The Harper’s Ferry Armory.
In the Report of the Chief of Ordnance we find a recommendation that a grand Arsenal be established in New York for the fabrication of arms, the Chief of Ordnance assuming that half a million should be expended annually at the National Armory, located at Springfield, Mass. In former times, when the Government had two armories– one in Massachusetts and one in Virginia ; the appropriations for both ; in ordinary seasons, never reached this sum ; and we have known the appropriation for Harper’s Ferry Armory to be as low as $125,000, per annum, for the manufacture of arms ; but now it is proposed to expend half a million at the Springfield Armory alone! We do not question the correctness of General Benet’s views touching the importance of a plentiful supply of the most approved arms, to be ready in any emergency ; but we do think that if another establishment is needed, that at Harper’s Ferry should be revived. — That site was selected originally, by Washington, we believe, and a better water power is nowhere to be found. A large amount of money was expended by the Government to develop it, and no use whatever is being made of it now.
A few years since, — as if to show that the Southern States would never again be entrusted with such an important agency for providing the means of war,– Congress ordered the sale of the Harper’s Ferry property. It was accordingly sold to a Company of speculators who have never paid a dollar of the purchase money, and the Government, therefore, has this property on its hands.
Shortly before the war, it sold off a great deal of the outlying property, consisting of houses and lots, occupied by the operatives, and these people became the purchasers.–
But, since the Armory was abandoned, property is a drug in the market there. Nobody wants to buy, and hence these poor people cannot sell ; and so, many of them, being too poor to get away, remain there and gain a precarious subsistence. Is it in this view of the case,– with others that might be presented,– asking too much of the Government to re-establish the Armory at Harper’s Ferry, if another is really needed? The Northern States have their full share of patronage, and those of the South are entitled to some consideration. We hope, therefore, that the Virginia members of Congress, and especially the Representative for that District, (now in West Virginia,) will urge this subject upon the attention of the National Legislature.
[Lynchburg, Virginia
