New-York daily tribune., 1857-04-24

Since the hrst Southern COnvtntion tne dD5trdot
advance of the Slaveholding States in trade, manu-
factures, shipping, steamboats, and mining has been
positively incompatible. Projects have been started
which have put to the blush the petty enterprises
of New York, London and Havre; magnificent
6otillas have anchored, theoretically, in the waters
of Virginia and South Carolina ideal mills have
buz,ed by every Southern watercourse, and imag-
mary locomotives have clanked and screamed
through every Southern wilderness. The papers of
that ilk have been filed with commercial articles
which only differed from our own IN the tact that
while ours usually relate to the past, and are emi-
nently practical, the monetary literature of the
South always relates to the future and is beauti-
fully poetiesl. The distinction, We trust, is not
without difference. Taking the world as it
goes, we are inclined to think that the home
liest edifce upon terra frma is more valuable
for practical purposes than tho taest castle in the
air. We are not ayerse to the pleasures of the
imagination, and occasionally indulge in day
dream upon our own account, rs the records of
Wall street will testify, but then it must be ad-
mtted that sloop tn eSse, actually built and
fastened to the pier is more valuable than
another Great Republic clipper in posse, which is
only floating through the mind of protector, and
can no more obtain charter party than the Fly
ing Dutchman The little mistake which our
Southern friends have made, has been in suppos-
ING that great wishes necessitated magnificent
fufllmept. The old proverb tells us, that if
desire for horse were equivalent TO horse all the
beegsrs would b. at once Arabicay mounted
and at liberty to ride as fast as possible to the
place unmentiOnable But up to this time, all
the steeds acquired in this way by the
impoverished classes might be kept at livery
for sixpence per annum. And it is just
so with the financial aspirations and dila-
tatiens of the South. II seems to be- the opin-
ion of the ready writer's and fuxiye orators who
defend the system of Slavery that prosperity can
be established by resolution; that more than 81
donian commerce can be extemporized bys liberal
emission Of tropes and metaphors; that figures of
speech have some mystical connection with the
figures of the ledger; and that any people, no mat
ter what may be their condition, nor however de-
cided their lack>of muscle or Of money, can with
out the slightest difficulty talk themselves into
large and Hourshipg trade. These views may be
correct, but they certainly not those Of any po-
tical economist of merit with whose writings we
are acquainted. 1t has always been considered
that mercantile affairs were governed by certain
fixed and immutable laws. And however theorists
may have differed about the nature Of these, We
believe they have all agreed that the accumulation
Of wealth depends chiefly upon industry and intel
lgence.
A certain ~ Lacouture, who is described in The
South newspaper as an intelligent, active and en-
"terprising French gentleman" is tickling the
people of the Old Dominion with project for the
immediate establishment Of direct trade between
France and Virginia. with the impulsive ardor
characteristic Of his country" 'he contemplates,"
SAWS The South, "the exhaustless agricultural.
manufacturing and commercial capabilities of the
State" Moreover, " be points out the path to
" wealth, power and independence" What re-
markably obiging, sagacOus and useful French gen.
tlemsn good Mona LacOuture must be What an
ld-de-cawP for Gov Wise N hia war upon turza