Los Angeles daily herald. [volume] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1873-1876, 1874-05-05
0ur Manufacturing Prospects.

California should and doubtless in
time will become the greatest manu-
featuring State in the Union. Within
her borders Nature has poured with a
lavish hand the raw material of every
kind that men need in creating nearly
everything they require, or have
learned how to use. Less than twenty
years ago no one dreamed or thought
of the varied mineral wealth we have
since discovered dwelling within those
rugged hills, "rock-ribbed and ancient
as the sun" Turn back that little
time-only score of years-and we
find men seeking for gold and laugh
ing at the idea, if suggested, that Cal
iforna would soon become the greatest
wheat producing State in the nation.
We see ahead but dimly; still time
rolls on and unrolls the little piano.
rama that begins and ends our life.
Now there are plenty of men who
fancy themselves shrewd and whom
others admit to be bright business
men, who, while conceding all that is
claimed for California-her iron, lead,
tin, copper, coal and marble noun
tains-will argue that she cannot be-
come manufacturing State, be-
cause money is worth too much;
that it can be better invested
than in building manufactures. This
is as true now as it was that California
was not a great wheat growing State
twenty years ago. Perhaps ten or
twenty years hence money will not
rate as high as at present. Perhaps,
within that period, money will rate as
proportionately cheap as it is now dis
astrously high. We are realizing mil
lions of dollars annually from our
mines, and we are not buying as
heavily abroad as formerly. Money
is accommodating within our State. 1t
will accumulate more rapidly in the
coming days than in those of the
present. There is more money in San
Francisco now than ever before. There
is little demand for it at one and one
al quarter per cent per month. 1t
would all be actively employed at five
per cent per annum. The accumula-
ton will go on, and the rates of inter-
est will come down. The banks cam
not much longer control the money of
this State. The task was light once;
it is Herculean now; it will become
impossible soon. We shall exchange
twenty-five or thirty million dollars
worth of wheat this year for the coin
Of outside nations. This, added to the
proceeds Of our mines, will increase
the home capital largely next year.
California will change from II place
where interest rated higher than else
where to q State where it foots up
less than any place in the world.
Once she starts out on her manufac-
turing career, she will advance rapidly.
Her surplus money will be used in that
direction. The question of labor will
not interfere. Like money, its abund-
ance or scarcity regulates its value.
Population is coming, and the demand
for artzans and mechanics will COM
mand the supply. The climate and
productiveness of California will al
ways enable her people to save more
money from the world S average wages
than elsewhere. Ours is now the
greatest mining State, she is one of
the greatest wheat growing States,
and she will become one of the great
est manufacturing States over which
the waving Stars and Stripes give evil
dence Of free and intelligent people.