USA > Indiana > Perry County > Cannelton > Cannelton, Perry County, Ind., at the intersection of the eastern margin of the Illinois coal basin, by the Ohio River : its natural advantages as a site for manufacturing > Part 13
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We have to examine the relative cost of food, labor, power, materials and transportation.
It is difficult to classify the various items of subsistence, and to show the re attive cost of living in the respective districts. A man can exist on a penny day in London, and perhaps in the cellar of the very house where parlor board ers pay a guinnca for every dinner. Equivalent quantities and qualities mus only be regarded, and, without quoting largely from prices current, it is fair t fix on wheat, which is grown in perfection here and there, as the standard Of this, our rate would not average 70 cents per bushel, while the English rat would average over $1,20 per bushel. The relative rents or value of equiva lent land, free from taxation, and near markets equivalent in extent, would bl ten or twenty to one in our favor.
Mr. Carey, in his work on political economy, gives ample proof that ou labor, measured by its efficiency, is the cheapest, and the following quotation which we take from page 229 of 2d volume of Mills' Political Economy (th) most recent English work on that science,) will save ns the trouble of makin further comparison on that point:
"In America, wages are much higher than in England, if we mean, by wage: the daily earnings of the laborer; but the productive power of American labo is so great-its efficiency, combined with the favorable circumstances in which it is exerted, makes it worth so much to the purchaser, that the cost of labor i lower in America than in England."
POWER .- In the strata of our central coal basin, which average about foul feet in thickness, a good miner will dig and wheel, to the month of the drif. from 70 to 110 bushels of lump coal in ten hours; as the labor in these strata i healthy, safe, and not irksome, it is well paid, compared with our present price of agricultural labor, at $1 25 per day; eighty bushels should cost say one al a half cents per bushel, besides rent, which, on the most favorable sites, is no over one cent per bushel; add one half cent, for profit to the contractor, an we have the cost of our best lump coals, at three cents per bushel, at th
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urnacc door of the mill or furnace, and directly on navigable streams, canals or railroads, by which these strata are cut.
These coals are, according to the report of Prof. Johnson, equal in evapora- ive power to the best English coals, the average cost of which, at the pit's mouth, is not less than ten cents per bushel. The average price of lump coals tt Newcastle, and for the last forty years, has been 12s. 1d. per ton, or a fraction ver ten cents per bushel. The prices of the best coals at Liverpool have aver- ged $3 67 per ton, or say 13 cents per bushel.
It will be borne in mind, that the prices of coals in England have reached their owest points; here the tendency of prices at the mines is downward.
Here there is a most important element (one which has made England what he is) at less than one-third its cost in the country from which, as is supposed, e require protection.
COTTON .- From the central cotton fields of the southwest, cotton can be laid own at the factories built and to be built np on the banks of the Ohio, in Da- iess and Perry counties, as cheap as at New Orleans. The cost and charges of emoving cotton from New Orleans to Manchester is not less, on the average, an one and a half cents per pound Here we have an advantage of say venty per cent, in obtaining the chief material of cloth.
As to this, our great staple-a staple in which we virtually have the monopoly -it is the height of absurdity to suppose that its manufacturers, 5,000 miles dis- nt, can compete with ns, even if we had no other advantage than the saving in ansportation.
IRON .- We can find no tables of the actual cost of iron in England, and the rices are so fluctuating as to be an unsafe criterion. About 1835, the cost at erthyr, Tydvil, in South Wales, is stated to have been £3 0s. 5d., and at Glas w. £2 17s. 9d. per ton for hot blast cast iron. This cost has been reduced by e introduction of new and improved processes, which we have been slow in lopting, in consequence of the high cost of machinery and fixtures. A com- ete set of three furnaces costing, in England, about $100,000.
The clay iron stone of the coal measures is the chief ore smelted in England; id perhaps the position most favorable for this manufacture in that kingdom, is the south of Staffordshire, where are associated the pit coal and iron ore, the nestone for finxes and the fire-clay and fire-stone for construction of the furna
s. The crude iron-stone there rarely yields over its 30 parts in the 100 of e. It is drawn up with the coal some hundreds of yards from the surface, and. twithstanding the low prices of labor and capital, costs an average of 12 shil- gs a ton. The best quality of "gubbin," runs up to 16 aud 17 shillings. At cents the shilling, the average stated is $2 88 per ton. the cost of lime-stone about $1 44 per ton, and of coals, equivalent to ours, certainly over seven nts a bushel, or $1 96 per ton.
