Jeffersonian Republican. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1840-1853, 1852-10-28
How it WOrkS--IrOn.

| we commend the following eXIractlFoln
an article in the n Y. Tribune headed
"Who pays the Duty" to the candid con-
sideration of both producer and consum-
er:
Two years since the price of railroad
iron in Wales was s22 50, or "a l5s. per
ton, the duty on which was about 81,
whereas, in ls46, when the tariff of that
year was passed, it had been about slS
per ton. Under the circumstances, ap-
plication was made to Congress to fix the
duty at what it had been at the date of
the present revenue system, or at least to
add six or eight dollars to the amount
levied, raising it to thirteen or fourteen
dollars per ton. Congress was then told
$50 long as domestic competition is main"
tanned, we shall be enabled steadily to
improve our machinery, and iron will not
only continue low, but there will be a
steady tendency to fall in price; but if
the English iron masters be permitted to
destroy our competition, the price of iorn
will go up, and the money that should go
into the Treasury will go into their pock-
ets' To all these representations Con-
gress turned deaf ear, and the conse-
quence has been that step by step our /
ron masters have been ruined, and their
works have passed into the hands of the
Sheriff Essex County, but lately the
seat of thriving manufacture, is now al
most entirely silent. Booton has. been
sold for we think one-ffth of its cost, and
this after having distributed three millions
of dollars in wages. Armstrong and Clar-
ion Counties have witnessed the doaOatall
gJorty ont Of toyty-taCO furnaces, twenty
of which will shortly have been sold by
the Sheriff within period of twelve
months. Such has been the case in al
most every portion of the Union. Every
where the men who were engaged in es-
tablishing competition for the supply of
the world with iron have been ruined and
the domestic make of iron has now fallen
from $4,000 to about 450, 900 tons when
it might have risen to a million and half
of tons, and would have done so but for
British free trade
Such vast destruction of property should
have been followed with benefit to some
body, and such has certainly been the case
but to whom! To the people of the u
MON? Certainly not for their production
Of iron is far less now than it was four
years since, although in the interim we
have added four millions to our popula-
ton. To whom then2 To the British
iron makers whose prices have risen pre-
cisely as our furnaces and mills have been
closed and sojso nor put IN their pockets
the w}eo5c S's'7 that acaS, tsrO gears since,
asked to be claimed for the Treasury. Two
years since the price was as we have sta
ted, G4 l5s in Wales. A year since, it
had risen to e5 5s, being an addition of
50 40. Now, it is G6 5s, being a further
addition of S4 80-and thus the foreign
price has risen to the whole extent of the
seven dollars that was then asked to be
added gs zaa ai as
In 1850 the British iron masters paid
the cost Of getting to market, but as com
petition has diminished their prices have
increased, and now it is the consumer who
pays the duty. With another year pri-
ees viii raise again, and it must be regar-
ded as quite extraordinary if we do not
see iron go up to seven or eight pounds,
the foreign producers pocketing the whole
difference between that and the "a l5s, at
which it stood when Congress war urged
to interpose and prevent them from de-
stroying all our own furnaces; forges and
rolling mills. sIsiaa .a1oI s
1 o-.-La gba.--T -----7T --resH sll