order n the motion of the gentleman from Maine.

Mr. HALE. I modify my motion, and move that all general debate be closed in one minute.

Mr. DICKEY. Pending that motion, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. KELLEY. I desire to ask whether the question now before the House is a debatable question?

The SPEAKER. Mr. KELLEY.

adjourn.

It is not.

Then I hope we shall

The question was put on Mr. DICKEY'S motion; and there were-ayes 56, noes 78. Mr. DICKEY called for tellers.

Tellers were ordered; and Mr. DICKEY and Mr. KERR were appointed.

The House divided; and the tellers reported-ayes 67, noes 87.

Mr. DICKEY called for the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were ordered.

The question was taken; and it was decided in the negative-yeas 77, nays 107, not voting 38; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Acker, Ambler, Archer, Austin Blair, Burdett, Benjamin F. Butler, Roderick R. Butler, Clarke, Cobb, Conger, Creely, Davis, De Large, Dickey, Duell, Henry D. Foster, Getz, Griffith, Hanks, Harmer, Harper, Havens, John W. Hazleton, Hereford, Hill, Hoar, Hooper, Kelley, Killinger, Lamport, Lansing, Leach, Maynard, McClelland, McGrew, McJunkin, Mercur, Merriam, Merrick, Morphis, Leonard Myers, Negley, Packer, Parker, Peck, Perce, Platt, Porter, Prindle, Rainey, Randall, Ritchie, Ellis H. Roberts, Rogers, Sawyer, Scofield, Seeley, Sheldon, Sherwood, Shoemaker, John A. Smith, nyder, R. Milton Speer, Sprague, Stowell, St. John, Sutherland, Swann, Sypher, Thomas, Washington Townsend, Tuthill, Upson, Waddell, Wallace, Walls, and John T. Wilson-77.

NAYS-Messrs. Adams, Arthur, Averill, Barber, Beatty, Beck, Bigby, Biggs, Bird, James G. Blair, Braxton, Bright, George M. Brooks, Buckley, Buffinton, Burchard, Caldwell, Campbell, Coburn, Comingo, Cook, Cotton, Cox, Crebs, Crossland, Dawes, Donnan, Dox, DuBose, Dunnell, Eames, Eldridge, Elliott, Ely, Farnsworth, Farwell. Finkelnburg, Charles Foster, Garrett, Golladay, Hale, Handley, George E. Harris, John T. Harris, Hawley, Hay, Gerry W. Hazleton, Kendall, Kerr, King, Kinsella, Lamison, Lewis, Lynch, Manson, Marshall, MeCrary, McHenry, McIntyre, McKinney, Benjamin F Meyers, Monroe, Moore, Morey, Morgan, Niblack, Packard, Pendleton, Aaron F. Perry, Eli Perry, Peters, Potter. Price, Read, John M. Rice, William R. Roberts, Robinson, Roosevelt, Shanks, Shellabarger, Shober, Slater, Sloss, Thomas J. Speer, Stevens, Storm, Stoughton, Taffe, Terry, Dwight Townsend. Twichell, Tyner, Vaughan, Voorhees, Wakeman, Walden, Waldron, Warren, Wells, Wheeler. Whiteley, Whitthorne, Wiliard, Williams of Indiana, Williams of New York, Jeremiah M. Wilson, and Wood-107.

NOT VOTING-Messrs. Ames, Banks, Barry, Bingham, James Brooks, Carroll, Critcher, Darral, Duke, Forker, Frye, Garfield. Haldeman, Halsey, Hambleton, Hays, Holman, Ketcham, Lowe, McCormick, McKee, McNeely, Mitchell, Orr, Palmer, Poland, Edward Y. Rice, Rusk, Sessions, Slocum, H. Boardman Smith, Worthington C. Smith, Stevenson, Turner, Van Trump, Washburn, Winchester, and Young-38.

So the House refused to adjourn.

The question recurred on Mr. HALE's motion, that all general debate be limited to one minute.

Mr. SCOFIELD. There is now a second motion pending, the motion to close debate, and I take it that the ruling of the Chair on the motion to suspend the rules would not apply to the motion to close debate. I therefore move that when the House adjourns to-day it adjourn to meet on Monday.

The SPEAKER. The Chair overrules the point. The motion to suspend the rules has accompanied with it as a subsidiary and appli cable motion the motion to close debate, and the same ruling as the Chair before made obtains with reference to it.

Mr. SCOFIELD. I made the motion in order to get a decision of the Chair more than for any other purpose.

Mr. HALE. With the permission of the House, I wish to state that if my motion shall be agreed to, I do not propose, when we go into Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, to move at once to rise for the purpose of cutting off the five-minutes debate. That is not my intention. There are gentlemen here who wish to speak on this question of the duty on salt, and also on other ques

tions that will be presented by germaneamendments; and I do not think it would be fair to cut off the five-minutes debate. I do not propose to do that at present.

The question was put on Mr. HALE's motion to limit debate; and there were-ayes 70, noes 76.

Mr. FARNSWORTH called for tellers. Tellers were ordered; and Mr. SCOFIELD and Mr. HALE were appointed.

The House divided; and the tellers reported-ayes 81, noes 83.

Mr. FARNSWORTH called for the yeas and nays.

Mr. DICKEY. That is what we want. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. FINKELNBURG. I rise to a parliamentary inquiry.

The SPEAKER. The Chair will hear it. Mr. FINKELNBURG. There seems to be an impression among many gentlemen here that the effect of this motion, if adopted, will be to cut off all debate in Committee of the Whole. I would inquire if that will be the effect of agreeing to that motion?

The SPEAKER. The motion is to close all general debate in one minute.

Mr. FINKELNBURG. That will leave the five minutes debate?

The SPEAKER. It will; it will cut off the hour debate and leave the five-minutes debate. Mr. MAYNARD. As I understand it, if this motion shall prevail no one will be allowed to speak more than five minutes on this question in Committee of the Whole.

