railroad presidents and others, in and out of, Congress, and generally in carrying on the war. The domestic product, as has been seen, had fallen from 800,000 tons in 1847-8 to 564,000 in 1850, and at or near that figure it probably remained during 1851 and 1852, as the import in those years, of iron and its manufactures, exceeded 700,000 tons, filling to repletion the public stores, and keeping down prices to little more than those of 1850.* Prices, however, running up with great rapidity, American furnaces are now again put in blast, and the product of 1854 is carried up to 716,000 tons, being ten per cent. less than it had been six years previously, the population being twenty per cent. more. From this time forward the figures are as follows: 1855, 754,000; 1857, 874,000; 1856, 874,000; 1858, 705,000; 1859, 840,000; ... 1860, 913,000. From 1848 to 1860 population had increased forty per cent., the production of iron, taking the average of those years, having remained almost stationary, and yet it is of this period that you speak in the following words and figures: "Production in 1850, 564,000 tons; increase in five years, 40 per cent. In 1855, 754,000, tons; increase in five years, 33 per cent. In 1860, 913,000 tons; increase in ten years 61 per cent ;" thereby proving to your own satisfaction, if not to that of those conversant with the real facts, "that no matter what had been the character of the legislation, whether the tariff was low or high, whether the condition of the country was one of war or peace, the increase of the production had been at the average of about 8 per cent. per annum, or more than double the ratio of the increase of population." How you had been enabled to arrive at this beautiful production of "historical truth" is clearly shown in the following diagram, the heavy line, as before, following out your figures, and the others giving the real facts of the case as above recounted: וי די ין, geen 1847. 1846,1840.1850 1851 1852 1853.1854.1865, 1855, 1857. 1868 1869 1860. Professing to give a true picture of the working of the Compromise tariff, you suppressed its closing and most destructive years, 1841 and 1842. Professing now to furnish such a picture of the revenue tariff of 1846, you have suppressed the prosperous closing years of its predecessor of 1842, doing this, as it would seem, by way of enabling your fellowcitizens to determine on which side lies the "historical truth." You have denied that "industrial and commercial prosperity," had * Price of pigs in 1850, $20 82; in 1851, $21 35; in 1852, $22 63. been "seriously affected by the legislation of the country in the years which elapsed between 1842 and 1846." You have denied that "the production of iron" had been" remarkably stimulated" under that tariff. You have denied that "under the tariff of 1846, that industry" had been "remarkably depressed." Allow me now to ask, not that you prove what you thus have said, but only that you furnish evidence that you had had before you any reliable evidence calculated to produce in your own mind a belief that there was in it even an approach to the real truth of the case. 2. How the national wealth was at this period being promoted will be seen on an examination of the following facts. The number of anthracite furnaces in 1854 was 77, of which 70 were in operation, and the capacity of the whole was 375,000 tons. The high prices of that and the previous year-the combined result of a re-establishment of British power, and a receipt of the precious metals averaging nearly a million per week-having stimulated our people to the erection of furnaces, we find their number to have arrived in 1856 at 92, of which 81 were then in blast and yielding 347,000 tons. Thenceforward, we find al downward movement as follows: In the rapid growth of number we have here abundant proof of the promptitude with which our people have at all times been, as now they are, prepared to meet the demand, however created, that may exist. In the number out of blast we have evidence that millions of capital and therewith tens of thousands of working men, had been deprived of power to contribute toward the public revenue. It might, however, be supposed that import from abroad had made amends for large decrease in 1858 at home. On the contrary, decline of import had kept steady pace with that of production, the quantity then received having been less than a third of that of 1854, when domestic product had been greater. The consumption of the three years 1846, '47, and '48, the last of the tariff of 1842, was, as nearly as can now be ascertained, of American 2,400,000, and of foreign 330,000, giving an annual average of 910,000. That of the three years 1858, '59, and '60, the last of the tariff of 1846, was, of American 2,460,000, of foreign 840,000, giving a total of 3,300,000, and an annual average of 1,100,000, the increase of consumption being about 20 per cent.; population meanwhile having grown nearly 40 per cent. How those quantities were divided between transportation and production it is proposed now to show, as follows: The demand for railroads in the first of these periods was as follows:- 96,000 48,000 Maintenance of 6000 miles of track, sidings, rolling stock, and other appurtenances, at 10 tons per mile, 60,000 Maintenance of 1000 miles of second track, 10,000 Total, Giving an annual average of, say, 214,000 71,000 Which deducted from 910,000 leaves for "boilers, tenpenny nails," Maintenance of 31,000 miles, as above, 66 Total, 6000 miles of second track, 200,000 310,000 60,000 970,000 Giving an annual average of 323,333 for railroad purposes alone.* In the first of these the tonnage of our navigation somewhat exceeded 3,000,000. In the second it about as much exceeded 5,000,000, the growth exceeding that of the first by about 150,000. Of the increase in the quantity of canal boats, barges, &c., &c., we have no record, but it probably counted by hundreds of thousands of tons. For all this excess new work, for the excess substitution of new for old, whether by the building of new boats and ships, or repair of old ones, the quantity of iron required must have been fully double that of the first period, and may be very moderately set down at 30,000 tons per annum, by adding which to the 323,000 required for railroad purposes, we obtain a joint consumption, for transportation, of 353,000 tons. Deducting this now from a total consumption of 1,100,000 tons, we have remaining for "tenpenny nails, boilers," and other machinery of production 747,000, being eleven per cent. less than in the former period, population having meantime become almost forty per cent. greater. How all this is to be made to accord with the assurance given by you to the nation, that "no matter what had been the character of the legislation, whether the tariff was low or high, whether the condition of the country was one