New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-05-10


uses of our cotton culture by the con.
struction of the levees of the Mississippi
present battle field on which that great
combination for the ruin of the grandest
triumph of American industry may be
brought to close IN the victorious asser-
ton once more of our supremacy in the
cotton market. The best cotton land iu
the world, capable of producing a bale to
the acre, as those alluviums are very truly
said to be bv General Humphreys. 80 pro
life is their prod of the fabric-with
the same amount of capital and the same
amount of labor-that the exclusion of all
rival producers from the market, and the
destruction of all the capital invested in
their production, will follow the establish
ment of our cotton industry in the unap.
prOachable strength Of the seven million
acres which will be given for that national
purpose by the construction of complete
system of levees on the Mississippi river.
'Our cotton uplands are being denuded OF
their labor The higher prOductiveness OF
our Mississippi lowlands giving higher re-
enumeration. their conversion having there
fore at its command abundant supplies of
extraordinary rapidity, after the Ievees
shall have thrown them open by reclama.
ton to the uses of agriculture. And 900, 906
bales whitening before many years the
splendid territory now lying waste ON either
side of the Mississippi, would, at ten cents
per pound, not only enable us to crush all
rivalry in cotton production under our
heels, but would at the same time add to
the credit side of our international balance
sheet hundreds of millions per annum in
gold.
"Cheapness is a necessity of not only the
maintenance of our cotton agriculture, but
of also our cotton manufacture; for freight
and handling, though sometimes like con-
slant quantities. constitute, in reference to
variations of price, varying percentages.
As tariff in favor of home production,
they are greater in their operative power
when the fabric is ten cents per pound than
they are when it is twenty cents. Their
effective force as an incidental protection of
our cotton manufactures becomes greatest
when the price of cotton is the least. In
der this point Of view there can be no
doubt that the high prices of raw cotton
bear iDjuriousiy on our exports of cotton
fabrics. And in confederation of this de-
duetion. the fact may be cited that, while
our exports of manufactured cotton
fell off in 1864 to less than 81, 100000. In
1871 they had not rallied'to over $500, 900,
one third of their value in 1860.
"Our cotton manufacturesihave lost under
high prices of raw cotton. an income from
exports to the extent OF seven millions a
year. The proof which that loss points
gives it an aspect still more serious to the
interests involved directly in the produc.
ton of cotton fabrics. 1t represents them
in an attitude, not of expansion into the
healthy life which can strike out into COM
petition with. the world, but of the sick
illness that shrinks from that struggle, under
the witherlng influence of high prices, into
the dangerous condition Of industrial
existence which holds its vitality by the
uncertain tenure of protection And the
cotton manufacturers of the country have,
therefore, lost not only seven millions of
their income from exports under the opera
ton of high prices of raw cotton, but they
have entered under that operation on a
footing that places their whole capital, 80
long as those high prices of the raw mate
rial hold, more or less at the mercy of
oscillations in our political thought.
''Wheat, -four and Indian corn entered in.
to our exports of 1860 to the amount of
S22,000,O00. The consumption of those
Northern commodities in the cotton region
having been arrested by the war, their ex-
port ran up from $22000,000 in 1860 to
$40, 100000 in 1861, to $S0,OOO,0 900 in 1862.
The wheat, flour and Indian corn of the
v
5he cotton region in 1860, may therefore be
yet down, in general, at between fifty and
sixty million dollars. The pork, the beef,
The manufactures of wood, iron, etc., that
we're sold by the States of the West to the
cotton producers of 1860, may be estimated
1t very great amount when the c0nsump-
ion of Western grain by these producers is
'een in such strong evidence to have
to fifty or sixty million dollars
And thus, in addition to the general inter-
,st of giving out enormous amounts to our
,redit in our international account, does
he reclamation of 100000 acres of the
ichest cotton lands in the world, by the
of the Mississippi levees, pro-
# all markets, a home market, for their
,readstuffs and their manufactures to an
mount that may be held to sum up $780,
700, 900 per annum.
water power, though cheaper in first
ost, is inferior for the uses of manufacture
o steam. Cotton, being the lighter of the
wo materials. must go at the bidding of
economy to that producer. of STEAMBOAT. |
Anu in seeking the coal best suited for it's
Inversion it will determine in favor, all |
hings else being equal, Of the coal nearest, |
asiest of access. Now, the reclamation OF |
Ut immense areas of cotton lands on the |
anks of the Mississippi is, under this point |
f view, the initial step to an inevitable re-
ult-American supremacy in the produc-
ion of cotton fabrics. With the raw ma |
erial in unbounded supplies in one part OF |
he river system of the Mississippi basin,
nd in an adjoining prrt of that system |
bundance of coal, abundance of bread |
tufts, abundance of labor, all the condi-
Ons of economical production concur |
declaring the throne of fu- |
Ire empire in the manufacture of |
otton fabrics to be seated on the coal fields
the West. The wonderful developments
civic population and industrial wealth in
reat Britain have taken place on her coal
easures under the drawbacks of supplies
nd markets thousands of miles away, and
lere can be no doubt developments still
ore wonderful in the concentration of
)pulatlon and the increase of riches will
llow on the coal measures of Ohio, In
ana, Illinois, Missouri, ETC., when, with
le consumption of continent at the doors
their cotton mills, the raw material can
} brought to them at the low cost of trans.
,rtatiOn over Eve or six hundred miles of
land navigation, in the abundance of sup
Y whitening seven million acres behind
% levees Of the Mississippi.
The nation can not consent to palter
it'll her duties
uoW suoWAU soue IuruneE reasons, MT. |
'eaker, in support of the proposition of
q committee which l had the honor to
axe to this House on the seventeenth in.
ant:
wv sERvITUDE FROM STEAMBOAT WAVES.
The claim of the inhabitants of the delta
r national aid rests upon much stronger
ounds than mere prospective revenues
I'd productions. These claims come in the
rm of reclamation. They are based upon
o perpetual and ever-Increasing attack
,on the banks OF the river and the levees
7 the passing commerce of no less than
7enty-One States and five Territories, the
ost productive Of the Union, that send
cir untold commerce down the river, and
ceive their imports in return. The
that transport this commerce send
cir resistiess waves against banks and
vaaS lashinv and ahro d;pr than olmost |