New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-07-20

NEW VxGxYAxN0 =
donations that commerce gave for the
care or custody of its valuable commodi
ties The merchant factor conducted his
business with constituent" planters, and
transacted his financial affairs like for.
eign minister, through his portfolio. he
had ample leisure for tour of Europe
every summer. He patronized the races,
the club and the drama, was an authority
in matters Of honor aud of etiquette.
The shopkeeper and mechanic realized
profits upon the careless and generous
| expenditure of the planter, who brought
his family for the winter months to the
hotels, or to his own splendid city resi-
dence. It would be a mistake to suppose
that the harsher features of bondage were
visible in New Orleans. The relation be-
tween master and slave was kindly. The
servant was furnished, or furnished HIM
self, with all that abundance displayed
around him. The slave was supplied
and subsisted by his master; be accmu.
lated his own earnings, and sometimes
applied them to the purchase of himself
or family. Such state of society must
of course engender the usual amount of
vice and violence along with the ease, ele-
gance and generosity which worldly opu-
lence everywhere produces. A fertile soil
and genial atmosphere will produce alike
the i'll weed and the useful staple
A people who only consent to casual
labor that it may furnish the means of
pleasure can never be prepared for the
adversely that, in the invariable and
inevitable, must befall every human
being.
The old cities of Cap1a and Corinth,
the habitations of the rich, the idle and
the dissolute with no productive industry
and no permanent revenues of trade,
hourished for centuries. Once the JOYOUS
resort Of all who had time or wealth at
their disposal-war, revolution, poverty,
came to change their JOY into sorrow, and
their splendor into squalid misery. They
have long since lost their attractions and
their renown. Their sites are marked by
ruins of palaces and the degradation of
their people.
New Orleans is neither a Capua nor
Corinth. While wealth and pleasure were
at hand, her inhabitants enjoyed them.
Those days and, We may almost add, those
people have passed away. New Orleans
IS, and is to be, business city. She
mas resources beyond even those to which |
,he owed her earlier renown. l. She has
me tropical trade. The coffee of Brazil, |
he sugar Of Cuba, with all the fruits of |
he southern continent and its islands |
must inevitably pass through her port in
for the reciprocal products of |
he Northwest and of the Canadian States.
Cae United States must develop through
he Gulf ports, of which this is the chief,
o find continental market for her sur.
illus, as we'll as the raw material for her
abrics. New Orleans must be a railroad
nd steamship centre from which will
adiate all the lines essential to her com.
aercial destiny.
2. New Orleans can become manufac-
uring city. If we solve the sole question
f motive power our labor, cheapened by
he poverty Of the city, with the raw ma
erial at hand, may make the cotton mills
f New Orleans more renowned than those
{ Manchester ever were. A railroad to
'exas-we need at least four-will bring
ere five million bushels of wheat to
e manufactured into a -four that
ill keep like that Of Virginia in the
ropics. The manufacture of staple and
ancy articles, the oil, moss, rice and
nd other home fabrics, will increase. We
ave conducted some correspondence to
now if silk goods can not be produced
q New Orleans. The result has con-
inced us that it may be. We have been
4 the same error on this subject with
theirs.
We had supposed that the twenty mil
on dollars of American silk goods
in the United States, was
1e product of American raw silk. We
ow know that it is not so. The silk
in America is from raw
Tx imported from Japan and China.
hat raw silk is now on sale in New York
1 quantity, and the American silk goods
re woven probably by imported artisans.
ON imported material. We are satisfied |
lat with adequate protection American
TX can be raised in Louisiana, but with
ut raising any silk at all the people of
ew Orleans may at once begin to manu-
cture silk goods to more advantage than
any State in the Union.
1t is thus that pleasure and political
ty, falling under the direction of Ameri- {
IN energy, can abandon system which
'es not pay for one that does. It is thus
at the period of fanciful and fictitious I
having passed away, may be
lcceeded by new industries. Perhaps it =
ay require new industrial class to s
Try out the new industrial system. If s
!, it will be given. A city Of such To- {
ton, with such splendid and incom- G
lrable inducements to industry and cap
Il; city open to the access of those who q