Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-01-26
THE NATIONAL CAPITAL.
LUMBER AND THE NUMBERING
INTERESTS.
Views of Senator COnger-The Supply of
Timber-An Argument for Retaining
the Tariff on the Commodity-Revenue
Reform PrOspects-The Latest About
"Our EmOry''-Congressm Turner,


Reform Prospects-The Latest AkOut
"Our EmOry''-COngressma Turner.
WASHINGTON, Jan. Ex-senator Conger.
in discussing the tariff in the Senate yester
day, made some remarks of particular interest
to Georgia. l give you herewith something
of what Conger said: II was going to sav
about that, there had not been until within a
few years what might be called extensive
manufactures of lumber in the South, as l
have understood not since the war, until
within the last eight, ten, or twelve wears
Since that time, in the Carolinas, in Florida.
Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi | have
learned incidentally that the manufacture of
lumber has gradually and continually in
creased. The nearest estimate that can get
of the amount would be somewhere near
thousand million feet-less than that unless
the increase has been made largely IN
| the last year. So | have concluded
that, taking all the lumber manufactured in
all the pine growing States of the Union for
the last three or four years, the average. we
may safely say, there has not been to exceed
5000, 100000 feet manufactured. BY the re-
| ports of the Forestry Commission, by what we
ma In the census, by what L can learn from
! the reports in the several States and the Lunl-
| bermdn's Gazette, and papers that represent
! from year to year the Smount of pine manu-
factured, and as near as can be estimated the
amount on hand, at that rate of manufacture
there is pine enough in the United States to
supply all the demands of manufacture for
the next fifty wears at least. Not in particular
parts, because l know already that there
are whole counties in my own
State where the pine was the
best, that have been entirely stripped of pine,
and the whole region of many counties where
| pine formerly existed has become q fine agri-
cultural region. venture to say that for
hundred years the pine of the Southern States,
from the difficulty of getting it to the mill or
to the water for floating, would not by the or
dinary process of its manufacture be con-
sumed in a hundred years at its present rate
Of manufacture there. 1t is now, and
the most important and most valua-
BILE of the products of the South or
of manNof the Southern States Hereafter
that kind of pine will be used as it has not
been before. 1t will be worth much in the
market if it can be protected at all by a reason
able tariff. There is no danger, then, of the
exhaustion of the pine; but that argument is
of little value when we consider that in all
these Northern States the settlers are pushing
in wherever the land is not held for its pine
and cultivating the land, clearing the land,
setting their fires, burning their logs and the
refuse from the land, and making farms all
over.
''There is no great profit TO the lumber
manufacturer. 1t is an uncertain business.
In years of prosperity lumber is in demand.
When the farmer is prosperous, and the viii
lager is prosperous, and the merchant is pros
porous, they can build, there is a demand for
lumber. When there is a depression the great
body of the lumber ceases to move, and it has
to be sold at diminished value or to be car
ried until a better time. l can remember
since the panic when the lumbermen of Mich
igan, after reducing the lumber to the lowest
possible price to cover the expense of manu-
facture, those who were able had to combine
together and prevent, it is said, one-half of
the lumbermen from going into bankruptcy
by carrying through these close times and lack
of market 1t is mistaken idea to suppose
that In the South or anywhere in any lumber
ing region the manufacturers of lumber make
great profits or become immensely rich.
"As an explanation for the common re-
marks that are made about the great wealth
to be acquired by numbering, it is undoubtedly
true that wien any person could get, IN
favorable situation along streams where rafts
could be hoated and drawn with ease without
much cost, a large tract of valuable pine he
can, either by selling the trees for their
stumpage or even by the manufacture of
them, make all the difference between the
land at ten shillings or twenty shillngs or five
dollars an acre and the value of the timber
The manfOrtunate enough to have that with
out touching the axe or going into the forest,
if his land has been taxed long if he Qot ii
cheap, cap sit in his office and sell his lumber
by stumpage; and, deducting the cost and the
interest and the taxes, he can on a large tract
OF land make very great profits, as any one can
on the rise of any article which he has pur-
chased cheap, about which there is no great
expense and for which now there is a great
demand.
