New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-09-17
souTnERN coMMnRCE.


would hare said, oneyear ago, that New Orleans
would beat this time market Of purchase for
Virginia merchants. Yet witfin the last two
weeks, there have been seven OF eight large deal
ers here from Richmond, buying supplies for their
houses, and establishing trade relations with the
merchants OF this city.
the articles purchased were sugar. molasses,
salt, hardware, saddlery. and in fact nearly every
thing that comes under the head of general mer-
chandise. One dealer bought one thousand sad
aies. They brought with them gold and confeder,
ate notes. and paid the cssh down for what they
purchased. 81
This shows what sort Of a market this city will
be when the war is over and commerce reyives.
Here are men coming here in midsummer, from q
point twelve hundred miles distant, to buy articles
which, under other circumstances they would have
bought in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore
We take it for granted that our commercial de.
pendence upon the North is now a thing OF the
past Since they have made this brutal and cause
less war upon us, no true Southern man will ever
tolerate any association with them political, com
| mercial, or social, more than can be helped. The
productions and trade Of the South must no longer
enrich those who have shown themselves to be
such bitter and relentless enemies.
II patriotism and a natural resentment do not
suffice to break up the trade relations formerly
existed between the two sections. it will be done
most effectually by the widaly-diferent CONNER
cial policies which have been adopted, the North
imposing onerous tariffs upon imports, while the
/ Southern system approximates free trade, and We
hope viii approximate yet more than IT does.
| Its easy to see, then, what q market New Or
| leans will beconss both to buy in and TO sell in.
1 1t must of necessity be the chief commercial city
/ of the Southern Confederation. We can import
/ directly, in English French and German bottoms,
1 everything of foreign growth or manufacture that
we may need; and thus make this city distribut-
ing as we'll as a receiving reservoir, sending out
supplies to all parts Of the Confederaoy, and acting
as the intermediary and factor for the great
agricultural staples Of the rich and productive,
South, ~
It would be a low estimate to say that the South
paid, every year, twenty-five millions of dollars
in the shape Of duties alone, to the old Union be-
fore ii was wrecked. What we paid, besides, in
profits to importers and manufacturers in commits.
sions and factorage to those who moved our crops
in assurances, in exchange, in the loss sustained
By the Yankees having monopoly of coast nayi-
cation, and in the travelling and hotel expenses of
our merchants who went North tho ineonsderable
itema we may only conjecture. We know, how
ever, that it was an enormous sum. We see the
effect of it in the imperial cities and numerous vii
lagos in the North, a country which has not the
original elements of wealth, which sells nothing
that is the product of the soil, but has lived and
grown rich, through the ubiquitous operation of
Federal laws, on the labor and productions of the
South. We have been the commercial slaves of
the North, raising, of one article alone, two hun
dred millions of dollars worth annually; and Others
in proportion, only to- put money in the purses of
those who have for US nothing but feelings Of bit
ter and inextiuguishable hate ss .. T.. :.
N Now, then, this thing ought to stop, and will
stop. We hear, sometimes. the, fear expressed
that when we have peace we will go back TO our
old relations of trade with the North. But we do
not believe it.. Our people must be educated up
to the point that if they get an article nowhere
else than in the North, they must go without it
sooner than buy it there. We have this security,
If no other against the resumption of former rela-
tions, SO far as foreign goods are concerned that
the tariff there is SO high as to make it impossible
for the dealer to underseI trans Atlantic dealers in
our-markets. Goods which have passed through.
Northern custom-hnus can never come in cenpe-
tition with those which come directly to US across
the ocean. And as to Northern manufactures, we.
must prevent them. by some means or other, from
coming to our markets. We must divert enough
Of our labor from agriculture to manufactures and
make all such things ourselves, unless the trans
atlantic manufacturer can sell them to us cheaper
than the Northern manufacturer can. II.
Z The war is not going to last forever. The North,
we think, already begins to see that the conquest
of the South is impossible, and they are running
short of volunteers and money both. From our
reading Of the signs of the times, we think they
must soon abandon the var, not from choice but
from necessity. Let our Southern merchants, then,
prepare for the new order of things. They ought
to be ready to take advantage of the first opportu-
nifty to institute direct trade with all other foreign
countries except the United States. There is
nothing like making an early beginning. We may
not be able to attract to this city much trade from
such distant points as Richmond, but we can easily
be the market for four or FIVE rich and productive
States. Our merchants, shippers, bankers and
should appreciate the splendid
future in store for US and begin to prepare for it at
once.