Iron man.--“But I want to mine that iron. It does not seem right to leave it in the ground when we are importing iron all the time, but I cannot see as good profits in it at the present price for imported iron as I am making out of what I raise on the surface. I thought that perhaps you would put a tax on all the imported iron so that I could get more for mine. Then I could see my way to give up farming and go to mining.” Statesman.--“You do not think what you ask. That would be authorizing you to tax your neighbors, and would be throwing on them the risk of working your mine, which you are afraid to take yourself.” Iron man (aside).--“I have not talked the right dialect to this man. I must begin all over again. (Aloud.) Mr. Statesman, the natural resources of this continent ought to be developed. American industry must be protected. The American laborer must not be forced to compete with the pauper labor of Europe.” Statesman.--“Now I understand you. Now you talk business. Why did you not say so before? How much tax do you want?” The next time that a buyer of pig iron goes to market to get some, he finds that it costs thirty bushels of wheat per ton instead of twenty. “What has happened to pig iron?” says he. “Oh! haven’t you heard?” is the reply. “A new mine has been found down in Pennsylvania. We have got a new ‘natural resource.’” “I haven’t got a new ‘natural resource,’” says he. “It is as bad for me as if the grasshoppers had eaten up one-third of my crop.” 45. That is just exactly the significance of a new resource on the protectionist doctrine. We had the misfortune to find emery here. At once a tax was put on it which made it cost more wheat, cotton, tobacco, petroleum, or personal services per pound than ever before. A new calamity befell us when we found the richest copper mines in the world in our territory. From that time on it cost us five (now four) cents a pound more than before. By another catastrophe we found a nickel mine--thirty cents (now fifteen) a pound tax! Up to this time we have had all the tin that we wanted above ground, because beneficent nature has refrained from putting any underground in our territory. In the metal schedule, where the metals which we unfortunately possess are taxed from forty to sixty per cent, tin alone is free. Every little while a report is started that tin has been found. Hitherto these reports have happily all proved false. It is now said that tin has been found in West Virginia and Dakotah. We have reason devoutly to hope that this may prove false, for, if it should prove true, no doubt the next thing will be forty per cent tax on tin. The mine-owners say that they want to exploit the mine. They do not. They want to make the mine an excuse to exploit the taxpayers.