of war or peace, the increase of the production had been at the average of about 8 per cent. per annum, or more than double the ratio of the increase of population," it is for you to show. 3. Of all the tests of advancing or receding civilization there is none so perfect as that which presents itself in the growing or declining consumption of iron. Such being the case an increase of 200 per cent. in the popular consumption, in the short period from 1842 to 1848, would seem to furnish explanation of the rapid advance in that prosperous period towards peace and harmony; the diminished popular consumption of the revenue tariff period which closed in 1860, in its turn, well accounting for that growing discord which led at length to a rebellion the cost of which in lives counts by hundreds of thousands, and in property by thousands of millions. Had the "legislation" of 1842 been maintained throughout the twenty years that followed, we should have had no civil war, and our total production of iron would this day exceed that of Britain. Having carefully studied the facts thus presented, it may perhaps be well that you read once again the following passage from your Report: * Outside of the quantity of road in operation, all the figures here given have been obtained from the best sources of railroad information, and are said to be below, rather than above, the truth. The railroad bars imported in these three years exceeded 260,000 tons. Our own rail mills had then a capacity of 70,000 tons, and may in the three years have yielded 100 or 120 thousand, giving a total of rails alone of 360,000 or 380,000. To this add the quantity of new iron required for combination with old rails re-rolled, and for all other railroad purposes, and it will be found nearly, if not even quite, to confirm the estimate. "As respects the relation of legislation by the national government to the results under consideration, if we except the adoption of a liberal policy in the disposition of the public lands, it is difficult, at least for the period which elapsed between 1840 and 1860, to affirm much that is positive, unless, in conformity with the maxim, that that government is best which governs least, absence of legislation is to be regarded in the light of a positive good. If important results followed the acquisition of California, such results were certainly neither foreseen nor anticipated; while as regards commercial legislation, a review of all the facts cannot fail to suggest a doubt whether the evils which have resulted from instability have not far more than counterbalanced any advantage that may have proceeded from the experience of a fluctuating policy." What it is that may be positively affirmed in reference to that fluctuation of policy which struck down the great iron manufacture at the moment at which it had just begun to exhibit its power for good, would seem to be this; that in the British monopoly period which thereafter followed, we added somewhat less than forty per cent. to our population; seventy to our machinery for water transportation; and five hundred to that required for transportation by land; meantime materially diminishing the quantity of iron applied to works of production. When you shall have carefully studied all this, you may perhaps find yourself enabled to account for the facts, that in the closing year of the free trade period railroad property which had cost more than $1000,000,000 could not have been sold for $350,000; that ships had become ruinous to nearly all their owners; that factories, furnaces, mills, mines, and workshops had everywhere been deserted; that hundreds of thousands of working men had been everywhere seeking, and vainly seeking, to sell their labor; that immigration had heavily declined; that pauperism had existed to an extent wholly unknown since the great free-trade crisis of 1842; that bankruptcies had become general throughout the Union; that power to contribute to the public revenue had greatly diminished; and finally, that the slave power had felt itself to have become so greatly strengthened as to warrant it in entering on the great rebellion. 4. The movement since 1860, under protection, is presented in the following diagram, side by side with that of the latter years of the revenue tariff by which the former had been preceded, the heavy line, as before, representing the comparative figures given by yourself: Of the period from 1856 to 1860 here presented you say nothing in your general summary, given at page 9 of your Report, having preferred combining with it the previous years when California treasures were causing large increase of domestic product, and thereby enabling yourself to exhibit a decennial increase of sixty-one per cent. By so doing you have been also enabled to shut wholly out of view the calamitous free trade crisis of 1857, and the years that followed it, when the product, instead of showing "an annual increase of the production at the rate of about 8 per cent. per annum, or more than double the ratio of the increase of population," had exhibited the calamitous state of affairs above described. Of the prosperous protective period that since has followed, your general summary, intended for widest circulation through the public journals, says not even a single word. Turning, however, to page 3, I find the following statement of the Annual product of pig iron from 1863 to 1868. For the seven years from 1860 (when the production was 913,770 tons) to 1867, the average annual increase has been 8.35 per cent. The actual product of this last year has been, as I understand, more than 1,600,000 tons, showing a duplication as compared with the average of the closing years of the tariff of 1846. Those, however, who need to compare the present with the recent past, must do so for themselves, as you have been careful to avoid presenting such comparison. So, too, must they do if they would find any of the following "historical truths," to wit: That at the close of the Compromise Act of 1833 production had not increased ten per cent., whereas population had grown thirty per cent. That in the final years of the protective Act of 1842 production had increased more than two hundred per cent., whereas population had grown but twenty per cent. That in the final years of the revenue tariff Act of 1846 production had not advanced even five per cent., while our numbers had grown on the average of years, nearly forty per cent. That, notwithstanding this large increase of numbers, the quantity applied to production had greatly diminished, while that applied to mere transportation had more than four times increased. Leaving you now to reflect on the extraordinary suppressions thus exhibited, I shall now proceed to an examination of your chapter on "the taxation of pig iron." HON. D. A. WELLS. Yours respectfully, PHILADELPHIA, February 1, 1869 HENRY C. CAREY. |