Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-06-03
oun IRON TASK casters.

- -fS-- VIC win Al 1uieness 1l0,UUl
working men, To remedy this state Of
AFFAIRS. they resolve to- dose the re.
manning furnaces and thus double the
number of unemployed. The selfsh
object of this is to reduce the stocks on
hand, and 50 enhance prices. How a
million of human beings, miners, pud.
dlers and their families, are to live
while this process is going on, they dc
not seem to know or care. II
opens a magnificent opportunity
for the importation of skill
ed labor to develop Tennessee's
immense capacities, if we have the cap
ital and enterprise to strike the iron
while it is hot. 1t has been amply
demonstrated that iron can be pro-
duced here at prices that will give
magnificent profits even in the present
depressed markets. At Columbia,
Pa, puddlers are now working for 81 a
day, where they used to get S.. and
the proprietors threaten to cut them
down to soc or even 60c, if the furnaces
continue running. Intelligent labor
cannot live on such wages, and the es-
Enlistment of blast furnaces in Ten
nessee would son attract it hither.
1t may be asked why the capitalists
themselves do not pull up stakes and
come here. money, machinery, labor
and all. The answer is. they have mil
lions of dollars invested in railways and
town lots and stores. ETC., on
which they are grinding rich dividends
out of the masses at the same time
that they come before the public with
such a pitiable exhibit of the iron
trade. Once for all, We may say that
these millionaire capitalists are not ex-
actly the class who should find the
heartiest welcome in Tennessee. Al
ready we have had intimations of large
Pennsylvania combinations buying up
valuable mining tracts In Tennessee
and North Alabama, for the express
purpose of taking them out of the mar
ket and preventing competition with
their more costly investments at home.
Small companies, with the resultant
competition, and home capital interest
ed solely in Tennessee, will give the
healthiest growth.
The proposition to stop work in or
der to reduce stocks, suggests case of
over-production. Any taxation which
promotes one industry at the expense
of others, stimulates over-production.
The tariff is a governmental interior
ence with the natural laws of supply
and demand Give a man a govern
ment bonus of five per cent, and he Will
build on it as though it were fifty.
That five per cent blinds him to the
conditions and contingencies of legiti-
mate business. 1t stimulates rash
ventures. The promise of getting
something without labor is seductive
and oftentimes delusive. For this
reason we have doubted the expediency
of substituting manufactures in Tennes.
see, either directly or by non-taxation.
A town or city may safely do itin we'll
defined cases, but as a general principle
of State law, we fear it would only in
duce immature projects, the failure Of
which would retard legitimate pro-
gress.
Yet the iron-mongers of Pennsylva-
MIA demand of Congress higher tariff
to revive trade. The benefit they ex-
pect from this is not any increase of
consumption or of consequent work for
their idle hands, but an increase In the
price which they wiring out of con,
sumers. This increase goes neither to
the Government Golfers nor to the pro-
ductive labor, but to the monopolists.
We are told they are very eonciliatory
toward the working men, being anxious
for their influence on public sentiment
and Congress. Their -blooded
plan seems to be to throw the laborers
out of employment, and then tell them
their only relief lies in demanding
from Congress an increased tariff on
their productions. How far protection
protects the working classes is well
enough illustrated already when skilled
and experienced puddlers are trying to
support their families on less wages
than unprotected corn and cotton give
to lazy, ignorant blacks.
As to the people at large, farmers,
mechanics, and every other branch of
active workers, this tariff on iron and |
steel is the grossest outrage of our
whole revenue system. 1t is tax on
every tool, implement or machine, large |
or small, simple or complex, into which |
iron or steel enters. The needle, the |
and the sewing-machine come
under 1.-THE table-knife, the smooth |
ing-iron and every kitchen utensil.
Every farming implement from apock-
et-knife or a pillow to the harvest reaper
must pay tribute. Every tool in every
comes under the same cate
CORY. The tax on the original iron is
before the material reaches
the consumer in these manifold shapes.
Of all this tax the Government gets
next to nothing. Unless our pocket
Knife or our plow was imported from
some foreign land the tariff tax does
not put one cent in the Federal Treas
1ry. Ninety-nine hundredths of the
increased cost on all these articles goes
INTO the pockets of monopolists to ena'
able them to corrupt Legislatures and
Congress.
Some members of the Philadelphia