By the best processes that we have seen described for making hot blast iron, may set down three tons of coals and one ton of lime stone for the ton of n, and thus obtain the cost of the ernde materials combined in that ton:
Iron stone, three tons, at $2 88 $8 64
Coals, three tons, at $1 96. 5 88
Limestone, one ton. 1 96
$16 48
From the imperfect data before us, we think that the cost of conversion, in- ding labor, interest on capital, &c , &c., must be at least $3 32 per ton; ma- g the whole cost $20 per ton
At the best iron works in New England, and with ore of about the same yield, i cost of convertion is not far from $5 50 per ton.
The price of Scotch pig iron in New York is now quoted at $18 per ton, duty d; but we are not advised of the losses or profits of the producer, or the qual- of the article; and we cannot ascertain the cost of the crude materials.
n our western counties enumerated, we have iron-stone of greater purity, rs averaging from 30 to 60 per cent,) pit-coal, fire-stone, fire-clay, and lime -
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stone of as good quality. At our high prices of labor, and with our imperfect machinery and lack of system, in the very infancy of the manufacture here, our Trude materials will average about thus:
Three tons of ore, at $1. $3 00
Three tons of coal, at $1 3 00
75
One tone of limestone, at 75 cents
$6 75
against the Staffordshire cost of $16 48.
If charcoal is used, at a cost of three cents per bushel, and allowing 200 bush els to the ton of iron, we increase the cost of materials to $9 75 per ton, and we get a much better article.
At the furnaces erected on the banks of the Cumberland, and close by uncov ered beds of rich iron-stone, the cost of the ore is said to be less than 75 cent. per ton.
In the estimate of cost here, we put the minimum rates at the most favorable positions. It is more important to show what can be than what is done.
A very low cost of stone-coal iron in Scotland and Wales is stated to be 388 ($9 16) per ton. Perhaps the average cost is over 42s. $10 08) when there ar fair crops and no unusual scarcity of money in England.
The cost of moving a ton of pig-iron from Staffordshire (the heart of England to the central cities of this valley, even if taken as ballast from Liverpool or Bri: tol to New Orleans, cannot be less than $8 per ton-making the whole cost her from $17 to $24 per ton, without any duty. Now, unless we have been griev ously hoaxed in answer to our inquiries, pig-iron of greater value is now made o the Cumberland, the White and the Merrimack (Mo.) rivers, at less than $1 per ton, if not less than $12 per ton, and, at these positions, there are all th materials sufficiently abundant for the making of iron for a thousand years, an for the use of the world.
Such of our readers as wish to learn more of the details of the cost and mi king of iron, are referred to the works of Dr. Ure, R. C. Taylor, and the abl paper of Mr. Hodge, published in the Railroad Journal.
WOOL .- The grades of wool are so various, that the relative cost of equiv lent kinds, in England, and on the Ohio, cannot be given (at least by us) wit accuracy; yet we know very well that we have every variety of climate, soil ar. food, for sheep husbandry, and either on the sides of the Appalachian mountain or on the central prairies, we can produce every kind of sheep and wool of ar. fineness. We know that it must cost less to produce wool on our cheap land than on the costly and highly taxed lands of England and Belgium; and, if w should have to obtain full supply from the mountains of Spain or the pampas d South America, the average distance is not against us, and the natural attractio: are greatest to our cheaper food and fuel.
WooD .- Here, of course, there can be no question of our advantages. Fro the building of a ship to the making of a cradle, we have the material at ou doors, while England has to obtain her chief supply from the heart of Euro] or this side of the rapids of the St. Lawrence.
Indeed, in the enumeration of the entire list of heavy and bulky raw mater which a manufacturing people require, we can think of scarcely one in whi we have not, or cannot easily have, a most decided advantage over England al every other country where are equal facilities of communication and interchang and where the character of the people, the laws and the climate, are equally 3 vorable to manufacturing pursuits.
