New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-12-01
OUR COTTON EXCHANGE.

We take great pleasure In adverting t
the excellent administration of this insti
tuition, and to the service rendered ir
giving system to the sales and integrity te
the shipping of our great staple. As 9
labor saving organization it is success
full illustration Of associated resources.
The cotton factorage of past period was
a separate and isolate business. In the
old days Of steam ships and market cir.
culars, the factor was prince among
merchants and an oracle to the planter.
He then called his bills receivable and
payable his portfolio, and his custom
ers his "constituents. Then the factor
had his special correspondence, and pre-
dicted prices with all the authority Of
trade autocrat. Then his business de-
pended upon isolation, secrecy, with,
it may be, slight affectation of su-
periority. Then his dependents might
have, without his knowledge or approval,
gathered to themselves crops for which
they had neither plowed or picked. The
spirit Of the age is, however, concentration.
The small sovereignties of the States have
been crowded into nation. The little
principalities of Germany have been con-
solidated into an empire, and the mer-
chant princes of the cotton trade into one
Of those cosy, comfortable, economical,
unpretending, energetic and successful
commercial corporations which have ex-
ercised so much influence, from the League
Of the Hanse towns, the royal company of
the Indies, to the common and innumer-
able trade combinations which, existing
throughout the commercial world, are
now being adopted here. The fac
forage interest has seen that all pretense
Of superior commercial knowledge in each
one of two or three hundred ordinary
men is absurd. That the expense of sep
arate kilograms of the same facts, notori-
GUS to all, is unnecessary; that to expect
dealers to come to two or three hundred
Offices to learn the same news, is waste
of time and shoe-leather; and that rents,
intelligence and labor is saved by combin-
ing the efforts and expenditures of all in
common fund and common building,
In view of the numerous lines of direct
transportation to the Atlantic seaboard
the Cotton Exchange has done we'll to re-
peal some ancient privileges of the ware
house and levee cotton pickers. This re-
form has been, we learn, attended with
some difficulty, and will no doubt show
salutary reduction in the figures of the
pavement crop. It is we'll Any estab-
lished disadvantage of our market is GER
tainly attended with a tendency to seek
others, and the toll of the cotton hook or
inspection augur might have that effect.
The report Of the Cotton Exchange is
properly limited to an exposition of its
successful enterprise, but it will not be
an improper appendix to remark that the
production of hundred millions of dol
lars is due in great proportion to the labor
of the colored people. 1t is proper also to
state that the maintenance of cotton re-
ceipts at this port is due to the removal of |
labor from Eastern fields and its employ
ment within the trade territory Of New |
Orleans. The REPUBLICAN again calls at |
tention to the fact that it is only the |
cotton, sugar and rice receipts at New
Orleans which sustain and even increase |
their exports. There has been no in
crease. There has been even decline in
Western provisions and in foreign i'm
ports. These staple crops are the pro-
duct of liberated labor. The factors are
agents. Their systems of prepar-
alton and sale are admirable, but without
he labor which cultivates the subject of
heir care, their association would be in
vain. We remind them and the reader
If this dependence of commerce upon
production for the purpose of adding that
my policy which protects the laborer in
he result Of his toll, which encourages
nm in the acquisition of property, and
o higher standard of intelligence and
morality, and to the free and fearless en-
oyment of his civil and legal rights, will
nhance his capacity for production and
urnish the association which conducts
he market for that production with in
reased material for enterprise and for
profit.