The SPEAKER. That is the rule. The question was taken; and it was decided in the affirmative-yeas 101, nays 91, not voting 30; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Adams, Arthur, Averill, Barber, Beatty, Beck, Biggs, Bird, James G. Blair, Braxton, Bright, Buckley, Burchard, Caldwell, Campbell, Carroll, Coburn, Cook, Cotton, Cox, Crebs, Critcher, Crossland, Dawes, Donnan, Dox, DuBose, Dunnell, Eldridge, Elliott, Ely, Farnsworth, Farwell, Finkelnburg, Charles Foster, Garrett, Golladay, Hale, Handley, Hanks, George E. Harris, John T. Harris, Hawley, Hay, Gerry W. Hazleton, Kendall, Kerr, Kinsella, Lamison, Lewis, Lynch, Marshall, McClelland, McCormick, McGrew, McHenry, McKee, McKinney, Merrick, Mitchell, Monroe, Morey, Niblack, Orr, Packard, Eli Perry, Peters, Potter, Price, Read, Edward Y. Rice, John M. Rice, William R. Roberts, Robinson, Roosevelt, Rusk, Shanks, Shellabarger, Slater, Sloss, Thomas J. Speer, Stevens, Stevenson, Storm, Stoughton, Terry, Dwight Townsend, Tyner, Vaughan, Wakeman, Walden, Waldron, Walls, Warren, Wells, Wheeler, Whitthorne, Williams of Indiana, Williams of New York, Jeremiah M. Wilson, and Wood-101.

NAYS-Messrs. Acker, Ambler, Archer, Austin Blair, George M. Brooks, Buffinton, Burdett, Benjamin F. Butler, Roderick R. Butler, Cobb, Comingo, Conger, Creely, Darrall, Davis, De Large, Dickey, Duell, Eames, Henry D. Foster, Getz, Griffith, Haldeman, Halsey, Harmer, Harper, Havens, John W. Hazleton. Hereford, Hill, Hoar, Hooper, Kelley, Killinger, King, Lamport, Lansing, Leach, Lowe, Manson, Maynard, McCleery, McCrary, MeIntyre, McNeely, Mercur, Merriam, Morphis, Leonard Myers, Negley, Packer, Parker, Peck, Pendleton, Perce, Aaron F. Perry, Platt, Poland, Porter, Prindle, Rainey, Randall, Ritchie, Ellis H. Roberts, Sawyer, Scofield, Seeley, Sessions, Sheldon, Sherwood, Shoemaker, John A. Smith, Suyder, R. Milton Speer, Sprague, Stowell, St. John, Sutherland, Swann, Sypher, Taffe, Thomas, Washington Townsend, Tuthill, Twichell, Upson, Waddell, Wallace, Whiteley, Willard, and John T. Wilson-91.

NOT VOTING-Messrs. Ames, Banks, Barry, Bigby, Bingham, James Brooks, Clarke, Duke, Forker, Frye, Garfield, Hambleton, Hays, Holman, Ketcham, McJunkin, Benjamin F. Meyers, Moore, Morgan, Palmer, Rogers Shober, Slocum, H. Boardman Smith, Worthington C Smith, Turner, Van Trump, Voorhees, Washburn, Winchester, and Young-31.

.So the motion to close all general debate in one minute was agreed to.

COMMITTEE OF ELECTIONS.

The SPEAKER announced the following as the standing Committee of Elections for the Forty-Second Congress:

George W. McCrary, of Iowa; Job E. Stevenson, of Ohio; Eugene Hale, of Maine; Luke P. Poland, of Vermont; Gustavus A. Finkelnburg, of Missouri; Charles R. Thomas, of North Carolina; Michael C. Kerr, of Indi ana; Clarkson N. Potter, of New York; and William E. Arthur, of Kentucky.

ORDER OF BUSINESS.

The SPEAKER. The question recurs upon the motion of the gentlemen from Maine, [Mr. HALE,] that the rules be suspended and the House now resolve itself into Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union.

The question was taken; and upon a division there were-ayes 87, noes 68.

Before the result of the vote was announced,
Mr. KELLEY called for tellers.
Tellers were ordered; and Mr. KELLEY and
Mr. Cox were appointed.

The House again divided; and the tellers reported that there were-ayes 93, noes 62. Before the result of the vote was announced, Mr. SCOFIELD called for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The question was then taken; and it was decided in the affirmative-yeas 106, nays 70, not voting 46; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Adams, Arthur, Averill, Barber, Beatty, Beck, Bigby, Biggs, Bird, James G. Blair, Braxton, Bright, George M. Brooks, Buckley, Buffinton, Burchard, Caldwell, Campbell, Coburn, Cotton, Cox, Crebs, Critcher, Crossland. Darrall, Dawes, De Large, Donnan, Dox, Du Bose, Dunnell, Eames, Eldridge, Elliott. Ely, Farnsworth, Farwell, Charles Foster, Garrett, Golladay, Haldeman, Hale, Handley, Hanks, Harper, George E. Harris, John T. Harris, Hawley, Hay. Gerry W. Hazleton, Kerr, King, Kinsella, Lamison, Lewis, Lynch, Marshall, McClelland, McCormick, McGrew, McHenry, McKee, Merrick, Benjamin F. Meyers, Mitchell, Monroe, Moore, Morey, Niblack, Orr, Packard, Pendleton, Aaron F. Perry, Eli Perry, Peters, Potter, Price, Read, Edward Y. Rice, John M. Rice, William R. Roberts, Roosevelt, Shanks, Shellabarger, Slater, Sloss, Thomas J. Speer, Stevens, Stevenson, Storm, Stoughton, Taffe, Terry, Dwight Townsend, Twichell, Tyner, Vaughan, Wakeman, Walden, Warren, Wells, Whitthorne, Williams of Indiana, Williams of New York, Jeremiah M. Wilson, and Wood-106.

NAYS-Messrs. Acker, Ambler, Archer, Austin Blair, Benjamin F. Butler, Cobb, Conger. Creely. Dickey, Duell, Getz, Griffith, Halsey, Harmer. John W. Hazleton, Hereford, Hill, Hoar, Hooper, Kelley, Kendall, Killinger, Lamport, Leach, Manson, Maynard, McCleery, McCrary, McIntyre, McNeely, Mercur, Merriam, Morgan, Morphis, Negley, Packer, Parker, Peck, Perce, Poland, Porter, Prindle, Rainey, Randall, Ritchie, Ellis H. Roberts. Rogers, Sawyer, Scofield, Seeley, Sessions, Sheldon, Sherwood, Shoemaker, Snyder, R. Milton Speer, Sprague, Stowell, St. John, Sutherland, Swann, Sypher, Thomas, Washington Townsend, Upson, Waddell, Wallace, Walls, Willard, and John T. Wilson-70.

