cent. Labor is one of the largest elements of capital required in the production of slate, and yet labor is so much cheaper in the Canadian provinces that the duty of 35 per cent but barely excludes its importation now. If we remove that duty and free its importation from all restrictions, it would utterly destroy that important branch of home industry in which so large an amount of capital is now invested, and which gives employment to a large, intelligent and thrifty class of population.

So, in the manufacture of leather, in all its varieties, the Canadians could import their hides from England, or South America if they choose, free of duty, while their vast hemlock forests furnish a cheap and practically inexhaustable supply of bark, which, in connection with the reduced price of skilled labor would give them an advantage that no tannery in the State could long contend against.

Every article into the composition of which iron and steel largely enter, and on which we pay so heavy a duty, such as axes, hocs, plows, shovels, &c., could be produced in Canada, with their present arrangement with Great Britain, at so low a rate as to render their production unprofitable here, or they could even be manufactured in Birmingham or Sheffield, ground and tempered there, and receiving a few final touches before they crossed our northern border, come in as articles of Canadian manufacture, in competition with articles which if imported direct would be subject to a heavy duty.

In the manufacture of woolen goods the matter was deemed of so much importance by the National Association of Wool Manufactures, that at their 10th Annual Convention, held in New York a few weeks ago, the Executive Committee presented the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That the National Association of Wool Manufacturers reaffirm the resolution in relation to the proposed reciprocity treaty with Canada passed by the government of the Association on the 25th of June, it being more and more manifest to the Association that the proposed treaty would be prejudicial to the wool industry of the country.

The resolutions referred to, which were adopted in June, hold that the promise of reciprocal advantages from the free exchange of certain manufactures is a delusion; that the free exchange of manufactured products would end in the suppression of our own productions; that the American farmer cannot compete with the Canadian in the production of the kind of wool which forms the speciality of Canada; that the admission of Canadian wools free of duty would arrest the now rapidly increasing development of the most promising branch of American sheep husbandry, viz., that of producing at the same

time mutton and combing or worsted wool; that this branch of sheep husbandry, which had hardly an existence here at the time of the repeal of the former reciprocity treaty, received anjimpulse from the protective tariff which gives promise of an abundant domestic production; and that the offered boon of free Canadian wools would be dearly gained at the certain cost of the loss of our own production of combing wools, and the danger of a revision of a tariff satisfactory to both branches of the woolen industry.

There are many other branches of manufacture which occur to your committee which the ratification of the proposed treaty would similarly affect, some of them, perhaps, in a lesser degree than those referred to; but in every branch which they have investigated the effect would be unfavorable with the single exception of patented and proprietary articles.

We have thus far discussed this question only in its connection with the Dominion of Canada and the relations of the same with Great Britain, but there is nothing in the proposed treaty prohibiting Canada opening her ports free to the world, and extending her facilities for buying free material for manufacturing purposes to every quarter of the globe, a proceeding which would require us to follow in her wake and make our ports free, or disastrously close many of our manufacturing establishments.

Your committee have therefore come to the conclusion after a careful survey of the whole ground, that the ratification of the proposed reciprocity treaty would have an unfavorable effect upon the manufacturing interests of the State generally, ruining many of the most important branches, and so seriously crippling others as to render them unprofitable, and they would therefore recommend the adopttion of the joint resolutions opposed to reciprocity in trade with the Dominion of Canada, now before the House, so far as said resolutions will apply to the proposed treaty now under discussion.

Schedule "A" consists of the following natural products: Animals of all kinds, ashes, pot, pearl and soda; bark, bark extracts for tanning purposes; bath bricks, bread stuffs of all kinds, bricks for building, and fire bricks; broom corn, burr, or grind stones, hewed, wrought or unwrought; butter, cheese, coal and coke, cotton wool, cotton waste, dye stuffs, earths, clays, ochers, sand, ground, or

unground; eggs, fish of all kinds, fish, products of, and all other creatures living in the water except fish preserved in oil; firewood, flax, unmanufactured; flour, and meals of all kinds; fruit, green or dried; furs, undressed; grain of all kinds; gypsum, ground, unground, or calcined; hay,' hemp, unmanufactured; hides, horns, lard, lime, malt, manures, marble, stone, slate, or granite, wrought or unwrought; meats, fresh, smoked or salted; ores of all kinds of metals; pelts, peas, whole or split; petroleum oil, crude, refined or benzole; pitch, plants, poultry, and birds of all kinds; rice, salt, seeds, shrubs, skins, straw; tails, tallow, tar, timber and lumber of all kinds, round, hewed, and sawed, manufactured in whole or in part; tobacco, unmanufactured; tow, unmanufactured; trees, turpentine, vegetables, and wool.

