New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-10-13
onP MERCANTILE DELINQUENCY.

MUCH W NC bOAC LII S3eN4A141@So OASHStS AAN4A
ing provision for its distribution as there
is in simply being safe depository. The
interior requires what the exterior world
produces, and vice versa, and as the city
produces nothing, she can only create
local business by becoming the point at
which the scattered population about her
can meet to exchange their productions.
Our customers from the adjacent country
demand the bagging of India, the silks OF
Lyons, the fruits Of Sicily, the iron Of Great
Britain, the goods Of Germany; our custom
ers from abroad demand the cotton, tobac-
co, corn, wheat and manufactures that are
produced by our interior industries. Our
business should be to accommodate the
wants of both these applicants by being
the agents Of both parties. Nothing that
is produced in any country accessible to
our reach should be omitted from our
stock in trade, and no country thata ship
can sail to should be allowed to remain
without q connection with our merchants,
both for purposes of sending and receiving
consignments. Every shipment direct be-
tween New Orleans and any foreign port
is a saving Of commissions anda strength
ener to our commerce.
We have failed in this regard. The
trade Of the people at our own doors has
been neglected. We have made no con-
tinuous effort to extend our business IN
the Gulf of Mexico, where we should have
had a monopoly Of the commerce, and
now Northern cities are the distributors
that we should be. Mexico consumes
corn, potatoes, hardware, clothing, cali
Goes, cotton and wooden goods, furniture.
harness, provisions and thousand things
that are produced in the United States
The direct route for this merchandise, or
the bulk of it, is from. st. Louis or Cincin-
natl down the Mississippi direct to Vera
Cruz, Talnpico Minatitlan and Cam
peachy. In return we should import the
Campeachy bagging and rope, the specie,
blankets and fruits Of Vera Cruz and Tus-
pan, the logwood, hides, mahogany and
caoutchouc of Tehuantepec, and the hides
and specie from the other seaport towns
on the Gulf. Have we done this? Have
we ventured consignments, as the North
ern merchants have, and as commercial
builders we should have done? Nothing
ofthe sort. We have not even held our
own in this respect in regard to the ma
tional mint at this place, which was sort
Of attraction to Mexican specie. We have
consented to take most Of our foreign ship
ments through New York, which gave her
an advantage over us with our immediate
neighbors, since they could buy as cheaply
as we could All that we have done has
been to wait until somebody sent US some
thing, which we kept until somebody else
came after it, we making no effort to bring
the buyer and the merchandise together.
What we should have done was what
the more energetic cities of the North did.
They sent corn, potatoes, molasses (our
molasses), whisky hardware, cutlery,
prints, cotton goods, and such merchan-
disc as is in demand the word over, into
other markets, and where they could not
sell it, they traded it off for something
that the American people wanted or could
be induced to want. Two or three ven
lures of that kind will usually result in
the establishment Of a New Orleans store
in the port to which they are directed, and
one store of this kind will eventually re-
suit in two or three. This is business.
But We must get our goods from first
bands. The Matamoras merchant refuses
to trade with us.now, because be can buy
his goods cheaper in New York. This de-
grades us in the eyes of strangers, that in
stead Of being first class merchants we
are merely the clerks Of Boston and New
York. With chance to be the distribu-
tors of European goods, received directly
in exchange for merchandise shipped from
our own wharves, New Orleans merchants
retail at secondhand the importations
that New York has imported ont of the
proceeds of our exports. That is to say,
we ship the cotton, New York or Boston
collects the money, invests it in goods,
and we pay them for doing what we have
plenty of time to do ourselves, and what
is our interest to do directly.
Is there any way to correct this error?
There is way, but are we blessed with
the mercantile guild that can be made to
see it? And if we are not, is there no
way to secure a better set of merchants
than we possess at present.
THE PROSPECT FOR SUCCESSFUL FUSION.
In little more than three weeks from