New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-09-01
SpJyDLES FOR THE SOUTH.

The egg-n0gg and roast turkey OF Christmas
festivity will this year represent widespread
and genuine CongratuatiOn over well-based
prosperity in the South. When the present
crop is moved, and the planter receives a bal
ance sheet from his merchant, he may feel
himself rich man. His crop has rarely sold
higher, aud the early part of the season was
so favorable that he has less grain to buy,
less pork and cloth and leather, than ever be-
fore. lie may need more mules; many Will
indulge in handsome pair of carriage horses;
but after all reasonable outlays there will be
a great deal Of surplus money in the South.
VIII not our brethren of the Cotton Belt listen
to lis while we urge them to invest that sur
plus not in gay horses or new saddle, not in
silver mounted reyolyers, Administer carpets,
or brocade silks, but in Spindles'
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 laborcrs
has been her traditional policy, her hereditary
passion. LabOrers she cannot now puTcha,,;
of land she has too much for the wisest till
age. Her territory is so pierced with nayigabe
streams that the call for more railroads is not
imperative. The most sagaciOus of her public
men are duly alive to the importance of eStab-
fishing manufactures, but all are not informed
as to what manufactures are just now the best
for the South. This we propose to consider.
No part of the Earth's surface can compete
with our Cotton Bell 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 deter
mined by geographical facts
Other regions, as India, Egypt Brazil and
the African coast. can supply to the clamorous
looms of Lancashire sufficient cotton fer lower
grades of cloth and for the cOarser yarns used
in filling. But for the long, fine threads re-
quircd in the muslns, lawns, fine prints, and
highest grades of shirtings and sheetings,
American thread cannot be replaced. Cotton
thread, fine. strong, and even, is the precise
article which England most needs from us, and
she must continue To require it as long as she
has that immense surplus population beseech-
ing work that they may live, requiring add
tional looms to keep them from the poor loaf
and thin soup of pauperism. These cotton
yarns can ne spun ut the South at less cost,
with less waste, by as cheap labor, fed by as
cheap food, as IN any part of the world. There
are immense pine forests to supply fuel, the
weather is 50 mild that spinning houses would
consume but trihc 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 which require vig-
lance and skill trained eye and a nice touch
ut every stage of an operation, the South does
not now furnish full supply of the grade of
labor required. But to tend the cylinders,
cards, jack frames, and ring traveller frames,
by which cotton lint is converted into cotton
yarns, numbering from 90 to 40, does not re-
qure better operative than the plantations
and the pine woods of the Cotton Belt can
turn out in abundance. A spinning house, hIlly
equipped with every wheel and spindle re-
aurcd 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 $4,000 a year Think of the i'm
mense increase of wealth and power to
community to be gained by supplying such an
empire rs tho 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 agri-
cultural laborers, more Africans or Asiatics.
That is her error. She reeds more of the de-
sccndants of Japheth. not Normans with hered
tary pride of blood and of acres, but the
patient, skillful. industrious artisan, the artif-
icer in brass and copper, the man who think
in iron. Upon this class depends the world
wide vigor and grasp of tho British Empire =
this class it was that gave the North her vie
tory. The South does not lack the foresight
and tho tnutt 70 SEQ that her future power
aud an uacha'lcugcd equality in national