New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1873-02-20

bility, is far better than high protective
tariff one year and a different system the
next, varying with every change OF PARTY
Such policy the farmers Of the country have
it in their power to secure. Then they may
bid defiance to railroad monopolists, and put
into their own pockets every dollar their farm
products would command in any Of the sea
port or great commercial cities.
The farmers, in some portions of the South
as well a. the West. arc beginning 10 under
stand this matter and are setting an example
which should and may be everywhere sue
cessfully followed. The Columbus tGa.) In
q,irer states some facts in regard to manu-
facturers' experiments, and the success which
has attended their efforts in that city and Vi
cinity to build up home market for their
products as well as to furnish remuneratiye
employment for their surplus labor, which IL
illustrates our views more forcibly than all
other arguments. The following article from
that paper will show the benefits derived
from the cotton factories that have been
erected there:
"The several factories in and around CO.
lumbus give employment to some seven hun
bred hands, and support population oil
about twenty-five hundred persons. The
s2O, 900 paid monthly to these operatives
goes into the tills of merchants, and helps in
directly to support many others. II we had
a half-dozen more factories here, the amounts
put into circulation by them would support
good sized town, leaving our commercial adj
vantages out of the question altogether. 1t
is true manufacturing towns attract large
numbers of very poor people, but these same
people must live, and would hardly be so
prosperous in any other branch OF industry
The Mobile Register, a Democratic paper
of the Calhoun free trade and secession
school, has been converted to this home pro-
duction policy, and actually encourages the
erection Of cotton factories at the South. In
commenting upon the above article, the HeJts-
ter enters into an argument urging upon the
Southern people the duty and advantage of
engaging in the manufacture Of their great
staple. Its argument will apply with equal
force in favor Of the erection of all kinds of
| manufacturing establishments everywhere.
The Register says:
"To start spinning factory on a small
| scale requires comparatively little capital
hardly as much as to start a respectable
Touring mill, and the country, as you well
know, is full of Touring mills. If we had as
many spinning establishments in the cotton
regions of the South as there are houring
mills npOn the same measure of territory in
the wheat regions Of the North, they would
be capable of converting every pound of our
cotton into yarns ready for shipment. And
they would pay return to the owners even
above that realized by the owners of the
Touring establishments, and they would pay
the planter better than he is paid at present,
by making his prices more regular, to say
nothing of other good works they would do,
such as encouraging industry among our peo-
pie, and furnishing employment and indie
pendence to thousands now in actual want,
or dependent upon the charity of friends for
support. .,
| ing a market for cotton yarns. To ship the
| warns would cost less than to ship the raw
material hence foreign mills would accept
the arrangement with gratitude, and prompt
| ly adapt their machinery to the working of
our yarns instead of our lints, as at present.
We have a guarantee of this in many things,
say in English watches, for instance. Eng
| lish watches are made in England, as every
body knows, but the wheels which run in
| them are all made in Switzerland"
| Such change in one of the Enost rigid Of
Calhoun's free trade disciples as this indi.
Gates, exhibits in a very striking light the
wonderful progress ofthe American system"
Of encouragement to home industry. 1t is
not many years since the Register and all its
class Of Southern papers looked with con-
tempt upon every body engaged in manufac-
turing enterprises. All such labor was con-
sidered mental and disgraceful, and so strong
was public sentiment against it that no man
would have had the moral courage before the
war to build q factory among community of
planters and slave owners. John Randolph's
declaration in Congress that he would go
half mile out of his way to kick sheep, out
Of sheer hatred for American industry, fairly
illustrates the feeling that only few years
ago existed all over the South. But it is
giving away, and Western farmers who
partake Of much OF the old Southern preu-
dices against a tariff for protection will do
we'll to rid themselves of it by following the
Columbus example and render themselves
! indapandant cf all railroad monnpoliee