Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-08-11


it was done with the hope that the
loss would be made up by the in
creased transportation facilities.
One result was an enormous addi-
tiOnal stimulus to our iron interest.
Immense quantities of iron We're
wanted for our railroads, and still
new mines were opened and the old
ones worked with a larger force, and
still the mining population increased
by immigration, and latterly it was
increased by another cause.-The inn
mense strikes in Europe. The Eu-
ropean strikers came over in droves,
and they were a turbulent class, but
for while there was work for them.
but not long; railroad construction
very abruptly checked its pace.
When not a single railroad in a
State is paying dividends, the citi-
zens of that State get tired of invest
ing in new railroads. individuals
are sick of it, States are sick of it
hence reputation at any rate nc
more railroad iron is wanted the
railroad iron interests are both de-
pressed.
But now comes in the work of the
tariff again, which is a double edged
knife and cuts two ways.
What had been done in iron had
been done in regard to everything
else the production of which could
be in any way brought about in this
country; many articles had been
taxed 100 per cent. ad valorem, and
many Others had been by heavy Inn
port duties entirely excluded from
importation, among them, quinine
an article of indispensable necessity
to vast portion of our population
the whole of which were taxed
heavily to secure a monopoly to q
single house which has grown enOr.
mously rich upon it. Such monopo,
lies Queen Elizabeth with all hel
despotism had to recede from before
the stern opposition of a parliament
complying enough in other respects
In imposing these extravagant taxes
the absurd solecism in political econ
Omy had been acted upon that all
exports enrich a nation and all i'm
ports impoverish it, and the object
seems to have been to establish that
monstrous impOssibility, a COM
merce which was to cOnsistall of eX-
ports with no imports. No COM
merce was ever transacted on such
principles and we have, by the at
tempt, been rapidly brought to a
condition in which we have no COM
merce at all. Our imports and eX-
ports have both been reduced to
their lowest terms, our manufacture
ing establishments are doing moth
ing, though it was in their interest
that the pernicOus system was adOp-
ted, and where there is no commerce
there is no transpOrtatiOn-sO our
commercial shipping and our rail-
road system have collapsed. In one
word, no business is done and every
body is pOOr-and all this evil is
constantly increased by an increase
of taxation; for notice this: where
heavy import duties prevent alto
gether the importation of an article,
there is no revenue arising from
them at all, so that such taxes OPP
press the people in two ways; first
by raising enormously the price of
necessary articles, and secondly,
by necessitating additional taxes
through preventing the importation
on which revenue can be raised. AS
a result, then, of this precious sys-
tenn, we are doing no business and
we have no money.
We must now return to our rail
roads, for these things act and react
upon one another in such a way that
we are compelled to take them up
alternately. We have seen that
railroads were built under the influ-
ence of loans, subsidies, and sub
scriptiOns not for investment, but
for promoting the road in multi
tudes of instances where there was
no traffic to sustain them, and that,
in many instances, two parallel
tracks were built under this system
where one was enough for the traffic,
and of course profits were very scan
ty for shareholders, and now was
added a complete stagnatiOn of bus
mess with, of course, suspension of
traffic; and what has been the course
of railroad managers to remedy such
troubles? The rashness and folly of
it are astounding; where there were
parallel lines already doing a poor
business because two had been built
where one could do the traffic, they
made matters ten fold worse by an
internecine war upon one another
each line ruined itself in trying to
ruin the other. Lines that were al
ready running their shareholders cut
under one another in freight and
passenger rates, and ran the concern
at loss till one had to give up al
together and the other came out of
the contest so crippled as to be inca
pable of paying dividends for years.
Now we have a basis for the re-
cent troubles. Two great interests
the railroad and irOn-mining inter-
ests, forced into doing business on a
scale for which there was no sound
basis, call into existence a vast la
boring population who have learned
such work Us they can employ and
no other. After n while the very
process which gave origin to them,
being an unsound one, Slapped the
resources on which their vitality de-
pended; both are reduced to inani-
ton, and here is the population
which they have created, gaunt and
ferOciOus, demanding "what will
you do with u.s." 1t is not cOmpe-