New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1871-11-30
Results of Protection at the
South.

Protection to our labor and manufacturing
South wherever the people are wise and enter
prising enough practically to test its advant-
ages. Even according to the free trade jour
nails, it is doing much to develop the resources,
create demand for labor, and to revive the
business of the Southern States. The New
York Financial Chromicle, one Of the most
Jealous Of all the free trade journals, is discuss
ing the question whether the South can develop
a large cotton manufacture, and has come to
the conclusion that since labor, by the result
of the war, and, it might have added, by the
result of protection, has been elevated to ITS
Just place among the productive forces of the
country, the South can, if she will, prosper
and grow rich by this and other manufacturing
industries. And in this opinion we most en-
phatically coincide, provided the present pro
tective system is maintained. But if Con-
gress, in its madness, or to conciliate the reve-
nue. reformers, should repeal that tariff, it won Id
not only put al end to all new manufacturing
enterprises there as everywhere else, but it
would utterly ruin all that have been estab-
lished The Chronicle does great in Justice in not
giving those intending to embark their capital
in cotton or other manufacturing establishments
fair warning that without protection they can't
successfully compete with British pauper labor.
Such is the lesson taught by experience.
The Chronicle places its hopeful views Of
the future of manufacturing industry at the
South upon the fact, that wherever cotton mills
have been established there, they are paying
handsome profits. 1t should also have stated
that they have been established i'm consequence
of the protection the Government has promised
them, and that they would not have been
started otherwise. One of these establish
ments is at Petersburg, Va, and its recently
published statement shows that for eleven
months ending last August, its net profit is
equal to 26 per cent. on the capital stock.
The company pay rent equal to p per cent.
on their capital stock, and the managers, with
pardonable self complaccncy, make Gem
parison of its prosperity with that of similar
corporations, and intimate that no other cotton
manufacturing company in the United States
can make showing OF profits equal to that
which they have realized We might cite
other examples from the list presented in con
6rmation of their arguments by the promoters
of manufacturing industry in the cotton grow
ing States.
In Georgia, for instance, the cotton mills al
Augusta and at Columbus arc enjoying singu
lar prosperity. But the important point of
the controversy is whether this prosperity
rests on trustworthy basis of permanent order
and public quetude. If SO, the destiny Of the
South to develop its material wealth with a
rapidity heretofore unknown may be regarded
as certain. 1t is noteworthy that some Of the
profoundest thinkers and the best men in the
cotton States agitating these questions,
and that the disparagcment and dependency
and aversion in which such discussions were
formerly approached seem to be giving way to n
more rational attitude of the public mind. This
movement, indicating as it does, growing
submission and enlightenment as to poitico eco
nomcal truth, is rich in hopeful promise.