NOT VOTING-Messss. Ames, Banks, Barry, Bingham, James Brooks, Burdett, Roderick R. Butler, Carroll, Clarke, Comingo, Cook, Davis, Duke, Finkelnburg. Forker. Henry D. Foster, Frye, Garfield, Hambleton, Havens, Hays, Holman, Ketcham, Lansing. Lowe, McJunkin, McKinney, Leonard Myers, Palmer, Platt, Robinson, Rusk, Shober, Slocum, H. Boardman Smith, John A. Smith, Worthington C. Smith, Turner, Tuthill, Van Trump, Voorbees, Waldron, Washburn, Wheeler, Whiteley, Winchester, and Young-46.

So the motion was agreed to.

The House accordingly resolved itself into. the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, (Mr. DAWES in the chair,) and resumed the consideration of the bill (H. R. No. 9) to repeal the duty on salt.

The CHAIRMAN. By order of the House, all general debate on this bill will be closed in one minute.

Mr. HALE. In closing general debate upon this bill, I wish to say but a word or two. The duty upon salt is now eighteen cents per hundred pounds in bulk and twenty-four cents in sack. The best Turk's Island salt can be pur chased at the place where it is produced for from nine to ten cents per bushel. Any gentleman here can compute for himself the percentage of duty resting upon this article. I believe there is no one question about which the reflection of millions of people day by day is so decided as it is in declaring that there should be no tax upon this article of salt.

I have been asked to amend the bill introduced by me so as to cut down the duty fifty per cent. I do not consent to that. I believe this article should go upon the free list; that the monopoly which has obtained heretofore for the Onandaga salt works-as great and complete as any monopoly ever granted by the Tudors in England's most despotic times— ought to cease.

[Here the hammer fell.]

The CHAIRMAN. General debate is now closed. Debate upon amendments is in order. Mr. FARNSWORTH. I move to amend the bill by inserting after the word "salt" the words and coal;' so that the clause will read "from and after the passage of this act salt and coal shall be placed on the free list," &c. Iyield to the gentleman from New York, [Mr. WOOD.]

Mr. WOOD. Mr. Chairman, I propose to say but a very few words.

Mr. KELLEY. I desire to raise the point of order whether all debate on the salt question is precluded by this motion to amend by inserting coal. I desire to be heard on the salt question.

The CHAIRMAN. Five minutes' debate upon any part of the bill is in order.

Mr. WOOD. Mr. Chairman, I scarcely think it can be necessary to advance any arguments to this committee in behalf of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois. Indeed, it would be offensive to address to a body so intelligent as this any reasons why this duty should be removed by Congress at this time. We all know the condition of the country with reference to the article of coal. We all know the oppression which is now visited with unusual severity upon that class of our community who are the least able to protect themselves, and who are now looking to Congress for some relief from the imposition of the onerous, oppressive, and unjust taxation now imposed by our laws in the form of the duty on coal. It is a duty, sir, on the necessaries of life. It is a tax on that article which is necessary to the sustenance, to the existence even, of human life. It is a tax on light; it is a tax on warmth; it is a tax on that class of people who are dependent on their toil and labor; a tax which we should be in haste to remove, so as to do the working people of the country entire and exact justice.

It has been said, as against this proposition, that there is no duty laid on anthracite coal, and that anthracite coal is the article of general domestic consumption. Sir, that is a fallacious position. It is sophistry. When you take off the duty on bituminous coal, the only coal imported into this country, you relatively reduce the tax on anthracite to the consumer. In that way the working class and all other consumers of this article are benefited. I hope, sir-and I do not intend to occupy the atten tion of the committee in any labored discussion of the subject-I hope this session will not close to day until the House has taken a decision in favor of repealing not only the duty on coal, but the duty on salt.

Mr. KELLEY. I desire to say to the majority of this House that they are responsible for the financial condition of this country. The Secretary of the Treasury is about to float a new loan which, if he does it successfully, will reduce the expenses of the country $20,000,000 per annum, and he is met with the first action of a Republican House by proposing to strike from the revenue of the country nearly $2,000,000-$1,198,470 13-that being the amount collected on salt during the last fiscal year, and $521,578 10, being the duty on coal. The industries of the country are not very prosper. ous now, and you propose to strike down one of them that has its head not at Onondaga alone, but in the wilds of West Virginia, in the savannas of Louisiana, in the prairies of Kansas, and at almost every intervening point. And to do what? There are nearly forty mil lions of people in the country, and the total amount of duty is $1,100,000, or less than three cents per capita, less than three cents a year on each citizen; and to relieve them of that terrible burden you are ready to announce to the bankers of Europe and this country that a tilt is to be run against the finances and industry of the Union!

Mr. SHANKS rose.

Mr. KELLEY. I cannot yield, and I refuse to yield. Among the questions for consider

ation before the joint high commission now sitting in Washington is the adjustment of our fisheries; and the admission of coal from the British provinces free of any duty is, I am credibly informed, likely to be a question for consideration before that distinguished body. If they will give us free fisheries in exchange for free coal, there will be a question worthy of national consideration. I implore the Republican majority to consider these grave questions before they assail the income of the Treasury by such legislation as this. Sir, between now and the 1st of December but few people can suffer in either of these com. modities. We will then have ourselves properly organized. The Speaker of the House will carefully adjust the Committee of Ways | and Means, and as a part of a general revision this legislation can be gone into. I myself believe the duty on salt would bear a reduction. I believe if the duty were reduced to twelve cents on salt in bulk, and eighteen cents on salt in sacks, the Government probably would receive the same income which it now does. It would impair the power of the monopoly of the eastern coast in the hands of the Onondaga company. I would not bring down any industry, and I ask gentlemen, if they must indulge in this legislation, to reduce the duty to twelve and eighteen cents, so that the Committee of Ways and Means may be informed by the result of such reduction on the great and widely-spread interest of saltproducers to the revenues of the country.

