else that comes into the country, provided the duty on their particular articles be reduced so as to enhance their profits and increase their enormous wealth. I do not represent any such people. I am here to represent to the best of my ability, upon a question of this character, the people of the whole United States. I am not to be controlled, nor frightened, nor coaxed from the discharge of my whole duty according to my understanding and according to my conscience. The importers of New York cannot influence my vote. The people of my own district cannot influence my vote against my own sense of right and justice and duty to the whole American people. Therefore, I say again that while I believe the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. BECK] has upon this question discharged his duty in the same spirit of independence as I have discharged mine, I might, if I wished to reply to him in the spirit in which he has assailed me, retort by saying that I am not the agent of English importers, but I am the representative of the whole people, whose interests are at stake in this question.

Mr. COX. I desire to make a remark in reply to what has fallen from my honorable colleague, [Mr. WooD.] He has made a sort of attack upon the importers of New York. I do not represent them any more than he does. I represent a class of people whose commodities are cheapened by having less duty on imported articles; and whenever we make a fight here for importers we make a fight for the body of the people, who, so far as we reduce the tariff, are enabled to buy cheap goods. I have no concern in the quarrel between the gentleman from Kentucky and my honorable colleague, because I have consistently voted against taking off the duties upon tea and coffee. Why? Why have gentlemen from Pennsylvania circulated petitions all through the iron and coal districts for the abolition of the duty on tea and coffee? Why is it that the protectionists always come forward in favor of free coffee and free tea? It is because, Mr. Chairman, as we all know by this time through the discussions which have arisen here, that wherever we reduce the actual revenue-wherever we take off a duty every dollar of which goes into the Treasury-it gives these cormorants of protection a greater show hereafter to keep up their large tariffs upon iron and steel, and such articles.

Just look for a moment at the effect of this abolition of the duty upon tea and coffee. It is especially pertinent to discuss this in view of what fell from the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. DAWES,] in opening the debate. He said that over seventeen million five hundred thousand dollars of revenue had been dispensed with by reason of the abolition of the duty on tea and coffee.

Mr. DAWES. I gave that as the amount of the reduction by the proposed free list, including tea and coffee. The amount on tea and coffee alone is $15,800.

scheme for a "free breakfast table!" He would keep up the duty on wheat and barley. The only articles which he would put on the free list are sauer-kraut and bologna, and very little of these seems to be imported. [Laughter.]

But the main point in this debate is that these men from Pennsylvania (I will not say my colleague from New York) propose to continue to collect $60,000,000 annually upon iron, hammered and unrolled-railway iron. Sixty-eight million dollars is the amount of the enhanced price paid by consumers of such iron under the present tariff; on steel, $6,750,000; on copper, $4,200,000; on wool and woolen fabrics, $94,000,000; on cotton fabrics, $75,000,000; on materials for boots and shoes, $18,000,000; on printing paper, over twelve million dollars; on salt, $4,200,000; on coal in the New England States and New York alone, some eighteen or nineteen million dollars; making in all $306,340,000 paid to these monopolists in order to get some sixtyeight million dollars into the Treasury, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania proposes to keep up that system, and in order to keep it up more effectually, he would strike down pure economic revenue coming from tea and coffee. I have been all the time in favor of retaining the tax on those articles.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. KERR. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, in that vein of argument which always clings to him and characterizes all he says, has undertaken to inquire of this House, in a spirit of ridicule, what use there is in this country for iron ore, for steel, for furnaces, for forges, for mills of any kind? Why does the gentleman ask a question of this sort? Is it because he wants the House to gather from what he says that the country is indebted for all these things to protection, to bounty, to robbery of the people, in order to enable a few men in Pennsylvania or somewhere else to open coal mines, or iron mines, or a bed of ore of any kind? It is time the Representatives of the people should let the people know that to protection they are indebted for none of these things. They exist by the generous gift of God Almighty, and their development is due to the labor, toil, sweat, and energy of the people of the United States, and that development has come in spite of protection; not because of it, but in spite of it, and but for the burdens imposed by protection would have been tenfold greater to-day than it is. And for this I can refer to the experience of other nations, which experience he attempts to ignore, or to belitile, or to keep concealed. But he cannot succeed. The people read and reflect. They are not mere gudgeons, to be used to pay tribute to a few. They know that the successful experience of any nation in a great matter of public policy is worth a thousand-fold more than the interested outcry of bounty-fed omnopolists. I intend for myself to be honest with my people, with all the people, and to know no favorites in making laws.

