of price is equal to $750,000 annually.  This sum we pay on a raw material, and on an absolute necessary of life.  The bill proposes to raise the duty from $15 to $22.50 per ton, which would be equal to $1,125,000 on the whole annual consumption.  So that, suppose the point of prohibition which is aimed at by some gentlemen to be attained, the consumers of the article would pay this last-mentioned sum every year to the producers of it, over and above the price at which they could supply themselves with the same article from other sources.  There would be no mitigation of this burden, except from the prospect, whatever that might be, that iron would fall in value, by domestic competition, after the importation should be prohibited.  It will be easy, I think, to show that it cannot fall; and supposing for the present that it shall not, the result will be, that we shall pay annually the sum of $1,125,000, constantly augmented, too, by increased consumption of the article, to support a business that cannot support itself.

It is of no consequence to the argument, that this sum is expended at home; so it would be if we taxed the people to support any other useless and expensive establishment, to build another Capitol, for example, or incur an unnecessary expense of any sort.  The question still is, Are the money, time, and labor well laid out in these cases?  The present price of iron at Stockholm, I am assured by importers, is $53 per ton on board, $48 in the yard before loading, and probably not far from $40 at the mines.  Freight, insurance, &c. may be fairly estimated at $15, to which add our present duty of $15 more, and these two last sums, together with the cost on board at Stockholm, give $83 as the cost of Swedes iron in our market.  In fact, it is said to have been sold last year at $81.50 to $82 per ton.  We perceive, by this statement, that the cost of the iron is doubled in reaching us from the mine in which it is produced.  In other words, our present duty, with the expense of transportation, gives an advantage to the American over the foreign manufacturer of one hundred per cent.  Why, then, cannot the iron be manufactured at home?  Our ore is said to be as good, and some of it better.  It is under our feet, and the chairman of the committee tells us that it might be wrought by persons who otherwise will not be employed.  Why, then, is it not wrought?  Nothing could be more sure of constant sale.  It is not an article of changeable fashion, but of absolute, permanent necessity, and such, therefore, as would always meet a steady demand.  Sir, I think it would be well for the chairman of the committee to revise his premises, for I am persuaded that there is an ingredient properly belonging to the calculation which he has misstated or omitted.  Swedes iron in England pays a duty, I think, of about $27 per ton; yet it is imported in considerable quantities, notwithstanding the vast capital, the excellent coal, and, more important than all perhaps, the highly improved state of inland navigation in England; although I am aware that the English use of Swedes iron may be thought to be owing in some degree to its superior quality.