| From the Richmond Dispatch |
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| November 12, 1861 |
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| Speculation and Extortion |
| We have reason to know that our previous
publications on the greed of avarice have met with the approval of the
intelligent masses of the people, while certain ill-natured
communications from interested persons show that the goad has touched
a tender part though it may not thus far have produced any visible
effect. It is the duty of the press to hurl anathemas against the
grinding, grasping system of speculation and monopoly just now rife in
the Confederate States, and we shall not fail to do so whenever an
illustration is furnished. Much has been written and said upon the
salt question, the universal sentiment of the people being decidedly
averse to paying an exorbitant and unreason able price for that
indispensable article, and an instance was recently communicated to us
by a correspondent wherein prompt measures were resorted to. Some time
during the spring or summer a firm in a neighboring city consigned to
a merchant of Clarksville a considerable quantity of salt. The price
of the article has varied in that place, but generally on an ascending
scale; though the later quotations were some five dollars lower per
sack than in the city market. From some cause, which we leave the
reader to infer, the consignment was recently ordered back, and the
consignees, to whom no blame attacks, proceeded to re-ship the very
scarce and necessary article in question, and succeeded in sending off
by the train, on the 6th inst., fifty sacks. There still remained
sixty-nine sacks, and Mr. Henry Wood,
the President of the Roanoke Valley Railroad, positively interdicted
its transportation over his road. The reasons by which he was governed
were that there was no supply of salt in Clarksville to meet the
necessities of the people, and that, when once in the city market, it
could never be gotten out of the hands of speculators at any price, if
the object is, as alleged, to monopolize the pork-packing business,
and thus compel the country people to submit to enormous prices for
bacon during the coming year. The act of the President may be regarded
by some persons as high-handed, but it was endorsed by the almost
unanimous sentiment of the Clarksville community. The people there act
upon the law of self-preservation, and while they are willing to pay a
fair market price for the salt, do not intend to be deprived of it
without a prospect of supply from other sources; and in this light the
conduct of Mr. Wood rises from an arbitrary proceeding to the dignity
of a public benefaction. The question may again be asked, in view of
the many instances of the speculating mania which have lately been
developed — if we are to be borne down to the earth by our own
people, of what avail will be our deliverance from Yankeedom? |
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