Mr. Chairman, what it is that disturbs the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. KELLEY] and those who coöperate with him is not that we are unwilling to take any tax from the people, but it is because we want to take the bounties from the backs of people. We are willing they shall pay tax, and all honest men want to pay tax to support the Government; but they do not want to pay bounties. They do not want to make contributions to the rich men of the country, who are rich enough already. We do want to make our country great and powerful. We want to make it great and powerful by developing the greatness of our resources, capacities, and institutions. But we do not wish to make it great by compelling its oppressed sons of toil to pay both taxes and tribute. We want to repeal tribute, bounty, and to continue honest taxes. That is what the intelligent people want.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman talks to-day, as it is his chronic habit to do here, about the laboring men of the country, but when he utters one word for the laborer of the country he utters nine at least for protection, for the rich and the monopolists. When he utters one word in the interest of the toiling millions he utters nine in favor of bounty to protec tionists, men who by the aid of his laws are able to appropriate more than ninety per cent. of the earnings of the toil and sweat of the people.

Now, why did the gentleman antagonize the bill offered by the majority of the committee? The bill offered by him made pretty large reductions, but almost every one of his reductions was made on things on which the taxes are for revenue alone, not one being for protection, not one of his proposed reductions being for the purpose of reaching these bounties.

I wish to reduce taxes where the reduction will not only reduce the tax, but the bounty too. Thus I would save to the people of the country, and to the labor of the country, four dollars in bounty for every dollar I save in taxes on protected articles. Taxes for protection are not for revenue, and they never reach the Treasury. They are gathered by the favorites of the Government. The Government of Great Britain, the abused and (by protectionists) hated Government of Great Britain, has no favorites, imposes no tax on part of her people for the use of other portions, but treats all alike, taxes all in reasonable proportions for revenue alone. That is the reason protectionists hate England. But that is the reason why I have respect for her and for the sturdy honesty and equality of her laws.

There is no need of protection in this country. Everybody who is not an idiot knows that the wealth of this country needs no protection. It rules labor already with absolutely autocratic sway. And I ask, why should we go further in giving aid to capital? Let us look toward the poor, and the people, and make laws that will do them justice. That is what we should do.

[Here the bammer fell.] Mr. RANDALL. I desire to say a word or two in regard to this abolition of the duty on tea and coffee, the bill effecting which was adopted, I am glad to say, by both Houses of Congress, and which was quickly signed by the President.

I maintain, sir, that there were two good reasons for taking off this duty. It had perhaps been justifiable as a war necessity, but it was a tax which reached every man, woman, and child. The benefit, therefore, of the abolition of the tax extended everywhere. In addition, it reduced the revenues of the Government to an extent exceeding fifteen million dollars, and thereby decreased the temptation to Congress to waste the public revenues.

Now, I wish to tell the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. KERR] a few facts connected with the city which I have the honor in part to represent. The presenting of these facts may assist the intelligence of that gentleman, or if not his intelligence, that of some other member of this House. What do we find by the census? Why, sir, the census of 1870 develops the fact that there were $61,000,000 of wages distributed in that city among one hundred and thirty-seven thousand men, women, and children. And was I to cast my vote so as to impair the prosperity of those people? Never!

