I am deeply impressed with the great importance of the question now
before us for consideration. It is not local, not sectional, nor
political, but a question that affects more or less directly the
industrial, the mercantile, the manufacturing, and the commercial
interests of the whole Commonwealth. The proper solution of this great
problem rests with us, as the representatives of the people; and it is
a responsibility of no ordinary importance, and one that should
control our serious and earnest attention and our candid and best
judgment, unbiased by any local or personal interest, with a solemn
regard to our oaths to support and maintain the constitutional rights
of the people of the Commonwealth.
Stern convictions of duty alone induce me to address this honorable
body on this occasion--duty that I feel incumbent upon me, Mr.
President, from the honored position that I received at your hands. It
is well known that I neither have or make any claims as a public
speaker, and I must ask your indulgence for being somewhat dependent
upon my notes in presenting to you an honest statement of my own
convictions of this great question, having no other interest to serve
but the State and her people.
This important subject involves directly the whole question of the
railroad policy of this Commonwealth; and here in Massachusetts the
proper direction of the railroad policy is even more important than at
the West, where it now engages the public attention almost to the
exclusion of other interests.
Within the last fifty years this Commonwealth has almost entirely
changed its industrial position. Half a century ago, agriculture, the
fisheries, and commerce were the leading interests. Now, manufactures
engross the attention of our people, and have made all other interests
subordinate. They have not excluded other interests, but in a measure
supplemented them. Our agriculture has changed and now finds its chief
support in providing supplies for the manufacturing towns which have
grown up in every part of the Commonwealth. Our commerce, both
internal and external, is largely engaged in bringing to our doors the
raw material for our laborers, and in spreading throughout the world
the products of our manufacturing industry.
We can raise but a small proportion of the food necessary to feed the
people of the State; under such circumstances the transportation must
weigh heavily upon our industry. We feel it in the increased cost of
living, which increases the cost of every article we produce. We feel
it in the increased cost of the raw materials of our manufactures,
which makes us less able to compete successfully with more favored
locations. We feel it finally in the increased cost of marketing our
goods. This position has been so well stated by the Railroad
Commissioners in their report of 1870, page 39, that I may repeat it
here:
"It may safely be asserted that there is no branch of Massachusetts
industry which is not carried on against competition more
advantageously located. The State has very few natural advantages;
but everything with her depends on the intelligence of her people,
and the cost of transportation. The West, in producing cereals, has
at least a soil of unsurpassed fertility: Pennsylvania in
manufacturing iron has the ore and the coal in close proximity to
the furnace. The English mill-owner has his power and his labor in
cheap profusion. Almost every article, however, which enters into
the industries of Massachusetts has to be brought within her limits
from a distance. Her very water powers are subject to inclement
winters and dry summers, while she has to make her ingenuity supply
a deficiency in labor. Her food is brought from the North-West: her
wool and her leather from South America, Texas, California and the
Central States: her cotton from the South: her ores from the
Adirondacks: her coal from Pennsylvania; her copper from
Superior,--and the list would admit of infinite extension.
Massachusetts is thus merely an artificial point of meeting for all
kinds and descriptions of raw material which is here worked up, and
then sent abroad again to find a customer At every point, coming
and going, and in process of manufacture, it has to be transported,
and it has to bear all costs of transportation in competition with
articles of the same description produced elsewhere and by others.
Every reduction of the transportation tax acts then as a direct
encouragement to the industry of Massachusetts, just as much so as
if it were a bounty or bonus: it is just so much weight taken off
in the race of competition."
No words of mine can add any force to this plain statement of facts;
but yet we are told that transportation is only _one_ element in the
cost and price of goods, and frequently not that of the greatest
consequence, but the importance of this _one_ element is fourfold, and
often more, to the Massachusetts manufacturer, making the
transportation of more importance in many cases than the cost of
materials transported. This transportation tax is the _very_ element
that is to build up a competition in these favored localities that
will either extinguish or transfer many classes of our industrial
interests that we can ill afford to lose.
It is only necessary for one to travel West and South and observe the
great development and success of the manufacturing interest in these
sections to be convinced that New England cannot long hold the
prestige as the "workshop" of the country with so heavy a
transportation tax imposed upon her industrial productions.
The importance of this ONE element will be more fully realized by the
Eastern manufacturer when he finds that his Southern and Western
rivals save it altogether by having the raw material at hand, and a
home market with all the other elements (save skilled labor which can
be transported) that make manufacturing industry profitable at a much
less cost.
A combination of our manufacturers to establish cheap transportation,
and the sale of their goods upon a home market, would be far more to
their interest and profit than the exaction of an extra hour's labor
and would confer a great blessing upon their overtasked employees.