The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-09-18

of us the commercial start, and That al
vantage we shall have to contend with, ant
it is an one hard to cope with ; Tor whef
trade has run in particular channel Tor
| long period, its course is not to be easily
changed. But it can be changed. Grea
causes have changed it, and often; an(
doubtless will again.
The statesmen of New York make it
constant boast that in defiance OF al
competition the great thoroughiare To-
| American trade must be through thel
state, and the city of New fori
the great market town of the Union. DIES
pite of all the efforts that are making t.
wrest from her the commercial sceptre
And these fluctuations they predicate OF
the assumption that by the means of theil
water-line the wheat, corn, lumber, flour
pork and other heavy products of the west
can be brought to the city of New York
cheaper than they can be by any riva
channel taken to rival cities. The posi-
ton would be well taken and indeed inn
pregnable, il it could be made to ap-
pear that the Erie canal will
never. have a water-line rival. But
"there is the rub" The New York
statesmen themselves, in claiming the per-
petual commercial supremacy for their
state concede that the opening of a cheaper
channel than their own Eric canal might
upset the basis of their fluctuations. The
commercial supremacy they boast of will
gradually melt away when they shall find in
the completed James River and Kanawha
caiial rival whose cheaper rates of trans
portaaon shall humble her swelling pre-
tensions, and bring her down to subsection
to that law of trade so much considered in
this argument-that the shortest and
cheapest line commands the trade in
other words, that the trade prefers the
shortest and cheapest line of transit.
We must await developments. When
the attraction of the very cheapest trans
portation in all the United States shall
have set the stream OF western trade in
full fixed current to the Virginia seaboard,
and built up there a mighty city and great
market town like New York, perhaps
greater, we shall behold the northern COM
mercial state crumbling away, and some
of us who have never tainted by the way
may boast that, at last, Virginia's time is
coming.
And we shall not only gain commerce
by the water-line, but as inevitably
another branch of direct trade not les inn
portant, and perhaps more grandly enrich
ing-domestic manufactures.
Sir, Virginia ought to be, as q manufac-
turing state, along side of Pennsylvania.
She has water-power distributed over her
territory enough to turn the machinery of
the world, and the raw material for almost
every manufacture in eXhaustless abund-
ance, and two of the chief of them, coal
and iron, in close juxtaposition. All that
she needs to utilize these rare gifts Of hers
| is cheap transportation for the heavy raw
material to the manufacturing points, and
rapid transportation of the manufactured
fabrics to the points of consumption. In
the James River canal we shall have the
former, and the latter we have already to
hand in the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad.
Now, | hold it to be too manifest for dis
pute, that the moment the canal is COM
pleted, capital will at once rush in by mil
profitable investment. The furnace and
the forge and the iron works Of every des-
cription will spring up as if by magic.
The cheap transportation of western
wheat--ten and half cents per
bushel instead Of seventy-two-will
make Virginia the first flour manufac-
turing state in the Union and so the cheap
transportation of western and southwestern
tobacco, now going down the Mississippi
and round by the ocean to
New York, and thence to the
Virginia cities, or otherwise going up the
Ohio to Parkersburg or Wheeling, to be
taken per rail across to Baltimore, thence
down the bay and up the James river be-
fore it can reach Virginia warehouse; I
say, the far cheaper and more expeditions
transit of this important staple will make
Virginia the chief tobacco manufacturing
state in the world, her climate having
confessedly very peculiar adaptation to
the manufacture Of both the staples, and
not only will capital be attracted to us
to seek manufacturing investment, but the
immigration of most valuable class--the
skilled artisans of every class that
| constitute so much Of the substance of a
community, and give to manufactures
and the mechanic arts their essence.
Let us see what it is to be a manufac-
turing state, in order that we may Judge
whether it is worth our while to make an
effort to become one.
For illustration, | draw again on bleak,
sterile Massachusetts,.
Her whole domain, but one seventh of
that of Virginia, is one almost unbroken
workshop. The manufactures almost every
article Of human need that can be made in
this country. Every consumer can buy
at home what he wants, and does buy
| at home, and so retains his money at
home instead of sending it off to be ex-
pended inca foreign community, thus saw
| ing for home account the commercial
profit. Every producer, no matter OF
what, sells what he produces at his
door and thus saves the expense of getting
it to the market. There is nothing for sale
in Massachusetts that can't be sold in
| Massachusetts,. There is nothing to be
bought in Massachusetts, that can't be
bought without going from home for it.
So there is q perpetual buying and selling
going on among the people of Massachu-
sets, the profit exclusively inuring to the
citizens of Massachusetts,, while the money
is all the time kept circulating at home.
| They do sometimes send their money off.
They send it down into my state to buy
hickory and ash timber, ship it back home,
dress itinto axe-helves, and ship the helves
back to Virginia for market, and they
buy up our broom-corn under our very
noses, take it back to Massachusetts, strip
off the seed, and then by Massachusetts
labor make it into brooms, which they
send back to Virginia, and sometimes sell
to the very people whom they purchased
the raw material and thus almost every.
body being engaged in some kind OF
| IF. "a IhTI hnc