Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1844-05-24

nan eight cents, and amounting IN value to $685.
300. For the year ending September lS43 the i'm
portation is about two or two and half millions Of
wool, costing not over seven cents, and amounting
1T the maximum price to from $l400 to $4,000. |
Now, it is certain that large amount of coarse |
wool, of kind not raised here, is consumed here |
and if wool of the value of thirty cents is intro
duced in this way, 1t is clear that very small per-
ton of the mass costing not over seven cents can
be of this finer quality certainly not over one-fourth
or one fifth. And when we consider, further that
three pounds of this are equal 10 only two of native
growth, follows that not more than 100000 WORTH
even at thirty cents the pound, is introduced in e.
vasion of the law. But whether the quantity be
more or less if the law be defective, let it be
amended.
Will the Senator advise us, if the protection be
to abandon it altogether? Sir, if this
be his policy, and this his advice to the people of
Vermont, can assure him in advance he will make
no converts there. The people of that State I'M
derstand their true interests The resolutions from
her Legislature, which had the honor to lay upon
your table at the present session, protest against
the repeal OF this law. That Legislature was COM
posed principally of farmers-mcn engaged in this
identical business-and they knew well that if this
protection is withdrawn, their business and their
State are ruined. The Senator advocates the cause
of the farmer, but he woud Withdraw protection
from the manufacturer. If you destroy the manu-
facture and the home market for your wool, what
will you do with it? Send it to England You
will there meet with competition from Spain, Ger
many, South America Australia, the Levant-in
short the whole world and that with no choice of
markets, as England must in that event become
your only market The policy is absurd.
Sir, it is in vain to attempt to convince the peo-
pie of that State that the duty upon woollen cloths
is an oppression upon them, for the benefit of the
manufacturer. am wool-grower, and profess to
know something of the matter; and know that
for every dollar which you impose upon me in the
shane of duty upon the cloth | wear, YOU add ten
to my income. How should be the gainer if you
relieve me from this pary tax, and at the same time
ruin my business and destroy the value of my prop
erty? This is not my view only but the opinion
Of us all. Ifyou abandon the protection, and ruin
the wool growing interest, you sacrifice the Sena-
tors constituents and mine. What can wc-do?-
We cannot make breadstuffs-in beef and pork
and even in the produce Of the dairy, we are al
ready rivalled, oven in our own market, nay, even
in the heart of New England itself, (Boston,) by
the productions of the more fertile and genial re-
gions of the West. There is an over production
of these articles, even now. Sir, there can be no
mistake here. If this policy be not sustained New
England must become desert; that fair portion of
your country, to which you are SO much indebted
for what you are, must be abandoned Her indus
trious and thriving population, her talent, her en-
terprisc, and her moral worth her social institutions,
surpassed by none, if equalled by any upon earth,
will be found there no more. The fairest portion
of the heritage which God has given us must be
made desoate, and the nursery from which has
gone forth so much of the elements of your ma
tional power, prosperity, and happiness, must be
broken up. Her sons, whose energy and enterprise
have already founded States, and built an empire
in the West, and who have carried your CONNER
cal enterprise to every quarter Of the globe where
the sails Of commerce could wait it, will be called
20 abandon the place of their nativity, their domes
tic firesdes and the temples of their God and seek
a new home with the retreatng and prosecuted saw
age upon your remote Western waters-losing
themselves and their distinctive character in a new
mass, and leaving behind them the institutions of
their fathers institutions which in their new con-
dition would never be replaced
And here, sir, permit me to advert to the very
fallacious apprehension which has been presented
as sort of bugbear, that the tendency of the pro-
tectve system is to build up an arstocracy of man
ufacturing wealth, to which the whole country shall
be subject Such n result cannot be brought about
1t will be prevented by foreign competition. The
duties imposed by the act of 1912 are little more
than an equivalent for the relative cheapness of pro-
duction in Europe; and should the manufacturers
of this country seek to accumulate large profits by
means of unreasonable prices, they would be al
once undersold by those of Europe. This cause
cooperating with the domestic competition, SC
ready TO start up when any Investment becomes
profitable, will be eiiectual to keep down prices
and prevent an undue accumulation ofweath among
the manufacturing class.
Mr. President, it was not MY purpose to discuss
the merits of the act of 1912, considered as mere
revenue measure, nor the effect to be produced up
on the finances by its repeal leave those subjects
in ADLER and better hands--those of the distinguish
cd chairman of the Committee on Finance. My
design has been to vindicate the protective policy
as exhibited in the Tariff act of lS42. And what
in suh 1oaa that D0licy Sir it Oro
poses in view of our recent disasters and the cause
which has produced them, to bring back the trade
of this country to its legitimate tooting-to limi
our expenditure to our means-to increase the pro
ducton of labor and its value by diversifying tina
labor, and by divertlng portion Of it from pur
suit already oyerstocked, to other and more valua
BILE and useful employment, and thus developin,
more fully the resources of the country. 1t propo
ses to diminish our expenditure, and of course thu
tax upon domestic industry, by creating within our
selves to a certain extent what we have hitherto
purchased from abroad--adding at the same TIM
to the production of our own labor precisely in pro
portion as we diminish importation employing on
own labor, instead of making it tributary to foreigi
nations. 1t proposes not TO substitute manufacture
for commerce, but to lay firmer and broader tn
foundation Of our commerce, by increasing and di
versfyng our productions and our objects of ex
portation aud thus enlarging the commercial ca
paciy of the Nation 1t proposes, in short, tina
system Of economy which, as individual, we ap
prove and adopt-to produce as much as possible
by the efforts Of own industry, and to keep GU
expenditure within our ncome-going upon the as
sumption that national and personal economy ar
based upon the same principles, and that nationa
prosperity is but the aggregate of individual pros
perity. In regard TO local and sectional consdera
tons it forgets not the great variety of interests
of soil and climate-of production and resource
of occupation and pursuit, in this our widely ex
tended country, but very justly determines that tn
protection and the prosperity of each section ar
the protection and the prosperity Of all.
For New England, destined as she is to be
manufacturing people, it proposes the encourage
ment of domestic manufactures giving to that PEG
pie resource by which their prosperity and happi
ness may be perpetuated, and saving that fair por
ton of our heritage from ruin and desolation; an,
this, not by imposing a tax upon other sections o
the country, as is very enormously supposed, bu
by stimulating production and augmenting supply
and thus, with the aid of foreign and domestic com
petition reducing the cost of the fabric to the con