Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1873 — Home Manufactures, and the Wabash & Lake Michigan Hallroad. [ARTICLE]

Home Manufactures, and the Wabash & Lake Michigan Hallroad.

No doubt, the rates for railroad transportation are, in many instances, excessive to extortion, yet the people should not fail to remember that the great length of transportation—the distance between the producer and consumer—has a great deal, to do With this question. In the shipment of corn from Illinois to Boston 60 cents per bushel are added to itsjinee to the cosumer. Because of their smaller bulk, and greater proportionate value, manufactured articles taken west are not increased in price to the consumer in as great a proportion: yet, when we take the cost of trasportation both ways over thousands of miles of rail, or even water, with numerous transfers or changes of lines, no matter how reasonable the rates may be made by Congressional or other legislation, it will be found on an average nearly equal to the k cost of production. No matter what action Congress and State Legislatures may take in this matter, this result cannotJie greatly modifiedWhat then becomes our duty? Does it stop, or is it complete, with demands for eheaper“trrinspor(atidn and with efforts to regulate the extortion of middlemen? Doctors-w ho prescibe these as a panacea, have certainly failed in their diagnosis and they are as purely ignorant of the thorough treatment of the case. It is certainly true that the great distance between the producer and consumer, adds greatly to the market value of : any article to the consumer and ascertainly decreases its value proportionately to the producer. From this it follows that if we decrease the distance of transportation between the producer and consumer, we at least, give chance for increased pay to the producer and decrease in cost to the consumer. Then it follows that to decrease the distance of transportation is the only thorough remedy; and that cheap transportation ana co-operative handling to save the commissions of the middlemen are but temporary expedients. But how can this distance be decrease? How can the producer -and consumer be brought nearer together? In no other wvy but by a proper diversity of labor and capital. The factory must stand adjoining the farm house, while the reaper sings in the harvest field, near by the bfizz of machinery must be heard in the village or city. When the farmer can walk directly from” his fgjrm into the office of a factory and purchase his implements the trade of middlemen, like Othello’s, is,gone. When the mechanic can purchase his flour directly from the mill, and beef that never entered a railroad car, his cost of living will be greatly decreased, and hence, a ; corresponding decrease in the arti-

cte he manafaetures; or, if this decrease be not iirule, ail ability to pay the increased price for articles consumed by himself and family.— when the clothing worn by western families, is mainly wrought from the cotton fibre and snowy fleece, by western looms and spindles, When the implements of western farms are manufactured by western coal, iron, hammer and muscle; when the paper of- western books, magazines, walls and counters are made by the action of western acids on western rags and straw; when the rails that carry her heavy freight and lightning express trains over her fertile prairies, are produced from the coal that lies beneath and the ores of the intervening hills, when agriculture and manufacture, throughout the districts so oppressed by excessive rates of transportation, are made properly proportionate, the extortion of the middlemen will become a fable and the cost of transporting the surplus agricultural products of the west will no longer be burdensome even without legislative enactmeiit. But it may be answered that with the difference in the interest on money and cost of labor against the west this cannot be practical. This is a strong partial, but not a perfect objection. Besides, will the cost of labor and money become less in the west, or greater in the east proportionately without an effort? Will manufacturics grow up without an effort at encouragement? While we should not discourage the construction of additional through lines to the east, we should devote a proper effort toward tho opening of communication between the coal and iron fields of the west and her villages as well as her cities. Short and cross railroads bringing coal and lumber directly to the farmers and other consumers in bur at present “put of the way” villages and agricultural districts, thereby decreasing thecost of these articles and building up tories in the villages as well as in the cities of the west, are at pres-ent-among her public- necessities, and an effort expended on their construction strikes at the very heart of the matter of trausyortation. And such is the character of the proposed Wabash. «fc Lake Michigan road, and for tins Very reason it is of the greatest imporance to the districts along its route. The majority of the coal now used along its line Is shipped over 400 miles; it would decrease the - distance to 100. The 500 miles between this locality and any great iron furnace district make the manutacturing of iron and steel articles an impossibility. The cost of fuel along the line at present rates nukes the running of common grist mills precarious, and tho .abundant manufacture of lime from the abundant limestones an impossibility. The present condition of things along its Lino-maker such a road a certain public necessity. With a soil fertile it purchases its bread from other localities, because the cost of fuel will not allow grist and merchant mills to prosper on the soil where it is produced. With broad acres needing fences and countless herds needing barns to protect them and their food from the sun and storm, the sound of the saw and hammer is not heard because of the zig-zag rout to the pineries, and 500 miles of transportation for nails. The wagons, reapers, thieshers and other agricultural implements must be imported and their value in agricultural products at a low price exported and the cost of-transpor-tation paid both ways for the same "reason. No wonder there is a cry o! hard times among the farmers along the proposed line. To the citizens of Benton and Jasper counties this is the road needed above all others and with proper energy it may succeed. Will they make the proper effort, which if not exerted now, inay probably never be again possible? With the additional through connection .to,the cast it would give, and with coal for stove, forge and furnace, wi thin a hundred miles, .and the pineries within a hundred miles more, what a burden would be lifted from the citizens along its proposed route. — Remington Journal. Secretaries of Granges can procure blank applications for membership at this office, for 10 cents a dozen.