of protection was in both States. It existed on all sides. The compact was made, to give it identity, universality, union, and that is all we want."

"But the time is now come when the policy of a reasonable, permanent protection must be settled (A voice in the crowd, "Now or never!") I say, Now or never! It is a question that is most exciting to the whole country, and absolutely vital to the interests of the people of Pennsylvania; and it is NOW OR NEVER!'"

Protection Against European Labor.

[Speech at Pittsburg, Penn., July 8, 1833.]

" I am in favor of protecting American manual labor; and, after the best reflection I can give the subject, and from the lights which I can derive from the experience of ourselves and others, I have come to the conclusion that such protection is just and proper; and that, to leave American labor to sustain a competition with that of the over-peopled countries of Europe, would lead to a state of things to which the people could never submit. This is the great reason why I am for maintaining what has been established. I see at home, I see here, I see wherever I go, that the stimulus, which has excited the existing activity, is producing the existing prosperity of the country, is nothing else than the stimulus held out to labor by compensating prices. I think this effect is visible everywhere, from Penobscot to New Orleans, and manifest in the condition and circumstances of the great body of the people; for nine-tenths of the whole people belong to the laborious, industrious, and productive classes; and on these classes the stimulus acts. We perceive that the price of labor is high, and we know that the means of living are low; and these two truths speak volumes in favor of the general prosperity of the country."

"Be assured, gentlemen, that nothing can advance the mass of society, in prosperity and happiness, nothing can uphold the substantial interest, and steadily improve the general condition and character of the whole, but this one thing, compensating rewards to labor. The fortunate situation of our country tends strongly, of itself, to produce this result; the Government has adopted the policy of co-operating with this natural tendency of things; it has encouraged and fostered labor and industry, by a system of discriminating duties; and the result of these combined causes may be seen in the present circumstances of the country."

"It certainly appears to me, gentlemen, to be quite evident, at this time, and in the present condition of the world, that it is necessary to protect the industry of this country against the pauper labor of England, and other parts of Europe. An American citizen, who has children to maintain, and children to educate, has an unequal chance against the pauper of England, whose children are not to be educated, and are probably already on the parish; and who himself is half fed and clothed by his own labor, and half from the poor-rates, and very badly fed and clothed after all."

Coal and Labor - Artisans Made the Constitution. [Reduction of Duty on Coal, U. S. Senate, February 24, 1837.」

" Considering what has been the former course of Congress on this subject, it is as clear a proposition as can be stated that the interest of the poor required the continuance of the tax. Whether we look to the debates of the convention or to the earliest acts of the Federal Government, we shall perceive that it was admitted to be proper and necessary to levy a duty on imported coal. One of the very first articles enumerated in the first revenue law is foreign coal. The protection of the domestic article was warmly advocated at that time by the Virginia delegation, as an obvious duty of the new govern

ment.

"The honorable member thinks that Congress, by taking off this tax, would give the exclusive power of keeping up the price to American producers. I differ from him in opinion. I think that, by taking off this tax, we shall give that power to British producers and make our citizens the victims of their extortions." “Ah, but the member is for the protection of labor. Very true. And I insist that the protective policy of the United States is aimed point blank at the protection of labor. Do not the poor of our cities warm themselves over coal fires? What glowing pictures, or, rather, what shivering pictures of suffering have been presented to the Senate in the eloquent descriptions (if he thinks them eloquent) of the honorable gentleman from South Carolina! [Preston.] But was not the laboring class in our cities the very first who received the protection of this Government? The first demand of a Constitution was for their protection. It was the operatives, spread along the Atlantic coast, whose voices brought the Constitution into being. It was not the voices of Hancock and Adams, but of Paul Revere and his artisans which most efficiently advocated the movement for independence. It was the pouring in of a flood of foreign manufactures that gave the first impulse towards the adoption of a Constitution for our own protection: and has not the labor of our whole country been protected under it to this day? Have not the laboring classes of the United States their life, and breath, and being, under that instrument?"

" But it becomes enlightened legislators to take a different view of the subject. The true way to protect the poor is to protect their labor. Give them work and protect their earnings; that is the way to benefit the poor. Our artisans, I repeat it, were the first to be protected by the Constitution. The protection extended, under our laws, to capital was as nothing to that which was given to labor; and so it should be. Since, in the year 1824, I stood upon this ground, I have retained the same position, and there I mean to stand. The free labor of the United States deserves to be protected, and so far as any efforts of mine can go, it shall be. The gentleman from Connecticut (Niles) tells us that coal is a bounty of Providence; that our mountains are full of it; that we have only to take hold of what God has given us. Well, Sir, I am for protecting the man who does take hold of it; who bores the rock; who penetrates the mountain; who excavates the mine, and by his assiduous labor, puts us into practical possession of this bounty of Providence. It is not wealth while it lies in the mountain. It is human labor which brings it out and makes it wealth. I am for protecting that poor laborer whose brawny arms thus enrich the state. I am for providing him with cheap fuel, that he may warm himself and his wife and children."

