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.The abrupt changes arecaused by the use of annual percentages.A close correlation existed between common slave hire prices and theannual purchasing power of Kanawha salt in the Queen City market.Thiscorrelation would be even closer if the rent for each year were cast in thepreceding year, when the contracts of hire were actually consummated.Forexample, the rate for the year 1847 could be placed in December 1846, elimi-nating the lag.The diverse factors affecting salt production are ignored here,although total production affected the annual purchasing power of the com-modity.High production begot lower purchasing power, and low productionproduced higher purchasing power, which in turn affected rents.This is not tosuggest that the purchasing power of salt was the sole influence on hire prices.Undoubtedly the cholera epidemic of 1849 had some impact on hire rates for1850.Between 1850 and 1860 the salt industry of the Great Kanawha Valleysuffered a severe decline unrelated to the labor system.Only nine salt manu-facturing establishments existed in 1860.The surviving companies employedonly an average of 285 male and 10 female hands in a month of operation.Annual salt production was approximately a third of what it had been a decadebefore.While Kanawha County s white population increased between 1850and 1860, to become second only to that of Ohio County in the area of present-day West Virginia, the slave population dropped dramatically because of thedemise of the salt industry.58 The total slave population decreased by 30 per-cent, and the male and female slave populations decreased by 35 percent and23 percent, respectively.Contemporary salt manufacturers believed that slave labor was superiorfor their industrial needs because of cheapness, supply, and stability.Salt mak-ers who petitioned the Virginia General Assembly asserted,  Slave labor isusually cheaper than free and for the business in which we are engaged it isbelieved to be the best. 59 A comparison of costs of hired common slave laborand free white labor in the period from 1850 to 1854 (see table 4.1) reveals thatslave labor was cheaper than free white, and yet free labor was actually scarce.The operation of the hire system eliminated questions about the cost of rear-ing slaves and care for the infirm and elderly.The average hire for commonslave labor for the period, a time of high rents, was $170 per year.In 1855 JohnN.Clarkson estimated that board, clothes, taxes, and medical treatment foreach leased slave cost a bailee approximately a hundred dollars annually abovethe rental cost.The major extra cost was board, but furnace operators custom-arily furnished board to white laborers as they did for slave labor.The slavelease always provided for the rental payment at the end of the hire period.Thiswas, in fact, the loan of capital and labor for a one-year term.The employmentof free labor could not be executed with this advantage, and therefore a 6 per-cent interest rate (a low estimate of the cost of money) on the monthly wagemust be charged to free labor in calculating costs.Management costs would be68 JOHN E.STEALEY IIITable 4.1 Comparative Costs of Hired Common Slave Labor and Free White Labor, KanawhaSalt Industry, 1850 1854Hired Slave Free WhiteRent or wage $170 $450Board 75 75Clothing 24 Medical care 5 Taxes 1 Deferred interest on rental (6%)  53Total cost $275 $578about the same.John J.Cabell reported to his son-in-law in 1832 that the fewwhite hands that he had hired required more supervision than did all his slaves.On the Kanawha, it was commonly assumed that a salt furnace operated atleast three hundred days annually.In 1854 Richard C.M.Lovell deposed thatthe cost of free labor in the Kanawha Salines was $1.50-$2.00 per day.60 Takingthe lower figure results in a yearly wage of a free white laborer of $450.Onecan readily see that hired common slave labor was cheaper than free labor.Ifone assumed the free labor to be skilled, the hire of the common slave can bedoubled, as in the case of a boss kettle tender, and a marked differentiationremains.The wage of the free laborer could be reduced to one-half, and theresult is the same.Kanawha salt makers preferred to lease slaves because they could maintainlower costs and flexibility.Less capital could be invested in human property,and manufacturers could adjust their labor needs annually.The payment ofrents in December came at a convenient time since the greatest salt sales oc-curred in autumn, before the slaughtering season.In 1833 John J [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]