The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-02-17
G III a r L. E S r o N .
wEDN NEsDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY17, 1869
our Financial Position.

Our Financial Position.
The question of the resumption of specie
payments, whichis so generally discussed in
| the North, attracts but little attention in the
Southern States Our newspapers are not
flooded with letters pointing out the royal
road to the hard money era; public
speakers have no word to say about the
almighty paper dollar; our new. hedged rep
resentatives in Congress are not bored
with memorials or petitions in opposition
to the glitter of gold, or in favor of the
Hlmsy greenback. The reason is obvious.
We arc at this moment, Notwithstanding the
war and the uncertainties of system of
free negro labor, in more sound financial
condition than are the Northern States.
AT our backs we have two and half mill
lion bales of cotton, worth in the market
| two hundred and fifty million of dollars.
| In this State alone, the cotton crop is worth
| more than twenty million. This year the
South may expect to produce at least four
million bales, and we do not anticipate that
any crop short Of four aud half million
bales Will cause uplands to sell for less than
from twenty to twenty-five cents. Cotton
is our back bone, the strong tower of our
whole commercial fabric. It is evident
enough that, as long as we can make cot
ton as well as we have done during the last
year, as long as the world seeks in vain
that long-looked for cotton country which
can make it independent Of our staple, we
can command oil the currency that we re-
auire, and be always in better position
TO resssszs specie payments, or endure on
inconvertiole currency, than the merchants
and manufacturers Of the Northern centres
of trade. ). s,l
Cotton is gold, if we choose to make it
80. The price Of the staple is regulated
by the European demand, and not by do
mestic consumption. Every pound of cot
ton which is exported is sold for gold, and
we repeat that the South could drain, the
whole of New England and the West of it's
specie, by requiring that cotton should be
paid for in hard money alone Such pol
icy on our part, however, would evince
little practical wisdom. There is not over
much confidence here in either greenbacks
or United States securities. The planters
and farmers do not invest their balances in
hve-twenties or seven-thirties or any other
national financial :. denomination. Their
distrust, however, is gradually wearing
away; but it is still strong enough to impol
them to buy gold and keep it as something
which neither Congress nor Radicalism nor
the inevitable freedman can deprive Of in
trinsic value. This feeling is bringing
specie in steady stream to the South and
bolding it here; but as that specie repre-
sents the ne: profits of the producer rather
than the price Of his produce, it will not
suffice to cause any embarrassing strin-
goncy in tho Northern gold market. If,
however, we were to demand gold or silver
for the whole three and a half million bales
Of our our cotton, the ,parer dollar would go
head-long down hill, and there would be q
panic in New York greater even in it's in
tensity than that Of twelve years ago. But
We cannot afford to ruin the North, even If
we have the poWers .4a Az there, could OF be
South was in the dust, so there would be
trouble, serious trouble, in the South, if
the North, were bankrupt. \, The two SEQ
tons are more or less dependent the one
upon the other; and ss we know that cotton
is measuredby agold standard, aud that it's
price in paper must inorsase in the ra,io
of the depreciation 81 the paper currency.
we can we'll afford to mind our own busi
ness and leave the problem of specie pay.
n,en.s &c ks ss!7sa by those whom il more
deeply concerns.
We have this year demonstrated the won
derful elasticity and energy Of the South.
we have made ourselves commercially inde-
pendent. We have given less attention to
party politics and more care to commerce
and trade. trade. This, We hope, will be the
course Of our people in the future. They
can make as much money as they reed
they can, in time, solve the negro question
or cut that Gordian Knot; they can, with
out agitation OF risk, but with few more
crops Of cotton, secure an influence which
will make the South power ia Congress,
and q extort tort the adoption and continuance Of
Liberal Federal policy Our position is
strong; our hearss are light; our future is
bright With hope Why need We, who owe
but little, and who produce yearly more
gold by our labors than is drawn from I'M.
gold mines Of the entire globe, trouble our
heads with the questions at which sgasl-
street trsmblssf f's tlsg s'F f'sS 9Sa