The five-minutes limit will not allow me to enter into the question of the coal duty. I shall have an opportunity, I trust, of recurring to that. We have never imported more than six hundred thousand tons, in any one year. The bituminous interest on the Pacific coast, whose Representatives, so far as California is concerned, are not here to speak for it, is largely developed. And the question is, in my judgment, whether we shall contribute nearly six hundred thousand dollars a year in gold to the coal miners of Nova Scotia and British Columbia without doing good to any citizen of the United States.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. COX. I am very happy, sir, to have the privilege of listening to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. KELLEY.] He speaks in rather a different note from what he used the last session.

Mr. KELLEY. I was in the majority last session. I am now in the minority.

Mr. COX. You speak in the language of Jeremiah, not of Isaiah. We have another order of things now. The gentleman now appeals to the House and speaks in favor of cutting down the duty on salt, while he would keep it up on iron. So he would vote to cut off the duty on sugar, tea, and coffee.

Mr. KELLEY. Not on sugar.

Mr. COX. Let the gentleman not interrupt me in my five minutes. The gentleman was very particular about being interrupted him. self. The blood will follow when the knife is driven in. Now, just allow me my little time. As regards the duty on sugar, tea, and coffee, you know that every dollar derived from those articles goes into the Treasury, almost sixty million dollars. But as regards the duty on iron, when we put $5,000,000 into the Treas ury the people represented by the gentleman from Pennsylvania pocket $150,000,000, while the whole of the $60,000,000 obtained from tea, sugar, and coffee goes into the Treasury.

Now the gentleman comes in and gives a dig under the fifth rib on salt to save something for pig iron and coal. I never knew a pig to squeal as this pig does to-day. The obstruction of the importation of coal from abroad has furnished the basis for strikes and combinations in the domestic coal trade which have entailed immense losses on consumers, and in 1869-70 the enhancement of the price of coal above a reasonable price amounted to three dollars per ton on teu million tons, and therefore

amounts to not less than thirty million dollars of an extra burden on the people of this country, especially the people of New England and of New York, owing to their proximity to Nova Scotia, while the revenue to the Treasury was that year less than five hundred thousand dollars. And yet the gentleman speaks his jeremiad here to-day as if he would stab the salt interest in order to keep up the interests of coal and iron. If these amendments are to go on, I want the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. BUTLER] to offer his amendment of five dollars a ton on pig iron; but I would prefer if he made it three dollars. And I should like to reduce the duty on bunting, that we may have the star-spangled banner a little cheaper in this country.

I am glad attention has been called to this matter of salt. It concerns my own State particularly, but I do not care about that. It concerns the consumer; it concerns forty million people; and the facts will show that while the Government receives from this article only $1,200,000, nearly seven million dollars goes into the pockets of the monopolists. We might just as well get cheap salt from Canada, from Turk's Island, or from Spain.

And why does not my innocent friend from Maine [Mr. HALE] also add potatoes to his salt? Why is he willing that there should remain a tax of twenty-five cents per bushel on potatoes? Because, God bless you! they are nearly all raised in Maine. Why not add potatoes? I want the people in New York and everywhere else to have a fair and free deal in all these matters.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. RITCHIE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike out the last word. The appeal that I have heard from my distinguished friend from New York [Mr. WOOD] in behalf of the laboring men I regard as a delusion. I also take issue with my distinguished friend from New York upon my left, [Mr. Cox,] for while I sympathize fully with the demands for tariff reform, I think that the effort now made ostensibly in that view is misdirected, and that the revenue reformers, with whom I agree in the main, in advocating this amendment are really subserving the interests of those whom they seek to oppose.

Now, sir, the consumption of coal as an article of domestic use is confined to the anthracite variety, while the coal that is introduced into this country and affected by the tariff is solely bituminous.

There is no duty on anthracite coal; so that the duty is solely upon bituminous coal, and it amounts to only $1 25 per ton. All the importation is of bituminous coal, and the practical question is whether we will strike down the domestic interests involved in the produc tion of bituminous coal in our own country for the benefit of alien capital in Nova Scotia, and at the same time indirectly enhance the profits of the manufactures and gas companies of New England and the eastern cities. That is the practical question. Sir, by the removal of this duty you place the coal regions of Maryland, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania, which alone would be affected by the proposed repeal, under the disadvantages of their distance from tide-water in competing with the Pictou coal, which is near the sea-coast. Coal from Pictou can be brought to Boston as cheaply as coal can be taken there from Baltimore and. Georgetown. Thus you would discriminate against our own source of supply to the extent of the cost of transportation of the two hundred miles distance from the sea board. Sir, when I see gentlemen here from the great West, precipitating themselves upon Maryland and Virginia in a blind assault which cripples their friends and helps their foes, when it can be demonstrated that they will receive no benefit from this proposed action, I ask them to forbear.

Now, sir, besides, the revenue derived from Pictou coal is $600,000, no small sum, con

sidering our financial burdens, and at the present time, with that duty upon the coal, the Nova Scotians, or rather northern capitalists, who own the Pictou coal-fields, get a larger net price for their coal than our own producers get, who are burdened besides with the taxation which the former are freed from.

It has been the policy of the Government to treat coal as a source of revenue for the last forty years, and upon the faith of that policy we have invested largely in public works; we have railroads and canals built and building for the development of that region which, with other capital, makes our investment about one hundred an twenty million dollars, and by the repeal of this duty and bringing us into competition with Nova Scotia coal, you will deprive us of much of the advantage of the development up to this time, inflict distress on thirty thousand laboring men whose clothing and food you permit to remain taxed by the tariff; you withdraw from us inducements to further development, while the necessities of the country require the fullest development of this interest, because the Nova Scotia coal-fields are inadequate to supply the demand of this country. In one word, sir, it is capital and not labor, wealth and not poverty, monopoly and not the people, that demand this change. [Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. KELLEY. I offer the following as a substitute for the original proposition of the gentleman from Maine, [Mr. HALE:]

That from and after the passage of this act the duty on salt in bulk shall be twelve cents per hundred pounds, and upon salt in sacks and bags, eighteen cents per hundred pounds.

