The Evansville daily journal., 1856-11-15
Real Estate and Labor.

Real Estate and Labor.
Some persons have attempted to create an
impression, that the Journal is not true to the
has intimated that the interests of its Real
Estate was not paramount to all her other in
terests. We mean to devote ourselves to the
promotion of all interest, and shall endeavor
to discuss and speak of them according to their
relative Importance and value. 1t has been
too much the practice to consider the value of
Real Estate as the criterion Of the prosperity
of place. 1t has assumed to itself the place
of first importance-as the great interest to be
first protected and guarded-the first to be
considered and consulted in discussing the
welfare Of the community It has always
claimed for itself peculiar rights and privi-
leges, which we think its relative Importance
does not justify. The comparative interests
of labor seem everywhere to be overlooked.
Labor is difident and timid. 1t mas always
had guide, and looks everywhere for pro-
tector, and is unconscious of its own impor-
tance and value, and has permitted itself to be
imposed upon.
In our city, including the corporation Of La
masco, the whole taxable value Of Real Estate
is about 100000. 1t would not be an ex-
aggerated estimate to say we have, in the two
corporations, 1900 men who are engaged daily
IN active industry, who, upon an average, with
the machinery and capital they employ in
their various pursuits, earn at moderate cal
culation, So 33 each per day. This includes
traders, merchants, mechanics, laborers and
professional men, and the estimate is intended
to embrace all that is gained by personal at
tention and labor, and the capital which such
labor uses, independent of the value of the
Real Estate it occupies. This estimate, which
is certainly very low one, makes the daily
earnings of the labor of the city, $4,000 per
day; and in the 800 working days of the year,
the aggregate produce of labor in each year
is $3,000,00o.
Now it will appear that labor produces as
much, or more, every year than the whole val.
ue of the real estate which we possess, taking
it at the exaggerated value which we attach
to our houses and lots; W hich value is in 9
great degree prospective, and is itself depen-
dent on the prosperity of labor. Real estate
don't multiply nor increase itself; it does not
renew ITSELF The only increased value it OBJ
tains is given to it by labor. But labor is al
ways renewing its earnings, yearly creating
the same sum; while real estate remains fixed
or if you count its rents which is paid to it by
labor, it will return beside the cost of guard
ing it and keeping it up, not more than s1
per cent or $180,O00, not one sixteenth of the
earnings Of labor How trivial then is the
domineeering, pretending interests of Rea
Estate, compared with the vast and important
interests of labor to community. Depricate
the value of Real Estate in five years 25 pei
cent, the loss is but $75oooo.
BY erroneous, short-sghted policy deprive
labor of its earnings 25 or so per cent-and
slight mis-step may have such an effect
and what does the community lose in five
years by such an error So far as the city OF
State is concerned, better would it be to sink
the whole price of its realty. We state these
principles as an explanation of our course
We shall ever be found the Champions anC
defenders of labor and all the ramiication
of its interests We look to the laboring maj
as the most important member of society-a
the creator of all values. For this reason w
shall advocate all Improvements, at wnateve
sacrifice to fixed capital, that shall tend t.
give employment and enhance the earnings o
labor. Labor, too, has not only its materia
interests, but it has important moral interest
dependent upon its development, transcendin
in value all temporal concerns. Farms, house
and lots have neither souls nor minds to be al
fected by their condition.
But in truth there is no antagonism be
tween fixed capital and labor. Promote labor
and Real Estate shares fully in its benefits
its wisest policy is to aid labor and if it make
temporary sacrifice to labor, it gets an ampl
return for all it yields. 1t is the narrow poll
CIV that induces it to refuse present loss 70
great future gains, that destroys both labc
and itself 1t is this folly we contend agains
and of which we see examples every day i
the administration of affairs.
or The papers are amusing their reader
with the story of negro who was sent int
the hold of a steamer to see what damage
snag which she had struck, had caused
her plank and timbers- On going under dec
he discovered a volume of water rushing
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