Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-10-06
nTR. THURMAN IN OHIO.

we nave EepTlHU0u lIllS WEEK q
portion of a speech made by Mr..
Thurman, one of the Senators from
Ohio, at a political meeting last
week. We strongly recommend its
perusal to all persons desirious of
themselves acquainted with
the political and economic prob
lens of the day; in short, we look
upon it as the most statesmanlike
effort which has been elected by the
canvass for this years fall elections.
1t will be noticed that, while he
gives all due prominence to the i'm
portant topics which have been
made the staple of the canvass in
Ohio, such as the evils of forced re-
and the fraud by which the
silver dollar was demonetized, he
places in prominent relief the posi-
ton occupied by the present OPP
pressive tariff in contributing to the
present depression in business. But
the point to which we desire at
present to call attention is the tor
pidity of the markets arising from
the excess of production over con-
and the consequent accu-
mutation of unsOld and unstable
stock in the hands of the master
manufactures. This phenomenon
is attributed to the multiplication of
the products of labor effected by
machinery, and his examples are
chiefly quoted from very able ar
ticle of Mr.. Chas. F. Adams in the
North American Review. In study
ing these instances we have been
led to reflect upon the question, How
is it that machinery produces this
effect in America but not in Eng
land. We have lived long enough
to have observed more than one
panic arising from the apprehension
that this would be the effect of ma
chinery in England; apprehensiOns
never realised in the event.
For example, we remember well
the riots which arose in England on
the first introduction of the thresh-
ing machine into English agricul-
ture. We remember, the alarm
which was excited by great bands
of armed farm laborers roaming
about the country as excited and
ferOcious as those lately witnessed
in our railroad strikers; how they
set fire to barns and wheat stacks,
and broke up threshing machines
which they denounced asa means
the rich had invented for dis
pensing with the labor of the poor
and so reducing them to starva-
ton. We remember subsequent
Iy the similar riots among the silk
and cotton manufactures how ma
chinery of vast value was burnt
down under the same impression.
In both cases the event falsified the
The substitution of
the threshing machine for its prede-
cessOr, the fail, led to more intelli-
gent culture, to high farming, as it
was called, and in a thousand ways
human art was applied to the in
crease of production, necessitating
the employment of a constantly in
creasing number of men upon every
farm instead of the deartiI of en-
plOyment so glOomily and angrily
predicted.
AndsO of machinery as applied to
manufacture. Instead of employ
ment to the manufacturing labOrer
falling off, there are now millions so
for thousands in the hand
loom era. The expense of prOduc-
ton was so immensely reduced that
classes of the human family all over
the world We're enabled to wear the
fabrics produced, who had previous
ly looked upon them as inaccessible
luXuries or had not heard of them
at all. Hence Manchester, Oldham,
Preston and other great cities count
ing their population by hundreds of
thousands have come into existence,
swarming with a manufacturing
population.
Now comes the question which
has exercised our thoughts. How
is it that in England increased pro-
duction has created new fields of
and thus increased the
demand for the new products of
skilled labor, while in America a
glut of these productions has result
ed which, even with wages reduced
to starvation prices, cannot be dis
posed of at remunerating prices?
The answer to this question is, we
think, to be sought in the fact that
manufactures are a spontaneous re-
suit of natural causes in England,
but an artificial product of vicious
legislation in America. We have
taxed the whOle-and few know
how heavily-to call into action a
few stunted half grown manufac-
turing concerns which only exist by
an artificial stimulus, and like all
this one after a while fails
to suffice, and an increase in the
quantity is demanded. AT this
very day our taxes on foreign man.
lfactured goods are higher than
those of any nation on earth, and
yet the whole manufacturing inter
est of the nation is depressed as it
never was depressed, though it was
in its interest that this system of
taxation has been kept up for six
teen years and this is the case
because the taxation has not
only by Its direct action impOver-
ished those who alone can be the
customers of American manufac-
turers, but by its indirect action has
swamped the commerce of the whole
nation through the exclusion of
foreign trade, and so deprived those
very customers of the profits which