Mr. Chairman, the popular mind has been much misled on the subject of the duty on salt, as I propose to show by taking a circular which was laid upon the desk of every member of the last Congress, and has, I sup pose, been sent to every member of this Congress, signed by Alexander Kerr & Brother, of Philadelphia, as a standard of the representations. I know Messrs. Kerr. I know them to be respectable men, and to have made this statement because they believed it. I wish to show its fallacy. They say:

"The facts shown in this exhibit are too plain to require further argument. The duty on salt averages nearly two hundred per cent."

Now, sir, I have a report from the Bureau of Statistics of commerce and navigation for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1870, and I propose to test this statement under which gentlemen have been acting in hot haste by the facts of the case. I find that the duty on salt in bulk imported during that year was one hundred and twenty and one fourth per cent.; on salt in sacks, eighty-six and three fourths per cent. Compating the relative amount of these duties, the total duty, instead of being two hundred per cent., is less than one hundred per cent.-ninety-odd per cent. Again, I test it in this way: if it were two hundred per cent., the total amount imported being $1,218,019 68, the duty would be $2,436,029 36; instead of which it was $1,198,473 13, showing, as I have said, the duty to be considerably less than one hundred per cent.

Now, recurring to the point I made of the necessities of the Treasury, of the popular impression among capitalists and citizens of the determination of Congress to maintain the faith and credit of the country, I ask gentlemen to run into no wild experiment upon these wild and exaggerated statements. If you desire to try an experiment, do it; but do it in such a manner as to let the industry live while the Treasury shall receive an income from the imports. I am as ready as any gentleman on this floor to lighten the burdens of the people; but I remind gentlemen that the Congress which expired on Saturday last resolved by an almost unanimous vote that the true principles of revenue reform pointed to the early abolition of the internal tax system and the army

of officers it puts upon the people; and I sug gest to gentlemen that if they want to relieve themselves of these internal burdens, burdens which extract from the tobacco and the grainfields of the country one sixth of all the taxation of the land, they cannot repeal these external duties in this rash way.

Mr. FINKELNBURG. The West is greatly interested in the bill now before the Committee of the Whole, it being in the West where the great pork, beef, and provision-packing establishments are located. I desire to refer to one or two points made by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. KELLEY.]

He has appealed to us to-day that the salt tariff shall not be reduced, because we must keep the public credit in regard to the new bonds which have been issued under the so-called funding law, and that, too, in the face of the fact that the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. KELLEY] has within two weeks past voted to take off the entire income tax, which, according to the statement of Secretary Boutwell, is yielding at the rate of $12,000,000 a year. Why, sir, the inconsist ency of that argument shows its value and the lack of sincerity in the gentleman who makes it.

Mr. KELLEY. My argument is that all internal duties should be repealed as speedily as that can be done.

Mr. FINKELNBURG. Very well; then what will become of the new bonds under the funding law, about which the gentleman is so anxious?

Mr. KELLEY. I say 66 can be done."

as speedily as that

Mr. FINKELNBURG. The gentleman cannot reconcile the two positions he has taken upon this floor. But yesterday the gentleman votes to take off $12,000,000 of tax, and to-day he says we cannot take off $1,000,000 of import duties, because it will affect the public credit. There is another point which the gentleman makes. He says this tax amounts to but three cents per capita. Sir, I protest against that line of argument, which was made upon this floor last summer, that the salt tax is so small that it is really not worth while talking about it. It is the aggregate which shows how much is ground out of the hard industry of the people.

I have in my hands a few statistics upon that subject. In the city of St. Louis, which I have the honor to represent in part on this floor, there was purchased during the year 1869 the amount of 79,500,000 pounds of salt for distri bution and consumption in the district of country supplied by that city, on which quantity the tax amounted to $190,000 in gold. The city of Cincinnati during the same year purchased and distributed 79,800,000 pounds of salt, on which the tax was $191,000 in gold. The city of Chicago during the same year purchased and distributed 146,800,000 pounds of salt, on which the tax was $352,000 in gold. Here we have nearly three quarters of a million of dollars of tax upon salt, paid by only three cities of the West.

Now, there are no exact statistics as to the total consumption of salt in the United States; but the gentleman from Pennsylvania has left out of view a very important point to which I desire to call the attention of the House. He has told you what the tax is per capita on for. eign salt; but he must bear in mind that we pay this tax to-day upon domestic salt, in the shape of enhanced prices as well as upon foreign salt; that while we pay three cents per head upon foreign salt we are paying nine cents per head when you take into consideration the domestic salt. There are no precise statistics; but it is estimated that the total tax paid upon domestic and foreign salt during the past year approached $3,000,000, of which $1,100,000 went into the Treasury, while the balance went to the protected salt manufacturers.

I know that this statement is disputed, and it is claimed that the taxation upon foreign salt does not raise the prices of domestic salt;

but facts within my knowledge, figures with reference to the price of salt in my own city, show the contrary. They show that salt has risen steadily with the tariff; that the people are to day paying the tax upon the domestic as well as the foreign salt.

In 1860, before the tax was raised, and when it was still fifteen per cent. ad valorem instead of one hundred and fifty per cent. as it now is, the price of domestic salt in St. Louis averaged $1 70 per barrel. I see it now quoted there at $2 50, and it has been as high as three dollars. Liverpool salt before the present tariff averaged one dollar per sack; it is now quoted at $2 35 per sack. And how could it be otherwise? The avowed purpose of a protective tariff is to raise the price of the article; if it fails in this it protects nothing, means nothing, and might as well be repealed. But do our saltworks really need protection? Of the leading salt-works in the United States, one in the West tells us it wants no tariff, and the great Onondaga company in the East conclusively proves that it needs no protective duty by selling its salt to Canadians in free competition with for. eign salt, by selling it to our own fishermen with the duty deducted from its price to correspond with the drawback allowed them on foreign salt, and by the extraordinary profits which that company has realized upon its investment.

Besides all this, we have recently relieved the manufacture of salt from the internal revenué tax, which in the year 1866 amounted to $456,101. This amount is now added to its yearly profits. Upon the other hand, it ap pears that the State of New York, where the principal salt-works are located, does not pursue so liberal a policy, but levies a large tribute upon them for the benefit of its own treasury. Thus it appears that the people of the entire Union are asked to pay a tribute upon salt in order that the State of New York may increase its State revenues. If the salt industry cannot compete with foreign enterprise, why does not New York relieve it of this tax? Protection, like charity, should begin at home.

