New-York tribune., 1868-08-13
UFSTERY M4yUF1CTURES.

The recent Exposition of Wooden Cloths at
Chicago included more than 1900 samples of
woolens of every quality Except those contain
ing shoddy), and of every variety of fneness
and texture, contributed by some so woolen
manufactures in the North West. These are
but the mustard seed in which the imperial
growth of the manufactures of the West ger
inmates. We look forward without mlsglving
TO the time, a quarter of a century hence, or
forty years at the farthest, when Illinois, with
her $4,000 square miles of coal, will be the
Belgium of America ; her water-courses lurid
with the fires of many furnaces, her pralries
tlickly studded with manufacturing towns,
which, by furnishing ready market at home
for all her products, will make an acre of land
produce as much wealth rs can now be
CLEANED from a quarter-section, and her me-
tropolis Chicago, no longer content with the
harbomgc afforded by the creek that grOpes
stagnantly through the town, shall throw out
her wharves and piers into the Lake for many
miles, for the accommodation of a commerce
twenty times greater than she now enjoys the
outgrowth of an agriculture hundredfold
more productive than the North West has yet
known, and manufactures which are not yet
industry, capital, and intellect, shall remain in
a condition of colonial vassalage to Europe,
our chief seaport, which represents our de-
pendcnce on foreign industry, will continue to
be the metropolis of the country. But, when
American Industry shall have declared and
perfected its independence, when we shall
produce in this country every manufactured
product for which nature furnishes us the raw
material, then the city which stands at
the focus where the cOnverging rays of
our domestic commerce meet, will rise in pop
ulatiOn and commercial power until 1t sur
passes the seaport which represents only or
mainly our Industrial dependence on foreign
powers Whether this magnificent metropolis
of American Industry is to be located at
Chicago, which lays peculiar claims to the dis
tinctiOn, or whether some new focus of pOpula-
ton is to be developed, it is certain that this
metropolis of our manufactures and internal
commerce must be situated in the heart of the
great Central Valley of America, drained by
the chain of lakes, the Mississippi, the Ohio,
and the Missouri. Chicago, as the point of
contact between the lakes on the one side and
the waters of the Missouri and Mississippi on
the other, and between the ores of Lake
Superior and Missouri, and the fuel and labor
of Illinois, as the center already of twenty
railroads, and of Il population that doubles
every ten years, as the point where the agrcul-
tunl products of the entire family OF States
lying between Ohio and the Rocky Mountains
must seek their markets and their distribution,
as the eastern terminus of the Pacific Railroad
and the western terminus of the five ndepend-
ent through routes to the Atlantic, affords
many reasons for believing that the inevitable
growth of Western manufactures will center
there. In that event, Lowell, Philadelphia,
Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, as ccnters OF manu-
featuring resources, will compare with Chicago
as Athens with Rome, or Marscillcs with Paris,
or Liverpool or Manchester with London.
The energetic business men of Chicago may
therefore afford to unite literally and even
muniiicenty in all plans which are designed to
keep pace with the future growth of their indus
try Instead of being surprised, rs some are. at
their energy, we would rcbuke their supineness.
Why are there but so woolen factories in all
the North West, when in Illinois alone there
are $4,000 women, girls, and boys, who are idle,
producing little or nothing, and who would
furnish 1000 wOOlen factories with labOr9 If
they should earn but so cents a day each in
those factories that would amount to 81 100000
a year. Why are there 10000 women, girls
and boys, in the streets of Chicago on the very
verge of pauperism, hundreds of whom may
be seen driving dog-carts laden with slOps from
the distilleries, or in other beggary occupa-
tions, when the introduction of manufactures
in sufficient variety in that city would set them
all at nroGtable work. and substitute thrilt for