The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-10-08
EXEMPTION OF MANUFACTURES.


Citizens of New Orleans would be glad to
encourage new manufactures by relieving
from tax the buildings, the grounds on which
they stand, their machinery. their stock and
products in store, and everything taxable con-
nected with such new establishments, includ-
| ing shares in joint stock manufacturing COM
panies, organized under the law and managed
for that end. If a capitalist Of New England
with 5000, 900 should erect, equip and operate
a large cotton mill in some pleasant and
wholesome spot on the Lake, or on the river
in New Orleans, to give employment to five
hundred operatives, the city could very we'll
afford to exempt the whole from taxation,
which at one and half per cent would be
only $4,000. 1t would give employment
to hundred families who can now find
nothing to do. 1t would convert five hum
bred persons now idle and poor into consumers
of all manner of merchandise and every
species of products. Out of five hundred
idlers and non-producers it would make pro-
ducers and consumers. Even mandatory
with five hundred operatives would relieve
public and private charity in the city OF full
fiftieth part of its present demands. 1t would
save ten or fifteen males or females from
life of half compelled vice. 1t would d.
minish the number of inmates of jails and
lessen the work and cost of criminal courts
1t would carry comfort and comparative indie
pendence into hundred houses to which
comfort is now stranger. 1t would add to
the family income, now consisting solely OF
the earnings Of one man, five, ten or fifteen
dollars each week for the earnings of sons
and daughters. 1t would invite new industry
to the city and open the range of useful en-
ployment for females. 1t would make the
city richer by almost as much as the aggre-
gate earnings of all the operatives.
The exemption of the same property from
State taxes would be wise for similar reasons
The supposed mandatory would create a
home demand for the raw material to the ex-
tent of perhaps half million dollars each
wear. An increased demand would be created for
the products of the farm and the garden, the
poultry yard and the herd. Substantial goods
would be furnished from the factory in direct
exchange for what farmers might have to sell.
We havs only to imagine a new Manchester
planted on the banks of the Mississippi, near
the Gulf, to be able to conceive of the wealth
creating and vivifying force Of mills in build
ing up and sustaining the energies of the
country around them.
The exemption by the State Of the 5000, 900
from tax would cost $4,000 more, but the re-
turn to the State would repay this loss many
times over.
But let us suppose that, oat Of the 1925, OOO,-
900 of real and personal property in New
Orleans, fair share, say two-ffths or fifty
millions, were invested and employed in
manufacturing wares for export from our
home products. In the same ratio as before,
the factories costing fifty millions would give
employment to 125,000 operatives, with ad-
vantages to the city and State two hundred
and fifty times more than in the case of one
factory employing only 500 operatives. The
$50 900 exempted from city and State
taxes would represent loss of the combined
tax of three per cent or a million and half
annually lost to the two public treasures; but
in this case, as in the first supposed, the
losses would be counterbelanced by far
Of the raw material for thousands of miles to
other manufacturing cities in its insurance,
in the interest, commissions, and other e1-
penses of handling, in return duties, in the
multiplied profits of Intermediates, would be
enormous.
Moreover, the operatives employed in man.
ufacturing cause mutual demands and create
a necessity for new shops and new mills. In
dustrial enterprise "makes the meat it feeds
upon" and continually develops new wants
and new means of supply. 1t gives the mate
rial for increased com merce, as we'll as an in
centive for increased production to supply
increased consumption. 1t means more
houses, more furniture, more food, more
tors, more lawyers, more capital, more energy,
more activity, more power, more influence,
more life and more liberty.
The mere exemption from tax of property
luVeStcu Ill uiiSS AAupoAtols anu J"Ss e'o Az 10,
must still be aided by other influences. We
must make New Orleans cheap place for
operatives and their families to live, as cheap
as any other city. Therefore, the taxes OF
everything must be light We must have
cheap government and an unburdened COM
merce; insurance aud transportation must be
economical. Mercantile exchanges must be
made on small profits. Country products for
stalls and markets must be brought in and
sold at rational prices. Our means Of COM
municaton must be extended East, North,
and West, and our city must be made the
favorite wholesale market for the merchants of
many Southern and Western cities. ALI these
things enter into the prime cost OF manu-
featured home products, and are strictly
necessary to the successful working OF home
manufacturing. But beginning can be made
at once by the exemption which we commend