The Congressional Globe, Volume 13, Part 2: Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session Page: 442

                                
442
APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
May, 1844.
28th Cong 1st Sess.
The Tariff—Mr. Bidlack.
H. of Reps.
people. Let us remember that we are to legislate
for our own country, oar own people, our own in-
terests; that we are the representatives of one peo-
ple—one great family, whose interests and feelings
are diversified and conflicting; that it is our duty to
our God and our country, to concede, to harmonize,
to adopt such laws as shall obliterate every just
ground of complaint, and to blend them into one
harmonious whole. Sir, who is there here, having
aided in producing such a glorious- result, that
would not, to the latest hour of his life, look back
upon it with pride and satisfaction; who would not,
upon his deathbed, point his children to this noble
monunient, erected by the pure patriotism of an
American Congress, and, with a heart swelling with
generous pride, buoyed up above the terrors of
the grave, say, I was there—I gave it my cordial
support
REMARKS OF MR. BIDLACK,
OF PENNSYLVANIA.
In the House of Representatives, May 1, 1844.—On
. the proposition to reduce the duties on coal and
iron.
On the motion of Mr. McKay, the House re-
solved itself into Committee of the Whole on the
state of the Union, (Mr. Hopkins in the chair,)
and resumed the consideration of the tariff bill.
Mr. BIDLACK resumed his speech, which he
suspended yesterday for a motion to rise, observing
that he should labor under much embarrassment, in
consequence of the limit to which he must confine
his remarks. If he had had sufficient time, he
should have liked to have gone still further into the
comparative merits of the law of 1842, and of the
bill under consideration; but his time would not per-
mit, and he should, therefore, more particularly
speak of the coal and iron interest, which, in his
State, was one of great importance. But he would
first observe that, as a general rule, he would be dis-
posed to tax the luxuries of life, and such articles as
came in competition with domestic productions. He
would so tax imports as to enable the domestic fab-
ricator to compete with the foreign manufacturer,
while neither was permitted to impose upon the con-
sumer; and if other duties were necessary, he
would impose them on the luxuries of life, admit-
ting free of duty such articles as are of prime ne-
cessity, but not produced in this country.
After giving a passing notice to the remarks of
the gentleman from Alabama, [Mr. Belser,] in re-
lation to the English corn laws, and the imposition
of duties generally for the support of the army and
navy of that country, he said this country, too, had
to support an army and navy, for the protection of
its citizens and their commerce. Of the importance
of our commerce, some idea might be formed from
the fact that there were paid to the British govern-
ment duties on the importation of American prod-
uce, which, in the year 1839, amounted to up-
wards of $.26,000,000, and in 1840 to upwards of
#28,000,000.
Mr. B. here went into an estimate, to show that
our exports were made up, m a great measure, by
southern production, and that but a very small
amount, in comparison, consisted of the avails of
the agricultural industry of the northern, middle, or
western States. What reason for complaint, sir,
(said Ive,) have our southern brethren on this score?
la addition to this, England imposes upon their cot-
ton, which forms their chief export, only a nominal
duty; whereas, if a citizen of one of the grain-grow-
ing States desires to send a thousand barrels of flour
to London or Liverpool, be will be met with a de-
mand for §2,800 duty, before he can exchange his
cargo for their cotton, woollens, or other manufac-
tures, which he can obtain at fair prices, and with-
out paying duties at any of our own manufactories.
Suppose, sir, one of my constituents desires to
send a cargo of coal or "black diamonds;" because,
although T represent an agricultural district, rich,
and for the most part, lovely as the sun ever shone
on, yet we have no surplus grain or other produc-
tions, for the operations in coal and iron there, have
made a market at the door of the farmer. He wishes,
therefore, to send a load of coal, but you can't "send
coals to Newcastle." What is to be done? Sup-
pose he should exchange his coal at Baltimore for
tobacco: now what will England charge him, as
duty, on his tobacco? One thousand per cent., or
$1,000 on every $100 of American cost. He must
turn his enterprise in another direction, and endea-
vor to build up a market at home; and, sir, I am
glad to discover our coal is going into all the Atlan-
tic ports.
The Boston Atlas, of January 2, 1844, states that
for 1843, there were imported into that city:
Flour, 610,964 barrels.
Coal, 117,451 tons, all but 4,000 tons being from
Pennsylvania.
Corn, 1,540,306 bushels; of which 750,000 bush-
els went from the Chesapeake and Delaware waters.
In addition to the 117,451 tons sent to Boston,
about 50,000 tons were sent to Providcncc, besides
smaller amounts to Newport, Nantucket, and ten
or a dozen other ports. I discover that gentlemen
have but an imperfect notion of the importance of
our coal operations. Some twelve or fourteen years
ago I stopped for the night in the upper part of my
district; at what is now called Carbondale, I stayed
in a log-house—one of the only two there was in the
place at that time.
Now, from Carbondale there is an amount of ton-
nage sent off, greater than alt the foreign trade from
Philadelphia. Four hundred ships, each carrying
five hundred tons, to depart from the great port of
New York in a year, would make no mean figure,
in her column of commercial statistics. Yet so
many tons go from a single town in Luzerne—Car-
bondale sends off more than two hundred thousand
a year!
These operations alone, offered a home market
for all the agricultural productions of the surround-
ing; country, which is now fast improving; and in
addition to this, the boats which transport the coal
by way of the railroad, and Delaware and Hudson
canal, to the Hudson, return often laden with flour
and other productions of western New York, and
from still further west.
This case is referred to merely as an example.