Mr. Chairman, this salt tax is an odious tax; it bears heavily on the poor who subsist largely upon salted meats and provisions. It is a tax which no one can escape; it enters the door of the needy and unmercifully fastens itself upon every morsel of food. It is unequal in a geographical sense; it is a tax upon the agricul tural States of the West and its pork-packing industries. I trust it may now be abolished. The revenue can afford it, the salt industry does not need it, and the entire people will hail its abolition as a blessing which comes home to . every fireside.

Mr. SWANN. Mr. Chairman, I desire to say a single word in explanation of the vote which I shall give upon this question. I have steadily voted with my friends on this side of the House to reduce a tariff which I have looked upon as onerous and grinding upon the people of this country, and I am ready now to cooperate with my honorable friend from New York, [Mr. WooD,] and other distinguished gentlemen who have spoken upon the subject, in reducing every item in that tariff down to the revenue standard.

But, sir, in reference to this matter of coal I am peculiarly situated, and I wish gentlemen to understand the great embarrassment which I feel in separating myself from many of my political friends on this side of the House who advocate the proposition which has been submitted for our action. I do not wish to see my own State singled out when the whole tariff requires revision. I am prepared for a general bill. I am not ready to act until such a general bill has been matured, that we may see how it is to operate upon the great interests of this country. Now it so happens, Mr. Chairman, that in the State of Maryland we have upward of sixty millions of capital invested in this article of coal and its preparation for market. The States of Maryland, West Virginia, and

Pennsylvania together have $120,000,000 invested in coal and its manufacture.

Mr. PLATT. The gentleman ought to add $25,000,000 for Virginia.

Mr. SWANN. I include Virginia also. Now, Mr. Chairman, this presents itself to us in a great measure as a question of labor as well as a question of the raw material. I suppose there must be upward of thirty thousand laboring men employed in mining and bringing this coal to market. We of the State of Maryland say, if you are going to strike down the tariff which has heretofore existed upon the article of coal, why, in the name of common sense, should we not stand in the category with other States which are now enjoying the protection of this high tariff until all are brought upon the same footing; for I tell you, sir, that when you strike down the duty upon bituminous coal the amount now paid as duty to the Government will go into the pockets of the eastern manufacturers, whose articles are produced by the use of this coal which you propose to make free. Let us do justice all around.

I say, sir, that it is injustice, monstrous injustice to my State, to institute a discrimination here between those great States which are affected by the tariff; and I hope that the House will take no action on this subject until some general bill is reported. I am in favor of a strictly revenue tariff, but I am not in favor of building up one interest at the expense of another.

Mr. CREBS. Mr. Speaker, I desire to say but a few words on the question now under consideration. I find by reference to facts and figures furnished by authority of the Govern ment, and now before me, that during the last year there were paid as tariff duty upon the article of salt alone a little over ten million dol lars, of which sum only $1,198.473 22 went into the Treasury of the United States; and of this amount, which nominally went into the Treasury, a large part was withheld as expenses of collecting the duty upon the article.

We have forty millions of people in this country, and every man, woman, and child is interested in having free salt; like water, it is a necessity to all. The amount of tariff which has been collected by the Government, or the amount of revenue which has been received by the Government during the last ten years from salt, has been so insignificant that it ought to be abolished as it is proposed by this bill.

I find that before the war salt was almost entirely free from duty. Turk's Island salt before the war cost where found only nine cents per bushel, and in the West, where we had to make our salt from water drawn from wells, it cost only about twelve cents per bushel. Why, then, is it that our people should be compelled to pay from forty to fifty cents per bushel now? Is it because the Government is reaping a great benefit from the tariff as now imposed? Not at all; but for the simple reason that some monopolies are by it protected and are reaping golden harves's out of the hard earnings of the people. In 1862 the amount of revenue derived from this article was $380,000; in 1863 it was $1,014 000; in 1864, $915,000; in 1865, $766,000; and so on; the largest sum ever received from the duty on salt being $1,198,000, which was the amount realized from it last year, less the cost of collecting, which would materially reduce this sum.

Why should we not take off this onerous tax? It has been said by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. KELLEY] that we cannot afford it now; and yet that gentleman a few days ago voted to take off the income tax, amounting, as claimed by the Secretary of the Treasury, to over twelve million dollars. While he was ready and willing to do that only a few days ago, and thought the revenues of the country would not be seriously incommoded thereby, he cannot afford to take off this tax which falls 80 burdensome upon forty millions of our people, and which at the same time is putting so little money into the Treasury of the United

States, and imposing a serious burden upon the greatmasses of the people.

I repeat that we can afford to take these burdens off the shoulders of the people, and do it now. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, the time has come when these burdens, which only operate in the interest of the monopolies and against the great masses of the people, ought to be removed. Our people of the Northwest have little interest in coal; but the amount of the revenue derived from it is so small that while it is a tax upon the whole people of the country in the interest of monopolies, it affords but little revenue to the Government, and I think the duty ought to be removed. I hope the bill will pass in the shape presented to the House by the gentleman from Maine, for in my judgment the article of salt should be as free from tax as the air we breathe or the water that ripples murmuringly at our feet.

Mr. SWANN withdrew his amendment. Mr. PLATT. I renew it. Mr. Chairman, I am opposed to the amendment of the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. FARNSWORTH] looking to the repeal of the duty on coal, because I am of the earnest conviction that the benefit to be derived from the repeal bears no relation whatever to the great injury involved. I speak in the interest of the State which I have the honor to represent in part on this floor; and I call on my colleagues representing that State to join with me in defending that interest from assault to-day. What is proposed by this amendment? It is proposed to repeal the duty on bituminous coal. There is no duty on anthracite coal. The duty on coal, therefore, had no effect whatever to produce the recent rise in the markets of New York, and my friend from New York [Mr. Cox] is a gentleman of too much intelligence not to know this fact.

