Litchfield enquirer., 1844-02-22
THE TARIFF,

| The depressed condition of every branch of busi- ness in the United States prior to the Tariff of 1sl5
 is fresh in the recollection of every well informed man in the country. In that year the present tar l if law was passed. Agriculture, commerce and manufactures immediately felt its vivifying infu- ence. The channels of business, which had been choked by loco legislation, were opened by the tariff, and tide of prosperity blesses our land.
 At an early period of the present session of Con- gress Mir. McDufic of South Carolina introduced
 into the Senate resolution toFepeal the Tariff of l942. It was strenuously advocated by him and by Mir. Woodbury, Senator from New-Hampshire to whom our distinguished Senator, MT. Hunting and refuting, triumphantly, the theoretical argu- ments of its opponents. It is not, at this time, in our power to give to readers the speech of Mir. Huntington. But we embrace the earliest oppor- tunity to present to them, the following abstract of the speech from the Journal of Commerce.:
 MT. Huntington took the floor in support of the Report of the Committee of Finance, and in reply to Messrs. MeDuffie and Woodbury. He took up the arguments against the Tariff of 1Sl2, and re- piled to them without going into the question as an original one. But the policy of the Bill he entire y concurred in, and the effect of the Tariff of 1912 had, he undertook to show, been beneficial to all the interests of the country restoring the credit of the government and revlylng general confidence and industry. The argument that the Bill was in- tended to benefit only one small class of the munity had been often refuted, he said, and was now urged with less ground than ever. The bill was demanded not by manufacturers alone, but by the whole country, and its advocates here did not support it as bill intended for the benefit of one class. Every fact demonstrated that it had been useful to the whole country. It ought not to be severed merely for the reason that it might also benefit manufacturers.
 It was argued that this was bill for protection, and not for revenue, and that the duties were too high for revenue; but, though the duty on single article might be higher than the revenue standard vet, taken as whole, the bill might be proper one for revenue. The imposition of one high duty might increaset the revenue from other articles.
 The arguments urged in favor of free trade, Mir. H. met by denying that we could have any free trade except on one side. He contended that it was the settled policy of England to buy nothing that she could make, and import nothing that she could produce. Were the system adopted and the ports of both countries thrown open, our bread stutfs could not be sold there, in competition with the wheat of the Baltic and the Mediterranean, and when England chose to close her ports, we should find that our home manufactures were broken up, and the home market for our products lost. =
 The system of duties now existing in England was ulfaycrable to Us. Leaving out cotton and to- bacco, the average of her duties on American pro- duce was fl per cent. Leaving out cotton and in- cluding tobacco, it was 330 per cent In the years 1888, '3o and 20, we collected as revenue from imports from England fifty-two millions: but Great Britain, during the same time, collected from A. mercan imports seventy three millions of dollars.
 The argument that the Act of 1912 would not afford an adequate revenue, be met by an estimate showing that it would produce twenty-ttrec mil lions the present fiscal year.