Moreover, there are eight thousand three hundred large and small manufacturing estab lishments in the city of Philadelphia employing capital to the amount of $200,000,000. And in the year 1870 there were $189,000,000 worth of raw material used; and the industrious people whom I have the honor in part to represent produced $334,000,000 worth of manufactures. And yet gentlemen who stand here pretending to be patriotic would strike

down such interests as that. I am glad that I have nerve and courage sufficient to resist them, whether they are inside or outside of my party.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. BANKS. Mr. Chairman, the people of this country are quite as competent to decide this question of the duty on tea as we ourselves can be. Gentlemen on the other side of the House speak as though they were the only persons who had judgment to decide this question. Now, the people know just as much about this question as we do. As a matter of fact, I think the constituency of any gentleman on this floor is just as competent to decide this question as the Representative himself is. For my own district, I can say with a great deal of satisfaction that the one hundred and sixty thousand people whom I represent are wiser on the questions we decide here than I am, or than any other Representative they ever did elect or ever can elect can be. If other constituencies do not stand in the same relation to their Representatives, I am sorry for the constituency.

Now, as to the matter of fact, the people of this country are more unanimous upon the question of the reduction or the abolition of the duty on tea and coffee than upon any question connected with the subject of tariff and taxation. Everybody agrees there shall be a reduction. The people are united upon the question of reducing or abolishing the duties on these articles; and wisely so, because, as the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. RANDALL] has said, the tax on these articles reaches more people than any other. There is not a class; there is not a section; there is not an individual; there is no one young or old who is not affected and benfited by the abolition of this duty; not one. The benefit is extended in a greater degree by bringing tea and coffee within the reach of every family, of every member of every family throughout the whole country, than it can be by any other change of the tariff in any manner or way whatever.

Gentlemen on the other side talk about protection as robbery; but, sir, there cannot be one dollar levied on any imported article that is not protection to somebody in some degree. The alternative of what they call protection, when you come to the abstract principle, is direct taxation according to the numbers of the people.

If gentlemen want to protest against protection in any form they must, upon the abstract principle, take the only alternative, which is direct taxation. That is provided in the Constitution. It was intended that the Government should be supported by one or the other of those principles-either by direct taxes or else by the duty on imports.

I charge upon the Democratic party of this country, by their continued warfare upon the abstract principle of protection, the continuance of these high tariffs. If they were ready to accept a moderate tariff, such as the interests of the country demand, they would find the people ready to accept such a tariff, but by trying to do away with everything that bears the form of protection, they compel all men who are in favor of reduced taxes and a moderate tariff to join themselves to those who, like the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. KELLEY, ] go protection wild on what they call a principle.

Let them accept a reduction of taxation. If they will accept the principle of protection which necessarily accompanies the imposition of one dollar or one dime or one cent on im ported articles, then let them accept the principle as an alternative for direct taxation, and there will be then no difficulty in establishing a tariff which will be acceptable to all sections of the country.

[Here the hammer fell.]

The CHAIRMAN. Debate is exhausted upon the pending amendment.

Mr. BECK. I withdraw my amendment to

the amendment, and move to amend the amendment so as to make the duty on tea two cents per pound. I am not going to prolong this debate, and I would not have risen now, because I know that free tea and coffee is a foregone conclusion; that I admit, however reluctantly. But I rise to say to my friend from New York, [Mr. WooD,] who replied to me, that while I admit that free tea and coffee is a foregone conclusion, I made the allusion to him which I did because I regarded it as a blunder for him, and men who feel as he does, to unite with the high protective tariff men who are anxious to accomplish that result. That is the only intimation I made against him, if he can call that one; but I was astonished to see him, with all his sagacity, unite with those gentleman when that was their purpose. In reply to what the gentleman intimates, that he could if he would show that I was operating in the interest of some ring in New York, I rise to say to this House that I am in the interest of no ring.

Mr. WOOD. Permit me to correct the gentleman. I stated that were I to reply in the same spirit in which he assailed me I could say that he was acting in that interest, as he had charged me with acting in another interest.