Such are the general facts, and we could here rest our argument. But, as is always easy to answer general statements by statements equally general, ar as the mass of renders will not take the trouble to analyze either, we will aga recur to the cotton manufacture, which is, directly or indirectly, the chief sour of employment to the manufacturing world.
For the correctness of our details, we refer to a pamphlet recently publish by General C. T. James, of Rhode Island, whose statements on the subject w
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not be questioned, and whose able letter onght to be studied by every western and southern statesman and capitalist.
A cotton mill of 10.000 spindles and corresponding machinery, for making coarse brown cottons, will require a fixed and working capital of less than $300,000; will operate with 43 men and 229 women and children; will require say 50,000 bushels of roal, and work up !. 800,000 pounds cotton yearly.
This cotton can be laid down at the month of the Tradewater, at Bou Harbor, or at Cannelion, as cheap as at New Orleans.
The freight, insurance, interest in transitu, wastage, commission, &c., from the New Orleans levee and through the cotton press, to Manchester, Glasgow, Lisle or Bruges, will average over 13 cents per pound.
Our mill saves this, or $27,000
Difference in coal in onr favor over 4 cents per bushel, 2,000
Difference in starch, oil, wood, &c., &c., over. 1,000
$30,000
England has no advantages over us, in making those coarse fabrics, save in the abundance and low rate of her capital, and this is nearly or quite neutralized by her distance from the raw material and the necessary use of a greater capital in its conversion either in the hands of the ship owner, factor, or mannfacturer.
But, for the argument, we will suppose that the Englishman only requires $300,000 for the mill; that he is satisfied with 4 per cent dividends, and we re- quire 8 per cent. In this item, then, he has the yearly advantage of $12,000.
There is abundant evidence to show that the New England mills can make a pound of coarse cottons cheaper than their Manchester competitors; and there is abundant evidence that we can make up the same quantity cheaper than the New Englander-yet, as this question of wages is a stumbling block to our peo- ple who have not examined the subject, we will show the doubters the weakness of their doubts by supposing that our Ohio river mill will pay Lowell wages, and that the English mill owner can get his work done at half our prices. How- ever, when we are clothing the English army in India, and against a differential duty of 15 per cent, this supposition would really seem absurd.
Well, at the Lowell rates, the yearly cost of the forty-five inen at 80 cents per day, is, for
300 days, $10,820 And of the 229 women and children, at $2 per week, for 52 weeks is 23,816
Or, total, $34,136
One half of this is. $17.038
To which add the supposed difference against us in the use of cap-
ital, or $12,000
And we have
$29,068
as the sum of the advantages of the English manufacturers, and less than the sum of our known and certain and unchangeable advantages of $932 per annum; and this, not for our home market, but for markets equally near to both. For our home markets, we have the further advantage of the cost of bringing four and a half millions yards of cotton, or over $45,000 per annum.
By the time that we have supplied our home market with the coarse cotton fabrics, we shall have the skill. machinery and capital, to produce these at a low- er relative cust, and to compete with foreign manufacturers in the finer fabrica of cotton.
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GENERAL LAW OF INDIANA RESPECTING CORPORATIONS.
Indiana Revised Statutes of 1843 .-- Chap. 32 .- Article 2.
Sxc. 14. All corporations shall, where no other provision is especially made. be capable, in their corporate name, to sue and be sued, appear, prosecute, and defend, to final judgment and execution, in any courts, or elsewhere ;* to have a common seal, which they may alter at pleasure; to elect, in such inanner as they shall determine to be proper, all necessary officers, and to fix their com- peusation, and define their duties and obligations; and to make by-laws and regulations, consistent with the constitution and laws of this State and the United States, for their own government, and for the due and orderly conduct- ing of their affairs, and the management of their property.t
Szc. 15. All corporations may, by their by laws, where no other provision is especially made, determine the manner of calling and conducting all meet- ings, the number of members that shall constitute a quorum, the number of shares that shall entitle the members to one or more votes, the mode of voting by proxy, the mode of selling shares for the non-payment of assessments, and the tenure of office of the several officers; but no such by-law shall be made by any corporation repugnant to any provision of its charter.
