The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-08-14


good of their low-creatures," sold
two dollars bottle, consisted simply {
a few cents worth of iodine in solution
; Iodine is dangerous, however, in ovel
doses, affecting especially the eye.
Northern Capital in the South.
1t is an universal belief in the south
ern states that the thing they most nee
is capital. The people of those state
are necessarily telling the world abou
their exhaustless stores of rudimentar
wealth, and of the marvellous facilit
with which it can be worked up into &C
tua!, available wealth they have grea
deal to say about the amount of loy
middling cotton at IA cents a pount
that can be raised on an acre of thei
bottom lands, and of the amount O
wheat that can be produced on thei
uplands +; they boast that this cotton car
be manufactured into yarns and c!otl
by means of ample water-power in sigh
OF the fields where it is raised, far more
cheaply than it can be manufactured il
New England they tell us-and they
prove the assertion-that pig iron car
be made at Birmingham, Alabama, al
Chattanooga, Tennessee, or at Rome,
Georgia, SO ton cheaper than in Ohio
and pennsylvania they point with par.
donable pride to the fact that the cot.
ton mills at Augusta. Georgia, and Gran.
iteville, South Carolina, are working
steadily along, and making good prof tf
through the present depression of trade,
while those of Massachusetts and New
Hampshire are running at half time,
and losing money at that and they de-
clare that the mildness of their climate,
and the greater cheapness of raw mate
rails, labor and living with them de
monstrates the superior manufacturing
advantages of their region over the rig.
orous regions of the northeast, where
the laborer's family have to live on q
winter footing half the year.
1t is impossible to deny these state
ments, and, indie ed, nobody attempts to
deny them the world admits them.
Still, the capital which the fascinating
picture is intended to invite, does not
| come. Boston money clings to the
granite ribs of New England, and re.
fuses to migrate to Georgia where it
can earn ten to fifteen per cent. more
per annum every foot of Massachu-
sets water-power is harnessed to ma
chinery, while that of the Chattahoochie
and James runs to waste and the iron
mongers of Pennsylvania continue to buy
ore at SO a ton and make it into iron at
S24 ton, instead of going to Alabama
where they can get ore for 81 a ton and
make it into iron at $14 ton. The
people of the south have tried again
and again to understand this mystery,
without success, and they seem to have
settled down into the belief that capital,
labor and trade in the north are too
blind to take advantage of the opportu-
mites that the south presents.
But the matter is not SO difficult of
comprehension, after all. 1t is the peo-
pie of the south, not the capitalists of
the north, who do not appreciate these
boosted advantages. If there are such
superior facilities for manufacturing in
Georgia and Virginia, why don't the
Georgians and Virginians avail them
selves of them? If there are fortunes
to be made in cotton-spinning in Tennes-
see, why don't the Tennesseeans make
them instead of inviting somebody else
to come and get them? It is the people
of Alabama who ought to be making
cheap iron at Birmingham, and the peo-
pie of Tennessee who ought to be max
ing cheap iron at Chattanooga and that
vicinity.
The reply to this is that the people
of the south have not the capital. But
why, then, do not the people of the
south go to work and make capital
This incessant appeal to foreign capital
to come into the south is like the prayer
of the WAGNER to Hercules to come and
lift his wheels out of the mud. The
strong gods answer was that he helped
those only who helped themselves if
the WAGNER would put his own shoulder
to the wheel, Hercu es would supply
all the power he lacked. This answer
embodies the whole philosophy of the
southern situation.
The south does not need capital as
much as it needs willing labor-and
this it has, in abundance. Capital is
nothing but concrete form of labor,
now dead, and q very eerviceable and
efficient substitute for it is living labor.
This, united with industry and econo-
INV. in the midst of such favorable con-
ditions as mild climate, cheap living,
accessible materials apd water-power,
accumulates capital, with surprising
rapidity. A man who earns 800 year
more than he spends, per annum, makes
that much capital every year hun
bred men in a community, doing the
same thing, make $1,000 capital in
single year and Thousand men, work
ing and saving at the same rate, and in
yesting their earnings, would in seven
wears produce 81, 900, 000-a sum large
enough to start ten manufacturing es-
Establishments.
But it is said that the soath has not
enough of either labor or capital. This
ia a mistake. 1t cannot be said that
there is deficiency of labor in a COM
munity as long as there is any consider
able number of idelers in it, and 1t is
an undeniable fact that there are great
many idlers in the south-more, in fact,
than in those regions from which immi-
grafton is invited. There are, proper
tionately, more unemployed persons in
Tennessee than in Connecticut; OF the
425, 900 males and females over ten
years of age in Connecticut 1913, 600. or
nearly half, are engaged in some occu-
patton, sc, 344 of them being engaged
in mechanical and manufacturing voca,
tions, while of the 500, 900 males and
females over ten years of age IN Ten
nessee, only 367, 900 are engaged IN oc-
cupation and only $4,000 of these are
EMPLOYED in mechanical and manufac
turing vocations. OF the 4l2,66
females over ten years of age IN VIZ
ginia, only $4,000 are engaged IN occn,
pations-and nearly all these are colored
females; while of the 200. 600 females
over ten years of age in Connecticut,
15o AGO have occupations.
Those figures largely explain the
abundance of capital in the New Eng
land states, and the scarcity of it in the
south. If the south wants capital. II
must work for it it must earn moe
than it spends, and invest the surp'Gs
wear after year in manufactures III
s, 900 ida persons in Tennessee we're; in
engage steadily and industriousl he
productive employment, 1t wo,nnvest-
worth more t. the state than th. ;toI in
ment of $1,000. 900 of Boston sap ,nath ~
it. Besides, there is magic fram Ill
in labor that attracts its Ain" i'o'
quarters. or. 70
If the people of tennessee ma ,sa;, were mi.% 10
help themselves uo nrI be- surprised to
e and hnw m r" others would come to
helm them, if all the iole persons IN
fiat stat were to go TO work, resolved