The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-06-05


Orissa were swept off by famine; for we
are assured by unquestioned authority that
there are often 100000 quarters of fine
wheat rotting in the Punjaub alone for the
want of market. Had the engineer and
metallurgist been permitted to diversity
the productions and cmployments of the
people of British India, the miners, smell
tiers, manufacturers, and transporters of
Orissa could have paid the farmers of the
Punjaub for their wheat, and saved Chris
tan England from the double disgrace in
yolved in this story. But national crimes
like this do not escape. Nemesis and
when, in 1870, Professor Kirk, of Edin-
burgh, wrote his admirable essays on the
Social Politics of Great Britain aud Ire
land, he showed how terribly the woes Of
Ireland were being avenged. Said he
"The small farmer gives way to the mere
ploughman /; and capitalists, few in num-
Der, command the soil. The Irish farmers,
with their families, are driven off from
their farms, and come over to Scotland in
shoals to press their labor on our capitalist
farmers. They are fast taking the place of
a Scotch peasantry, while these are driven
into the towns or altogether off the coun-
try. Again. Scotchmen are crowding in
upon English labor and competing with
that, both in the country and in the towns.
The I,ish are cheaper than the Scotch, and
the Scotch are cheaper than the English !;
and, without knowing why, the working
masses are being showed off in thousands
to save them from death.o
In view of facts like these, may | not,
while waving the question of its duty to
the people of Ireland, who III 1910 num-
bered over eight millions and now but
little over five millions, assert that the
British government, had it allowed engi-
neers and metallurgists to create in Ire
land, as they could have done and will
do some day, remunerative employment
for the Irish people, would have MAIN
tanned its own waning power by protect
ing the laborers of Scotland and England
against the competition which is robbing
| life of all its joys, and many oil them of
life itself? Thus by its dereliction has
that government fostered anarchy, and the
end is not yet. The millions Of sturdy
men represented by Bradlaugh, Odger,
Joseph Arch, and the travelled and hui
name patrician, Sir Charles Dixie, know
that the world owes every man living,
and that if the engineer and metallurgist
were permitted to apply natures forces
and cunning arts to the native re-
sources of the British islands they would
provide homes, food, raiment and culture
for every man and woman who may be
born on those islands for centuries to
come.
Subtle dispositions in support of the
theory that the Almighty failed tod AUST
the productive powers OF nature to the
law limiting the increase of population,
and that it is therefore the duty of gov.
eminent to perfect His work by provi-
ding by penal statue preventive
check upon the increase of popu-
lation among the laboring classes. though
sustained by Nautilus, Ricardo, McCul-
Tough, and Mill, will not satisfy the home.
less people of England who are now mum
bered by the million or the rate-payers
whose substance they are consuming. MOI
will their study champions accept this
other dogma, no less impious, of the blint
guides of the nation, that the Almighty, or
discovering that lie had not made provision
for the sustenance of all His children, be
nignantly provided war, pestilence, anc
famine as the gentle angels by whom His
oversight should be corrected. Having
faith in His competence and loving power
they contemn such blasphemy; and know
ing that the world owes every man a living
will not, as Kirk has broadly intimated
forever consent to see their children die o
want in order that game may be lawfully
preserved, and deer may live to produc,
antlers with which to grace baronlal halls
But yours is the American Institute O
Mining Engineers, and it is to be the devel
opment of the resources of our broad anC
wonderfully endowed country that you are
devoting yourselves. The field is bound
less as it is inviting. But, gentlemen, just
here find myself at fault. am not able
to speak to you on this point as you car
to each other. Among professors of the
exact sciences ! am but. a mute layman
without command, even, of the terminolo'
gy with which to express the knowledge
gathered while engaged in other fields o.
labor. You will, however, permit me tc
refer in plain ploughman's phraseology te
a few prophecies of the great results yor
are to achieve. They are sufficient tt
show that your chosen field, of which nc
respectable geological recognizance has
been made, affords ample room and verge
enough for your emulation and enthusiasm.
What may we not hope for the future
when we remember that the marvellous
development of the iron fields of the
Marquette region is the work Of less than
fifteen years; that the iron industries Of
Indiana and Illinois have beer
created within decade, and that
the production of Bessemer steel EN-.
ploys many of the people of each of these
states that it is not twelve years since the
attempt, often repeated, to produce mer-
charitable steel at Pittsburg became an as
sured success that within two years we
have ceased to depend on Oriental countries,
in which it was found only in pockets at rare
intervals, for corundum, deposit of which
| has been found to crop out near our city
limits, and which extends to the mountains
| of North Carolina, where st. Louis COM
pany is working an apparently inexhausti-
BILE mine of this mineral, hitherto so rare
and costly; and that France, Belgium and
Germany, obtain from the banks OF Platten
creek, Missouri, white sand, out of which
they find it profitable to make plate glass
for the use OF the people of the Mississippi
valley. With these facts you are doubtless
familiar, and they may have no special in
terest for you; but to us Of Philadelphia
they are pregnant with interest. Indeed,
| they, in part, account for the rapid growth
of our city, as among those who are our
rivals in some lines of business we find
markets for many of our productions.
Who can estimate how much the want
of competent engineers and metallurgists