SEE. 16. The first meeting of all corporations shall, unless otherwise pro- vided for in their acts of incorporation, be called by a notice signed by any one or more of the persons named in the act of iucorporation, and setting forth the time, place, and purposes of the meeting; and such notices shall, seven days at least before the meeting, be delivered to each member, or published in some newspaper of the county where the corporation may be established, or if there be no newspaper in the county, then in some newspaper of an adjoining conuty.
SEc. 17. Such corporation, when so assembled, may elect officers to fill all vacancies then existing, and may act upon such other business as might by law be transacted at regular meetings of the corporation.
Skc. 18. Every such corporation may hold lands to an amount authorized by law, and may convey the same.
SEC. 19. All corporations whose charters shall expire by their own limitation, or shall be annulled by forfeiture or otherwise, shall nevertheless be continued bodies corporate, for the term of three years after the time when they would have been so dissolved, for the purpose of prosecuting and defending suits by or against them, and of enabling them gradually to settle and close their con- cerus, to dispose of and convey their property. and to divide their capital stock, but not for the purpose of continuing the business for which such cor- porations have been or may be established.#
* A corporation legally created in any one of the states may sue in the courts of this state. The Guaga Iron Company v. Dawson, 4 Blackf. 202.
A party contracting with a corporation is cstopped from saying that they were not at the time a corporation. 2 Blackf. 367. But a party is not estopped from denying that the corpora- tion existed at the time the suit was brought. 4 Blackf. 202.
The declaration in a suit brought in a corporate name need not aver the plaintiffs to be a cor- poration. Harris v. The Muskingum Manufacturing Company, 4 Blackf. 267.
i 'The whole corporation is answerable, so far as its franchises are in question for the miscon- duct of the president and directors, or other select body in the management of the coucerus under their control. Bank of Vincennes S. B. v. The State, 1 Blackf. 267.
į The debts due to or from a corporation are extinguished by its dissolution; its lands and tenements revert to the grantor and his heirs, and its goods and chattels become vested in the state. Bank of Vincennes S. B. v. The State, 1 Blackf. 267.
A plea in abatement to an action by a corporation, that the charter is forfeited in consequence of a mis-user or non-user of the franchises cannot be good, unless it show the forfeiture to have been judicially declared in the instance of the government. John et al. v. The Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank of Indiana, 2 Blackf. 367.
A plea to a suit by a corporation, stating that the corporation had been dissolved by the acts of its members, without showing the causes and manner of the dissolution, is insufficient. Har- ris v. The Muskingum Manufacturing Company, 4 Blackf. 267.
As to a judgment against a corporation in case of a forfeiture, the effect of such judgment, &c., see Bank of Vincennes S. B. v. The State, 1 Black". 267.
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Src. 20. When the charter of any corporation shall expire or be annulled. as provided in the preceding section, the circuit court of the county in which such corporation carries on its business, or has its principal place of business, on application of any creditor of such corporation, or of any stockholder or member thereof, at any time within the said three years, may appoint one or more persons to be receivers or trustees of and for such corporation, to take charge of the estate and effects thereof, and to collect the debts and property dne and belonging to the corporation, with power to proscente and defend. in the name of the corporation or otherwise, all such suits as may be necessary or proper, for the purposes aforesaid; and to appoint an agent or agents under them, and to do all other acts which might be done by such corporation. if in being, that may be necessary for the final settlement of the unfinished business of the corporation; and the power of such receivers may be continued beyond the said three years, and as long as the court shall think necessary for the pur- poses aforesaid.
SEC. 21. The said court shall have jurisdiction in chancery of such applica- tion, and of all questions arising in the proceedings thereon, and may make such orders, injunctions, and decrees thereon as justice and equity shall require.
SEC. 22. The said receivers shall pay all debts dne from the corporation. if the funds in their hands shall be sufficient therefor, and if not. they shall dis- tribute the same rateably among all the creditors, who shall prove their debts in the manner that shall be directed by any order or decree of the court for that purpose; and if there shall be any balance remaining after the payment of said debts, the receivers shall distribute and pay the same to and among those who shall be justly entitled thereto, as having been stockholders or mein- bers of the corporation, or their legal representatives.
