Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1873-03-28

ton are raised to the highest point that will
allow of the bare existence of industry. -
If those who were directly interested In
tho industry of the country had built our
railroads, the carrying interest would have
been subservient and secondary, as 1t
should be. We should have now more as
we'll as cheaper facilities of transportation,
and the wealth which is now drained from
industry, and which drifts into speculative
channels, would return into the legitimate
channels of industry. Labor, both agri-
cultural and mechanical, would have been
emanclpated from serfdom, and the dgni-
ty labor would have led to a universal
system of industrial education. The ex-
orbitant cost of transportation has more
than any thing else enhanced the Difficult
ties of the labor problem. 1t Is because a
species of capital, elevated into and main
tanned as a monopoly by our legislators,
can make wheat which within one hun
bred miles of the Mississippi is worth only
forty cents worth S1.37 in New York, that
the cost of labor is so great, and, great as Is,
unsatisfactory it is this which arrays la
Dor against every species of capital. In
dustry which engages labor suffers almost
equally with the latter. England, owingto
her small area, does not suffer from high
transportation as this country must. And
she completes with us successfully through
the choapness of labor, becoming the work.
shop Of the world, distributing not only
her own immense wealth in her own steam
ers, but also carrying the mails and hand
ling the exchange of Europe, Asia, Africa,
and America. Labor is oppressed in Eng
land by a land-holdng aristocracy. But
the oppression of labor in this country is
equally severe through the despotism of
monopolists-so severe that Consul Archi-
bald. in his report on the condition of la
Dor in this country as compared with that
of English labor, estimated that the higher
rate of wages was compensated for by the
higher cost of the necessaries of life.
The exhorbitant cost of transportation
diminishes our exports. The total ex-
port of cereals from Russia amounted in
1870 10 1872, 917, 900 bushels, ours to only 40
100000 bushels. This is because Russia is
active in projecting works of internal i'm
provement, for the purpose Of cheapening
the transportation of its cereals to the sea-
board, and is determined to hold her agri-
cultural supremacy in the markets of tho
world. or the 150,000,000 bushels of cereals
imported by Great Britain in 1871 she re-
ceved from this country only 47,1s5,Ss6
bushels. Our exports of coin equal those
| ofbreadstuffs.
An important political effect of high
transportation is its tendency to diminish
| the mutual interdependence of the various
| sections of the country-to isolate these
sections. The West and the South are be-
ginning to feel that they have long enough
paid tribute to Eastern monopolists, and
| that they must suffice for themselves
Missouri has inexhaustible resources oil
the best-known iron ore for the produc'
| ton of Bessemer steel. The leading men
in that State are beginning to consider the
| expediency of reducing this ore within the
| limits of the State. In that case, as the
Hon. II. T. Blow recently stated in his adj
dress before the Rolla School of Mines
shipments of the ore eastward would cease
and the added wealth 10 Missouri for each
year would amount TO twenty dollars or
every toni. c., S. per ton freight to Pitts
burg, S. per ton back, and $40 per ton prof
il in the works. The South, too, will, un
der its improved system of free labor, man
ufacture its own cotton. The South nov
exports cotton TO the extent Of Sl75,0O0,00O
and the value of every pound would be in
creased flvefold if exported already manu-
featured The establishment of an exten
sive manufacturing interest in the Yves
| would furnish a new market for the pro
ducts of Western agriculture, and WI
should no longer hear of corn being uset
for fuel because it could not pay for it
transportation to market. The products o
this new industry would-if the cost
transportation by the present channels
not largely reduced-be diverted to othe
channels; the Welland and st. Lawrenc
canals would be enlarged so as TO pass yes
sells of 1000 tons burden, in which case
bushel of corn could be transported iron
Chicago TO Montreal for fourteen cents
New York would suffer by this diversion
-Harper'S Magazine for april.
|