The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1865-11-05
Trade and Manufactures.


to the development and permanent prosperity
of community. No town can, in the long
run, live and flourish and prosper simply on
the profits of its purchases and sales. And
to make trade healthful and permanent
it must be backed up and fostered by
manufactures, in order that the profits of
labor may be mingled with the profits of
trade, and thus diffuse the stimulus and life
of business prosperity to the entire COM
munity.
Our city has been blessed with large trade
from the beginning, and it has, to certain
extent fourished on that trade, but our citi-
zens have always felt that there was some
thing lacking; that the foundations of our
prosperity were not laid sufficiently wide and
deep. And few years ago when the country
at large experienced q financial collapse, the
people Of Keokuk realized to their sorrow,
that trade and speculation, pleasant and
profitable as they might be, were not substan
tial foundations upon which to build the per-
manent interests Of the city. They collapsed
under the financial pressure, and one-third of
our citizens were constrained to seek occups-
ton elsewhere. Trade was left in few hands
and the traders lived and as the war pro-
gressed prospered; and now again many at
home and from abroad are rushing in to share
the profits of business and everything seems
prosperous once more.
In the meantime, it must be patent to
everybody that our manufacturing interests
are not being developed in proportion with
our trading interests. Surely it needs no fur
ther demonstration than we have already had
profits of trade cannot permanently maintain
in prosperous condition a large population
at this point. Hundreds of thousands of dol
lars worth of dry goods, groceries and provi-
sons are sold by single firm in year, and
only half dozen men are employed in the
business, or derive their support from it.
While the incidental benefits to the commu-
nifty, though great, are limited, and all the
business that could possibly be done in the
way of selling productions and manufactures
produced elsewhere, would not employ or
sustain very large population in Keokuk.
The number of our mechanics, of whatever
kind must be small so long as they depend
for employment on the profits made by the
trade of Keokuk.
Now, to be sure, immigrants are bringing
money in with them, made elsewhere, and
our mechanics as well as the entire commu-
nity feel the benefits of it. But in SO, SO
and 60, there was no immigration, and we
should all remember how little employment,
the profits of trade furnished during that pc
riod, to our mechanics or to anybody else.
We have all been anxious to stimulate the
trade of our city, and We have invested or
contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars
to promote it, by building railroads and en-
couraging other avenues to facilitate it.
Now if we were producing an immense sur
plus to sell and send off, and thus availing
ourselves of the full benefits of these facilities
of transportation and securing their profits
here in Keokuk, it would be all right But
the fact is we are making nothing whatever
to send off by these railroads. We don't
manufacture the -four we eat, nor the bran
and corn-meal we feed our cows. Nor do we
manufacture the wooden ware. the iron-ware,
the earthen- ware, or the furniture of any kind
that we use to any extent. The coarsest and
the cheapest, as well as the finest and post
expensive articles of manufacture, are all inn
ported. And as matters now stand the means
of paying for them, on general principles, ta-
king the city at large, must be raised directly
or indirectly from the profits of trade.
If the things that we buy to use or to sell,
that could be manufactured here as we'll
as elsewhere, srere manufactured here,
the work would furnish employment for ten
times as many persons as now find employ
ment in connection with the trading interests
of the city, and those interests would at the
same time be largely benefited. Thus our
population would be increased, our wealth
multiplied and based upon solid foundations,
and the general business and prosperity per-
manently enhanced.
Something we think should be done to en-
courage the starting of manufactures in our
city and to promote the growth of those We
have. If, as our observation and reasoning
leads us to conclude, manufactures are as
essential to the permanent prosperity Of the
community as trade, then surely it is the du-
ty and the interest of the city, to do As much
to promote the growth Of manufactures, rs
we have done and are doing to stimulate the
trade Of our ciiy.
To DAVE AWAY RArs.--A correspondent
of tho Canada E1r,uer succoeded in evnoll;nu