| From the Charleston Mercury |
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| May 10, 1864 |
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| The Virginia Campaign |
| (Correspondence of the Savannah Republican) |
| Richmond, May 2 |
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| ***** |
| The chief uneasiness felt here
is in regard to the question of supplies. The Danville extension {Piedmont
RR} will
be completed by the first of June, and this will give the Government a
shorter and better route from the capitol to Georgia, the granary of
the Confederacy. Railway men inform me also, that the railroads,
though much deteriorated, are in quite as good condition as they were
eight months ago, and that it is not probable they will become worse
in the future. The necessities of the times have forced railroad
companies to rely upon their own efforts to keep their roads and
rolling stock in running order, and many of them have gone vigorously
to work, and have been successful to an extent that is highly
gratifying. But should the Government be guilty of the folly of taking
military control of the railroads in the Confederacy, all these
improvements would be stopped, and the roads and the country with it,
would soon go to ruin, The railway business is not learned in a day or
a year; it requires time and experience and great energy and
administrative capacity to enable a man to conduct a railroad
corporation with success. |
| Much complaint is made about
our railroads, the condition of the cars and the charges for travel
and freight, and Congress has laid a very heavy tax upon them and upon
bank and manufacturing corporations. This tax would of itself justify
a considerable increase of the charges made by the railroads; but
Congress and the country seem to have forgotten that the cost of labor
and material is many times greater now than at the beginning of the
war. A gallon of oil cost, in 1860, ninety cents; now a gallon of
inferior lard oil costs $32. Wrought iron formerly cost 3 1/2c. per
pound; it is now worth $3.50; and pig iron which formerly cost $27 per
ton, cannot be bought now for less than $400. Coal, in 1860, could be
had at $7 per ton, now it brings $300. These prices obtain in Georgia,
where the Superintendent of the Georgia Central Railroad informs me
that car wheels, in 1861, cost $13 per wheel; now they cannot be
purchased at the Tredegar Works, in this city, and laid down in
Savannah at less than $330 each. For six sets of locomotive tires he
had to pay recently $52,000; before the war they could be bought for
$1800. |
| Copper, tin, wood and other
materials and labor, have risen in nearly the same proportion. When
the war began, the Georgia Central Railroad, which I have selected as
a type of the other roads in the Confederacy, resolved with other
connecting roads to carry troops for government at two cents per mile
and freight at one-half of the local rate, and so continued to serve
the Government for nearly two years, when the charge was increased to
two and a half cents per mile per man, and the rate for freight was
slightly raised. The road now charges for 100 men of less four cents
per mile, and for freight about the local rate of 1861. The increase
on local passage is about 100 per cent. and the railroads throughout
the Confederacy have ever acted a liberal part towards Government, and
have rendered most valuable and important services in the conduct of
our campaigns. |
| Has the Government shown equal
liberally towards the railway to which it is so much indebted? Let us
take the Montgomery & West Point Road in Alabama, and see how the
late tax law operates. The stock of the company is divided into 16,441
shares of $100 each. Of these shares 3,588 or about one fifth have
changed hands since January 1861. The tax required to be paid by the
stockholders on their shares -- $1,644,104 -- $15 per share is
$246,615. In addition to this the company will pay on bonds and other
credits about 34,950 -- making the total tax for this year
$281,565.00, which equals a tax imposed on $5,000,000 of planting
property at the valuation of 1860, and now worth not less than
$15,000,000. About one eight of the capital stock has changed hands
since January 1862, and not more than 500 shares have been sold as
high as $360. In other words, one thirty third of the stock is made to
govern the price of all; or out of thirty three men owning stock, the
price obtained by one man -- a speculator -- is made to govern the
price of the stock owned by thirty two men who are not speculators.
And the tax is assessed upon the price obtained by one man. Is this
fair? Is it justice to the roads which have done so much for the
Government, and without which it could not carry on the war another
week? The tax levied upon the banks, which came forward at the
beginning of the war and placed themselves wholly at the service of
the Government, is equally onerous and unjust. Inde3ed, the tax on
many of the railroads and banks exceeds their dividends, and it has
become necessary in some instances for stockholders, many of whom are
widows and orphans owning no other property, to sell a portion of
their stock to pay their taxes. |
| What is here said will apply
with almost equal force to manufacturing establishments. It has become
popular to decry these establishments, and Government has joined in
the clamor so far as to levy a tax which leaves almost no margin for
profit, unless the proprietors raise their prices and compel their
customers to pay the tax. ***** |
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