What is the cost of mining

Mr. COX. Cumberland coal

Mr. PLATT. I have not time in five minutes to answer all of the gentleman's questions, and (as I always take pleasure in following the example of the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Cox.] when I can do so conscientiously) I do not know that I can do better than follow the example which he has set of declining to be interrupted. I say, sir, that the repeal of this duty will have only this effect. I ask the attention of the members of the House to a statement I shall make, and I defy successful contradiction to any of the facts I shall state. The only effect will be to cheapen coal in the northern cities to those who use the bituminous coal, who are not the poor people of the country, but the gas companies and manufacturing establishments; and I do not believe any intelligent man on this floor will for one moment believe that these gas companies of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore will sell their gas to consumers cheaper because of the utter destruction of this branch

of our home industry and the opportunity afforded to those gas companies of getting their coal from Nova Scotia for manufacturing gas at a lower rate. It cannot affect anthracite coal, which is the only coal consumed by the people outside of the localities where bituminous coal is produced.

be to close every coal-pit in the States where bituminous coal is now being mined, and place us at the mercy of the producers of coal in the British provinces, who pay nothing for keeping up our institutions, and to whom it is now proposed to give all the benefits of our mar kets with no compensating advantage what

ever to us.

[Here the hammer fell.] Mr. SCOFIELD rose.

Mr. COX. What is the question now? The CHAIRMAN. The question is upon the formal amendment proposed by the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. PLATT.]

Mr. SCOFIELD. Mr. Chairman, all that labor and all that capital asks for in the arrangement of a tariff is stability. If you impose no duty on coal and propose to get your coal from Nova Scotia, labor and capital for its production will assemble there. But if you lay a duty on coal, labor and capital come for its production to western Pennsylvania and Virginia and Maryland. The result will be that they will open, as they have done in Mary. land, a great canal, and a large amount of cap. ital is invested in the work. They will open as they have done in Pennsylvania, several railroads, and will get laborers to work, gathered from Ireland, from Wales, from Germany, from all over this country. These laborers make their homes around where the capital is invested. And then if you come in and modify that tariff and abolish the duty, the result is that you sink the capital which has been invested and drive the laborers out of employment.

All that labor and capital ask is that you shall keep the law stable. If you do not propose to keep up the tariff upon coal, then why did you seduce these laborers from their old homes and their old occupations; why did you seduce capital from its old investments, to go and embark in this new enterprise? Did you establish them one year merely that you might destroy them the next? The same principle applies to everything else. Look to my own State. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Cox] is very fond of talking about the tariff on iron. We asked you for no tariff on pig iron in the beginning. You put a tariff on iron to raise revenue and to develop an industry in this country. The result was that capital from all parts of the world, from the city of New York, from Boston, from London, and everywhere else, came to Pennsylvania. And they have built up their furnaces there; they have opened their railroads and canals; they have built up little cities and large towns all over the State, in the development of an enterprise in which the whole country, nay, the whole world, is interested.

And now the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Cox,] in a flippant speech, making a display of a little bit of wit, proposes to strike down this enterprise which his more weighty predecessors in this Congress have fostered and established. During nearly the whole of the long session of last Congress we discussed the tariff. We fixed upon a duty which I thought then and believe now to be an imperfect protection. But I say that the work of six months ought not to be undone in an hour.

66

and inserting "nine;" so that it will read:

That from and after the passage of this act the duty on salt in bulk shall be six cents per one hundred pounds and on salt in sacks or bags nine cents per one hundred pounds.

Mr. Chairman, I do not go the whole length upon this question with my colleague, [Mr.

HALE.] I am willing to have some tariff upon coal and salt. If I cannot get it at a low rate, I go for free coal and free salt. The tariff on salt has been well nigh prohibitory. The merchants of my place tell me that it has been about three hundred per cent. on an average of the last ten years. We can buy salt at Turk's Island almost as cheaply as you can buy ballast, and they tell me, and I believe it, that they have paid nearly three hundred per cent. I know, sir, that the owners of coal mines in Nova Scotia and the workers of them would have been glad to have taken a tariff on coal at fifty cents a ton. They can make money upon it, and we can have a carrying trade upon it. But the trouble has been that the parties interested in coal and salt would not make an opening on this question; they would allow no hearing even. The Committee of Way and Means of the last Congress actually presented a bill to this House to increase the duty on salt rather than to diminish it.

Now, sir, if I can reach these low duties I will go for them; otherwise, I will go to the full extent. I shall vote for some duty for this reason where there is a competition between the labor of the provinces and the labor of the States, while our labor is taxed directly and is taxed in a thousand ways indirectly, while the labor of the provinces pays hardly any taxation whatever, it is fair and reasonable that in that competition between us and the provinces our labor shall receive some protection; and when the duty is made reasonable I will vote for it, and when it is beyond that point I will not vote for it.

Mr. ELDRIDGE. I rise to oppose, pro forma, the amendment of the gentleman from Maine; but I shall address myself substantially in reply to the gentleman from Pennsyl vania, [Mr. ScOFIELD.] The remarks which he has made here have been very elementary on the subject of the tariff; and as I do not wish to say anything special with regard to this matter, I address myself to the subject on which he has spoken. He makes his appeals in

behalf of the labor and in behalf of the workingmen of the country, and insists that we ought not to adopt the provisions of this bill, because labor will suffer. Sir, I have had the honor of being in Congress for the last eight years, and during all that period I have never heard of anybody being here in the lobbies or around the corridors of this Capitol advocating a tariff in the interest of labor; but I have met at every turn and in almost every place about the Capitol men representing money, men representing large wealth, men representing large companies of consolidated and associated wealth, advocating a tariff.