" I know very well that many of the citizens of Boston have applied to have this tax diminished, and, if I thought it could with propriety be done, I would cheerfully do it. Some petitions, too, have been presented from one of our fishing towns; but they ought to remember that all bounties on the fisheries, as well as this duty on coal, rest upon one great basis of mutual concession for the protection of labor, and for the benefit especially of the operative classes of society. And whoever says that this is a system which favors capital at the expense of the poor, misrepresents its advocates, and perverts the whole matter, from A to Z."

"My object is, to make coal cheap-permanently cheap; cheap to the poor man as well as the rich man; and to that end we shall arrive, if the laws are suffered to take their course. But to meddle with them, in the existing state of things, is the very worst thing that can be done, either for poor or rich."

The Farmer's Interest.

At the convention at Valley Forge, Oct. 3, 1844, Webster said :

"The protective system is a favorite measure with you, with us at home, and with all our party. We deem it a most necessary system, one that cannot, under any circumstances, be dispensed with, as being necessary to the comfort, necessary to the happiness, the prosperity of all; and vitally touching the permanent, as well as the present, interests of the community."

"There are many false prophets going to and fro in the land, who declare that the tariff benefits only the manufacturer, and that it injures the farmer. This is all sheer misrepresentation.

"Every farmer must see that it is his interest to find a near purchaser for his produce, to find a ready purchaser, and a purchaser at a good price. Now, the tariff supposes, that if there be domestic manufactures carried on successfully, there will inevitably be those engaged therein who will consume a large amount of agricultural products, because they do not raise any for themselves, - a new class of consumers of the farmer's commodities, an enlarged class of customers."

Wages and Prices - Seth Peterson.

Intelligent free traders admit that wages lower under free trade, but insist that prices will lower, pari passu; and a day's wages will buy as much as under the high wages of protection. The New York Commercial Bulletin, of Nov. 17, 1892, says: " If workmen concede in wages, they will get their full compensation in the cheapening of the products they have to buy, so that the net result to the earner is the same under lower wages as under higher."

This is plainly fallacious. Hundreds of thousands are not wage-earners, but stipendiaries, with inherited property, or men who cannot spend the interest of their acquired property, or men with fixed salaries. These men, spenders of millions, get twice as much service for their money, while the million that serve them get half pay. Futhermore, a ten per cent. cut means more to a laborer than to a salaried man.

But let us hear Seth Peterson, as brought forward by Webster to speak on this interesting topic :

[Saratoga Mass Meeting, Aug. 19, 1840.]

"I have in my hand an extract from a speech in the House of Representatives of a zealous supporter, as it appears, of the administration, who maintains, that, other things being reduced in proportion, you may reduce the wages of labor without evil consequences. And where does he seek this example? On the shores of the Medi

terranean.

He fixes upon Corsica and Sardinia. But what is the Corsican laborer, that he should be the model upon which American labor is to be formed? Does he know anything himself? Has he any education, or does he give any to his children? Has he a home, a freehold, and the comforts of life around him? No; with a crust of bread and a handful of olives, his daily wants are satisfied. And yet, from such a state of society, the laborer of New England, the laborer of the United States, is to be taught submission to low wages."

"There is not much danger that schemes and doctrines such as these shall find favor with the people. They understand their own interest too well for that. Gentlemen, I am a farmer on the seashore, and have, of course, occasion to employ some degree of agricultural labor. I am sometimes, also, rowed out to sea, being, like other New England men, fond of occasionally catching a fish, and finding health and recreation in warm weather from the air of the ocean. For the few months during which I am able to enjoy this retreat from labor, public or professional, I do not often trouble my neighbors, or they me, with conversation on politics.

"It happened, however, about three weeks ago, that on such an excursion as I have mentioned, with one man only with me, I mentioned this doctrine of the reduction of prices and asked him his opinion of it. He said he did not like it. I replied, the wages of labor, it is true, are reduced; but then, flour and beef, and perhaps clothing, all of which you buy, are reduced also. What, then, can be your objections?' 'Why,' said he, it is true that flour is now low, but then, it is an article that may rise suddenly, by means of a scanty crop in England or at home; and, if it should rise from five dollars to ten, I do not know for certain that it would fetch the price of my labor up with it. But while wages are high, then I am safe; and if produce chances to fall, so much the better for me. But there is another thing. I have but one thing to sell, that is my labor; but I must buy many things-not only flour, and meat, and clothing, but also some articles that come from other countries - a little sugar, a little coffee, a little tea, a little of the common spices, and such like. Now, I do not see how these foreign articles will be brought down by reducing wages at home, and before the price is brought down of the only thing I have to sell, I want to be sure that the prices will fall also, not of a part but of all the things that I must buy.'

"Now, gentlemen, though he will be astonished or amused, that I should tell the story before such a vast and respectable assemblage as this, I will place this argument of Seth Peterson, sometimes farmer and sometimes fisherman on the coast of Massachusetts, stated to me