Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1869-09-07
Condition of the American Industry.


Although the trade of the country
has been thrown into an abnormal
condition by causes which are fami-
iiar to intelligent business men, there
are many compromising features in
the condition of industry, which
must anon have very important
bearing upon commerce and finance.
Never before in our history were so
many railroads being built, SO MANY
farms opening up, and so many oth>
er important interior industrial en-
terprises on foot for the conversion
of floating capital into mixed forms,
as at present. The rapid growth of
the West in wealth and population
is leading to the natural result of
greater diversity ia the business pur
suits and material interests OF it's
people. That section now contains
all the elements requisite for the sue
cessful prosecution of manufacturing
enterprises, with the raw materials
and the house market at its very
door. The consequence is, that her
water powers are being improved,
her coal and iron mined for home
consumption, and her distributing
merchants are every year coming in
| diminished number to, and taking
supplies from, the Eastern markets
| Similar changes in the condition and
industry of the South are also taking
place, and sagacious observers are
conhdentin the behalf that the period
is not remote when the Southern
States will become the manufactures
of their own cotton. These transit
tons from purely agricultural pur-
suits to the higher branches of in
dustry it is foreseen, must sooner or
later Eecessitate a material change
in the policy Of the older settled
States bordering on the coast. They
are no longer the exclusive seats of
manufacturing enterprise, and by
consequence they no longer hold the
same relations that they once held to
the interior. This remark will be
better appreciated when we state
that there are no less than six hun-
dred WOODEN and cotton mills located
West of the Alleghenies, where a
quarter OF century ago there were
very few or none. In the natural
course of development, the purely
agricultural section of the country
has been pushed back to and hey ond
the Mississippi Valley. and tie in-
tervening States stand in the same
commercial relation to it that New
England, New Y ork andPennsylvania
once stood in relation to those States.
1t by no means follows that the old
seaboard are to fall into commercial
or industrial decay. Standing be-
tween the home-producer and the
European markets, their position is
such that neither the West or South
can DO without them. They must
continue to be the importers and ex.
porters for the whole interior por-
ton OF the continent East of the
Rocky Mountains, whose consumers
of foreign commodities will have to
be supplied, directly or indirectly
from our Atlantic ports. Hence their
expansion in commerce and wealth
must proceed hand in hand with the
growth of the whole country. Their
compensation for restricted Southern
1 and Western markets, must be found
in an extension OF foreign commerce,
and in National policy which shall
again build up our mercantile marine,
and reopen to our merchants and
manufactures those distant markets
from which they have been temper
arily excluded, through the instru-
mentallties of the late rebellion.
1t is unfortunately true that COM
merce and some branches of our i'm
dustry are depressed, but this condi.
ton is by no means exceptionally in>
cident to the United States. Manu-
featuring and business affairs in Great
Britain, the foremost commercial
nation in the world, are not in much
better shape than our own, when the
manifold complaints of commercial
depression in the leading Continental
countries are borne out by the heavy
tide OF emigration which is leaving
their shores to find homes in the New
World. 1t would thus seem that the
country to which the labor of all the
rest of the world is tending, cannot
be worse off industrially than the
countries which it leaves to better its
condition. The benefit IN point OF
material wealth which our country
is likely to derive from this accession
of Old World bone and sinew, can
scarcely be everestimated 1t will
accelerate both production and COM
sumption, materially Tighten the
burden of taxation, and cause our
debt to rest more lightly upon the
shoulders Of the people.