The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1878-10-10
[From the Chicago Inter-Ocean, August Is. 1873
Berkshire Pigs for Iron Pigs.


speech by Hon. John Randolph Tucker on
the tariff; for logic teaches that experience
should be considered in conducting an argu-
| ment, while Mr.. Tucker, wherever it suits
his purposes, wholly ignores the expert
| mental data OF the past. Such was his mood
| when he said what follows:
Why should we make pig iron when with
Berkshire pigs raised upon our farms we can
buy more iron pigs from England than we
get by trying to make them ourselves? We
can get more iron pigs from England for
Berkshire pigs than we can from the Pensyl-
vania manufacturers. Why, then, should
not be permitted to send there for them?
Why should the Pennsylvania manufacturer
trouble himself TO go into business which
is not profitable, and is losing one, merely
for the sake of selling iron pigs at loss
The Hon. James A. Garfield made brief
answer to part of the above questions, as
quoted below:
For single season, perhaps, his plan
might be profitable to the consumers of iron
but if his policy were adopted as a perma-
nent oneiit would reduce us to a merely
agricultural people, whose chief business
would bt to produce the simpiess raw mater-
ials by the least skill and culture, and letthe
men of brains of other countries do our
thinking for us, and provide for us all prod
ucts requiring the cunning hand OF the ar
tisan, while we would be compelled to do the
drudgery for ourselves and for them.
History fully corroborates the foregoing
statements. Every country which has adopt
ed the policy of exchanging Berkshire pigs
for iron pigs-or, in other words, the policy
IS and smn0rtiQO
finished products-has begun to decline in
wealth, in prosperity, and in national power.
We have forcible illustration OF this at
home. The South refused to cultivate and
develop manufacturing industry, because she
believed it to be inimical to the safety OF
slavery. AS a consequence of this depend
ence upon our external sources OF supply
for almost every article of manufacture,
that section, on the breaking out OF the re-
bellon, could not make railroad bars to build
iron tracks needed for military operations
could not replenish the WORKOUT implements
of agriculture could not convert into cloth
the teeming abundance Of cotton grown in
her fields; could not even produce friction
match that would light one in twenty-in
brief, could not utilize her natural resources.
During the war the South possessed an al
most lmitless quantity Of iron-in the ore,
aohere the practice of .tree-trade principles
had left it-but, without furnaces, without
FORCES, without foundres, without machine
shops, without rolling mills, without skilled
laborers, that mineral opulence remained
buried treasure throughout the entire strug-
! gle, from the utter impotency ct any gen.
eral effort to ItaIize it, Then the few man.
ufacturing establishments which had come
into existence against all obstacles became
focal points of Confederate solitude and
sheltering care. Axes and spades, .ocomo-
tives, plows and hoes, steam-engines and
machinery became scarcer and scarcer. With
rich soil, and with four million slaves to
till it, even food declined in quantity, not
withstanding that the area devoted to cotton
was restricted by law to an insignificant
number of acres. Salt itself rose to the dig
nifty Of luxury; and was consumed with
sparing frugality by all, and with plnching
economy by many. What broad contrast
this condition presents to that in the North,
where plenty ran riot, and where the people
had struggled successfully against the policy
of exchanging Berkshire pigs, raised in the
United States, for iron pigs produced in
England, The South was rendered weak
4 in all respects, and helpless in some, because
OF her resolute opposition to manufacturing
a industry, and her fixed hostility to protect
i've tariffs. This single lamp of experience
should be sufficient to guide our feet in the
future. The experimental teachings Of ex-
porting Berkshire pigs to pay for imported
iron pigs are all averse to that mode OF con-
Quoting International exchanges. Mr..
Tucker, as a revenue reformer. is unfortu-
nately professor of theoretics in that SUI
premely theoretical school which believes in
, keeping experience at arms length, through
fear of the contamination Of tco much ia
miliarity.
5 He asks. with triumphant tone, ssWhy
5 should the Pennsylvania manufacturertrouble
a himself to go into a business which is not
profitable, and is losing one, merely fol
i the sake of selling iron pigs at loss - lie
: does not go into the business merely for that
S sake. Formerly he made profit. Now he
5 often sells at loss, just as the maker OF pig
: iron in England does; and continues tt
S make and sell at loss for very much the
: same reasons that influence the EnglishmaI
: to do the ,same-the hope of returning pros
e perity. and the greater loss which a full
e stoppage would infict. With equal forc'
t we might apply the question to the Engllsl
1 IRON master, and ask Mr.. Tucker to answer
r The inquiry fits the condition Of the Eng
e lishman quite as fully as it does that of TIN
i American. If it possesses logical cogepcA
n against the latter, the same does it posses
g AGAINST the former. Hard times have victi
If mized them both.
l. And here we can not refrain from enter
:. ing our solemn and emphatic protest agains
y the whole spirit which animates that polio
20 of legislation so magniloquently, yet SO mi
t. takenly, vaunted as tariff re- orm-shat pre-
y sumputous spirit, we mean, which would re
es duce civilization to paltry question OF do
to lars and cents, and which practically insls
lie that virtue, vice, morality, education, mise
err ny, happiness, freedom, patriotism must
l. expressed in mathematical formulas. In
he Gradgrind school of political economist
t. hedged in by the rules of arithmetic an
O. weighing everything in the scales OF
y avoirdupois logic, appears to see in the e.
n, istance Of the human race, from birth
~ DEATH nothing more important than pa
th gain across a counter, it having been asce
a tanned by those mtilitarlan philosophers,
or least to their own satisfaction, that the who
OF duty of man-not part OF mans duty,
he the whole-is comprised in buying chez
lis foreign manufactures, despite the cost
lie down-trodden and degraded humanity
ed the countries OF production; despite t
K misery and hunger-pinched wretchednf
of wreaked upon the foreign laborer by the pl
,es cess Of securing low money price; desp
p the ignorance and brutality which becol
nd the attendants upon such chearness. L
IN bargain price which involves human degf
he eracy and human suffering is always exor
~ - -, I'M any