The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-09-02

RJntsrtnI Opinions of the Leading Journals
UpOn Carrent Topics Compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
spNpLEs FOR THE SOUTH.


Prom ne " y. Tribune
The egR-nog and roast turkey of Christ
mas festiyity will this year represent WIDE
spread and genuine congratulatiOn over we'll
based prosperity in the South When the
present crop is moved, and the planter re-
ceives a balance-sheet from his merchant, he
NAV feel himself rich man. His crop has
rarely sold higher, and the early part of the
season was so favorable that he has less
grain 10 buy less pork and cloth and leather,
than ever before. He may need more mules;
many will indulge in a handsome pair of
carriage horses but after all reasonable out
lays there will be great deal OF surplus mo
ney in the South. Will not our brethren OF the
cotton-belt listen TO MS while we urge them to
invest that surplus not in gay horses or a new
saddle. not in silver-mounted revolvers Ak
minister carpets, or brocade silks, but in
SpjndlCS?
A fresh and brilliant career of greatness is
open TO the South, if she can but see her true
and lasting interest. To buy land and Ia
borers has been her traditional policy her
hereditary passion. Laborers she cannot now
purchase; of land she has too much for the
wisest tillage Her territory is so pierced
with navigable streams that the call for more
railroads is not imperative. The most saga
cious of her public men are duly alive TO the
importance of establishing manufactures, but
all are not informed rs TO what manufactures
are Just now the best for the South. This we
propose to consider. No part of the Elrths
surface can compete with our cotton belt IN
the ease and certainty with which cottons of
long, fine even staple can be raised. This
grand advantage springs from our peculiar
climate, and this is determined by geographi-
cal facts
Other regions, as India Egypt, Brazil, and
the African coast. can supply to the camor-
nf Ion % s1t
lower grades of cloth, and for the coarser
yarns used in filling. But for the long fine
threads required in the muslins, lawns, fine
prints. and highest grades of shirtings and
sheetings, American thread cannot be re-
placed Cotton thread. fine, strong, and even,
is the precise article which England most
needs from us, and she must continue TO re-
quire it as long as she has that immense sur
plus population beseeching work that they
may live, requiring additional looms to keep
them from the poor loaf and thin soup of
pauperism. These cotton yarns can be spun
at the South at less cost, with less waste,
by as cheap labor, fed by rs cheap food, as
in any part of the world. There are inn
mense pine forests to supply fuel. the weather
is so mild that spinning houses would
consume but trihe for heat. and spinning
can be done by that large class of half hands,
the crippled, the old and young, those feeble
IN body and abaSed IN spirit, with whom the
South abounds. For manufactures of the
highest class, arts whichrequire vigilance and
skill, trained eye and Il nice touch at every
stage of an operation. the South does not now.
furnish a full supply of the grade of labor re-
quired But to tend the cylinders, cards,
Jack frames, and ring traveller frames, by
which cotton lint is converted into cotton
yarns, numbering from 20 to TO, does not re-
quire a better operative than the plantations
and the pine woods of the cotton belt can
turn out in abundance. A spinning house,
fnlly equipped with every wheel and spindle
required for converting annually thousand
bales into yarn, with comfortable cabins for
spinners, can be put up for $4,000 The
net profits of such mill may be
about $40, 900 a year. Think of the immense
increase of wealth and power to a community
to be gained by supplying such an empire as
the British with an article of prime necessity
and pocketing twenty dollars bale gain over
and above the profit of growing the cotton
The South thinks she needs more agricultural
laborers, more Africans or Asiatics. That is
her error. She needs more of the de-
scendants of Japheth, not Normans with
hereditary pride of blood and of acres, but
the patient, skilful, industrious artisan the
artifcer in brass and copper, the man who
thinks in iron. Upon this class depends the
worldwide vigor and grasp of the British
empire-this class it was that gave the North
her victory. The South does not lack the
foresight and the thrift to see that her future
power and an unchallenged equality in ma
tional affairs depend not on a plough-bea
but ON O cog-wheel