81 do not desire to detain the Senate with
further comments upon this subject. ] thought
it was due to the lumber interests of the North
and of the South; OF the North because the
main supply of soft pine lumber comes from
the North. and of the South qknow something
of it of my own knowledge and more from in
formation from others, All through the At
lantic Coast States and the Gulf States, where
there Is pine the people of those States are
trying to utilize their pine, it is coming into
demand for purposes which were almost I'M
known to the market years ago. The yellow
pine of the South is found to be for great
many purposes even superior to our Northern
pine; it is exciting the industry and the
enterprise of our Southern friends, and they
have commenced the manufacture of pine
lumber, crudely at first as we did in our
forests, with insufficient mills or
insufficient machinery; but un-
derstand now there are mills in these Southern
States that have all the fine machinery of our
Northern mills; that they are learning to
manufacture lumber economically, and are
preparing to send it to market | am inform
ed that there is already market for that class
of lumber not only through all the Southern
regions of the United States to here and far
north of here, but that there is demand for
this in the West India Islands, and that large
ported. ."a
''For the sake of my own State and the in
terests of my people am bound to attempt to
preserve this protective duty on lumber |
submit that the interests of the Southern
States, where the pine forests grow, demand
like protection for the new growing industries
of all that region, that they be protected, that
that new industry shall not be bothered by
placing upon the free list pine from any ad-
Joining country, The aiaOtnt of pine brought
from Canada into the United States is COM
paratively so small that, il not increased, it
cannot materially increase the value of pine
and itsexpense to the farmers. | have not the Ia
bles here to show the amount of lumber from
other countries introduced into the United
States, but in looking at it | sawit was so
comparatively small in amount that it could
not fix the price of lumber In the United
States, much less could it fix the price of lum-
Der in the remote prairie States.'
A CALCULATION,
Representative Morrison, OF Illinois. has
made calculation about the length Of the
debate in the House. He saws that there are
two thousand articles in the tariff schedule
which has been reported by the Ways and
Means Committee. Even under the five min
ute rule, to discuss all amendments offered
Mr.. Morrison calculates, and it is not an
exaggerated calculation, that it will take
until June next TO finish the Bill. This is
another strong Indication that no tariff legis-
latlon need be expected this session. Between
Senate ana House tariff bills and the
long debates which are inevitable in both
houses some more nails are driven in the coffin
Of prospective tariff revision. Another thing
that will hinder revision is that the recent
expose made in the NEWS and several other
prominent papers of the inside workings OF the
Tariff Commission IN has cast + taiaper, upon the
report OF the IarIM Commission, which was
primarily the basis of both the House and
Senate tariff bills. - g."
EMORY sPEER,
1t is said that Emory Speer is cunning to
succeed Judge Erskine when he retires from
the bench next year. Mr.. Speer may be look
ing for the job, but do not hear of ANYTHING
that he has done towards that goal And
again, do not think that Mr.. Speer's success
in breaking up the regular Democracy of the
South has been of such a character that the
administration is awfully anxious to re-
ward him.
" RAwLs' FRIEND.
Morgan RaWIs ought TO sit himself down and
write a letter OF thanks to Representative Tur-
ner of Georgia. 1t was owing entirely to Mr.
Turner's management Of the bill to nav Nor
gan 81 800 for his house which was DESTROYED
by Union soldiers, got through the House. Mr.
Turner acted 'sagaciohsly, and by his 'readj-
ness succeeded ilf Keeping the debate on the
bill out of the sectional rut, which would, in
all probability, have killed it. POToMAc.
MEMPHIS, SELMA AND RRUNs-
WICK,
A Mortgage for Six Millions for Funds to
Build the Road.
MEMPHIS, Jan. 25.-The Memphis.
Selma and Brunswick Railroad Com pany
filed with the County Register to-day a |
first mortgage for $4,000, 900 upon all their
property and franchises to the Guarantee |
Trust and Safe Deposit Company. Of |
Philadelphia, for the purpose of raising |
funds to build and equip road from
Memphis to Holly Springs, thence on to |
the western line of Alabama, a distance |