Washington, DC, 1999.
Preceding element provides place and date of transcription only.
For more information about this text and this American Memory collection, refer to accompanying matter.
The National Digital Library Program at the Library of Congress makes digitized historical materials available for education and scholarship.
This transcription is intended to have an accuracy of 99.95 percent or greater and is not intended to reproduce the appearance of the original work. The accompanying images provide a facsimile of this work and represent the appearance of the original.
To the inhabitants of Pennsylvania in general, and particularly those of the city and neighbourhood of Philadelphia.
Friends
and
Fellow Citizens,
WE,
the tanners, curriers, and cordwainers, of the city and neighbourhood of Philadelphia, find ourselves under the disagreeable necessity of stating to you the extreme hardship and difficulty to which we are like to be subjected by the partial proceedings of the committee, in reducing the prices of the commodities of our manufacture, while those of other tradesmen, and most other articles of life, are permitted to remain unregulated, and of appealing to your good sense for the justice of our complaint.
The depreciation of our currency is a fact so notorious, that the cause of America can receive no injury from mentioning it in the course of the observations we are to make: We shall therefore proceed to mention our ideas of the matter, preserving, nevertheless, as much tenderness as the nature of the case will possibly admit on so delicate a subject.
For many years preceding the issuing of the present currency, the prices of skins, leather, and shoes were so proportioned to each other as to leave the tradesmen a bare living profit; this is evidently proved by this circumstance well known to every body, that no person of either of these trades, however industrious and attentive to his business, however frugal in his manner of living, has been able to raise a fortune rapidly, and the far greater part of us have been contented to live decently without acquiring wealth, nor are the few among us who rank as men of property, possessed of more than moderate estates. Our professions rendered us useful and necessary members of the community; proud of that rank, we aspired no higher, and should never have troubled the public by drawing their attention to us as a body, had not an attempt been made which (however well intended) must necessarily, if persisted in, end in the impoverishment and ruin of ourselves and our families.
The prices of leather and shoes continued the same
Another circumstance which has borne very hard on us, is the nature of our trade; we had few ready money customers, but relied principally on supplying the families of our fellow citizens, with whom we kept accounts, which were carried in once, twice, or thrice a year, according to our demands for money. The articles were charged to them at the usual prices at the time of the delivery, and the money continued on the decline so regularly for about two years past, that we generally received it at a loss of from 10 to 25 per cent. between the delivery of the work and the time of payment.
Our business requires a considerable number of journeymen, who after labouring the whole week,
Tea, 4l. 10s. formerly cost from 3s. 9d. to 5s. per lb. about twenty prices.
Sugar, 15s. to 20s. formerly cost from 6d. to 9d. per lb. about thirty prices.
Coffee, 16s. formerly cost from 1s. to 1s. 3d. per lb. about fifteen prices.
Chocolate 40s. formerly cost from 1s 6d. to 1s. 10d. half-penny per lb. about twenty-four prices.
Rum, 6l. 10s. 6d. formerly cost from 4s. 6d. about thirty prices.
From this sample of necessary articles, it appears they have allowed more than twenty prices on an average for those things which tradesmen must purchase: But when they come to limit the prices of our commodities, they reduce us to less than fourteen prices, viz.
Soal leather, to 20s. formerly worth 1s. 6d. Calf skins to 150s. formerly worth 11s.
Thus the tanner must take half the number of proportionable prices for his leather than he pays to other people for their necessary commodities.
Again, the shoemaker, by the regular prices, is to pay 150s, for upper leather, which will make four pair of shoes, which is 37s. 6d. each the soals and heels will be of equal value, which make 3l. 15s. and to sell the best shoes for 9l. 10s. so that he has to find all the thread and other necessary articles, pay his journeymen, and support his family for 3l. 15s. Now if we compare the foregoing prices with the journeymen's wages, we shall find him entitled to the whole of it. It is before observed, that the journeyman had but a bare subsistance by his former wages, which were 5s. 9d. per pair, he is now obliged to pay twenty prices for every article he consumes, and of course must starve unless he has twenty prices, which is 3l. 15s. If then the journeyman is refused this price he must seek other employment, in which as a day labourer he may earn as much, and if the master tradesman pays it, he is immediately ruined. But there is another hardship beyond this—The tanner must have a great stock beforehand, and the cordwainer always has a stock, which, though mostly small, is yet in proportion to his circumstances. These stocks have been laid in not at any regulated price, but at the late very extravagant rates, and the foregoing calculation is made from the reduced rates, and if we are obliged to work up our stock so purchased, and sell what the low prices fixed, we are involved in a double ruin.