Mr. BECK. Precisely; I said I regretted to see him unite with those men when that was their purpose; that is all I said. I want the House and the country to understand that no intimation, direct or indirect, which suggests that it could be shown that I was in the interest of anybody is entitled to the least consideration. My object was to reduce taxation where I could, and to reduce bounties at the same time. When I was for free tea and coffee in 1869, there was a high protective tariff Committee of the Way and Means in this House, which it was known would reduce nothing, and the result showed it. At this session for the first time the majority of the Committee of Ways and Means were known to be in favor of revenue reform. And it was when that committee were deliberating, with their known sentiments, that free tea and coffee was pushed through this House, The committee therefore were compelled to recognize the fact that the free tea and coffee bill would be passed, and they were unable to reduce, as they would otherwise have done, the bounties on other articles. I desire merely to say this further, that the little bill we did introduce shows that while reducing the revenue $8,000,000 we reduced the bounties $45,000,000. Our great complaint was against the bounties, and our aim was to strike them down, as the following table taken from the bill shows:

Salt...
Leather

Iron
Steel...
Woolens...
Cottons.

Total..............

Reduction of revenue.

Reduction on cost of domestic production. $1,175.000

$615,522 329,258

3,890.000

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. MORGAN, There is one subject connected with this discussion which has not been referred to, I believe, by either the gentlemen who favor free tea and coffee or those who insist that those articles should be placed on the tariff list. It was the undoubted purpose of most of the gentlemen from the great cities, with the exception of my honorable colleague from New York, [Mr. WooD.] to keep the tariff on tea and coffee in order that the income tax might be abolished. Such was the object and purpose of the honorable gentleman from New York, [Mr. BROOKS.]

Mr. BROOKS, of New York, shook his head. Mr. MORGAN. The gentleman shakes his head, yet such is the fact. The New York Post is the leading free-trade journal of the

country, and I generally concur in its views upon that subject. When the bill passed the House placing tea and coffee on the free list, the New York Post came out the very next day and attacked the members upon this floor who voted for that bill, "because," said the Post, "if you place tea and coffee upon the free list, you will be compelled to continue the present income tax." And it was because I was unwilling to have the income tax repealed, that I voted to put tea and coffee on the free list.

Now, sir, I have one word more to say in this connection in regard to this much discussed question. In consequence of the action of Congress during the last five months, the business interests of the country have been seriously prejudiced with reference to these articles of tea and coffee. Those gentlemen who have constantly opposed the recent action upon tea and coffee have caused embarrassment to the trade in those articles. I received but a day or two ago a letter from a leading dealer in tea and coffee, who said that those gentlemen had cost the dealers in those articles in the United States more than twenty-five per cent. of their entire profits by the embarrassment occasioned by vexatious delay and unstable legislation.

I am in favor of free tea and free coffee, and I am willing to vote to place upon the free list each one of the articles enumerated by the gentleman from New York, [Mr. BROOKS.] I am willing to go as far as any gentleman on this floor for practical free trade. I am in the fullest sense of the term a freetrader as far as free trade can be practically carried out. Tea and coffee ought to be on the free list, and I hope they will ever continue free. [Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. POTTER. Mr. Chairman, I am one of those alluded to by my friend from Ohio [Mr. MORGAN] as having been in favor of the abolition of the income tax and opposed to the abolition of the duty on tea and coffee. But my desire to retain the duty upon tea and coffee had nothing whatever to do with my desire to abolish the income tax. My opposition to the income tax is not because it is a tax upon income, but because, as levied under our law, it is, I conceive, a tax upon industry, not upon capital; and because also I conceive it to be a tax essentially demoralizing in the nature of the return that is demanded of the tax-payer. I am, therefore, under all circumstances, and without reference to what may be the duty upon any article, opposed to the income tax; and if the retention of the duty on tea and coffee might have led to the abolition of the income tax, I should regard that as only another argument for retaining it.

