New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-10-18

look for an outlet for his products to markets 20
far distant that he can never derive from them the
manure that is yielded by their consumption, and
therefore is it that it is everywhere followed by
exhaustion and depopulatcn.
Until recently the iron trade has shown itself
least able Of all branches OF business to bear the
oppression Of British Free trade, and therefore
PeDnsylyania has suffered heavily, and has been re-
tarded in all her efforts at improvement Iron and
coal, however, require little more than roads, and
these Pennsylyania is at this moment rapidly OBJ
tanning for the great object of all her neighbors-
New-York, New.Jersey and Maryland-now is, as
stated by The North american to make roads TO
and through her territory. With each Of these new
channels there is increased facility for both through
and local trsde, with great advantage to al her
towns and cities, and rapid development of her
mineral wealth. She is, therefore, in great de-
gree, already secured sganst the operation of Brit
ish Free trade and the time cannot now be greatly
distant when she will feel herself altogether invul
nerable
With US the case is different. We have iron ore
in abundance, but in order that it may be devel-
oped roads must be made to it, and these roads
must look for returns entirely to the local trade.
Professor Emmons has recently given it as his
opinion that the whole valley of the Adirondack
river is underlaid by the magnetic oxyd. The bed
of iron ore has been clearly traced for about two
miles ard a half and Prof E. has calculated the
contents of the vein lying within two feet of the
surface at millions tuns, most of which
could be raised without blasting, and would
make at least three millions tuns of iron Of the
very best quality. There is wealth equal to that
of California lying at our DOORS and yet refusing
to avail ourselves of it, we send our wheat and
our corn to England to pay for iron with which to
Law our roads, and to make the engines BY help Of
which the wheat and the corn are carried to
market so distant that all return of the manure is
rendered impossible. The valley of the Adirondack
is capable of making market for all the food
that goes to Europe and of being q source Of
wealth to the State the extent of which can
hardly be estimated. But that it may be so q
few millions must first be spent in making roads
and building furnaces and rolling mills and who
will do these things in face of the fact
that at the very next English monetary crisis
iron may fall so low that their mills and fur
nsces will have to be abandoned, and their roads
will receive no toll The price Of iron in that
country i. constantly fuctuating between Ca 1OI
and f12, and no one can even venture to guess
whether in the year 1857 it will be at the high
est or lowest Of those prices. Enterprises such
as are here needed require steadiness, and it
was with view to that that the iron men soms-
time since proposed to Congress the imposition
of moderate duty upon iron at fe per tuu, to
be augmented as the price abroad should fall,
and decreased as the prise should rise, so that
they might always calculate upon the price with
which they would have to contend. Had this sug-
gestion been adopted, the valley of the Adron-
dack might now be bristliDg with furnaces, and
we might not now have found ourselves called
upon to record 90 large decline in the progress
Of the State.
In proof Of the necessity for such protection
we now give our readers an extract from report
recently made to Parliament in which, as they
viii see, it is shown that these numerous changes
are the result of voluntary action the part of
the iron masters of Englsnd-that they are re-
sorted to as the most essential instruments for
maintaining the manufacturing supremacy of En-
gland-and that the reporter deems it 80 important
that this view of the case should be fully under
stood that he has taken care to put it in italic
letters. The passage is as follows:
81 believe that the laboring classes generally, in
the manufacturing districts of this country and espe
ciay in the iron and coal distr ,ts, very little
aware of the extent to which they are often indebted
for their being employed at all TO the immense Losses
which their employ rs voluntarily incur in bad times
in order TO destroy fore competition and to gain and
keep possession OF foreign markets. Authentic In
stances are well known of employers having in such
times carried their works at loss amounting in the
aggregate to three four hundred thousand pounds
in the course of three or four years If the efforts Of
those who encourage the combinations to restrict the
amount of labor and to produce strikes to be
cessi for any length Of time, the great accumulatiOns
Of capital could longer be made which enable few
Of the most wealthy capitalists to overwhelm all foreign
competition in times of great depression and thus 70
clear the for the nh0e trade to step 10 when prices
revive, and to carry great business before foreign
capital can again accumulate to such an extent to
be able to establish competition in prices with any
chance of success The large capitals of this country
the great instruments of warfare f the expression
may be allowed against the competing capital Of for
egn countries, and the most essential instruments
now remaining by which manufacturing supremacy
can be maintained; the other eements-cheap labor,
abundance of raw materials means of commune ation
and skilled labor-being rapidly in process of being
equalized."
Again, this State is peculiarly fitted for the
textile manufactures, having water power in
greater abundance, probably, than any other terri
tory of similar extent in the world. Niagara alone
would furnish power to manufacture cloth for half
the world; but from Lake Erie to the Hudson,
and in the counties bordering that river, power
h. <ba<, e. hasv ata1.