The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1848-09-23
New ORLEANS and Mobile,

Some gentlemen in one of the interior counties
of Alabama have held public meeting, and adopt
ed sundry resolutions to the effect that conspiracy
existed in New Orleans to destroy Mobile; that
Mobile is the only seaport in Alabama that it is
on that account their duty to support Mobile-and
they accordingly avOw their det erminatOn 10 sup
port it. All this sounds very patriotic, and is really
very funny. We should really like to know by
what process Mobile could be injured by any con-
spiracy in New Orleans and who the parties are to
this dark and dreadful plot How one commercial
town can ruin another except by taking away Its
business, we cannot guess how it can take away
its business unless it affords greater advantages To
those who deal with it, is equally mystery. Bur
there is no conspiracy in this nothing wrong, moth
ing to be complained Of or resented and notwitl-
standing the eloquent speeches and spirited resolu-
tions Of the Alabama meeting, we have sufficient
faith in the good sense of the gentlemen who COM
posed it to believe that if they could sell their cot
ton and procure their supplies at New Orleans to
greater advantage than at Mobile, they would, not
withstanding their State pride and recorded re-
solves, give New Orleans the preference. New
Orleans cannot injure Mobile, unless Mobile first
Injuries itself Il is impossible for this city to
take away the trade which naturally flows to that,
unless its merchants throw away all the advan-
tages of position and connection which they possess
and drive their customers to another and better
market The idea, therefore, that there is any con-
spiracy to ruin Mobile, other than that which
arises from the udciOus employment of capital and
the proper direction of enterprise on the part of our
citizens is ridiculous. If the trade be departing
from Mobile, under fair and open system of
competition, it will take something else than reso-
lutions Of public meetings, however numerously
attended or frequently held to change the current
of business and restore it its old channels The
people of Mobile will have to bestir themselves,
and set about reforming their modes of actisn in
order to maintain even their present position and
they will be under the necessity Of using all their
means and energies if they seek to stem the tide
which, we are led by these resolutions to believe,
is now setting against them. The proceedings of
such meetings mean nothing. The gentlemen
who preside at such meetings as the one referred
to- and those whose names figure as officers there
of may for short time sacrifice their interests to
their consistency and lose money, under the msta-
taken idea that they sustaining Mobile by the
operation. But this enthusiastic generosity will
extend no farther, nor will it continue long. IN
less men are restrained by absurd legislative enact
ments, they will sell where they can sell dearest,
and buy where they can buy cheapest If this can
be done in New Orleans they will come here, if in
Mobile they will do their business there. But Mo-
bile has every advantage over New Orleans so far
as relates to the trade of Alabama, and if her mer-
chants fail to monOpolize il, they have no one to
blame but themselves. That the people of New
Orleans should enter into competition with those OF
the sister city for the purpose of securing trade so
valuable, is natural and eommendable, and so far
from awakening the ire should call forth the graft
tude of the good people of the interior Of Alabama
they ara every way the gamers, whether such COM
petition awakens the Mobile merchants to new ex-
srtons, or whether the New Orleans merchants give
them better accommodations and more profitable
bargains than their neighbors can. We hope we
shall hear no more of the conspiracy, and read oil
no more Indignation meetings.