New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1878-10-02
A CHANGE OF POLICY.

this duty is shown by the fact that
its population is stationary and it's
receipts of imports and exports, with
the exception of cotton, on the de-
cline. 1t stands now as the only
principal city in the Union which
presents this stagnation and decline.
Why is this So Because the theory
on which New Orleans was founded
gave its factors and merchants the
monopoly of more than half the ter
ritory of the Atlantic and Western
States. This monopoly of trade
has been utterly destroyed by a
railroad system which conducts more
than twenty parts in weight, value
and numbers, by direct rail between
the valley of the Mississippi and the
Eastern Atlantic cities, to one part
carried by way of the city of New
Orleans and cOastwise to and from
the same cities. Our merchants thus
have lost the monopoly of Western
trade, but the profits of our mer-
chants are kept down by the superior
and unlimited facilities of access
which the merchants of other cities
have to our natural customers. This
will be painfully evident at the close
of the epidemic now upon us. West
ern exports and imports by rail have
been uninterrupted, and the demand
of our natural customers for goods
or provisions has been supplied by
orders and drummers from the East
ern and Western cities. 1t should
also be known that no Outport city is
permitted to make the same profits
on factorage and forwarding as for
merly. The tendency is to export
and import direct. Interior ship
ments are consigned direct to ulti-
mate ports, and imported goods are
taken by bonded carriers to interior
ports of entry, where they may be
appraised bonded and liquidated at
the home of the importer.
New Orleans then suffers from this
diversion of her trade as Venice
when the passage around the Cape
was discovered, or as Cape Town
must have done from the reOpening
of canal across Suez. She has been
injured by the changes in the rate of
profit and mode of trade. The theo-
~ upon which New Orleans was
built, and to which she owed her ex-
traordinary rate of progress has been
modified by events. We desire to
strip the decline of the city of all
other assignable causes. We may
grant all that has been said about
Republican misgovernment of the
State and city, yet it must not be
forgotten that the crops raised
throughout the State have increased
under Republican administration,
while the decline has been confined
to the city, which has been in part
under the rule of the Democracy.
The delusion that an alleged official
misgovernment of the State has ar:
rested the progress of the city is il
logical. since the rObberies and in
creased debt imposed by Tweed and
his ring did net arrest the growth of
New York. If, however, it should be
insisted on that misgoyernment has
caused the decline of the city, then
the reform Democracy should have
arrested that decline, or they must
admit themselves no better than they
represent their predecessors TO have
been. Like the unfortunate patient
Of many physicians, the commerce OF
New Orleans has grown nothing
better, but rather worse" under the
Democratic administration of the
past four years. Under both party
administrations of the last eight
years the assessed value of real and
personal property has declined TWEEN
ty-six per cent. Let us absolve the
Republican Mayors and administra-
tors Of having the capacity to destroy
the commerce of the city. Let us
acquit Messrs. Wilt and Pillsbury,
the Democratic Administrators, Of.
the ability to restore the progress of
tba o;t,- z1 megt TIsi Hi
= y iaaaf Nfi l0 ls Mg a1i
We have chosen impartially TO
admit the responsibility Of both
these partisan administrations. They
were as innocent Of the decline Of
the city, or the means Of its restora-
ton, as the clerk Of steamboat of a
leak in the boiler. We are willing
to add to tho causes Of decline the
rate and manner Of city taxation,
the enormous city debt, compounded
chiefly Of the funded floating debts
Of the extrayagant and Incompetent
officials Of half q century past. This
debt bearing something ike an. in