Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-10-24
The Tariff ON Conl.

Our neighbor, the .Egis, takes exceptions
to Col. Dewitt, as representative to Congress,
because, among other things, he is favorable
to the theory of free trade. We trust the
Colonel will give the .Egis more cause to find
fault with him, after the next meeting of Con-
gress, by doing what he can to make us ap-
proximate, more than we do now, to the prac-
tice of free trade. We almost believe, that it
would be better for the country, if those foul
nests of political corruption, the Custom Hous-
es, were leyelled with the ground-if the ex-
penses Of the country were paid by direct tax
ation-and if our trade was left to its own le-
gitimate operations. The tariff, which, at
FIRST may seem expedient to encourage GER
tain branches of business, soon becomes an
impost for the special ACKNOWLEDGMENT of GER
tain monopolists, who, becoming rich and
powerful from public taxation, become inso-
lent and dictatorial when they feel their wealth
and power, and arbitrarily control the COM
forts and necessaries of common life. This
fact is, at present, strikingly illustrated by the
course pursued by the coal operators of Penn
sylvania. Those gentlemen, grown plethoric
with wealth, and hardened in ingratitude,
have determined to suspend the shipments of
coal, so that the price of the article may be
maintained at its present exorbitant rate, and
the comforts of the people be made subservi-
ent to their plans for self ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.
The coal business has grown up within
faxv wars 70 he ona IF fha oroof oil of
our home trade. 1t has been nursed by the
government, at the expense of twenty per
cent. on the net value of its produce, until
coal has become almost the chief article Of flu
ell in our eastern, seaboard cities; and until
the owners of coal mines have become mag
nifcent millionaires. Those coal kings, in
stead of acknowledging the debt of graft
tude they owe to the community for hitherto
submitting to tariff equal to fifth of the
value of all the coal they have purchased and
instead of recognizing the duty imposed upon
them as the medium through which the peo-
pie must obtain one of the staples of life, see
only, in the coal trade, the means of building
up their own selfish interests, and absolutely
IcAuSC W dAiON Sodl W VIC cOAuJ ohAOSS az q AoS-
titious price, and at an enormous profit.
Now, whatever men may think upon the
general question of tariffs, we believe that, in
this instance the whole community will i'm
peratively demand free trade. If the Schuyl-
xii operators in coal will lock up their mines
andi in this way attempt to infict the pinch
ing horrors of a cherries winter on the poor,
merely for the sake of adding to their own
luxurious means of living, then it is time for
the people to demand that all other practical
bic avenues to cheap fuel shall at once be
opened. Let the people prepare petitions
and present them to Congress, Immediately
upon the assembling of their representatives
and let those petitions demand that every OPP
portunity be offered to the coal dealers of
Nova Scotia and elsewhere to supply us with
the means of warming our homes
A tariff may sometimes be imposed without
great sacrifice to a community and with ad-
vantage to enterprising manufacturers and
traders but when it becomes, as in the pres
ent case of the coal operators, a premium to
selfish monopolists to Cypress and torment the
poor, it is time that it was abolished. We
hope Col. De Witt, viii use his utmost efforts
to make the coal trade, at least, free.