But, quite independently of any question with reference to the income tax, I was for retaining the duty on tea and coffee because its collection, as has been said over and over again, was not in the nature of a protection to the manufacturers of the country.

Mr. MORGAN. Is the income tax in the nature of protection? If the $17,000,000 of revenue collected as duty upon tea and coffee goes directly into the Treasury, does not also the seventeen or eighteen million dollars collected as income tax go directly into the Treasury?

Mr. POTTER. True, they both do go into the Treasury; and if the question were which of the two should be abolished, the dilemma which my friend from Ohio [Mr. MORGAN] seeks to put me in would exist. But with something like one hundred million dollars surplus in the Treasury, we are reduced to no such alternative. We could very well afford to abolish either or retain either. Because we can afford it I am in favor of abolishing the income tax for the reasons I have indicated; and because I am opposed to the collection of duties which operate in the nature of protection to raise the price of goods manufactured in the country, I am in favor of retaining the

duty upon tea and coffee. Those gentlemen who believe in protection are right in seeking to get rid of that duty, and to levy duties upon manufactured articles such as they desire to have protected. But those who believe, as I do, that the true interest of the people is not generally in protecting home manufactures, ought to agree with me in seeking to retain the duty upon tea and coffee.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Mr. Chairman, I had supposed that everybody in this House knew that the bill which was recently carried through Congress abolishing the duty on tea and coffee was carried by combination of the votes of high protective tariff men and the free-traders. The revenue tariff men generally voted against it. This is the fact, and it is, I think, pretty generally understood by the

country.

Mr. WOOD. The gentleman will allow me to say it is not the fact.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. The measure was moved by a Pennsylvania high protective tariff man; and the yeas and nays will show that I am right in my statement. There may be exceptions, but as a general statement what I have said is correct.

I voted myself to repeal that duty. I did so because it is a tax so evenly and so lightly distributed to all the people of the United States, felt so little by them, and which yields so large an amount of revenue, the whole enhanced prices going into the Treasury of the United States. It seems to me it was not wise to take $16,000,000 out of the Treasury in that way.

It

At the same time, Mr. Chairman, I have been opposed to repealing the income tax for the reason it is a tax which affects rich men alone. It strikes many men not reached by any other tax in the United States, reached by no other tax except this income tax. It reaches men who invest their money in United States bonds and live upon coupons. reaches the men who live upon their dividends from money invested in the United States securities. It is a tax which reaches rich men only, and for whom the war was made as much as it was made for you and me, and for whom the Government of this country was as much maintained as for the poor man, the laborer, or the manufacturer.

Therefore I was in favor of retaining both those taxes. One hits everybody, but hits them lightly; and the other hits the rich man where no other tax reaches him. The duties on tea and coffee have been repealed. That proposition received a large majority vote in this House and I believe in the other House, and I am disposed to acquiesce in it. It is useless to undertake not to acquiesce. Tea and coffee are placed upon the free list, and I hope, therefore, we will now have an end to the discussion on that subject, and then that we may go to other articles which now pay a high duty, in order that we may put them also on the free list. Let us go on with these other articles, and try to hit something if we can, if possible, which will find a majority of votes in this House. Let us try to hit something which does not go into the Treasury, but which goes in the way of bounties into the pockets of monopolists.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. DAWES. I hope we shall now have

a vote.

The amendments to the amendment were withdrawn.

Mr. DAWES's amendment to strike out the paragraph about tea was agreed to.

Mr. DAWES. I now move to strike out the next paragraph, 66 on coffee of all kinds two cents per pound."

