The freight of iron has been afforded from Sweden to the United States as low as eight dollars per ton.  This is not more than the price of fifty miles of land carriage.  Stockholm, therefore, for the purpose of this argument, may be considered as within fifty miles of Philadelphia.  Now, it is at once a just and a strong view of this case, to consider, that there are, within fifty miles of our market, vast multitudes of persons who are willing to labor in the production of this article for us, at the rate of seven cents per day, while we have no labor which will not command, upon the average, at least five or six times that amount.  The question is, then, shall we buy this article of these manufacturers, and suffer our own labor to earn its greater reward, or shall we employ our own labor in a similar manufacture, and make up to it, by a tax on consumers, the loss which it must necessarily sustain.

I proceed, Sir, to the article of hemp.  Of this we imported last year, in round numbers, 6,000 tons, paying a duty of $30 a ton, or $180,000 on the whole amount; and this article, it is to be remembered, is consumed almost entirely in the uses of navigation.  The whole burden may be said to fall on one interest.  It is said we can produce this article if we will raise the duties.  But why is it not produced now? or why, at least, have we not seen some specimens? for the present is a very high duty, when expenses of importation are added.  Hemp was purchased at St. Petersburg, last year, at $101.67 per ton.  Charges attending shipment, &c., $14.25.  Freight may be stated at $30 per ton, and our existing duty $30 more.  These three last sums, being the charges of transportation, amount to a protection of near seventy-five per cent in favor of the home manufacturer, if there be any such.  And we ought to consider, also, that the price of hemp at St. Petersburg is increased by all the expense of transportation from the place of growth to that port; so that probably the whole cost of transportation, from the place of growth to our market, including our duty, is equal to the first cost of the article; or, in other words, is a protection in favor of our own product of one hundred per cent.

And since it is stated that we have great quantities of fine land for the production of hemp, of which I have no doubt, the question recurs, Why is it not produced?  I speak of the water-rotted hemp, for it is admitted that that which is dew-rotted is not sufficiently good for the requisite purposes.  I cannot say whether the cause be in climate, in the process of rotting, or what else, but the fact is certain, that there is no American water-rotted hemp in the market.  We are acting, therefore, upon an hypothesis.  Is it not reasonable that those who say that they can produce the article shall at least prove the truth of that allegation, before new taxes are laid on those who use the foreign commodity?  Suppose this bill passes; the price of hemp is immediately