Schedule "B" consists of the following agricultural implements:

Axes, bag-holders, bee-hives, bone-crushers, or parts thereof; cultivators, or parts thereof; chaff-cutters, or parts thereof; corn-huskers, or parts thereof; cheese vats, cheese factory heaters; cheese presses, or parts thereof; churns, or parts thereof; cattle-feed boilers and steamers, or parts thereof; ditchers, or parts thereof; field rollers, or parts thereof; fanning mills, or parts thereof; feed-choppers, or parts thereof; forks for hay and manure, hand or horse; grain drills, or parts thereof; grain broad-cast sowers, or parts thereof; grain crushers, or parts thereof; harrows; hoes, hand or horse; horserakes; horse-power machines or parts thereof; oil and oil cake crushers, or parts thereof; manure sowers, or parts thereof; mowers, or parts thereof; plows, or parts thereof; root and seed planters, or parts thereof; root cutters, pulpers and washers, or parts thereof; rakes, reapers or parts thereof; reaper and mower combined, or parts thereof; spades; shovels; scythes; snaths; threshing machines, or parts thereof.

Schedule "C" consists of the following manufactured articles:

Axles, of all kinds; boots and shoes of leather; boot and shoe making machines; buffalo robes, dressed and trimmed; cotton grain bags; denims; jeans and drillings, unbleached; tickings and plaids; cottonades, unbleached; cabinet ware and furniture, or parts thereof; carriages; carts; wagons and other wheeled vehicles and sleighs, or paits thereof; fire engines, or parts thereof; felt covering for boilers; gutta percha belting and tubing; iron, bar, hoop, pig, puddled, rod, sheet or scrap; iron nails, spikes, bolts, tacks, brads or sprigs; iron castings, India-rubber belting and tubing; locomotives for railways, or parts thereof; lead, sheet or pig; leather, sole or upper; leather, harness, and saddlery, of mill or factory, or steam' out fixed engines and machines, or parts thereof; manufactures of marble, stone, slate

or granite; mannfacturers of wood solely, or wood nailed, bound, hinged or locked with metal materials; mangles; washing machines, wringing machines, and drying machines, or parts thereof; printing paper for newspapers; paper making machines or parts thereof; pinting type, presses, and folders, paper-cutters, ruling machines, pagenumbering machines, and stereotyping and electrotyping apparatus, or parts thereof; refrigerators, or parts thereof; railroad cars, carriages, and trucks, or parts thereof; satinetts of wool and cotton; steam engines, or parts thereof; steel, wrought or cast, and steel plates and rails; tin tubes and piping; tweeds of wool solely; waterwheel machines and apparatus, or parts thereof.

APPENDIX "E."

REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE, APPOINTED BY THE LEGISLATURE, AT ITS BIENNIAL SESSION IN 1872, TO INVESTIGATE CHARGES AGAINST CERTAIN RAILROAD COMPANIES.

His Excellency, GOVERNOR PECK:

WOODSTOCK, Oct, 30th, 1874.

I herewith send the report of committee appointed at the last session of the General Assembly, to inquire into and report as to certain acts of railroad companies. It was received by me July 8, 1873. I thought I had sent the same before this time, that it might be ready for the use of the General Assembly. I hope no injury to any one has occurred from my mistake.

Very truly yours,

JULIUS CONVERSE.

ST. ALBANS, July 7, 1873.

HON. JULIUS CONVERSE, Governor of Vermont :

SIR: I have the honor to transmit the enclosed report, as per resolution of the Legislature. The printed copy is a correct transcript of the written report, which contained so many erasures and interlineations as to necessitate the use of the one herewith enclosed. I had the authority of other members of the committee to affix their names to the report.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
D. K. BAILEY.

To His Excellency, JULIUS CONVERSE,

Governor of Vermont :

The special committee to whom was referred the following joint resolutions:

“WHEREAS, grave charges have been publicly preferred that money has been used to influence legislation and subvert justice in this State, which charges seem to involve the Trustees and Managers of the Vermont Central and Vermont & Canada and leased lines of railroad, as well as several gentlemen of high official position in the Legislature and other branches of the Government of the State, in A. D. 1869, and at sundry times before and since that time; and

WHEREAS, certain corporations of car companies, whose charters are under the control of the Legislature, to alter, amend and repeal, as the public good may require, have been organized and run in connection with the aforesaid railroads, and are represented by various persons as involving corrupt practices to a large extent; and

WHEREAS, the aforesaid corporations and railroads, and the officers in charge thereof, are creatures of the legislative and judicial branches of the Government of the State, and as said charges involve the fair fame of the State to such an extent as to justify and demand a searching investigation into their character and management; therefore

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives: That a committee of three senators and three members of the House, be appointed, respectively, by the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House, to inquire whether or not it is true that in A. D., 1869, or at any time before or since that time, money was paid directly or indirectly, by any trustee, receiver, manager, officer or agent of any railroad or railroad company in this State, to any member of either House of the Legislature, for the purpose of influencing legislation; whether or not it is true that under any power derived from either branch of the Government of this State, any person connected with the aforesaid railroads or companies, has practiced frauds or speculations; and finally, to investigate fully all and singular, all the matters above referred to, and said committee to have power to send for persons and papers and to employ counsel to prosecute the investigation to its fullest extent, and to make report to the present session of the Legislature.

Also to inquire whether any members or officers of either House of this General Assembly have written or aided in procuring to be published, the articles in the Boston Traveller, touching any measure now pending before this Legislature. Also, whether any members or officers of either House of this General Assembly are in the