Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-03-22
ENGLAND's INDUSTRIAL sUrRE.
MACY
From The New Yark WoTI1l


she could not retain this supremacy a day.
The cotton which feeds her mills arrives
from the. four quarters of the world the
silk she spins, most Of her fax, and much
of her wool, are brought also from afar !;
yet despite these expenses Of transportation,
by her superiority ia the means of transport
tatiOn---in her railroads and steamboats,,
which are made of iron and worked by coal,
and by her machinery, which is made of
iron by the help of coal-she has overcome
these natural disabilities, and touched the
summit of industrial greatness.
England can retain this supremacy only
by an inexhaustible supply of coal But
her supply of coal is actually in process of
rapid exhaustion; and recent writings of
her publicists avow the fact, and foresee that
the scepter must ere long depart from her
hands. II can be held nowhere else than
here.
The geologists of England have explored
her underground world almost as thoroughly
| as her surveyors have measured her hills
and valleys. Their science has measured the
length, breadth, and thickness of her coal
fields, weighed what has been taken, and
computed what remains. Down as deep as
| 1000 feet below the surface Of the earth,
only $4,000 millions Of tons remain. In 1860
so millions of tons were consumed. Then
will her coal last for thousand years No.
For her consumption increases at the rate of
81 per cent. per annum, and the permanence
| Of that rate would exhaust her $4,000 mil
| lions before the year 1860. And, moreover,
no collier has ever pushed his shafts below
| $500 feet from the surface, and there is no
| evidence to show that deeper depth could
be worked at all. Granting that this 81 per
cent. rate of increased consumption will not
be maintained; granting that below $500
there is still a margin able to be worked,
nevertheless, England will have exhausted
her peculiar advantage over the other ma
| tlons of the world-over the United States
| particularly-long before the year 1860.
The deeper her shafts are sunk, the longer
| the lift of her coal, the greater its cost; and
! it is this approaching enhancement of cost,
which is another form of the exhaustibility
Of her coal-fields, that soonest will imperil
her manufacturing and commercial supre-
macy. 1t cannot possibly be century, with
the increasing demands of the world for
coal, ere it will be cheaper TO mine the shall
| lower coal-felds of Pennsylvania and trans
| port it across the ocean than to dig English
| coal and lift it from the enormous depths
which will then have been reached. Our
coal-helds are 1900 square miles in extent;
| Englands are but 5, 400. Our coal is better
| in quality than hers, and incomparably more
accessible. To-day, of the 1876 millions of
| tons annually used throughout the world,
| England supplies so millions and the United
States 20 millions. The increased price of
| English coal, which is inevitable, must ere
many years reverse this ratio to say naught
of the increasing density of our population,
which of itself would in a few decades effect
the same result. The increased price of coal
means an increased cost of extracting, smelt
ing, casting, and hammering iron; an in
creased cost of all her machinery for the
manufacture of textile fabrics, fashioned al
most exclusively of iron; an increased cost
of the steamboats, and railroads which fetch
the raw material and carry away the manu-
features of her looms and furnaces and mills
an increase in the running expenses of
these, and higher price for all other
products.
Thebulk Of coal is so great in proportion to
its value, that, long ere it will be cheaper for
England to import her coal than to dig it,
will be cheaper for her to come to the then
crowded and populous United States for the
compacter and lighter fabrics into whose
cost coal enters so largely, and which we
shall then have learned to make more
cheaply.
In fact, in the United States the inverse
process is rapidly taking place New coal
fields are yearly opening up, new iron mines
are constantly revealing themselves, and
their supply is inexhaustible. Our natural
advantages are incomparably greater than
England's. She has had the start of u.s. but
she has run her race. And nothing but the
curse Of protection can long hinder us from
Ill
sailing our steamships, making our machin-
cry, spinning our yarn, and weaving our
cloths, cheaper than she can, and undersel-
ling her in the markets of the world.
The day of England's supremacy is past
forever. Doubtless, for many years to come,
the figures upon her national balance-sheet
will increases but not in the proportion that
ours will. She will recede from her relative
position; the United States will take her
place Of supremacy; and neither geology
nor arithmetic can forecast the term of her
splendid career.
These predictions are not the fancy of
blatant patriotism. They are the conclu-
sions admitted in plain terms by journal
so able and enlightened as the London
Economist, and the concluding paragraph of
its recent papers upon w. Stanley Jevons'
"The Coal Question" to which we are in
debted for most of our statistics, while it
confirms the conclusions above expressed,
shows, too, however little the United States
have TO fear from foreign supply, were the
folly of the protectionists, in excluding us
from cheaper article, perfect wisdom. 1t
demonstrates that the GOLFERS Of the United
State are so far from needing protection"
in a market glutted with foreign coal, that
the supply has actually failed TO keep pace
with the home demand whence the Econ0-
mist draws the conclusion that il will be long
ere England can have recourse to America:
at is needless, however to remark that
the coal-felds to which we have referred !
are as nothing compared with those of !
North America. In Pennsylvania the |
largest producer both of anthracite and btu |
minous coal-the coal mined has increased |
in ten years at the rate of 179 per cent, |
whilst the corresponding increase in all the |
States is estimated at 1S6 per cent.
The total produce Of the United States |
was, in 1860, II, 333, 922 tons; in 1854, &c. |
472, 4l0 tons. But prices are now unprece-
dentedly high; in 1S60-61, the ton of coal
was sold at Philadelphia at "a; the present
price is now between 81 and SD. Coal at
Boston sells at Sl7 (e3 9s. Cd ton and |
at Chicago, as high as SD "a los Adj |
-hfAhAhS biAONdhNC iOi thO lSSulls VI
the war and the deprecated currency, 1t is
evident that The increase IN production kIs not
kept pace Nth the great increase IN demand, and
the time must be very remote when Amer
lea can prove the resource to England, as
regards coal supply, which has been conf
IDENTIFY anticipated by some writers.
1--WE will only add, in conclusion, that
late report from New Granada reports the
discovery, in the province of Rio Hacha, of
a field Of the valuable Camel coal. If this
source of supply can be made available, il
will be of great Importance, both from It's
situation and with reference to the high
rate Of price for coal which rules in South
America"
TRIBUTE TO THE CALAMITY OF CoNFED-
ERATEs.-Gen. Hooker, in his testimony be-
fore the Committee of Congress, on the con-
duct of the war, pays the following tribute
to the Confederate troops: "Our artillery
had always been superior to that Of the Con-
federates, as was also our infantry, except
in discipline, and that, for reasons not neces-
sary to mention, never did equal Lees army. !
With a rank and file vastly inferior to our
own, intellectually and physically, General
Lees army has, by discipline alone, acquired |
a character for steadiness and efficiency, I'M
surpassed, in my Judgment in ancient or |
modern times We have never been able to
rival it" Gen. Meade speaks Of the "brave
and gallant advanced of the ConfadarataS nj |