Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1890-10-31

Bill.
A few days ago, an interview appeared In
the VINDICATOR with an Indiana gentle
man interested in q large factory which it
had been determined to remove to Basic
City in this county, as more profitable
point to manufacture at. The gentleman
gave three reasons for the removal: 1, that
the people of the South had shown by their
spirit that the time had come to have its
manufactures located right among its own
people: 2, that 1.-THE time and conditions
have come when the manufacturers have
got to get nearer to the raw material, and
3, that the manufactures must now be es-
tablished nearer to the new consumers who
have homes in the South. Our through
thick-and-th high tariff contemporary, the
Valley Virginiaaa, takes his second reason
for text and says:
Here is testimony that free raw materi
ais as dem anded by the Democratic party
and sustained by the INDICATOR, would be
death to Virginia. If the wood and ores and
iron and steel and wool of foreign countries
were admitted free of duty. we would not find
such men as Mr.. Link coming to the interior
of Virginia to find location for the estab-'
lishment of industries They woul go to the
seacoast, where the ores and woods and woods
would be delivered Free and with which We
could not compete unless the labor essential
for their production was reduced to the low
level of European labor. 1t is because of a
x7,,tx rfio al hat
valuable in Virginia, and it is for this reason
that manufacturers are looking to Virginia
and the South to establish their plants
MI. Links coming a thousand miles to
locate in the centre of the raw material and
thus escape the tax Of its transportation to
his works, shows incontestably that the
nearer manufacturer can come to getting
raw material without a tariff Oh railroad
OF any other tax, it is that much more pro-
fitable to him. That is what every manu-
facture now coming to Virginia is here
for, to escape tax and get nearer to a
market for its output-tO come just as near
free raw material as they can get. Free
raw material is the breath of life to man
Ufacture.
But our contemporary thinks if there was
no tariff taX-if there was absolutely free
raw material admitted from abroad
these industries would locate on the sea-
coast. This is so remarkable proposition
that we are sure it will have to recast it.
It has not looked over the experimental
field of the past. Hides have long been free
raw material. Did the shoe manufacture
erS run down to the seacoast? No, they
manufactured in the valleys and the noun
tains, everywhere that they were in reach
of market by rail. Wood has been prac-
tically free-that for ship building, railroad
ties, fancy woods-cedar, mahogany, &C..
all have been free Of daty. Did the wood
working establishments rush to the sea-
coast? Is not the furniture and other
wood working all carried on in the interior
cities of the United States? Wool was SO
low from 1850 to 1860 that the high tariff
men called it free trade. Did the cloth
manufacturers rush to the seacoast? No.
they staid in the interior where the sheep
were who were to furnish their raw mate
rial. And in that day Augusta county fine
.ffty.fce to .ffty-eigit cessts pound and
to-day under a high tariff it is only worth 80
to 81 cents. In that almost ee-raW-mate-
rial day there were no wooden mills on the
seacoast. but in this Valley. and one of
them in this city. Tin pig-metaI the
next thing TO raw material has been
free for years (until the Mckinley bill put
aprotectiye duty on it, but nobody has heard
of any one going to the seacoast and start
ing tin-plate mill, Oh going anywhere else
to do it, though if we are to believe Repub
lcan newspapers there are tin mines in this
country where it could he done.
With the advantage Of free raw material
the manufacturers need not fear any COM
petition in this country OF abroad, as fa1
as capturing their market from them is
concerned. With free raw material the
United States will do the manufacturing
for the world. The very plant to be re.
moved from Indiana, which is the subject
OF the Varglnddn's remarks, sells it's out
put IN Hayti in competition with the goods
made by ''the low level Of European labor
OF which our contemporary is so apprehen-
slVe. Open your ports to the products of
the world and you will do the manufactur
ing of the world. you will do the commerce
of the world, and you will do the banking
OF the world. To the new industrial towns
starting in Virginia the market of the
acorld IS q UitGI necessity. The manufac-
lures located in Virginia will not be content
Wlth-cannot afford to be confined to-the
market of the United States. They are
working with cheap iron and cheap wood.
they can undersell the world and they want
TO supply the world. AT no time in her ex-
lstence has it been so vitality important to
the material prosperity of Virginia that the
wall built around this country by the Nc
Kinley bill should be broken down. That
the people will do it there is not a shadow
of doubt. That the manufacturer will
longer be content to view the grand market
of the world only as Moses did the promised
land is not possible. Nor will the work
man with brains, muscle and energy be
content longer to be taxed on the clothes on
his back, even the bucket in which he car
ries his dinner. because of that ghost, the
gaunt stock member Of the Republican High,
Tariff programme paraded as regularly as
an election comes round-the pretence that
he must submit to all this tokeep somebody
in Europe from making something cheaper
than he can>nake it.