There are other similar cases, not only in my dis-
trict, but all over the whole of the six anthracite
coal regions of the State, to say nothing of the bi-
tuminous fields which cue more than equal to all the
coal of England and Wales. Fiom Carbondale a
communication has been made to tide-water, on the
Hudson, while from other portions of the coal of
my district, railroads and canals have been made to
the tide waters of ihc Delaware and the Chesapeake.
From tide-water, at Havre de Grace, our coal,
of course, may be transported m suitable vessels to
Baltimore, Washington, Alexandria, Norfolk, Hart-
ford, New London, Norwich, ]S>wport, Providence,
Nantucket, New BedfoiJ, Boston, and, indeed, to
all the eastern markets. There is a canal from the
Chesapeake bay, piercing the valley on the line of
the Susquehanna nn the south. Second* The canal
and railroad from the North river piercing the coal
field at Carbondale. Third: The North Hranch ex-
tension, coming down from the Genesee country,
piercing the valley on the northwest. The noble
works of the Munch Chunk company, leading up
from the cities of New York and Philadelphia, and
entering the valley on the east. Avenues to market,
it will be seen, will be abundant, to insure healthful
competition, and an uninterrupted trade.
This competition, not only m this section, but in
all the rest, will always continue, ft has already re-
duced the price of coal, on the seaboard, more than
15 per cent., and will always contmuc a sure guar-
anty to the consumer against unfairpiices.
There are, in the State of Pennsylvania, 2,250
miles of canal and railroads, at a cost of nearly $H0,-
000,000; pcihaps about 300 miles arc not in opera-
tion. Something like one-half of these improvement's
have been constructed by the State, ana the other
half by companies and individuals; a moiety of
those made by the State, and the mam portion of
the residue, luwe been brought into existence for
the purpose of developing the coal and iron interests
of the State, winch would have otherwise remained
locked up in the interior. It has been estimated that
the operations m iion, alone, give employment to
about 20,000 hands, or laboiers, having 100,000
souls dependent upon them, and consuming at
least $10,000,000 worth of our agricultural produc-
tions. From what investigation 1 havegiven the sub-
ject, I am inclined to th^ opinion, that the coal trade
is becoming: equal to, if not greater than, the iron.
The gentleman from Ohio [Mr, Weller] has taken
a very contracted view of the importance of these
iron and coal interests in Pennsylvania. He refers
to the census to see how many are engaged m the
mines, and how many in the furnaces, merely. He
makes no calculation of those engaged in making
our thousand canal boats, and many thousand mil-
road cars, for the transportation of coal and iron,
and those engaged in the transportation. But vast
as the operations are, they are yet in their infancy,
comparatively speaking. .
One important consideration connected with these
interests is, that of the vast amount in value pro-
duced in the articles of coal'and iron, a considerable
portion may be consideied as created out of articles
otherwise useless, and another portion is made up
of labor and the consumption of agricultural pro-
ductions. For example:
In making iron, the ore and limestone used,
would, werfe the manufacture abandoned, be of lit-
tle comparative worth. In making 1,000 tons of
pig metal, woith $25,000, theie would be used
2,500 tons of ore, worth in the bed - §1,250 00
2,500 tons coal, worth in the bed - 1,250 00
1,000 tons limestone, worth in the bed - 500 00
$3,000 00
So that the value of three thousand dollars of
the 25,000, being of matenals otherwise worthless,
may be regarded as creatcd by the manufacture.
Let us pursue this matter of iron a little further.
A ton of bar iron is worth m market $75 00.
Of what is this composed? Let us see.
Two and a half tons ore - - $1 25
Two and a half tons coal - - -125
Labor and provisions, (American, too,) to
dig the ore and coal and deliver at furnace
— 5 tons, at $2 00 - - - 10 00
Limestone - - - - - 1 50
Labor and provisions m smelting ore
Cost of a ton of pig iron
Contingencies -
14 00
3 50
17 50
2 50
$20 00
This would be one-third the cost of the
bar iron.
Add two-thirds - - - - 40 00
60 00
Conveying to market and profit - - 15 00
$75 00
Now the two-thirds or forty dollars addition con-
sists chiefly of American labor, American coal, and
American provisions.
The American fcirmei then feeds these workmen,
and thus finds a domestic or home market for hi3
produce. Is not then the farmer benefited and in-
terested quite as much as the manufacturer'' Labor
constitutes a large item in the analysis.
Is not, then, the American laborer—the true-heart-
ed working man—benefited?
But these workmen must have houses to live in—>
clothes to wear—so that they, in finding profitable
employment, are able to pay the house carpenter,
the tailor, the shoemaker. And more, the mer-
chant comes in for his share of business. In the
sale of articles of merchandise which these work-
men are able to purchase, and to pay for, in
consequence of the employment m winch they are
engaged. To show that what has been said of iron
is also tiue of coal, let us look at the estimate of the
cost of a ton of coal delivered at the seaboard.
I will give the following as the co-t of delivering
coal at Havre de Grace, from Wyoming.
Coal in mine a ton - - - - 50
Mining and placing m boats on canal - 50
Toll in round numbers - - - 70
Transportaliot• 3-5 of a cent per ton per
mile - - - - -1 20
Contingencies - - - - 20
$3 10
The following comparative statement will show
the quantity of anthracite coal shipped from the dif-
ferent regions ni 1842 and lc'43:
1842.
Sehuykill,
Lfhigh,
Lackawana,
Pmegrove,
Shamokin,
Wilkesbarre,
540,892
272,129
205,2r>3
32,281
10,000
47,346
1,108,001
Increase in the supply in 1843, tons -
Add overstock April 1, 1843, -
Increase supply for 1843, tons
1843.
677,205
267,734
227,605
22,905
10,000
58,000
1,263,539
1,108,001
155,538
50,000
205,538