Now, sir, why is it if these tariffs are in the interest of labor that the laborer has never an agent here, that he has never an advocate on this floor, unless it is the Representative whom he elects to Congress? Capital, associated wealth, aud all these corporate and manufac turing companies are here represented in large numbers and on all occasions advocating a tariff under the miserable pretense that they are acting in the interest of labor. Why is it that we do not in adjusting our tariff pay to the man who digs the coal something? Why not give him a percentage on his day's work instead of putting it into the hands of capitalists to enforce by exactions on him labor for the precise sum which the capitalist and manufacturer shall name? Why is it that we have these strikes? Why is it that the laborer is compelled to suspend his labor? Does any one suppose that it is because of his own voluntary action? We understand perfectly well that these strikes are made by capital, by the companies engaged in this work, and that they combine with their laborers to make these strikes in order that they may get a high price for the coal that they are digging from their mines.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania tells us that they do not need any

tariff on pig iron, and the idea was held up that the tariff was originally forced upon the people of Pennsylvania, that the tariff was placed upon pig irou against the will of the men who make pig iron. Have we ever heard of any of these manufacturers of pig iron opposing any rate of tariff which we saw fit to place upon pig iron? Have we ever heard the gentleman from Pennsylvania telling us that it was not necessary to put a tariff upon pig iron? He tells us that the fact that we placed a high tariff upon pig iron has brought capital here from foreign countries, and that it has built up cities and villages all around them, and that now if we should lessen that tariff it would bring embarrassment and perhaps disaster upon those cities and those villages. Then it must be apparent that the tariff has been unnecessarily high and has produced most unnatural results.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. BUTLER, of Massachusetts. I move to amend the amendment by striking out the word coal." .6

The CHAIRMAN. That constitutes the entire amendment. The gentleman can propose some formal amendment.

Mr. BUTLER, of Massachusetts. I move, then, to strike out the last word. I only desire to call the attention of the Committee of the Whole to the exact condition of this coal question.

When we were discussing and about to pass in the last Congress a bill to protect life and property in the southern communities, the gentleman from New York, [Mr. WooD,] by a legislative maneuver, got before the House a resolution to repeal the duty upon coal. He seemed to think it was more necessary that the tariff on coal should be adjusted than that human life, human rights, and men's rights and liberties should be preserved; and by that motion he prevented the consideration of a bill to protect life and property in the South.

Now, in the juncture at which this motion was made-when the House blindly followed the lead of the gentleman from New York, [Mr. WOOD,] the statesmanship of which can be readily seen-there was a high commission sitting at the State Department deliberating upon an adjustment of the rights of fisheries and the various claims and wishes of the Dominion Government. That Government would have given all that we claimed for our fishermen, for the fishermen who supply cheap food for the poor, in return for a relaxation of the duty upon coal. We could have exchanged the tariff on coal for the fisheries; but, without considering the question, without|| examining it, under a suspension of the rules, when no word could be said, the House was led, in what may well be termed a legislative panic, to vote upon the question of taking the duty from coal.

Now what was to be gained by taking the duty from coal? What was to be gained by the West, for instance? Does any coal from Pictou go to the West? No; and the trouble is that until you can cheapen transportation, until you can control railroads, until you can put your hands upon the exorbitant freights charged for coal, you cannot change the price of coal to the rich or to the poor. And the question of the price of coal in New York, which recently reached twenty dollars per tou, was a question not of mining, not of the labor of the miners, not of the tariff upon coal, but of the railroad tariff and railroad rates of freight.

Mr. PETERS. And coal was eight dollars a ton in this city at the same time it was twenty dollars a ton in New York.

Mr. BUTLER, of Massachusetts. Yes; the evidence of what I state is to be found in the fact that a large amount of coal was sold in this city at six dollars a ton at the very mo ment that coal was being paid for in New York by the people at fifteen dollars a ton; from fifteen to twenty dollars a ton. I look upon this whole movement in regard to coal, there

fore, as a matter of simple demagogery, a simple design to catch votes. And I wonder, as much as I wonder at anything at my time of life, at a Republican House of Representatives following the lead of the gentleman from New York, [Mr. WOOD,] who was endeavor. ing by legislative strategy-rightly put and well done on his side-to lead the Republican party to destruction.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. COX. I want to call the attention of the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. BorLER] to some facts, and also to call the attention of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. SCOFIELD,] who thought my remarks so flippant, to some other facts. The gentleman from Massashusetts has struck the matter in the white when he says that the question of transportation has so much to do with it. But if you had free coal from Nova Scotia transportation would not have so much to do with the question. The gentleman knows that his own constituents are now crying out for a chance to transport cheaply from Nova Scotia, because they cannot transport cheaply from Georgetown or Baltimore. A few facts will set this matter right before the country; and no diversion, no undertaking to say that this proposition in the last Congress was got through by strategy, no attack upon my colleague, [Mr. WOOD,] to whom, as we all understood, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. BUTLER] himself yielded for the very purpose of submitting this proposition about coal, will prevent me from stating the real facts as to the cost of coal at the mine and the cost when laid down at Boston and New York.

Mr. BUTLER, of Massachusetts. Do I understand the gentleman to say that I yielded to his colleague [Mr. WooD] to introduce the bill to repeal the duty on coal?

Mr. COX. So I understood.

Mr. BUTLER, of Massachusetts. Oh, no; he took me off the floor by a privileged motion.

Mr. COX. I supposed the gentleman was helping us to get free coal. I did not suppose that a gentleman who had helped us so nobly in the effort to get down the duty on pig iron would oppose free coal, when all his people are calling out for cheap caloric and have instructed him, as I understand, on this subject. I want to give some facts to my friend, if he will allow me to call him so.

Mr. BUTLER, of Massachusetts. You may call me so as long as you please. I will answer as I please. [Laughter.]

Mr. COX. Cumberland coal is mined at sixty cents per ton, and sold to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company at $125 per ton, showing a profit of one hundred and twentyfive per cent. The same coal, sent to Boston, sells for $7 12 per ton. There is a freight charge of $5 87 on all coal between Georgetown or Baltimore and Boston, whereas Nova Scotia coal, without duty, could be laid down there under contract for five dollars per ton.

A communication which I have from a Boston house-I could give the name if necessarystates that the average price for Cumberland coal delivered at Boston from Georgetown is $7 to $7 10; and from Baltimore, $7 25 to $7 30. Pennsylvania gas coal sold in New York in 1854 for ten dollars per ton; but in competition with Nova Scotia gas-coal it was reduced to $6 35; and from 1860 to 1866, only fifty-nine thousand tons of Pennsylvania coal could be sold in New York, to some six hundred thousand tons of Nova Scotia coal. Besides, sir, the capital engaged in Nova Scotia coal is three fifths American.

Certain localities of the country are getting the advantage of our high coal tariff without any benefit to the manufacturer or to the consumer, or the men who use the commodities in the production of which cheap caloric and cheap machinery are required. The Government gets no benefit from this duty. Sixty. nine million dollars were paid during the year before last to the men who mined the coal,