Mr. BROOKS. of New York. Mr. Chairman, a word further in reference to the motion to strike out coffee, in order to make out my argument already commenced in reference to what is necessary to constitute a free breakfast. Now, what is the use of free coffee if on

every bushel of potatoes, on good potatoes, coming from Nova Scotia to Maine-what is the use of a Massachusetts man having fish and potatoes, fish on Saturday, as it used to be when I was in New England-what is the use of having tea and coffee free at breakfast when we have to pay twenty-five cents a bushel or forty-seven and three quarters per cent. ad valorem on potatoes? Why is it that tea and coffee are placed on the free list, when to the consumer in New England there is a tax of forty-seven and three quarters per cent. ad valorem on potatoes coming from Nova Scotia? If my constituents desire to have for breakfast some early potatoes from the happy island of Bermuda, what sort of a free breakfast is it when they have to pay twentyfive cents a bushel on them? If I wish to have some early potatoes for breakfast from Bermuda somewhere in the month of March or April, what sense is there in telling me I have free tea and coffee, when on every bushel I have to pay a tax of twenty-five cents?

Mr. KELLOGG. Why did not the gentleman include a provision in the bill reducing the duty?

Mr. BROOKS, of New York. I could not reduce it.

Suppose we want buckwheat cakes for breakfast; well, on buckwheat cakes the duty is ten per cent. ad valorem. What is the use of telling me tea and coffee are free when, if I want buckwheat cakes for breakfast, I have to pay a duty of ten per cent. ad valorem? Nor can we have any free rice. I cannot have free rice for my breakfast table; and what is the reason? You tell me I can have free tea and coffee, but on rice I have to pay a duty of one hundred and fourteen per cent., and on cleaned eighty-six per cent. What is the use of talking of free tea and coffee? Suppose I want a herring. The duty on herrings is seventeen per cent., the duty on mackerel eighteen per cent., on salmon nineteen per cent., and on sardines fifty per cent. If I have free tea and coffee I am obliged to pay a duty on herring of seventeen per cent. ad valorem.

Mr. BUTLER, of Massachusetts. Herring are free.

Mr. BROOKS, of New York. Under the treaty?

Mr. BUTLER, of Massachusetts. They are free provided they are fresh. [Laughter.] Mr. BROOKS, of New York. If they are salted, the duty is double almost, and there is three hundred per cent. on the salt. If I want salmon which comes from the North, from the St. Lawrence, or the river St. John, in New Brunswick, I am obliged to pay fifty per cent. ad valorem on that salmon.

Now, what is the use to the people of this country of free tea and coffee when you keep up the duty on sugar, and on everything you place upon what you call your free breakfast table?

MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE.

The committee informally rose, and a message from the Senate by Mr. SYMPSON, one of its clerks, informed the House that the Senate had passed, without amendment, a bill of the House of the following title:

A bill (H. R. No. 1030) to regulate elections in Washington and Idaho Territories.

THE TARIFF.

The Committee of the Whole resumed its session.

Mr. MAYNARD. It is perfectly legitimate for the gentleman from New York, [Mr. BROOKS,] as well as the gentleman from Indi ana, [Mr. KERR,] to oppose making tea and coffee free. Two years ago in June, 1870, this same question was before the House in the form of a proposal to reduce the duty on tea from twenty five cents a pound to fifteen cens a pound, and the duty on coffee from five cents a pound to three cents a pound; and I find from an examination of the record that both those gentlemen voted against it. Among

other propositions submitted to reduce the amount of our customs duty nearly twenty-five || million dollars, they thought proper to oppose that proposition by their vote; and on the final passage of the bill, which reduced the amount of duties within a fraction of eighty million dollars, I found those gentlemen consistently voting in the negative.

I do not complain of their vote. I do not object to it, although it is one in which I did not concur, and do not now concur. They

had a right to give what vote they thought proper. I refer to it in order that we may see the uniformity they maintain in their line of policy of keeping up taxes where they fall directly upon our own people, the laboring classes of our country, the men who toil and pay their taxes in some shape from the wages they earn. But when it comes to imposing a tax upon the men who come in here from abroad with their products to sell, who come in here seeking the benefit of our market, when it is a question of imposing a tax that will interfere with what they cali commerce, then we hear a wail beginning in Manchester and Sheffield, and coming across the water until it is reverberated upon the other side of the Hall.

