Norfolk day book. [volume] (Norfolk and Portsmouth Va.) 1868-1880, 1869-10-19
TUESDAY MORNING, Oct. 10, 1863.
COTTON FACTORIES IN THE
SOUTH

The manufacture of cotton products
in all their various shapes probably
pays profit of twenty-five or thirty
three per cent. and the section of country
that grows the staple has an advantage
in its manufacture of at least from ten
to fifteen per cent. over all other sections
if they will only make use of it. Thus
is the South the best place in the world
for manufacturing cotton, and as she
grows the staple on her own soil, in the
South is the place it should be manu-
featured, and the monopoly of its man
facture by her people, if they choose to
monopolizs it, would give her power
Of monopolizing many of the other man
ufactures; which supply mankind with
the necessares of lie.
We are glad to see the attention Of
the Southern people being aroused to
the importance of the prize which nature
has conferred upon them in the posses
sion of the cotton culture. The press
through:the South is beginning to awake
to the necessity Of the South doing the
manufacturing Of cotton On her own
The Manchester men are alarmed
about cotton. They find something
hurting them, and they do not know
exactly What or where it is. They have
tried protection and they have tried free
trade, and now they talk of going back
to protection again. They do not wish
TO let it be known that it is the diffusion
of the cotton manufacturing interests
over the world, that is doing them the
mischief. The New Orleans CONNER
eial takes the right view of the subject
when it says: "The trouble and the
straits of the English cotton interest
arise, we have no doubt, from the grad
ual diffusion of manufacturing enter
terprise, in obedience to some principle
Or some tendency that derives its impe-
tus neither from free trade nor protec-
ton. The time is oome,it would appear,
for the breaking up of those vast ag-
g!omerations Of working people, those
fostering masses of humanity, on which
concentrated capital managed to build
monopolies in the production of some
of the staple necessaries Of the civilized
world. The dispersion promises to
operate as common blessing. With
improved and cheaper methods of trans~
portatlon over-crowded centers will tend
more and more to expand into wider
breathing places, and into more whole
some fields of industry. Capital will
naturally follow in the track of labor.
Population will be more evenly diffused
over the habitable globe; and science,
and skill, and industry, and commerce
will pause at no limit but physical i'm
possibility in the work of equafizing
the conditions of civilized communities
in all parts of the world"
Facts prove very conclusively that
the cotton can be manufactured to much
greater advantage near the place of its
growth, than in foreign countries, thou
sands and thousands Of miles away from
it's place of production. The profit of
giving employment to the labor of
country is also vast power in deter
ming this matter; and the French peo-
pie in their study of domestic economy,
have found also that the nearness to con.
sumers enters materially into the matter.
They have somehow found it cheaper to
import the English spinning jenny and
manufacture cotton goods for them
selves than to leave the spinning jenny |
o the.English and import those goods. |
Accordingly, says the Commercial, " the
demand Of France for raw cotton has
steadily increased, and there are now |
40 brisker buyers in our cotton market |
than the agents who buy on French |
account.
Then, allowing that we do not export |
g cents worth of manufactured cotton |
goods from this country, we have o
population of forty millions of people to
supply with cotton fabrics. This gives
us powerful advantage over Manches-
ter. We are near the source of supply,
aud with forty millions of home people
as our consumers. These facts have
operated extensively to enrich the down
East cotton factories, over whom the
South has such great advantage, if we
could be induced to avail of it to that !
extent that would enable us TO enter
the markets of this country as FIRST class
manufacturers.
The people in Wilmington. North
Carolina, according to the Star of tia
city, are agitated on this subject. That
paper says: can association is now
organizing to build here factory of
large size, with capital of $4,000,
which sum is deemed necessary for the