The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-09

made TO 60ner. we propose TO snow tnem.
Prior to the tariff of 1861 and it's success
ors millions of acres of frst-rate iron and
coal lands could be bought in Pennsylvania
and elsewhere for $10O an acre. When Con-
gress decreed that the whole community
should be compelled to present the iron
manufacturers with nine dollars for each ton
of iron that they manufactured, the business
of manufacturing iron became very profit
able. Where $1,000 600 invested in q thou
sand acres Of iron lands netted its owner
formerly per cent, it now netted him 40.
In other words, his thousand acres of iron
lands from 800 an acre soon became
worth $1,000 an acre, which is Just
about the proportion in which iron
and coal lands have advanced in value
since 1860. The census of 1850 gives the
capital employed in the manufacture of pig
iron as $17, $50, 600, but does not state what
proportion of this capital represented the
value of the iron lands. Taking it at a low
estimate, we will say it was $1,000, 900. In
1850, 100000 tons of pig-iron were produced
in 1869, 100000 tons, or three and half
times as many. Supposing that the number
of acres of iron lands employed we're in
creased in the same proportion, they would
at the valuation of 1850, which had not ma
terially changed by 1860, have been worth
Just about twenty-five millions of dollars.
The SO gold, ton, presented to the manufac-
turers by Congress out of the pockets of the
people, advanced the market value of these
lands tenfold from 25 to $50 millions of dol
lars, and presented the Pennsylvania iron
landowners with the trihing sum of 225 mil
lions of dollars, an capital, in addition to the
Is millions gold of annual income. Let no
one say the lands are worth more because
they produce more We know what they
produce. In 1860, % millions of capital in
vested in iron lands produced 100000 tons of
pig-iron. In 1869, 250 millions of capital
invested in iron lands produced 300, 900
tons of pig-iron. Nationally, the value of
the lands might have increased two or three
fold. But by Congressional legislation they
have increased fold, so that at least seven
tentbs of the increased value is an absolutely
noninal value, creation of Congress, de-
lusion, a fraud upon the people, But while
this infamous tariff lasts, these 200 mil
lions of capital are a reality. They have
to earn interest. They do not add one dollar
to the total annual product of the country, to
be rightfully divided between capital add
labor in interest and wares, but they demand
and receive their share Of the interest never
theless. The total amount to be divided as
interest remains the same. But this nomi-
nal, Congress created capital steps in and
demands its share. Does real capital uu-
derstand now why it earns SO little interest
The figures given may not be correct. We
| think them very much underestimated. But
| the actual advance in value is approxima-
| lively correct, and shows what fearful rob-
| berry is perpetrated upon labor and capital
| alike, on pretense of protecting domestic in
| dustry. We have given an imperfect estimate
| of the single item of pig-iron. Add to that
| the fictitious capital value g given to similar
| amounts of coal lands, to existing iron fur
naces and rolling mills, to railroads running
between the two, to Bessemer patents and
! other schemes, and no arithmetician is
needed to show that the amounts thus given
away by Congress to the iron ring alone, and
on which the entire people are compelled to
| pay interest, feots up thousands of millions
of dollars without adding one single dollar
to the value of the product of the country
| On the single item of iron and coal alone
| Congress takes out of the pockets of the
people OF least fifty millions of dol
lars annually to give to the iror
and coal masters, and adds thousand mil
lions of dollars to their fictitious capital
which takes away from real capital q cores
ponding amount of the interest to which the
latter alone is rightfully entitled. 1t is only
by putting these facts into figures that they
can be rightly appreciated it is only by see
ing the figures that we can begin to under
stand the frightful enormity of the fraut
which a radical Congress seeks to perpetuate
By the light of these figures we need no longe
wonder at the plethora of Republican treasu
ries, at the power which, in spite of popala
indignation, can still send the crew o.
Schencks and Morrills and Kelleys and Amese
to misrepresent the country in Congress-; n
longer wonder at the seeming blindness will
which Republican leaders so pertinaciousl
cling to the exploded doctrine of protection
Now, let there be truce to the pretende
hostility between capital and labor. Rattle
let them unite against their joint enemy
for it will need their united efforts to defea
him.
Irra A ~,