New Orleans Republican., 1872-04-04

upon the work. They prefer to stand Still
and complain about their evil fortune
rather than move on to improve it.
She is the natural centre of immense in
| New Orleans is fairly illustrated by the
two instances which we have noticed above.
terests which she neglects to improve.
Her walls are weakening all around, her
roof is leaky, her foundations are crumb-
ling away, SO to speak, and instead of re-
pairing these breaks and adaptations,
our people stand upon their door sills and
point to the small returns as an excuse for
not doing that which would better them
( selves in every respect. Cities, like houses
and farms, need improvement to make
them profitable. If they do not 90 for
ward they must go backward, for there is
no such thing as merely holding on for
ever.
| We have the location for business, and
the business is within reach Of Us, if We
only adopt the usual devices that other
communities employ to secure it. Our
first duty is to forget the system that pre-
vailed before the war of doing mere COM
mission business. Our next duty is to
| learn how to add something to the value
Of what passes through our hands. When
| We refuse to be mere forwarding agents,
New Orleans will become a purchasing
and consuming market The capital that
is now engaged in buying cotton for Man
chester is amply sufficient to buy for New
Orleans, and the cotton that we send to
England as lint and buy back in cloth, can
be sold here, as it is now sold in Europe
or in the North, wrought in valuable
fabric. How? Five hundred thousand
dollars, or say a million of dollars, will
start mill. Europe will supply us with
the labor. In Georgia three hundred fac
tory girls have just been imported from
Aberdeen for the purpose of working in
mill for the manufacture of wooden
goods. If the money of Georgia can be
turned to profitable and patriotic use
in this way, why can not ours be
made to do duty in the same way? We
send sugar to Maine, where it is refined
and resold to Us, We paying the freight
both ways, beside paying handsome
profit to Mr.. Daniel Dennett's friends in
the white pine State Hides are dumped
on our levee, sold to Massachusetts, tanners,
shipped North, wrought into boots and
shoes and resold to Us at vast expense
over what they ought to cost if we tanned
our own leather and made our own shoes.
If We had the factory girls from England
and Scotland that are anxious to come
here, they would make good wives for our
own young men, not to speak of the in
dustrious young men they would attract
from abroad If we had the refners of
sugar that We could get they would be
consumers Of everything else that we pro-
duce. And all these people would not
only want houses, but they would bring
with them, or attract afterward, Numbers
Of other people who would need lands and
tenements.
lake another view. The produce Of
tie State that now pays a profit to
strangers would pay all that it is worth to
ourselves. And admitting that the ez-
pense OF commencing this system il our
own midst would be greater than it is
elsewhere, We can Offset this enhancement
OF expenses By pointing to the saving Of
freight insurance and other charges in
our favor.
When the citizen who considers this !
subject at ali looks at the rapid increase
in the growth Of Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St.
Louis, Louisville, Chicago and Milwaukee
he must consider that all these growing
cities owe their prosperity, not to what
merely passes through them, but to the
value they add to these articles This in
crease belongs to the city that creates it,
and it remains there to assist in creating
additional wealth. A bale of cotton is
worth sixty dollars in this market in its
raw state. If it was sent abroad in the
shape Of cloth or prints it would sell for
lbout eight times this amount, or four
hundred and eighty dollars. All this en-
lancement Of price would belong to US
instead Of belonging to people alta distance.
We have the capital to inaugurate these
works, we need the skilled labor
hat is wanted, to conduct them, and
lothing but that lack of courage and en-
erprise which prevents our acquaintance
rom improving his home or his farm
stands in the way of our improving our
commercial condition.