Now, my policy is to collect our taxes from those who come here to make profit, to make gain, by their trade with us; to exact from them a part of the profits which they make from our people and put it into your Treasury. But when you tax such people, either by what is called direct taxation, or by an indirect taxation that necessarily reaches them, such a law meets the approbation of those gentlemen. That is the difference between gentlemen who advocate what is sometimes called protection, and those who advocate what is called free trade.

Gentlemen on the other side tell us a great deal about monopoly. They are opposed to monopolies. But when you analyze their opposition you find it is to what they call monopoly on this side of the water, and not to monopoly on the other side of the water. Why, two years ago, it will be recollected, we had the subject of Bessemer steel for railroad iron very much discussed in this House. It was said to be a monopoly because it was a process that was patented, and to that extent the right was in the patentee. But the objec tion was that the patentee on this side of the water should make money by the process, and not that the operator abroad should not be remunerated. I am opposed to any scheme of taxation which looks to burdening our own people and leaving all the rest of the world free and untrammeled to profit by our markets, and then to carry their profits into other lands for the building up of other communi

ties.

The question being taken on the motion of Mr. DAWES, to strike out the paragraph, it was agreed to.

Mr. KELLEY. I desire to offer an amendment to come in at this part of the bill. I propose to insert, "on chiccory, unground, one cent per pound." We have taken the duty off tea and coffee, and chiccory is the popular substitute for coffee.

Mr. FINKELNBURG. I rise to a question of order. I would like to know whether it is in order to insert new articles in this bill? In the last Congress amendments of that character were ruled out. I desire that we should understand now precisely what is the rule, for many of us may have amendments to

propose.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair understands the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. KELLEY] is in order.

Mr. FINKELNBURG. In the last Congress I offered an amendment in regard to salt, which article was not in the bill, and it was then ruled that I must wait until the end of the bill was reached before I could offer my amendment. Now, I think this amend

ment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. KELLEY] is of a similar character.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair overrules the point of order; and rules that the amendment is in order.

Mr. FINKELNBURG. I only desired to get a ruling of the Chair upon that subject.

Mr. GARFIELD, of Ohio. My recollection is precisely like that of the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. FINKELNBURG,] that it was ruled that any new subject-matter must be introduced at the end of the bill.

Mr. BUTLER, of Massachusetts. I object to debate.

Mr. KELLEY. Chiccory is not a new subject-matter; it is akin to coffee and a substitute for it.

Mr. GARFIELD, of Ohio. Coffee is not in this bill.

Mr. KELLEY. It has just been acted upon by the Committee of the Whole. I move to reduce the rate of duty on chicory to one cent per pound, for the purpose of making it occupy a relative position to tea and coffee. Chiccory is a plant

Mr. DAWES. I would suggest to the gen. tleman that his motion is a proper one when made at the proper time. If he will make it at the end of the bill I will join with him.

Mr. KELLEY. I understand the Chair to rule my amendment in order at this point.

Mr. DAWES. That may be; but I ask the the gentleman to reserve it until we reach the end of the bill.

Mr. KELLEY. Very well; I will do so with the understanding that I shall have an opportunity to move it.

Mr. DAWES. I think the gentleman can have that opportunity at the end of the bill.

Mr. GARFIELD, of Ohio. I will not appeal from the decision of the Chair, but I am sure that if it is insisted upon it will add ten days to the consideration of this bill, for under it every possible article can be added by way of amendment.

Mr. KELLEY. Why does the gentleman lecture me when I have withdrawn my amendment? Did he not hear me withdraw it?

Mr. GARFIELD, of Ohio. I did not. Mr. KELLEY. Did he not see me take my seat? Mr. GARFIELD, of Ohio. Certainly I did

not.

Mr. BROOKS, of New York. I move to amend by adding a proviso at the end of the tenth line of the bill to the effect that all duties on sugar, refined and unrefined, shall be repealed.

