cannot be so regulated as to secure a far better remuneration to the labor engaged in its production than it has heretofore received. I am perfectly aware that such regulations must necessarily be restrictive in their character, and, at the first glance, will appear to be at war with the commercial policy of free trade advocated in Great Britain. Very little reflection, however, is required to show that by far the greater portion of the legislation of all enlightened nations is necessarily of a protective and restrictive character; and at this day no enlightened statesman would advocate the deliberate sacrifice of local advantages for the sake of any mere abstract theory, which might be ever so well founded in reason, but fails to be applicable in the presence of exceptionable facts and resources. The protection of life, liberty, property, and social order, the title to lands and personal property, rest entirely upon protective laws; and all provisions for the protection of capital and health and the estab lishment of police are so many restraints upon the natural freedom of the individual; and surely legislation looking to the wisest possible use of national resources and the prevention of the waste or misapplication of the raw material, upon which the structure of the national industry and prosperity and the welfare of the working classes rest, is not merely a natural but a necessary step in the progress of industry and the development of civilization.

In no country in the world are so many proofs of the wisdom of this course to be found as in the history of British legislation in reference to the working classes during the last 35 years. The repeal of the corn laws was a measure of eminent protection to the working classes, relieving them of the taxes imposed upon food for the benefit of the landowner alone; because the condition of the agricultural laborer could not be made worse, but could only be improved by any change. The series of laws regulating the employment of women and children in factories and mines are not merely highly restrictive, but by common consent have produced the happiest results on the moral and physical condition of the working classes. The laws recognizing the legal existence of friendly societies; for the encouragement of building associations; the conversion of the post offices into savings banks for the working classes; for the granting of annuities and life assurance guaranteed by the government to the working classes, on the payment of small periodical instalments; for the encouragement of co-operative stores and associations; for "partnerships of industry," in which the workman is allowed to have an interest in the profits of the business without becoming liable as a partner for the debts; the statutes authorizing the establishment of free reading rooms, libraries, and museums, by a vote of the rate-payers in any borough, town, or city, constitute a course of wise legislation unmistakably protective, restrictive, and enabling; persistently advocated and successfully established by the most sagacious, liberal, and philanthropic statesmen of the present age, and resulting in so marked an improvement in the condition of the working classes, accompanied

with so decided an advance in the rate of wages, that it is scarcely possible longer to deny, that the first step towards securing to the working classes an adequate reward for their labor is such legislation as protects them from the evils which seem to be inseparable from the spirit of unrestrained competition between nations and between men, which experience has shown to result in the utter disregard of the moral and physical condition and social welfare of the working classes, unless regulated by positive legal enactment.1

This wise course of legislation may be said to be but fairly initiated in England, but the intelligent observer cannot fail to be convinced that it will be persisted in until all special privileges which interfere with the normal distribution of the proceeds of labor and capital will be removed. The effect will undoubtedly be a rise in wages, already apparent; and this result is unquestionably a matter of deep concern to the manufacturers and capitalists of Great Britain, who fear that it will deprive them of their ability to control the markets of the world, as they now do, with the products of their mills. But there is in reality no just ground for this apprehension. The distribution between capital and labor may, and must, undoubtedly, be changed, but the aggregate income will not on the average of years be reduced, because the control of the fuel of the world, that is to say, of the condensed power which has been stored up by Divine Providence for its use, is in the hands of the Anglo-Saxon race in Europe and America, who alone have reduced prices by a competition with other nations, impossible but for the possession of the mineral fuel in such vast quantities, and for the violation of the natural laws which should govern the employment and compensation of labor. The transition to a more equitable basis of production will simply enable other countries, who, as we have seen, cannot do more than supply themselves with coal and iron, to raise their laboring classes out of a condition still more deplorable than exists in England, without by any possibility enabling them to keep up any effective competition in the markets of the world, for the supply of the iron required for the future progress, development, and civilization of mankind. A rise in wages in England, therefore, will not only be a blessing to the workmen of that favored country, relieving it of pauperism, so far as it may be possible to extinguish poverty at all, but will be a harbinger of light to the unpaid, unfed, and unhappy operatives throughout all lands in which human industry is now weighed down by the effects of British competition, based upon superior natural resources. And to me it is a suggestive, and for humanity an encouraging fact, that the agitation and restlessness which characterize the working classes of our age are mostly apparent in Great Britain and the United States, who are not only so far in advance of all

1 Readers desirous to investigate the effect of protective, restrictive and enabling legisla tion on the condition of the working classes, are referred to the very able treatise on "The Progress of the Working Classes, 1832-1867," by I. M. Ludlow and Lloyd Jones, published by Alexander Strahan, London, 1867.

other countries in the possession of natural industrial resources, but who, from the habit of free discussion and prompt obedience to the popular voice, (the result of constitutional government long in force,) will be most ready to accept the conclusions deduced by the stern logic of experience and facts, and modify their legislation so as to conform to the just demands of humanity whenever the proper course is discovered and. made plain to the common sense of the people.

