Pennsylvania Iron Memorial [pp. 1-22]

1852.] Pennsylvania Iron Memorial. 13
say they, "we know that we can furnish to the consumers
of this country a million of tons of iron cheaper and better
than it can be had abroad." It appears from a statement
we have already alluded to, made by the engineer of the
Reading rail road, Pennsylvania, to the President, Mr.
Tucker, which statement is published in the last January
number of llunt's Merchant's Magazine, from the Philadelphia Ledger, where it first appeared, that American
iron is worth, upon experience, thirteen dollars fifty cents
per ton more than British irou. Or, in other words, that
it is as economical to give fifty-three dollars fifty cents a
ton for American iron, as forty dollars for British. If this
is true, and we have no reason for denying it, then here is
thirty-three and a half per cent. advantage which the
American has over the British, besides fl~e duty of thirty
per cent. under the Act of 1846. Is not that enough to
satisfy them? The American people are too shrewd not
to make the best bargain that is offered. And the same
statement admits "that the dividend paying capacity of a
rail road is the same with English iron at forty dollars a
ton, as with American iron at fifty-three dollars fifty
cents." Now all we ask is to be let alone to our own
bargains, and to judge for ourselves whether it be to our
interest tp buy English iron at forty dollars a ton, or
American at fifty-three dollars and a half. It is ~Socialisra at once if the course of industry is to be regulated by
the state, and not left to individual enterprise and fo allconquering competition. If their iron is cheaper and better than the British, it will be bougbt,-if not so good, and
dearer, the government has no right to force it upon the
people by giving a monopoly to the maker. But it is not
on the fact that they cannot furnish consumers with "iron
cheaper and better than it can be had from abroad," that
the memorialists base the grounds of their petition, for,
say they, "we ask for defence against those commerejal
fluetuations which occur in ~reat Britain from causes
wholly originating there." Might not the government as
reasonably be asked to relieve them from commercial
fluctuations so frequently caused by revolutions in F'rance,
or elsewhere? Are not all interests influenced by these
fluctuations? N~\Till government attempt to guarantee
against them? Some fluctuations in the cotton market
would soon cause it to stop payment. Great Britain is