Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1874-07-18
JEFFERSON DAVIS WORK IN
EUROPE.
What May be Accomplished through it
andby the Mississippi Valley Society.
[From the Brooklyn Eagle.

What May be Accomplished through ID
and by the Mississippi Valley Society.
From the Brooklyn Eagle
To be rid of commercial vassalage"
to the north, as they called it, is an
older dream with the southerner. than
his later one of political dissertation
with the same section. The Tren-
holms and the Lamars of South Caro-
lima, as well as the Lamars of Missis-
sippi-all the leading political econo-
mists of the south, and several of the
leading mercantile organizations OF the
west, as far northward as St Louis,
have dreamed the dream Of floating
southern products and western grains
to the sea upon ships owned in the
south and cleared in southern ports.
With Memminger, the alien treasurer
of the rebel organization, the dream
was a passion; and with it he and
Walk, and other men of that class,
long ago, impregnated the active mind
of Jefferson Davis, Debarred forever
from all hope Of fitting political Oecu-
patton here, less fond of the law than
Benjamin, Davis has been occupying
his mind with efforts to realize that
dream. Of a certainty, it is dream,
the easiest dream to realize if he can
but inspire confidence in the capital
lists of London. He has tried to do
this. He has just returned from Lon
don, and in Memphis, last Wednesday
evening, Mr.. Davis addressed a meet
ing of the Mississippi Valley society
of London" He told them how
through the reports of their agents
the parent society in London had at
last come to understand the feelings Of
the people of the south on this matter,
and how they were really situated
financially, and also how they had
come to understand thoroughly the
labor difficulties under which the whole
of the cotton and sugar lands are suf-
fering. Among his statements in
Memphis, Mr.. Davis made the follow
ing: That he had been presented to
Sir Edwin Pearson, of this society,
and all these aims and incidents of the
international association, having
branches everywhere in Europe, as
we'll as in the valley of the Mississippi,
were thoroughly discussed. 1t was in
an interview with members of the So
ciety that he had suggested the inaugu-
ration of system of direct trade be-
tween England and the valley of the
Mississippi. He had shown how the
intermediate agency of Atlantic coast
cities was ruinous to English mer-
chants, and that great losses were sus-
tanned, for the same reason, by the
,people of cities and States along the
great American river There is no ne
cessity for the intervention of middle
men and middle cities now absorbing
all profits incident to commercial in
tereourse between the great valley and
the worlds commercial capital. 1t is
needless to say that British statesmen,
merchants and bankers, constituting
the society in London, approved the
plans defined by Mr. Davis, and read
lily agreed to furnish three -fourths Of
the capital required to inaugurate the
enterprise, and establish a successful
steamship line from New Orleans to
Liverpool or London. Mr. Davis said
that the largest vessels possible, of the
greatest possible tonnage, should be
built or chartered. Barge lines from
the remote northwest and from st.
Louis should be used in connection |
with these great sea-going steamers, !
into which grain would be transferred |
in bulk at New Orleans. This plan,
carried out on such a scale, would |
make New Orleans a new Tyre, and |
turn the valleys of the Mississippi and |
Missouri into the Egypt of Europe
an Egypt that would be to Britain |
what the old Egypt once was to Rome;
and the name of Memphis and Cairo |
would once more'defLe Offices to the
crowded lands, akin to those discharg-
ed of old by their namesakes. This
gorgeous prospect, too, is taking prac-
teal shape, according to Mr.. Davis. 1t
is no longer an idle southern dream IN
dulged beneath the hanging glories of
Bonaventura, but an actual undertak- |
ing. Already since his return Mr..
Davis has received letters from the |
society that light-draught steamers will |
be built to inaugurate the trade-and |
that speedily. There can be no doubt |
that the system of dredging applied to |
the Clyde can be just as easily applied |
to the lower Mississippi, for, as Mr..
Davis remarks, while he was himself |
secretary of war under President |
Pierce, the river was kept open; and |
that without the inducements such
grand scheme offers. 1t is a grand |
scheme The grain of the west float
ing down almost without expense, in
unbroken bulk, for direct shipment,
joining the fotillas of barges laden
with cotton and with sugar, all free of
tolls, of commission, double and TRIBE
profits, bringing the consumer and the
producer of the great staples of hu-
mauity-the bread that feeds and the
web that clothes-within almost direct /
exchange with each other. Great are
the woes Mr. Davis aided in bringing
on the south; but should he do this
thing, the benefits he will confer upon
her will wipe his crime away from the
minds of the posterity of her people.