The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-08
BLUNDERLNG ESTIMATES OF THE
COMMISSIONER or REVENUE.


A MEMORIAL to Congress issued by the lead
ing iron companies of this State emphatically
contradicts the estimate of the cost of pig
iron which was made in the report of MIR.
Wells, Special Commissioner of the Reve-
nue.. He asserts that the cost, including a
liberal interest on the capital invested, is not
more than from $24 to S26 per ton, while
they allege that the average cost, during the
last two years, exclusive of interest son capi-
tai and charges for transportation from the
furnaces, has exceeded $29 per ton. They
also invite and challenge searching investi-
cation, ''that the truth may be made public,
and error, however strongly endorsed, be
effectually confuted" The decision Of the
question of fact thus boldly put in issue
may have an important bearing upon the in
dustrial interests of tho country, inasmuch
as Mr.. Wells bases recommendation for the
reduction of the duties on iron on the esti-
mates which are pronounced to be erroneous;
and if he is convicted of a blunder on such
an essential point, Congress will have but
little disposition to make the tariff CORE
spond to his false calculations.
The progress made during the last ten years
in increasing the ratio between the product
and consumption of iron hasbeen of immense
service in increasing national wealth, in de-
veloping latent resources, and in furnishing
remunerative employment to tens of thou
sands of industrious citizens. Every year the
necessity of dependence upon Great Britain
for any form of the most useful of metals
diminishes, and under the present system
the period is rapidly approaching when i'm
portations will cease. Our natural resources
are 80 illimitable, our stock of ores so varied
and inexhaustible, and cur facilities for en-
larging the existing furnaces or building new
ones are so great, that it would be no difficult
task to make in this country, after q few
years notice, as much iron as the whole
world consumes. The comparatively high
cost here of labor and capital constitutes the
only difficulty in the way of as complete a
supremacy in this product as America has
already obtained in sewing machines; but if
the protective barriers which defend our iron
companies from ruinous competition are de-
stroyed, our ores will again lie neglected in
their native mines until wiser generation
shall arise, thousands of workmen will be
thrown out of employment, whole towns will
be abandoned, and large districts of Penn
sylvania and other commonwealths which now
teem with busy population will relapse into
their native wildness, while the aggregate
product of American industry will be mate
rally diminished, foreign indebtedness will
increase, and in grasping at the worthless
shadow of poor, cheap British iron, the invalu-
able substance of an abundant and service
able American product will be lost. Mr..
Wells invokes Congress, at q time when far
too much money is spent abroad, and when
the development of every native source of
wealth should be an object of national soli-
oitude, to favor this disastrous policy. Even
if his oonjectures in regard to the cost of q
product which is formed so exclusively of
home labor and home materials were correct,
the representatives of the people should not
adopt his Recommendations; bat if they
prove to be, as those who are most familiar
with the subject allege, grossly erroneous,
his free trade propositions should be spurned
with contempt.