Skc. 23. If there shall be no person entitled to receive the same. or any part thereof, it shall be paid into the state treasury, to be disposed of in such man- ner as the general assembly may at any time direct.
CHARTER OF THE AMERICAN CANNEL COAL COMPANY.
AN ACT to incorporate the American Cannel Coal Company :
SECTION 1. Be it cnarted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana: That Seth Hunt, John D. W. Williams, James 'T. Hobert, J. B. Rupell, Elijah Liver- inore, and their associates, successors and assigns, shall be and they hereby are created and incorporated a body politic and corporate by and under the name and title of the American Cannel Coal Company, for the purposes of mining for stone-coal at Coal Haven, in the County of Perry, and elsewhere in said county, and also for iron ore and other materials, and for manufacturing iron. copperas and lumber, and building steam and flat boats for the transportation of coal, Inmber, iron and other products, and by the aforesaid name, may prosecute and defend suits at law and equity, have a common seal, choose all necessary officers, and make and establish such by-laws, rules and regulations as they inay deem necessary and expedient for the management of the business and the gov- ernment of the interests and concerns of the said company: provided. the same be not repugnant to the constitution and laws of this State and the United States.
SEC. 2. Be it further enacted: That the said Company may purchase, receive, hold and enjoy, lands, coal, iron and other mines, rents, tenements, inills and mannfactories, furnaces and forges, steamboats and other water craft, goods, chattels and effects. to the amonut of three hundred thousand dollars to be divi- ded into shares of one hundred dollars cach, with liberty to increase the capital stock to five hundred thousand dollars, should the business of said company re- qnire it, and the same to sell, convey and demise, and generally, with power to do and perform all acts and things, and have, exercise and enjoy all the right".
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immunities and privileges pertaining to companies legally incorporated: provid- ed, that all the estate, real and personal, held and owned by said company, shall be held liable to assessment and taxation in the same manner as if the same were held and owned by an individual.
SEc. 3 Be it further enacted: that the business of the said company shall be mining for coal, iron ore and other materials, the manufacture of the same in their various branches, the manufacture of copperas, sawing, and manufacturing flour and lumber, building steamboats and other water craft, mills, furnaces and forges, and in transporting coal, iron lumber and other products from Coal Ha- ven and other places, to New Orleans and elsewhere, as may be most advanta- geous to the business and interests of said company.
SEC. 4. Be it further enacted: That the business of said company shall be carried on by one or more general agents, to be duly appointed by and to be under and subject to the direction and control of three (3) directors of said com- pany, to be annually chosen by the stockholders of said company. Said direct- ovs shall be chosen annually on the first Monday in May, by ballot, from among the stockholders, who shall hold their offices for one year, and until other direct- ors are legally chosen by a majority of the votes given, either by the stockholders present or by written proxy from those not present, and each stockholder shall be entitled to one vote for each share which he or she may hold in the capital stock of said company. The persons, or either two of them, mentioned in the first section of this act may organize said company, but the first election shall be holden in Coal Haven, in Perry county, aforesaid, on the first Monday of May next, or sooner if required by a majority of the stockholders, and John D. W. Williams, James T. Hobert and J. B. Russell, or either of them are hereby an- thorized to receive subscriptions to the stock of said company, and at such times and at such plares as they may deem expedient after the passage of this act. which subscriptions shall be paid at such times and in such manner as the board of directors shall ordain and direct, and any two of the persons named in this act may act as judges and managers of said first election, but at each subsequent annual election, the acting directors shall act as judges and shall manage and conduct said elections, and sai l directors shall elect one of their number to act as president of said board of directors, and in case of a vacancy of one of said board by death or otherwise, the remainder of the board of directors shall have power to fill said vacancy. The majority of the board shall form a quorum capa- ble to transact the business of said company, and the said directors shall have full power and anthority to carry into effect all the designs contemplated in the act of incorporation.
SEC. 5. Be it further enacted: That the said company may acquire by agree- ment and contract with the owners and proprietors of lands the right of way for the purposes of having roads from their coal mines to the Ohio river, and they may mike and improve all such roads in such manner as may be most advanta- geous to said company. The said company may also acquire such ware-houses and lots as may be required for storing their coal, Inmber and other products of their several works and for the better enabling them to carry on the business in its varions departments.
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