The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-10-02
The Independent South and West.

Agriculture and mining are the. agents for
the creation of real property, and but one thing
is needed to make the localities of agriculture
and mining the most independent, financially, of
all the sections Of the country--that one thing
is manufacturers. The grand trouble in the
past with the South was while her cotton en-
riched largely the Northern manufacturers and
the capitalists, whose wealth was in ships, there
was comparatively little profit left in the
pockets of the Southern planter his share
was small indeed. He paid out too much for
food and clothing, while growing cotton, sugar,
rice, tobacco, tar and turpentine The food
products he needed instead Of raising them on
lis own soil, he imported from other States,
and, of course, at high cost comparatively. His
coat instead of being made of wool manufac-
tured in Texas, where the wool was grown,
was fabricated in the North. Bread, meat,
clothes, tools, and luxuries, all saddled with It
dozen big profits; the Southern planter paid for,
in raw products on which he made but one
profit and that small one. Now, the South
are beginning to learn that point Of completion
where consumption will step in and claim them,
aud then that same South will increase in
financial strength faster than ever To be sure,
the first steps are costly and difficult; but the
beginning made, the manufactures started, each
decade will find new resGarces opening up and
capital easier to obtain. The South have already
learned that they can grow their wheat and
pork, and beef aud mutton, to an extent that
will save them millions of dollars year, and
as they have iron and coal with their other
minerals, the great staple nails, they certainly
ought not to send North for to the amount of
pound but we are aware that furnaces, roll
ing mills, &C., are now to some extent at work
there. Cotton mills are also found in sight of
the cotton plantations. This is we'll. And we
hope that the huge expenses and lack of profit
which ever attends new projects, will not dis
courage the bold and honest men who have
taken hold of the enterprise. What we have
said touching Southern interests applies equally
to the West That section, strange as it may
appear to-day, raises, beef, whose hides are
sent East to be tanned into leather, to be made
into, shoes, which are sent back for Western
consumption. This is most terrible blunder in
the political economy of that section. So it is
in wool and other staples, which arc trans
ported to remote points, handled, and stored,
and insured, only to return to the same West
again, to be consumed, when home manufac-
lures would not only render her Independent
Of the East, but would save her tens of mil
lions per year in solid wealth. Naturally, the
South and West, abounding as they do, in all
Iuc RESOURCES VI progressive people, OuSnC
not to be at all dependent upon the North and
East. These sections can raise all the food
they need, while at the same tine they can
produce all the staples which cover the en-
tire necessities of life, aad therefore the manu-
featuring of those staples, iron, wool, flax, silk,
cotton, leather, etc, etc, should naturally be
there, and not at the East or North. 1t takes
capital, we know; but capital will always go
where the law of trade sends it. Refuse to
transport Southern and Western products to the
North and East, and, as is the case with the
Western nations in their spice, coffee and tea
trade, consumers will 60 for the articles they
need to the points where those articles are pro-
duced. So, regarding manufactures the world
must have them. If cotton we're kept at home,
in the South, and native hides in the West,
shooting would in time be Southern product,
and shoes Western, for the tide of purchase
could be forced in those directions by manu-
featuring interests ccntering there AS with
those staples named, so with others. The South
and West are too rich in resources to hold the
relations they now sustain to the North and
East.-Aew York Day Book.