Mr. DAWES. I rise to a point of order. The amendment of the gentleman should be offered at the end of the bill.

Mr. BROOKS, of New York. I understand that the amendment in regard to chiccory was offered here.

Mr. DAWES. That amendment has been withdrawn.

Mr. BROOKS, of New York. Very well; I will withdraw sugar if chiccory has been withdrawn.

The Clerk read the following:

On all bituminous coal and shale, fifty cents per ton of twenty-eight bushels, eighty pounds to the bushel.

Mr. RITCHIE. I move to amend by striking out "fifty cents" and inserting "one dollar per ton on all bituminous coal and shale of twenty-eight bushels, eighty pounds to the bushel."" I do not object to an attempt at a reduction of the tariff; I am in favor of it as far as it is practicable; but I submit that the reductions should bear some just relations to each other, that the amount of protection inseparable from a tariff should be equitably distributed.

why both the majority and the minority of the Committee of Ways and Means have united in this common massacre. At a dollar a ton the duty on bituminous coal will be equal to that on several articles which are protected. A dollar a ton would be a reduction of twenty per cent. upon the present rate of duty, which is $1 25 per ton. I do not understand how, in justice and equity, an interest which is just in the infancy of its development in my State, should be singled out by both sides for mas

sacre.

The demand for free coal upon the ground of extortionate prices is disingenuous. The complaint with regard to the high price of coal comes from those who use anthracite coal. They are two different articles, and cannot be substituted for each other. The history of the imposition of this duty of $1 25 per ton shows that it has, so far from increasing the price to the consumer, really reduced the price. Take the five years preceding the expiration of the reciprocity treaty, and the five years subsequent thereto, and it will be found that the average reduction in the price of coal in consequence of the imposition of this duty has been eighty five cents per ton; and the increase of production has been remarkable.

In 1866, when the reciprocity treaty expired, there were but two million tons of bituminous coal produced in this country. Now, four million five hundred tons are shipped to the Atlantic sea-board, and the cost of the article is lower than it ever was under the reciprocity treaty. It gets lower every day. So far is it from being the fact that this duty tends to cause exorbitant prices on the part of our people, I submit that there was not a company in Maryland last year that was able to declare six per cent. dividend upon its business; and I allege that those companies cannot to-day realize for their coal in New York or Boston a profit of fifteen cents a ton. Now, then, strike down this duty of $1 25 a ton for the benefit of the Nova Scotia interests, and you place it in the power of those people again to run up the price of coal to fifteen dollars a ton, as they did during the war, when the transportation from our coal fields was suspended.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. FOSTER, of Pennsylvania. I move to amend by striking out lines eleven and twelve of the bill, the effect of which will be to leave the duty, as now fixed by law, at $1 25 per ton. In 1842 the duty imposed upon bituminous coal was $1 75, and to-day the price of coal to the consumer is less than it was when that duty of $1 75 was levied. This reduction of price has been caused by the increased production of the article.

In addition to what has been said by the gentleman from Maryland, [Mr. RITCHIE,] I wish to say that there is not a colliery in western Pennsylvania that divides to day six per cent. annual profits upon its capital. The gentlemen who talk so much about the oppression of the duty upon bituminous coal can to day buy any colliery there upon guarantying to the capitalists who own it seven per cent. upon their investment.

Mr. Chairman, upon this question I do not speak in the interest of capital. I desire to keep the duty up on the ground that it is for the protection of labor. I have listened to some of the eloquent speeches here about protection to the labor of the country. My friend from Indiana, [Mr. KERR,] my friend from Kentucky, Mr. BECK,] and other gentlemen, have vied with each other in declaring what had better be done for the labor of the country. I may say, Mr. Chairman, that if the interests of labor are not protected, the laboring men have power to make themselves heard in the administration of the Government, as they will do before very long.

Mr. BIRD. Will the gentleman give us the number of laborers employed in this avocation?