Salt for the people.
Richmond, 27th Jan., 1862.
Editors of Dispatch:
I learn that a proposition is before the Legislature for the purchase of the salines lying on the line of Washington and Smyth counties at Saltville, in this State.
I believe that the two contiguous estates, embracing these salines, and the lease under which they are now operated, can be procured for one million of dollars.
I have some acquaintance with this property, and am persuaded that the purchase ought to be made at that price, if it can be done.
Editors of Dispatch:
The property is worth more than is demanded for it. It is in danger of passing into the hands of a joint stock company at a higher price than the State would be required to give, viz: at twelve hundred thousand dollars; to the capital of which company upwards of three hundred thousand dollars is already subscribed. Corporations have no souls, and if the works pass into a corporate ownership, they pass into the hands of a monopoly, having the single object alone of making the largest profits out of them.
The property is proved to be worth more than is demanded of the State; not only by the fact that it will bring more, but by the fact that the State officers have been assessing it for ten years past; (I mean the property itself, irrespectively of the lease,) at about half a million for the Preston and over half a million for the King estate; more than a million for the two. The lessees have a contract with the Confederate Government, which they can fill in four months, that will give them a profit of a hundred thousand dollars; and if the proposition before the Legislature, to direct a contract on the part of the State for four hundred thousand bushels of salt be carried, the profits of the lessees on this alone will be one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars more, and can be executed in six months. Nevertheless, with this prospect of two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, the lease can be bought out by the State at less than their profits on these two contracts. The Preston estate can be bought for $450,000, although assessed at $500,000; and the King estate for less, though assessed at $550,000. I am not familiar with the improvements on the King estate; but those on the Preston estate, including machinery, buildings and apparatus of all sorts, is worth upwards of $100,000; they cost more than $125,000. This estate consists of 7,000 acres of land, which could be sold in farms at an average of $30 an acre; the mere land alone being worth $210,000; which, with the improvements makes $310,000, leaving the salt and plaster to stand the State in, only $140,000.--The King estate has 4000 acres, worth $30 an acre, and many improvements, the value of which I am not acquainted with.
When a magnificent property like this is offered the State at a price less than will be taken from private individuals the proposition is certainly relieved from all color of speculation and extortion.
The State ought to own works like these producing unlimited supplies of those two important articles, salt and plaster. The cost of making salt by boiling the brine is thirteen cents a bushel; and of barreling or sacking it for market, seven cents more.--The cost of manufacture could be reduced to three cents a bushel by constructing vats for solar evaporation, which would enable it to be put into depot for shipment at ten cents per bushel. The State could sell it anywhere within her limits; except in seaport cities, at fifty cents a bushel with transportation added; or at a profit of thirty to forty cents per bushel. She can mine plaster at one dollar per ton; and sell it anywhere except just upon the border of ship navigation, at three dollars a ton, with transportation added. She may manufacture any quantities of both salt and plaster for any length of time in these salines without exhausting the supply of either. The present manufacture of salt at Saltville is at the rate of nine hundred thousand bushels a year. Four times the quantity, in addition, could be manufactured by constructing vats for solar evaporation. It requires only twenty gallons of the Saltville brine to make a bushel of salt; of sea water it requires three hundred and fifty gallons; so that 16-17ths of the labor and expense of evaporation is saved by making salt at Saltville, rather than on the seaboard.
The State ought to own this property, for the reason that salt and plaster are articles that should be in the hands of public agents rather than of private monopolies, and for the further reason that the transportation of these articles can always be secured on the most economical terms by the State; whereas this transportation is so tardy and costly when on private account as to give opportunity for the enormous speculations in these essential articles, such as we have just witnessed, in times of scarcity. If the State herself produced these two articles, she could enforce such action on the part of her public works, as to make this transportation adequate, regular and cheap, and as would prevent the possibility of a repetition of that system of speculation and extortion, which the last few months have witnessed.
The propriety and necessity of the purchase of this salt and plaster property, on the cheap and liberal terms on which they are now offered the State, seems so obvious as to need no argument; and I trust that there is enough sagacity in the Legislature to give effect to the proposition. If this purchase be not made, the people have yet troubles to experience in regard to a supply of salt, to which those of the past have been trifling in comparison.
I have no further interest in this subject than belongs to a citizen of Virginia, certainly not more than is naturally felt by
