Year: 1872

FHSllht, uS we nave uau OCCASION TO
state before, has within her borders every
needed resource to become one of the great
iron districts of the world. In the primary
ores of the Blue Ridge, the Brown Hema-
tites of the great Valley of Virginia, the
Bog Ores of the Tidewater Region, and the
Carbonates widely associated with the
Coal Measures, we have the basis of IRON
production upon scale of unsurpassed
magnilcence.. The extent, richness
and variety of our ores, long known
to the geologst and the men of science,
is just dawning upon the general public.
New communications are being opened, en-
ab ling us to utilize their vast wealth. The
coal, the fuxes, and the ore are now, for
the first time in our history, about to beput
within easy reach of each other by rail-
roads. The same roads open route for
our manufactured products to seek the
markets of the world, and also, by stim:
ulating settlement, tend to give us home
market for our iron and iron fabrics.-
Everything is pointing to a mighty develop
ment of our iron interests, and untold bene-
fits to our people are within our reach.


Half million workers in iron are ready
to come among us, converting our raw
material into forms of use. They will eat
our wheat, corn and fruit, wear our cloth,
live in houses built by our mechanics, out
of timber grown in our forests, or stone
from our quarries. They will use imple-
ments and furniture made in our work.
shops, buy goods of our tradesmen, and
in thousand ways put in circulation their
daily earnings. The Tredegar works sends
its manufactured fabrics 600 miles away
and its profits are expended here. So on
vast scale our total iron trade would be-
come perennial source of wealth, sending
out its enriching and vivifying streams all
over the Commonwealth.


Is this the time for us to be asleep to the
most vital interests of our people? Are
we to stand idly by and see the guarantees
OF this great prosperity, so clearly possible
for us, withdrawn? Shall we remit the
protecting duty under whose shield miners,
furnaces and rolling-mills would every
where become prosperous? Shall we con-
tinue to see the sad picture of two hundred
furnaces now cold and desolate, which will
soon light their cheerful fires under the
stimulus of our renewed trade, if protection
is afforded? Will our farmers allow them
selves to be blinded by the delusions of
Free Trade, and, for the sake of paltry
pittance saved upon few pounds of iron,
allow their home market to be destroyed ?


Of course, all the importers and the
agents of British Free Trade say, "Yes
you are farmers in Virginia. Be content.
Buy where you can buy cheapest. We
will make iron for you in England. You
raise corn, cattle, and tobacco and when
you have ruined yourselves and your
State by agriculture, without manufac-
lures, we will have an American Ireland to
demonstrate the value of Free Trade u!


We ask every man who has stake in
the future of Virginia, to stand with us
upon this platform, Of resistance to reduc-
ton Of the duties on iron and coal. When
the Virginia farmer is told of the added
price of iron, let him sit down and ponder,
in how many ways, he now loses for
want of home market. Let him
contrast the value of has lands
with those of Pennsylvania and
Ohio near the great centres of the iron
trade. Let him remember that ever ton of
iron made here carries his products to mar
ket, while every ton of iron brought here
brings corn, wheat, wool and every pro-
duct of agriculture, from without, to COM
pete with his o,on products. To favor Free
Trade is, therefore, to doom our agricul-
ture to ruinous inferiority.