New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1873-12-19

direct routes and greatest facilities. A
ready the exports OF Boston are GROWN
more rapidly than those of this city. III
d exactons inflicted here upon trade by tt
costly system of carriages across the cit.
with double handling, storage, dOckag
: and the long list of .'charges" on ever
invoice outward or inward, are the prime
pal causes of our Giminution in compari
| tive prosperity.
, So, New York, it seems, can not stan
these transit exactions. The bill made on
against bale Of cotton for its hospitabl
entertainment in our city on its way t
Liverpool exhibits, we believe, about six
teen items, and amounts to at least 81 SO
The towage charge of 81 % ton up, ant
sixty-two and half cents down the rive
will impose upon a ship Of two Thousand
tons a charge of $3.50! This sum woult
buy a house in the city or farm in TIL
country, and it may be saved to the shiI
by going to another port where no sucl
charge is imposed. Such is the difference
between the Atlantic ports and that O.
New Orleans. Is it wonderful, then, that
ship prefers to take her cargo at the
Atlantic terminus of railroad? It should
aforementioned that the whole charges on
a bale of cotton from plantation to mill
are computed on every route, and although
it may cost less to bring bale Of cotton
from the plantation to New Orleans than
from the same point to Savannah,
Nashville or New York, yet if the
charges at New Orleans, with the ocean
| freight, insurance, and time across the
Atlantic, are greater than similar charges
, and time across the Atlantic from the
Atlantic coast ports named it may not,
after all, cost more to move a bale
from Arkansas across the river by rail
than by water to an Atlantic port, and
then across the ocean to The common
market. For it should never be lost
sight Of by our dealers that cotton is
worth throughout the United States the
Liverpool price, discounted for the COM
parative cost and time of taking it from
any given place to Liverpool.
It will be seen that the towage is tax
of about eighty cents bale on cotton.
This is deduction from the compensa-
ton Of the planter, since the ship charges,
comprising towage, wharfage, and all
other bills against the ship in her ex-
pense account, and fixes her rate Of
freight to cover and compensate all items
of outlay and interest attending the voy-
age. 1t is these charges against the ship
that, with others, determine the resort of
vessels to this port. When we had no
competition for exports and imports, then
such charges made little difference to our
city. 1t was an additional sum collected |
off the planter and retained in the CITY. |
Now that We must fight for every ton of |
trade we get, unless we mark our rates
down as low as any competitors, there
are seven or eight other ways of reaching
the Eastern and European markets, and
our trade will adopt them.
The utter failure Of the politicians to
protect or provide for the agricultural in
erests has had the natural effect of max
ng the producers look out for themselves.
Accordingly the granger contagion has
under the type known as the
Patrons Of Husbandry." We have now
stores and may possibly have
congresses, public ware
houses and, not impossibly, co-opera-
i've factors. All reduction of transit
harges nets more to the planter and
ends to bring more cotton in this direc-
ion. Although at first view it might be
serious thing to the .towboat company
o see sail vessels superseded by steam
hips, which require no towage, yet it
Tould be better for everybody else. In
Ike manner any change in the mode of
DING business, any improvement which
lay make our port and market more at
cactive, although it may change the pur-
nit Of particular class, will be hailed {
18th approval by the whole people. For, /
5 class or corporation will not hesitate
} make gain off whole people, the peo-
lie have right to release themselves by !
lspensing with the class OR corporation
Among the first charges on production !
hich the cotton planters have thought !.
ay be reformed or avoided happens to !
, the occupation Of the Balize by a cor
,ration which seems to consider that it :,
is vested interest in the mud Jumps.
ID chartered toll on the bars, payable :
stranded ships at so much pull.
Mr.. Wetmore, in q recent address to 6
e Patrons Of Husbandry at Clinton, =
thus gives his testimony on
is subject: :
For nearly four years my duties were "
ch that | boarded iour-ffths of all the "
ssels which crossed Southwest Pass bar VI
lie main channel Of ingress and egress) | -
nch of this four years was spent at the VI
r, and say TO the millions OF producers al
d consumers that there are no natural f.
uses which engineering skill can not over -
me. but there exists there mighty sc
,nopoly to which Vanderbilt with his W
ntrol of 2lj0 miles of railroad, represent J.
: S2l5,00OO00. and an income from the ~
Ople of Si5, 900 900, can be but 1.-THE of tt
preston. as compared with this monopoly AZ
ling themselves the New Orleans Tow
at Association. This word association is III
ceptible OF many meanings. tb
let us see to what extent this towboat -
nopoly, or self-styled association, affects *
as producers th
lIr. Wetmore details at some length the or
,ged exactions to which vessels entering tn