The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1876-03-23
THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION
" WkOUG BY EADs. ~


WROUGHT HY EADs. %
~. 10 H = T.r..f Fq =
The progress of Capt. Eads's work on the
Mississippi jetties has been so favorable that
keen interest is manifested in the work by
cities to be directly benefited. The planet
this work, as most readers are aware, is TO,
make channel of comparatively uniform.
width, by dykes controlling the current,
over the bars, and, where necessary, by
dredging the bar to give the average depth
of water. The mattress work has been sunk
in the east jetty beyond the bar; the sea,
wall, it is reported, becomes more solid
every day, and the. current in the South
Pass has been increased five to six feet per
secohd.S Indeed; the work has progressed
so tar that a three-masted schooner, with a
cargo of 2250 bales of cotton, and drawing
thirteen and half feet of water, has passed
through the channel. The success of the
work win infinitely add to the commerce Of
citiss on the banks of the Miasissippis BY
military operations from 1860 to 1865 the
commercial map of the United States was
inverted. Leaders of armies sought the
shortest and speediest routes from the South
to New York, and these were opened and
established and consolidated and trade and
travel 'converged and concentrated upon
New York. Peace came and commerce ad-
hered to its newly-acquired habits, even 'as
lessons given India and Egypt, while we
were cutting threats and burning houses,
have created for us potent competitors in
the worlds cotton markets. Trade once
concentrated on a given point is yaverted
with difficulty, and on the inverted CONNER
cial map of the United States, New York
was made to draw the country's richest re-
sources even from the banks of natural
canal in the West, that cost nothing, and
that led to the sea at New Orleans. If Eads
succeed in making New Orleans accessible
from the sea, without the intervention of
lighters and tugboats, the whole wealth of
the valleys of the Missouri and of the Mis-
sissippi will gain access to the exterior
world by way of New Orleans. The effect
upon cities on the Mississippi will be in
Simultaneous and miraculous. Railways
touching the Mississippi now take every
thing from the river and from its cities to
New York. Vicksburg, st Louis and Cairo
are mere repositories for cotton, to be
transferred by rail to New York and Boston,
Even farmers and country tradesmon, follow
these cotton bales and buy goods. in the re-
mote cities of the East, and cotton, going
over these roads, returns in the shape of
dry goods bought in remote metropolitan
cities. If the Mississippi be made cheaper
route to the sea than that through New
York, the whole course Of internal COM
merce win be reversed. 1t will be concen7
trated in cities on the shores of the great
river and in cities of Texas having cheap
est access to New Orleans. Cotton-growers
will sell cotton in cities Of the South, and
buy there from importers from Europe
the manufactured goods now bought
in New York, and, plainly enough,
Eads's triumph is the commercial in
dependence of the South and supreme
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of cities and States
of the South. Doubling Eads's permanent
success, because of the rapidity with which
shoals would be uplifted by the deposition
of mud at the rivers mouth, we preferred a
slack-water ship canal, as Capt. Cowdon
proposed, from New Orleans, forty miles,
to deep water in Barrataria Bay. II Eads
fail, this canal must be dug. It would be
of infinitely greater value to the South and
West than that to Europe, for which Eng
land, Egypt and France paid 100000, 600,
connecting the Mediterranean with the In
dian Ocean through the Red sea. 1t was
suspected that Eads's piauwas approved and
accepted because the East hoped for his
failure, and that the money wasted on his
scheme would prevent the costly oonstruc-
tion of a proper slack-water ship canal, on
whose banks locomotives might draw Great
Easterns from the sea even to New 0rleans's
wharves but the opinion obtains that Eads
will triumph, and his success revolutionize
the commerce of q continent, and aggran-
die, as We have little dreamed, cities and
States Of the Valley of Mississippi. JefTer-
son Davis's vision of Southern commercial
freedom is realized whenever a ship, draw
ing twenty-five feet, passes the bar 1T the
Balize, and the greatness and beauty aud
magni6cenee OF New Orleans, despite de-
monism of pArtisanship that invests savage
~ with supremacy, are assured, and Louisi.
ana must become, next after Texas, the
choicest abiding place of cotton and sugar
planters. and the great city of LouisianS
the seat OF worldwide commerce.