New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-09-02
OUR COMMERCE. AND OUR POLITICS.

We are among The few who bave care
fully read all the commercial reports pub
lished by the several journals. We have
done so with the purpose to see what
causes are assigned by the representatives
of public opinion for the steady settling
down of our city into. the trough O.
despondency. We employ this oppor
tunity to congratulate the press upon the
labsr and ability with which these gratui'
tous statements have been prepared and
have no hesitation in asserting that no
where is work of like magnitude pre-.
pared for less compensation.
We find that the political organs o!
Democracy persist in assigning this steady
decline to single political, cause tits
the continued occupation OF State offices
by Republican officials. One of the oppo-
sition ventures timidly to refer to the i'm
proved modes of transportation, and would
divide somewhat the political response
| bility between ''the frequent enormities
! of Republican partisans and their reckless
and extravagant populations in the past, y
and ''a few tirebrands, the representatives
of class who have melted the ninety
| two tumults which have occurred within
the one hundred years OF our municipal
history" Another incautiously discusses
the universal depression and arrest of all
progress throughout the United States,
and accounts for it by the war and its
consequences. With these exceptions,
the anti-Republican press assumes and
atfirms that the sole cause OF our local
stagnation and decline is the Republican
administration of State affairs. The poll
ticians, who own nothing and know
nothing of business, seize on adversely
caused by physical causes and attribute
it to political abuses. A short crop may
be, in their opinion, improved by shoot
ing the laborers, ard a declining COM
merce restored by driving away and re-
pelling every man or dollar which is not
pledged in advance to aid the salary ran
gers i'll regaining command of the public
treasury.
We shall make no defense, retort or re-
taliation upon those who assign so insig-
nifcant a cause for result so serious
We will show that the causes of this stag
nation are not political, but material. We
will allow, as we have heretofore allowed,
the salary rapgers to tell their own story,
and leave to the merchant and mechanic
to decide whether putting men in Office
who have not dollar in any active trade
except the pursuit of salary will arrest the
decline The cause why New Orleans has
declined is this;
Formerly she was the only shipping
port of the West and Southwest. Now
she is one of nine deep water, and salt
water ports all competing for this trade.
Formerly no trade could have crossed the
Mississippi and Ohio, or been hauled over
the Rocky mountains, the Allegheny or
Blue Ridge or Cumberland mountains.
Now the commerce of Asia is carried across
the Sierra Nevada and the Allegheny sum-
init, over the Cheat river grades, through |
the Hoosac tunnel. The domestic COM
merce of the country takes the same modes |
of conveyance, and now seeks the worlds |
markets by the agency of the locomotive |
and propeller instead of the hatboat and |
sail vessel. Does any merchant ask the |
reason? 1t is because currency has lost
its position in conducting trade, and bills
drawn against rapid and certain ship.
ments have succeeded and are suppressed |
ing the use of currency. We give the
proof in detail because it is indispensable |
to the cure of disease that its original !
and concurrent cause should be compre-
hended. Tobacco is Western product |
which was formerly exported in leaf to
the extent of 89,0 hogsheads. 1t is this
year reported at less than 5000 hogsheads
Flour, which once amounted to something
less than 100000 barrels, has declined
to 1862, S16 barrels. Corn, which was three |
years since 1,30O,0 600 sacks, is now
/ 100000 while bulk corn, which was
then nearly 1000, 900 bushels, was last year
less than one-third ola million. These are
receipts. The exports of these articles
have declined in even greater ratio We
have given the exports of tobacco and
bulk grain in their receipts, but the for
eign export of flour has declined from
like half million barrels
three years ago to eighty on ninety thou
sand barrels. When it is said that politi-
cal INSTRUMENTATION has caused this, let
it not be forgotten that in 1872 the reign
of extravaganza was at such height that
the salary rangers adopted its leaders
while the Republicans proceeded to repu-
diate them and reform their. deeds. Well,
in 1872 the receipts and exports Of those
articles was three times as large as at
present. The inference, then, is that
political misrule did not cause, that finan-
cial reform has not improved, and. there
fore, that political reform. is Inadequate
to retrieve this calamity, though both
these last measures have had and will
have the active and earnest support of the
We continue the argument
by noting the decline Of foreign imports.
These have come down within three wears