Here is one fact from the Tribune, demonstrating the fallacy of protection, worth more than a thousand arguments from the Tribune demonstrating its necessity: Four years ago, the Tribune told us the iron business was on the brink of ruin, and all because of the Tariff of ’46.
Fact vs. Theory
Erie PA. Weekly Observer – July 30, 1853, Image 2
Four years ago, it told us nothing could save the country but a return of the duties levied by the bill of ’42. It now tells us that “four years ago,” the village of Ironton was not in existence but now contains “2,500 inhabitants” and “has had and is having the most rapid growth of any town in the United States, except Lawrence, Mass.;” all of which, it quietly adds, “is a specimen of the fruits of American enterprise, American manufactures and the prohibition of the Liquor Traffic.”
Might the Tribune not have added, “and without the aid of a protective tariff?”
AN IRON VILLAGE—Ironton, on the Ohio River, the capital of Lawrence county, Ohio, was begun four years ago next month by a company of associated capitalists, who bought 350 acres of the river bottom and 4,500 acres of hill land for the site, inserting in all their conveyances or leases an express condition that no Intoxicating Liquors should ever be sold on the land so conveyed.
This condition has been enforced and respected so that there is no rum hole for a loafer to lean against. However, it now has 2,500 inhabitants, with four churches built or being built, a railroad extending fifteen miles into the Iron region, and soon to be pushed through to the Hillsborough and Parkersburg Road, 44 miles, bringing it into connection with Philadelphia and Baltimore.
Unfinished as it is, and with little business besides the freighting of Coal and Iron Ore, this Road is now paying eighteen percent on its cost; its June receipts being $2,800; running expenses $1,000; net earnings $1,800. It is now bringing into Ironton the product of ten Blast Furnaces, estimated at 20,000 tons per annum, and will soon reach five more such.
Ironton has a manufacture of Railroad Iron, with two more in progress–one of them capable of turning out fifty tons per day, besides two large foundries, a machine shop, &c.
Coal is delivered at these works for $1 per ton. A Court-House, Jail, and Union School-House, beside a public Grove of twenty acres of the original forest, are among the public edifices. Ironton has had and is having the most rapid growth of any town in the United States except Lawrence, Mass. Its population can hardly be exceeded in general morality and intelligence. Such is a specimen of the fruits of American enterprise, American manufactures, and the Prohibition of Liquor Traffic.
0 Comments