Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1895-02-28
TOO MUCH BOOMING.
NEW ENGLAND SUFFERS FROM MI
. GRAToRY MANUFACTURES.
Free Rent and No Taxes Inducements Have
Been Carried Beyond the Point of Rca-
son-Three Hundred Shops Begging For

Tennnts-What the System May Evolve.
If the facts are as given by Hon.
James Il. Lothrop of Dover, N. H., says
the Manchester Weekly Union, the COM
petition among New England towns to
secure the location of manufacturers has
reached most unhealthy stage. The
letter he writes is for the purpose of eX-
planning the conditions under which
manufacturing company will come to
Dover. These conditions are free rent
and no taxation. But somebody must
pay the rent, and so the citizens are
called upon to raise 81, 900 a year for
five years in order to lift that burden
from the incoming company and induce
\ it to locate there. To this must be add
ed the taxes, for whatever is lifted from
this particular property must be made
good by additional levies on all other
tax paying property in the city. But to
clinch tho thing and put an end to all
argument against SO one sided aproposi-
tion Mr.. Lothrop adds significantly,
"Unless citizens meet this obligation
they will not come, as there are 800
shops in New England offered free of
rent today
In this last statement is revealed the
cause of the whole trouble-three hun
dred shops built for the purpose of lur-
ing some sharp money getting concerns
from some other towns where they had
been located, squeezing all they possibly
could in the way of rent and taxes out
of the townspeople and always ready to
~, 81, tIn IN,
hand was sucked dry and another was
held out to them elsewhere. New Hamp-
shire has suffered not little from these
migratory concerns-manufacto on
wheels, as they have been aptly termed
and there are towns that would have
been better off had they never invested
"a dollar in manufacturing building to
be offered rent free and taxes free to
some peripatetic manufacturer who staid
just long enough to get the hopes Of the
people raised high, cause them to erect
dwellings for the incoming 'help, only
to find the buildings all empty and ly-
ing idle OH their hands, the manufactur-
ers gone to fresher pastures and the
workmen scattered to the four winds.
There has been too much Of this self
ish booming all over New England in
:, the past ten years, and to pay for it we
have al elephant on our hands in the
shape of 800 empty buildings offered
rent free to any manufacturer who can
be induced to accept their use Oh these
terms. 1t will not be surprising by and
by if some enterprising village adds to
the conditions of free rent and free
taxes that OF free help, agreeing to fur
nish all the necessary employees gratis,
paying them from forced contributions
from the townspeople and outlying farm
ers. Then it, so as to be still i'll the lead
in the matter of booming, some other
bright town will offer i'll addition to
these advantages to furnish all stock
used in the concern gratis, why, then
the acme Of hustling enterprise will
have been reached, and there will be
nothing more il. this line to strive for.
Free stock and free help may sound
queer now, but not a bit more SO than
free rent and free taxes would have
} sounded few years ago. just as sonnd
business principles underlie one as the
other There is no good reason why &
community should tax itself beyond rea
son for the sake of putting all extra al
lowance of profit into the pockets of al
individual or u body of individuals who
/, are bound to stay in one placeno Longer
= than their own selfish interests seem tt
demand. A moderate inducement fol
manufacturing concerns to locate in ;
town or city is often justitiable but il
is neither business nor sense to go tho
lengths that many places have i'll ordel
to create an air of business prosperit,
that has no more substance than banl
Of fog.
THE plJRlIc ScHOOIS