Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1866-12-25
New Rngland,s Proapeota.

Ihe commercial article or the New York
Day Book predicts a .ftfare for New Eng
land as gloomy as the present which she has
inflicted on us. We copy.
The howl of DESPAIR is now going up from
New England. Long since her ship building
interest gave up the ghost, and to, day we hear
the wall of agony from the great shoe manu-
featuring lines. Failures are taking place
weekly; hundreds, nay, thousands of work.
men are thrown out of employ, and distracted
by the dark picture which looms up in the
future, they are leaving their homes aud
vending their way West, in. search of new
prospects and fresh spots wherein to make
another start in life. The curses which New
England for the past thirty years has visited
upon the South, are coming back upon her,
and fearful will be the. penalty she will baye
to pay. To day she is wringing her blood
stained hands and CRYING woetuIly. over her
wool trade; but the present is bright sun
shine compared with the darkness which is to
envelop her ere five years pass over.
With cotton, sugars rice and tobacco, and
manufactures almost completely wiped out,
does New England suppose she can sell her
annual $50, QUO, 600 to the section that raised
those products, as of old Her boot and
shoe trade, which is now as rapidly declining,
was, prior to the war, S30,000,000 per year
with the slave States. Her dry goods went
South. many millions per year, and second
only IN quantity to her leather manufactures.
New England sold her fish South to the ex>
tent OF S3,OOO,UO0 per year Her furniture
went there to the extent of 81 ,000, 600 year
ly; and her shipbuilding was stimulated by
Southern products to many thousands of tons
per annum. New England, as a whole. sold
to the South, of manufactures, one half the
aggregate that the census indicated as the
sales OF Northern manufactures to that sec
ton. New England built per year, tonnage
to the amount of S25,000,000 to $50, 600,
600 mainly employed in carrying tke pro-
ducts we have alluded to.
What did New England buy of the South?
Boston alone, in 1859, received of cotton,
$4,000 600; wool, S1,000,000;G hides, ST.
O0O,OOO;. lumber, Sl,00009e,; -four, So
500, 600; scorn,i IS zee. 600; riee $500 coo;
tobacco, g, 900, e09. Here are eight articles
only of consumption. all from lnthe South
footing up Sd 100000 in value, arriving at
Boston yearly. Allowing for the receipts
from the South at other New England cities,
Providence, New Haven, Hartford, &C., and
the value also of molnsses, naval stores, beef,
pork; lard, and other animal produce hemp,
early vegetables, oysters and other shell fish
game, etc., which arrive yearly at New Eng
land, we may be allowed to foot up her annu-
al receipts from the South at $4,000, COO
In 1889 one-third of all the flour sold in
Boston was from the commercial ports of the
South, and in the same year five-sevenths of
all the corn sold in that city was received di-
rect from Delaware, MARYLAND and Virginia.
Is there any mystery regarding the decline of
New England trade, in the cost of her ocean
freights, the dying out of her commerce, the
failures of her manufactures Look mt the
South as she was wlTen New England sold
her manufactured goods and to k agricultural
products in exchange to the amount of SIPS.
100000 per year, both transactions and then
look at the condition of thinos to-dav To
there not cause for the dismal howl that
purtanical, mischief. breeding section sends
up? Can New England stand the loss and
live, commercially? Certainly NOT. She has
had her first paralytic stroke through the
prostration of tie South: her second will
come from the withdrawal of the Western
! trade.
Prior to 1850 the West had determined to
take care of its own interests to as great n
degree as possible, and cut loose from New
England manufactures. The latter section
has assumed the right. to control the mann
featuring trade of the country for the last
quarter of century. and crammed her nro.
ducts into every nook and corner of the Union.
The six New England States creating mo
less than $3.50, 1000, 900 per wear. which f3pnd
sale mainly in the South and West. The
eleven Western States, including California.
New Mexico, Oregon and Utah, only pro,
duced some s14O,OOO,OOO per year up to
1860, and there appeared to be a most bril-,
lists; but the great West determined to be
Inelr own manufacturers n and to day, notwith-
standing all the financial difficulties the coun
Try laoors under that section is pushing its
productive resources in the manufacturing