New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-01-17
icon.

and irrational to grumble that they do not.
To us, the fact that this country produced in
1869 more than Nineteen Hundred thousand
TINS of Pig IrOn-exceeding by more than
One Thousand Million TINS her total product
of that article in any year prior to the revival
of Protection in 1S61-is most significant ana
gratifying. Ours are an age and country where
in almost every clever person, with many OF
the shallow and stupid, aims to live and thrive
by some form of traffic or agency-sOme-
thing that is not Productive LabOr-SOmetblng
that adds naught to the aggregate wealth
of mankind; and the fact that we have more
than doubled our aggregate product OF Pig
Iron since even so late as 1865, seems to US aust
theme of patriotic exultatiOn. No other eOun-
try on earth has shown a corresponding pro-
gress; in fact, most countries have made no
progress at all in Iron-making since 1865:
Great Britain, Belgium, and perhaps Russia,
constituting the exceptions. In view of the
wholesale assertions of the Free-Traders that
Protection does not tend to improve processes
and increase production, but only to enable
producers to exact eXOrbitant prices for in
feror products assertions which Commissioner
Wells distinctly cOuntenanced in his last years
RepOrt-we present this additional Thousand
Million Tons of Pig Iron smelted by our cOun-
trymen in 1869 as a solid and weighty illustra-
ton of true Political Economy. Considering that
the average quality of our Pig Iron is confess
edly better than that of Great Britain, and that
we produce it mainly in the interior-at Pitts
burgh Detroit, Chicago. Milwaukee, St. Louis,
and at other points on our Western waters, where
it is worth far more to the mass of our consumers
Intttii
that its value cannot be fairly estimated at less
than Thirty Millions of Dollars in com; while
the new furnaces in which it is largely produced,
the mines opened, railways built &C., &c, to
facilitate this production, must have added at
least an equal sum to our enduring National
wealth. This Iron is not consumed nor spent;
it mainly exists in the form of rails, chairs,
boilers, engines, &c, to insure the production of
more wealth in 1870 and in future years. More
over if the Tariff be well let alone, we shall pro-
duce still more Iron, ard cheaper Iron, in this
and the following years. And what we are doing
in Iron is but sample of what we are doing
in WoOens, in Silks, and almost every species
of Textile Fabrics, and in the great majority
of what are known as Manufactures. In our
Judgment, we produced of these in 1869 at least
Three Hundred Millions worth more than we
had ever done prior to 1861, estimating the
average prices of the various products just equal
to what they were ten years before.
The Euening Post Of course, has another view
! of the matter Taking as a text the statement
of the Iron men of the Mahoning Valley, Ohio,
| that trcosts them an average of $30t to pro-
duce tun of Pig Iron, 81 more to freight it
| to Pittsburgh, and $2i moro to sell it there,
including taxes and four months interest dis
counted from the price, which price averages
| 1854, they find that their net profit on the
Iron is 81 per tuD, which includes interest on
capital, risk, and contingencies. And they
reasonably submit that this is not exOrbitant
Tile Post insists that this proves:
al That it waste to make iron in the Mahoning
Valley The cost of making it elsewhere, in the
thracte regions of Pennsylvania, has been shown by Mr.
Abram g. Hewitt Mr.. d. A. Wells andloher high author
es to exceed S24 or at most sc. tun II can be
imported from other countries, apart from duties, for
about SIS tun. This then, represents the amount OF
capital and labor which this nation ought TO invest
each tun Of the principal material ts industries require
All beyond this sheer waste; theesult Of monopoly
tariff"
Comments by The Tribune.
A memorial just submitted to Congress by
| the managers Of the thirty seven furnaces To-
|
hanna regions of Pennsylvania-that is, the
| Anthracite regon-states the average cost Of
making Pig Iron in that busy region at
| 500 16-100 in the year 1868, and 500 63-1OO in
the first six months of 1869. Their books are
not yet balanced for the last six months; but
| they are confident that it cannot vary essen
TALLY from that of the former. The men who
mite in this statement make 10000 tuns Of
| Pig Iron per annum, and some of them are
| personally known to US as of unimpeaclablo
| character. Most of their furnaces are large and
of the most improved construction Ore and Coal
are abundant in their neighborhood; and they
have created the means of bringing them cheaply
together by means of railroads, tramways, iron
| bridges across deep, wide valleys, &c, sc. If
Anthracite Iron is or can be made cheap in
this country, they can and do so make it. Yet
they testify that it costs them 500 6S-1O0, which
is barely IS cents per tun less than the $50 53i00
which the Mahoning Valley Iron men certify
to be the cost of their Pig Iron made with
Bituminous Coal. 1t is not true, then, that
anything would be gained by stopping the
production of Pig Iron with Bituminous Coal
in the West and relying exclusively on its
manufacture in. the East with Anthracite Coal
on the contrary, the West must pay more for
Iron made in the Anthracite region than it
now pays for that il makes at home.
Equally mistaken would be the policy Of
breaking down the production in this country
altogether, and relying on importations from
Europe Unless all experience be delusiVe an
extra call upon Europe Tor tue 2,2QQ0QQ tuns