After salt the portion of the reports which attracted the most attention dealt with the tariff on iron. Pig-iron was still enjoying the protection of $9.00 a ton, given it in the spring of 1865, and this, though practically all internal revenue taxes on it had been removed. Its price had risen from $22.70 a ton in 1860 to an average in 1869 of $40.61. The cost of producing this iron in the United States, including interest, repairs, and incidentals, was from $24.00 to $26.00 a ton, and it could be bought in England at $27.12. Mr. Wells’s conclusion, after examining all the elements in the problem, was that the cost of pig-iron to the American consumers was from $8.00 to $10.00 per ton more than was necessary to pay the American laborer his higher wage, and give the American manufacturer a fair profit; that is, the iron men were receiving a bonus of from $8.00 to $10.00 a ton from the country. Of course, this high price of pig-iron affected the cost of production in all sorts of industries. The most telling illustration of its effect was that of ship-building. The year the Civil War broke out the tonnage of the merchant marine of the United States was 5,539,813. Twice as many American vessels entered British ports as British entered American ports. The _American Clipper_ was famous all seas over. We were building vessels for the foreigners, and everybody was quoting with pride a remark of John Bright in the House of Commons that the finest vessels sailing between England and Australia were built in the United States. Iron vessels were at this time beginning to replace wooden. England had taken the lead in their building, but we were beginning the industry, and our success in all related industries made it certain that we should succeed here. The war, of course, interrupted trade sadly. But the alarming thing was, that the war over, there was no recovery of the loss. On the contrary, it increased. In 1869 the tonnage had fallen to 4,246,507. Instead of American vessels filling British ports, British filled ours. A trade between the United States and Brazil carried on in 1860 in 345 American and 178 foreign vessels was almost exactly reversed. Shipyards all along the coast were shutting down. Why was it? The ship-builders did not hesitate to say: “The day of the iron ship has come, but it cannot be built in America. The ship that costs $88,000 in Scotland, costs $138,000 here.” It is not the superior cost of labor the ship-builders contended. The advantage the Scotch and English ship-builders have in cheap labor is compensated for with us by superior efficiency and by labor-saving devices. It is the cost of materials that cripples us. Just as the increased cost of copper, through a high duty, had put an end to copper bottoming and repairing of wooden ships in American ports, so the high tariff on iron and lumber was putting an end to ship-building.