New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1851-03-07


planter, manufacturer and mechanic. The re-
mAinder he has invested for his future necessities
II is said that duty of 30 per cent al valorem,
with the cost Of transportation ought to be sui
fcient protection. Bot the facts show that it is
not. The present ad vaorem duty is no protec.
ton, either to the producer or consumer, against
the extraordinary fluctuations in the price of Iron
abroad The fluctuations in the price Of bar Iron
within ten years have been from "a los. to SIS
sterling Where the manufacture Of Iron, as in
England, depends largely upon foreign market,
the price is affected by all the wars, revolutions,
political excitements, famines or speculations
which prevail abroad.
The British manufacturer has advantages for
which we need compensation. The greater por-
tion of British establishments, and particularly
those which produce the Scotch Iron, which has
been imported in such large quantities into the
United States have advantages Of location which
none of our present estab ishments have. Fa-
vored by extraordinary facilities, the Scotch far
uaces are able to make Iron at a cost Of oaly .f2
Os. Sd. per tun, tequal to 50 "A only)
The concentration of the Iron business in Great
Britain into limited districts, and within the con-
troll of comparatively few great capitalists, ena-
bles them to make such combinations and ar
rangements for regulating prices as would be
wholly impractcsble among small manufacturers,
scattered over a vast country like ours.
We need protection to enable US to compete
with the great advantages which the British
manufacturer has in the cheapness Of capital
While we have to pay per cent. and frequently
much more, for money, our competitors obtain it
at half that rate They have, therefore, twice
the capacity to live in period of depression that
our manufacturers have. The more wealthy Iron
masters, being able to hold on TO their stocks
during season Of low prices, while they can re-
duce the cost of labor accumulate vast fortunes
when the flood OF high prices returns.
But, more than all, we need protection against
the influence of cheap foreign labor The ad-
vantage which the European has in this respect
is equal to the whole difference in the price of
labor on the two sides of the Atlantic. For this
the present duty, it is commended, is no cOmpen
sation.
The wages Of common laborers in this country
are from IS cents to 81 per day. the average
being about so cents a day. Laborers in Scot
land are paid from "a to SO cents day, and in
England laborers Of the same class receive from
80 to As cents per day. recent article in Black
woods Magazine makes the wages of this class
of laborers in England much over, namely, from
6s to IS sterling per week, an average, say, Of
"a cents per day. Taking the average of the first
named prices in Scotland and England, the
British manufacturer has an advantage in the
employment OF this class of labor, which enters
so largely into our Iron.making, of over 100
per cent.
A hammersman in our Iron establishments re-
ceives from 81 to 81 25 per day. In England he
is paid from IS cents to 81 per day. 1t appears,
therefore, from this and other examples, that the
advantages in Great Britain, in the prices of
skilled labor in iron making at least one hun
bred per cent. greater than ours.
The manufacturers Of hammered charcoal iron,
and of sheet iron, have to compete with labor
employed at still lower rates in weden aud Rus
sia In Sweden, the price Of days labor at
furnace or forge varies from ID to q cents day.
A teamster aud horse can be employed for
about SO cents a day. In Russia the price of la
Dor in furnaces is still less
Facts like these are certainly sufficient to show
the necessity of protective Tariff if our Iron
Embellishments are not to be abandoned, or the
price Of labor greatly reduced.