Brownlow's Knoxville Whig. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1866-1869, 1868-12-23
Rnsiness Men In Council.

The States north of the Potomac and the ONO,
/ and between the Atlantic and the Missouri, swarm
with towns containing population OF zoooo OF
upwards These towns are centres of intense activ-
ity enterprise and industry. They buy the produce
of the surrounding country and supply that coun-
try with goods. They manufacture woolens and
cottons boots and shoes, hats and hosiery, wooden
ware, buckets tubs, barrel-stuf, wagon-stuf, cut
lery and iroDniongery, buttons, needles and pins,
brassware, copperwaTe and tinware. They make
machinery, tools, implements, and engines of all
sorts. They put together all kinds of wheecarriages
from a wheelbarrow to a six-horse coach. They
turn out pumps and fire engines. They put up fur
nture enough TO supply the nation clothing enough
to cover them, carpets and oil cloths enough to
spread over all their floors and paper hangings
enough to adorn their walls. Space fails US TO cata
logue the mere names Of the industries pursued in
these local centres of manufacture and commerce.
In nearly every one of these countless towns you
find board of trade-a corporate body whose OBJ
ec ia to look after the business interests of the
place, and to bring into action the combined and
concentrated energy knowledge and skill of its bus
mess men. OF course these boards of trade are q
power in the land, and knowing themselves to be
SO, they naturally have determined to make their
power felt in regulating the general Of legs
laton affecting the business of the nation. So,
about half year ago, Congress was held in Phil
sdelpha, composed of delegates from such Of these
boards of trade as wished to send them. AT this
Congress they organized permanent body, which
they call the National Board of Trade to serve as
the grand council of the business of the United
States. Besides organizing and fixing upon gen
eral plan of action they decided that several things
were of immediate and urgent Importance, viz;
J. The reduction of the tax upon whisky to 80
cents on the gallon.
2. That the Mississippi River ought to be at once
made navigable for large steamers from the Falls
Of st. Anthony to the Balize by removing all OBJ
stractions by bars, reefs and rapids.
| g. That everything should be done to make it
possible to import from foreign countries directly to
such inland towns as 0swego, Buffalo, Chicago st.
Louis, Memphis and Cincinnati.
| A. That all articles of produce, as grain should
be bought and sold by the hundreds pounds as is
now done in California and in France.
| They sent memorials to Congress urging its i'm
mediate action upon all these points, but there has
been no legislation thereon except to reduce the
whisky tax to the mark named, and to make some
appropriations for improving the navigation of the
Mississippi above the mouth of the Ohio.
| The third meeting of this National Board of
Trade has Just been held at Cincinnati, and from
the very meagre reports of its proceedings that have
come to US it can be seen that the Board has bent
its attention to several objects of very great ippor
lance. Among them we note the proposal that the
general government shall tske upon itself the own
ershp and management of all the lines of telegraph
in the country and reduce the charges low that it
will be as cheap to send message by wire as by
mail. Another thing was to urge Congress to pass
the bill introduced at the last session by Mr. Jencks
called the Civil Service Bill, which, if it shall be-
come law, viii subject every candidate for Of
fee under the general government to such an ex-
animation as will test his fitness for the place he
wants, and win reject him if found unfit. -
This short enumeration will give our readers some
notion of the kind of matters that this great
Gil Of American business men consider worthy of
their attention as having national reach and i'm
portance. We hope to receive fuller reports of their
proceedings, which will enable US to lay more of
this subject before our friends here in East Tennes-
see. rtb
There is one great project which we sincerely
hope was not neglected at this Cincinnati meeting.
We mean the project Of national lines of trunk rail-
ways chiefly freight roads, from the seaboard the
interior This is too large subject to do more than
allude to here but it is of the utmost urgency,
and one which tells upon the price of every bushel
of wheat or corn taken to market by every farmer
west of the Allegany Mountains. Give us these
national freight railways, and at least dime a
bushe will at be added to the selling value of
grain grown in Tennessee.