As to the injudicious adjustment of the scale, the higher rates of duties fall upon articles, which under present circumstances are not capable of being protected, except by actual prohibition. These are the small forms of rod and round iron, hoops and sheets. The introduction of the joint operations of puddling and rolling, has altogether changed the manner of manufacturing these in Europe; they are now, with the exception of sheets, made directly from the pig, by as few operations as common bars; our own puddling forges are adopting the same method, and so soon as they are capable of supplying the market, must drive out the articles of these descriptions, made by those who use merchantable bar iron, and roll it down or slit it. The slitting and rolling mills which are conducted on this last principle, are therefore beyond the reach of support. The inequality in the duty too, is more than the cost of performing the additional operation upon the bar, and is hence rather injurious than otherwise, to the interest of the producers of the raw iron, while it bears with great severity upon those consumers who are themselves manufacturers of hardware. The duty upon these articles should then be adjusted so as to bear the proportion to that upon bar iron, which their values do in the foreign market whence they are derived. On the other hand, there are certain articles, of which the price of the raw material, whether cast or bar iron, forms the chief value, and which are actually convertible to the same purposes with their base. On these, there can be no question, that every consideration of policy and justice requires that the duty should be raised. Several articles of this description are enumerated by the Philadelphia memorialists, where the fabric is of wrought iron; and it is obvious that there are others, made at a blast furnace from the metal at its first reduction, which might be used as a substance for pig. Such articles, however, cannot be numerous; for iron is, after all, a material of such low price, that it can be hardly wrought into any important species of goods, in which the value of the workmanship will not exceed the cost of the raw article. The _ad valorem_ duty must, therefore, in most cases, be an efficient protection, both to the maker of iron and the manufacturer of hardware. Where however it is not, an easy principle will restore the irregularity; for it is only necessary to collect the duties by weight, and affix to them the same rates which the raw iron pays.