When, by reason of such legislation, the wages of labor in Great Britain have reached their normal condition, there will no longer be any occasion for us to consider the question of protective or prohibitory tariffs; but in the mean time, to the people of the United States, who, in consequence of the possession of virgin soil, have in comparison with their European neighbors suffered but little from violations of the fundamental principles of social science, two courses are open. We can either take advantage of the unnaturally cheap rate at which our wants can and will be supplied from abroad, while the present system lasts, and, by throwing open our ports to foreign iron, purchase foreign labor at a far lower rate than we are willing to sell our own, and thus abandon a business which, so long as our present rates of wages are maintained, cannot be conducted in the United States even without profit; or we can impose such a duty on foreign iron as will make up for the difference in the amount of wages paid for making a ton of iron in Europe or in this country, less the expense of transportation.

The decision of this question is mainly of interest to the working classes themselves, and to the great body of the farmers, because if the iron business is abandoned for the present in the United States, the labor now employed in it must in the main take to the soil, and a larger yield of agricultural products be insured. The surplus so produced must seek its market in the open marts of the world, and the mouths that would have been fed on this side of the Atlantic will simply be fed elsewhere, although not so abundantly and so generously. But it must be remembered that whatever may be the price of bread in Europe at the works where the iron will be made, would be the price which the same operatives could afford to pay if the iron works had been placed where the grain is grown, and that the cost of transportation thence is just so much deducted from the price which the farmer would have received if the grain had been consumed at home.

The question is one, also, which more concerns the west than the east, because the loss caused by transportation from the west is greater; and the final decision of this great question should therefore be well considered, especially with reference to the point whether the saving produced by the purchase of cheap iron and other articles will compensate for the loss entailed by the transportation of the grain.

It forms no part of the purpose of this report to deduce any conclusion on this subject, but only to state the facts in such form as will enable intelligent legislation to be enacted, keeping in view the interests of all

classes, and above all the considerations of independence, essential to the dignity of the American republic and the welfare of mankind. But in the discussion of this question, and in the legislation which may be proposed to meet the best interests of the nation, in regard to a supply of iron and steel, the broad distinction which exists between the nature of the question in Europe and the United States must never be lost sight of. On the continent, protective duties on iron are imposed in order to counterbalance the superior natural resources and advantages of Great Britain for the production of iron, and not to secure higher wages to the laborer; whereas, in the United States, protective duties, if imposed at all, are not necessary because our natural advantages for making iron are inferior in any particular to those of Great Britain, but simply because the wages of labor are fixed upon a most just and liberal scale to the workmen in the first instance, and by the law of equivalents to the whole industrial force engaged in the great work of production, of whatever form and nature.

If the facts and suggestions contained in this report, the result of half a year of careful study of the Exposition, and the knowledge which it enabled me to acquire in reference to the social condition of the working classes in Europe, shall in any way aid Congress in arriving at a judicious solution of these grave questions, involving so many and such varied interests, and if, as I hope, the terrible evils of pauperism shall be even for a time, and possibly forever, averted from our own country by legislation based upon sound, social, and economical principles, I shall cease to regret the strange and cruel misrepresentations to which I have been subjected among the working classes, in whose behalf mainly the duty confided to me was undertaken.

Whatever policy may be finally adopted with reference to American industry, it is a source of profound satisfaction, and should be a subject of general congratulation, that a careful survey of the natural resources of those nations who stand in the van of European progress and civilization justifies the declaration that the great problem of democratic institutions is being solved in a land having, in addition to a fruitful soil, the largest and best supplies of the fundamental elements upon which industry, progress, and civilization are based; and that there is good reason to hope that here it may be shown how wealth may be created without the degradation of any class which labors for its production; the only advantage (if advantage it may be termed) possessed by Europe over the United States, for the cheap production of iron and steel, being in the lower and inadequate rate of wages which there prevails, and not in any superior natural resources in ore, fuel, or geographical position.

ABRAM S. HEWITT,

United States Commissioner to the Universal Exposition of 1867. Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State.

PARIS, November 30, 1867.

SECTION II.

BESSEMER STEEL.

THE BESSEMER PROCESS IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES.

The undersigned has the honor to submit a special report upon "Bessemer steel," prepared under his direction by Frederick J. Slade, scientific assistant to Committee No. 6, and duly approved by the committee and ordered to be laid before the Commission.

ABRAM S. HEWITT,

U. S. Commissioner and Chairman of Committee No. 6.

PARIS, June 22, 1867.

The Paris Exposition affords valuable information in reference to the capabilities of the Bessemer process for the production of all grades of metal, from a near approach to wrought iron to the hardest and finest kinds of steel. A comparison of the specimens sent from the various countries shows that the quality of the metal produced depends chiefly upon the nature of the raw materials used, and accordingly it is only in those countries where the very best ores and purest coals are employed that we find the finer grades of steel produced.

It will, perhaps, be most instructive, therefore, to examine the manner in which this process is conducted in each country separately, and to trace, if possible, the relation between the nature of the finished products and the materials and modes of working employed in their manufacture. We begin naturally with

ENGLAND.

The iron almost exclusively employed in England for the pneumatic process is obtained from the Cumberland district, and is derived from red hematite ores. Dr. Percy, in his well-known work on metallurgy, gives as the analysis of two specimens of these ores: