The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-05-18
COLUMBIA:
Friday Morning, May l5, 1868. )
Profits OF Manufacturing.

Profits OF Manufacturing.
The necessity is now upon the
people of the South to Diversity their,
industrial pursuits. Heretofore the
production of our great staples was
the chief occupation of capital and
labor, and the quantities produced
supplied the world, and in a great
measure controlled the business and
commerce of the world. But after
all this was done, paying well as it
did, it left nothing behind but ex-
hausted, 2worn-out old fields, and
hence the planter had constantly to
seek the new aud rich lands Of the
West to invest his capital and en-
ploy his labor. Thus there was an
actual impoverishment of the old
home, and therefore no permanent
improvement or building up of enter
prises that would become more and
more valuable every year.
But, as We have said before, the
great and radical change that has
swept over the South leaves the ne
cessity upon us OF seeking new fields
for the employment of capital. Manu-
factures and trades, arts and sciences,
must now be cultivated, or else We
must degenerate as a people, when
compared with the North or Great
Britain. The attention of capitalists
and business men is thus forcibly di-
rected to other avenues of industry,
to other means of producing wealth.
With abundant water power, with
the staples around, with an inexhaust-
ible supply of minerals, of course the
first and most attractive pursuit is
that of manufacturing. For the en-
couragement of those who contem-
plate engaging in the business, we
append the following facts and figures
collected by the Memphis Appeal:
Some tables recently published ex-
hibit that there were, even six years
ago, 1O4, 900 operatives engaged in
manufacturing in New York and its
two tributaries, Newark and Patter-
son, whose gross earnings were $196, :
19o, 7O5, or an average earning to
each operative IL New York Of s., =
283, in Newark, 81, POI, and in Pat
terson, $1,171-the CITY operative
having very much the largest earn
ing. At the same time, Boston and
Lowell, with their supposed manu-
featuring advantages, had but 32,-
4S9 operatives, with gross earning
of 4,371, Ia, or an average per
operative of 1872 at Boston, and
but VI, 1882 at Lowell. Philadelphia
gave employment to over $4,000
operatives, with an average of earn
ing, for each, of ST, 1873.
In st. Louis the average earnings
OF each operative is 50, 1928, 50, 100
In Chicago, $1,574 in Cincinnati.
and 81, 1856 in Pittsburg. The same
set OF tables show that every dollar of
capital invested in manufactures in
st. Louis yields moro than two dollars
in return.
At the beginning of the war even,
the value of manufactures in New
York city exceeded by $2s, 600, 900
those of four of the New England
States; and it is alleged that those
OF Chicago also, are now greater in
value than the manufactures of three
OF the New England States.
There is much to encourage our
people in these statistics. We have
magnificent water-power scattered
over every Southern State; we have
the great staple, cotton, at our fac
tory doors without the cost of trans
portation; the iron ore and coal are
below the surface Of the earth ready
to be disembowelled, and, in all par
ticulars almost, we have superior ad-
vantages over the great manufacture
ing depots of the North and East.
Ii we have scarcity of labor at pre-
sent, it will eventually come. The
high average earnings of operatives
recorded in the above compilation,
which we think would be fully as
high, if not higher, here at the South,
would unquestionably attract labor,
and the artizans of the over-crowded
population of Europe. So that be.
sides the Ovasru7iDSr nooocc;+r l: IL