The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1869-04-16
TIL Il PHO T.
III AN T o w OC:
Friday, April 16, 1869.
Internal improvements.

/ There seems to be a general waking up
/ to the fact that rates of freight from the
| interior to the seabOard are entirely too
high, and that something more is necessa>
ry for the prosperity OF the country thar
high protective duties. A conmittee
from New York have lately visited several
western cities to see what could be done in
| the way Of chcapening grain freights from
the west to that city, not that thay cared
how high the freight tariff, but that the
building of grain elevators at st. Louis aud
New Orleans threaten to make the latter
city The great mart for shipping grain to
Europe and receiving imports. The com
mittee proved concIusively that grain could
be set down in New York from the west at
one half the present rates, as matters stand
now, and cheaper than that by the en-
largement Of the Erie canal
If congress would devise some system
whereby the natural water courses of the
whole country could be improved both for
navigation and manufacturing purposes,
such plan would be far more effective
for the good of the people than the present
one of robbing Peter 10 pay Paul" AS
an instance Of this. we may cite the recent
high tate of duty levied on copper from
abroad: the additional rates were put OH
to enable the Lake Superior copper mines
to compete with CHILEAN copper-congress
having but one idea, how to make the Ee-
gro equal to the white man-never stopped
to enquire what was the cause that this
home product of copper could not compete
with the foreign product, but took it for
granted that her duty on the foreign
article was curc>all, and acted accorlng-
ly, and that, too, when it is apparent to
every man of understanding that the diff
Guilty of the home manufacturer was, and
is, in the fact that he has to pay double
and treble price for the provisions used at
rates If freightage to get the product
OF the mines to central mal ket,
and while untold millions of dollars are De
ing collected from the people in the way Of
inn or;s, it would not be asking too much
if TIE people were to urge congress to
I adopt some system in conjunction with the
various states, whereby rivers M ght be ul>
proved and the rates of frci2 1t reduced fly
! per cont. throughout the entire land. 4
few thousands here and there hardly helps
the matter along; what is an'ed is q
~ h,t 1n
carried o. ito the end and result IN gener-
al system of internal navigation from ocean
to ocean. The people nigh as we'll have
: some of the millions that are now squan
dercd on the army and navy as to have i,
spent on such useless appendages of the
government, and they have to fight the bat
ties OF the country at last.
If few grain elevators on the tanks of
the Mississippi can wake up the New York
people to sense of their shortcomings,
what might we not expect if all tie
water routes from ocean to ocean we're i'm,
proved, and composition, instead Of mo
nopoly, built up. By all means, let US
have internal Improvements, and plenty
of them, and since the y. S. Congress in
sists upon the prohibition of foreign COM
merce and thus making the people pay two
prices for what they buy, and as the farm
ers have to pay an Unnecessary ten cents, or
moe, per bu ,hel to get their grain to
an eastern market, let Congress render
unto Cesar the things which are Caesars
and what it takes from foreign commerce
| give back to internal commerce.