Again, we understand that the honorable congress have made a requisition of sixty millions of dollars for the present year, the amount of each individual's share we can come at to a great exactness in this manner. We all know what sums we were rated at last year, and that the sum thereby raised was but five millions, which was on an average about 7s. 6d. in the pound, so that to raise twelve times as much we must be assessed to 90s. in the pound. Hard then indeed will be our case, if our taxes are multiplied twelve fold, and our profits reduced to less than nothing.
The tanners and cordwainers are a body of men absolutely necessary in every community, and by the enterprising industry of a few of the tanners, at a time when it was attended with
with
The committee in a letter addressed to our president, dated the first inst. which was intended as an apology for their conduct in this respect, hint that their fixing the prices of our commodities first, was in a great measure to give us “the preference of setting the first example as a rule for other trades, for though only one was mentioned, all were intentionally and inclusively regulated.” And we would gladly have made that honor our own, by a compliance, did not we see beyond a possibility of doubt, that any partial regulation of any number of articles would answer no end but that of destroying the tradesman whose prices are limited, and after their present stock is exhausted, leaving the country in absolute want of those articles.
What tanner will now purchase skins, if the price of his leather six or nine months hence, when it is fit for use, is to be regulated not in proportion to the price he gives, the price of labour, the price of his provisions and clothing, but by the will of a committee, who perhaps are interested in the matter? What shoemaker will be at the expence of employing hands, and laying in a stock when the shoes are to be lowered in price every month? In fine, what tradesman will purchase raw materials, and exert his industry, and expend his money, in converting them into useful wares, when he knows that before they are fit for sale, they will be depreciated in his hands below the first cost of his materials? It is absurd and contrary to every principle of trade, where no man will purchase if he knows the market is falling, it will destroy every spring of industry, and will make it the interest of every one to decline all business.
Nor is it any security to us, to tell us other tradesmen are hereafter to be regulated. It is perhaps in the power of the committee, if they should succeed against us, to regulate a few more trades, by taking them one by one, for a little time; but it cannot be lasting, unless they can regulate the prices of every necessary article of life, both foreign and demestic; for the price of every manufacturer always is and must be regulated by the prices not of one or a dozen other articles, but by the whole amount of the annual subsistance of the manufacturer compared with the amount of his annual labour. And every manufactory must fall to immediate decay, unless the price of the goods manufactured considerably exceeds the whole subsistance of all the persons employed about it, and their dependant families.
Trade should be free as air, uninterrupted as the tide, and though it will necessarily like this be sometimes high at one place and low at another, yet it will ever return of itself, sufficiently near to a proper level, if the banks and dams, or, in other words, injudicious attempts to regulate it, are not interposed; this maxim, we apprehend, admits of no exception but in the case of a besieged city; and we expected that so far from undertaking to obstruct the course of trade, the present committee were appointed to free it from those restraints which the monopolizer, the engrosser, and forestaller, had thrown upon it by hoarding up large quantities of necessary articles, with a view to ?ise the prices; had the committee attended to this matter singly, we had reason to hope the prices would have fallen of themselves.
The late high prices of grain and other articles foreign and domestic, would have operated as a spur to the industry of the farmer, the mechanic and the merchant; our markets would soon have been crowded with the commodities and produce of every soil; the spirit of trade, which had been allayed by frequent losses and inadequate profits was surmounting every risque; a plenty of foreign goods would have soon lowered the prices; a plentiful harvest, well and seasonably secured, would have procured plenty into all our populous cities and towns; the prices when the markets were full, must inevitably abate of themselves, to such a pitch as would admit of exportation; and thus, in a few months, every thing would have returned to the old channel; but how has this injurious step of the committee blasted all the prospect! By limiting the prices of
Having thus stated our ideas of this matter for your consideration, we think ourselves justified before the world in declaring, that we do not consider ourselves bound by the regulated prices of our commodities, and that we shall not observe them until a general regulation of all other articles shall take place, by common consent. In full confidence that you will see the justice of our complaints, and approve our conduct, we remain your affectionate fellow citizens.
Signed by order of a meeting of tarment, curriers, and cordwainers, held at the committee room, 11th day of July, 1779.
JAMES RONEY,
chairman
95