The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-02-17
CH "A RI E S r. Q N
WEDNESDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY IT, 1856
Our Financial Position.

The question CT 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 fedged rep
resentatives in Congress arc not bored
with memorials or petitions in opposition
to The glitter of gold, or in favor of the
fimsy greenback. The reason is obvious
| We arc ct this moment, notwithstanding the
war and the uncertainties of system of
free negro labor, in more sound financial
condition tnan are the Northern States.
At cur backs we have two and half mil
lion bales Of cotton, worth in the .aarket
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 uplends to sell for less than
from twenty to twenty-five cents. Cotton
is our back. bone, the. strong tower Of our
whole commercial fabric. 1t is evident
enough that, as long as we can make cot
ton as we'll as we have done duriog the last
that ong-looked for Gotten country which
can make it independent of our staple, We
can command all thes currency that we re-
quire, and be always in better position
to resume specie payments, or endure an
inconyertibls currency, than the merchants
and manufacturers of the Northern centres
of trade.
Cotton is gold, if we choose TO make it
SO. 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 its
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 greenbeoks
or United States securities. The planters
and farmers do not invest their balances in
fve-twenties OF seren-:hirties or eny other
national financial denomination. Their
distrust, however, is gradually wearing
away; but ii is still strong enough to impel
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-
sency il the Northern gold market Ii,
however, we we're 10 demand gaid or silver
for the whole three and u half million bales
of cur cotton, the parer dollar would so
head-long down hill, and there would be
panic in New York grester even in lis in
teusity than that of twelve years ago. But
we cannot afford to ruin the North, even if
we have the power. AS there could not be
lasting prosperity for the North while the
Sou.h was in the dust, 80 there would be
trouble, serious trouble, in the South, if
the North were bankrupt. The two sec
tions aro more or less dependent the one
upon the other; and as we know that cotton
is measu red By gold standard, and that it,
price in paper must increase in the ra1io
of the depreciation Of the paper currency,
we can we'll afford to mind our own bust
ness and leave the problem of specie pay
mepts to be solved by those whom it 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. This, wo hope, will be the
course of our people in the future. They
can make as much money as they iced;
they can, in time, solve the negro question
or cut that Gordian knot; they can, with
out agitation or risk, but with fe ~ more
crops OF cotton, secure al influence which
will make the South power in Congress,
and ex.ori the adoption and continuance of
q liberal Federal policy. Our position IS
strong; our hearts are light; our future 10
bright with hope. Why need we, who owe
but little, and who produce yearly more
gold by our labors than is drawn from the
gold mines of the entire globe, trouble our
heads with the questions at which WALL