Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1873-11-06


| States directly and indirectly inter-
ested in and affected thereby The
annual saving would be untold mil
lions upon their industries. The
annual saving on the transportation
of beef, pork, metals, Goals, lumber,
merchandise, sugar, cotton, agricul-
tural Implements, machinery, and
all the thousand articles that 60 to
make up the enormous aggregate OF
the internal commerce, the imports
and exports, Of. this vast country
supplied through this great artery,
wouldbe millions Of dollars more.
The undeveloped mountains OF
iron, copper, lead, Goals, lumber,
Of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee,
Missouri, will then find an unlinit-
ed market and outlet to the sea.
Besides this, 5000, 900 acres Of land
now cultivated in corn and other &C.
reals, not including rice, producing
on an average less than tcelre BUSH
els Of grain per acre, better adapted
as it is to the growth Of cotton, will
be turned into cotton fields, produ-
cling and adding not less than 2,o0O,-
900 to 100000 bales to the present
annual production of this most i'm
portant staple, and add to our annual
exports and specie exchanges Of the
country not less than $1G0, 900, 900 to
500, 900 ,O00--an amount exceeding
annually .fre to sic times the total
cost of constructing permanently the
work we are now specially ad-
vocating.
There is another point Of view in
this connection of the utmost impor-
lance, and that is the great necessity
the South now has of immigration
Of opening up some inducement
whereby the millions Of uncultivated
acresof the South now in wilderness,
and those going to waste and desola-
ton, shall be made to blossom and
bear the rich fruits of husbandry.
The South must hare some induce
ment to attract immigration, and no
enterprise or public work would sur
pass this great internal improve
mcnt and the North could in no
possible way do themselves or the
entire. country or civilization more
good than by aiding in the compile
ton at the earliest day of
this great enterprise. Millions
of acres would then be reclaimed,
and millions of population,
the bone and sinew Of Europe
and the Northern and Western
States, would then go South, there
to cultivate and develop those now
wasting acres. The construction of
these water lines of communication
would thus ut once be an encourage
ment that the South needs, above all
things, next to cheap transportation
for its imports as well as exports,
hardy, worthy, inestinable immi-
grants-settlers, citizens. We want
them by thousands, tens Of thous-
ands; we need n proportion of that
great tide of humanity (snd capital
too that now SO steadily finds its
way westward and the only way
seemingly to secure this and devel-
op and bring again prosperity to the
languishing South is by immigration
and the construction Of the Atlantic
and, Mississippi or Great Western
Canal. Then the South would see
better days; the old fields would
smile again; forests would give way
to fruits Of husbandry, mines be
opened, manufactures be built, fur
naces send forth the glare Of their
fires by day and by night, and a
whole people be made happy again
i'm industries which would add un-
told millions to the wealth and per-
manent prosperity Of the nation.