Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-03-03
GROWTH OF THE SOUTH.
Is the Centre OF Manufacturing
Changfng-9eorgta and the Advan-
tages offered 90 TndusEFial Eater
prise.
american Ra,l,eau Journal.

PRISE
AnaerIean Raslsray Journal
We have been so accustomed to think
OF New England as the centre of our
great manufacturing industries, and the
natural place to which manufacturers OF
textile fabrics should look for encours
agement and stimulus for the employ
ment of their capital and skill, that it is
not customary to think OF other localities
as holding out inducements tending to
draw from the supremacy in manu-
featuring, held for so many years,
almost undisputed, by Massachusetts
and her neighboring States. But
such inducements are being held out,
and enterprising projectors OF railroads,
as well as far-seeing manufacturers and
producers, are justified in studying the
question and basing action upon the IN
dications which support the belief that
within the next ten years a great change
in the centre of manufacturing Is likely
to be witnessed. The tendency of this
movement in certain important depart
ments of manufacturing is undoubtedly
Southwark.
New England for the past few years
has held its manufacturing supremacy
not so much from natural facilities of
water power, climate, fuel, transporta-
ton, etc., as from the character Of its
population. In the thriving New England
manufacturing towns are class of ope-
ratives who are ranked among the Oldest
residents and in many cases form one OF
the most substantial and permanent ele-
ments of the business prosperity of the
community. In frequent cases they are
living in homes which their ancestors
established before them, and where
they have accumulated properties that
are now to be found, in some in
stances, invested in the enterprises
where their labor is employed. In this
way strong communities of the best kind
of operatives are permanently establish
ed. To lead them to abandon these To-
calities for others, strong inducements
indeed must be offered, and it will be
found, as rule, that those operatives
willing to change their work and places
of abode for new fields and new enter
prises are of the floating, adventureSome
clement by no means the best for en-
ployment in starting manufactures in
new localities. This is probably the
strongest force that has held so long the
centre of manufacturing in New Eng
land.
Other influences are at work now
which threaten to overbelance this power.
Looked at from broad and unpreiudic-
ed standpoint, it must seem not little
strange that this power of association of
skilled labor and its congregation in GER
tain localities should have so long been
able TO limit the work of the loom and
the shuttle to certain sections. Cotton is
transported from the far South to New
York, and, after passing through the
market, is reshipped, In most cases, to
localities from $50 to 800 miles north.
there to be worked up by machinery,
| the motive power of which is furnished
largely from fuel brought by water and
| rail hundreds of miles from the coal
fields of Pennsylvania. Then the cotton,
| in the form of manufactured fabrics, is
brought again to this market, and from
| here distributed widespread throughout
the country, much of it, however, return
| ing to the Southern States, from which
| it first started.
One of the chief inducements in the
earlier days of cotton factories in New
England for their location there was, of
course, found in the water privileges
afforded. But the growth of manufac-
turing has been so rapid that to day in but
| few towns of that section can the water
power be estimated as furnishing more
than minor part of the power required.
Very rarely can a factory be found which
relies wholly upon water, while in the
majority of cases the chief reliance is of
necessity in the use of large quantities of
coal. 1t is an apparent fact also that the
| flow of mountain streams of that as of
other sections where the demands of in
creasing population and traffic in lumber
are rapidly cutting away the forests, has
been for the past few years considerably
| decreased.
1t is a question worthy the study and
consideration OF projectors and others,
whether the natural tendency of these in
| fiuences will be to draw manufacturing
| from the North toward the South, with
| its cotton fields and neighboring coal
mines. Much attention has been turned
| to Georgia, as promising to be future
manufacturing locality of Importance.
The State presents a remarkable variety
| of surface, as well as resource.
From the low and swampy lands
of the Atlantic coast and Florida
line, extending inland perhaps 90
miles, the elevation increases toward
| the north, until at a distance of $50
miles from the sea an elevation of about
900 feet is reached. Northward from
the central portion of the State the sur
face grows more and more rapidly, until
a billy and mountainous region is
reached, where elevations of from 500
tn 000 feet are fOund much rpSpm HING
the Blue Mountain sections of New Eng
land.
Georgia furnishes some of the finest
water privileges to be found in the
country. A few of them, of course, have
been utilized for many years for varie-
| ty of manufacturing purposes, chiefly by
Touring and cotton mills, to the extent
that it would seem natural they should
have been through their favorable loca.
ton. The $4,000, 600 which was found
to be in use in the manufacture of cotton
goods in 20 mills in Georgia, by the census
\ of 1870, has grown into a much larger
sum of late years, as the present census
will show, but there are single New
England villages which exhibit the use
of more capital in that department of
manufacture, than that entire State with
its splendid natural facilities Ranking
among the first cotton producing States.
rich in its variety of soil and products,
and 80 fortunate in being able to present
attractions to such diversified number
of industrial enterprises, it will not be
surprising to see rapid increase of
manufacturing at an earl y day in Geor.
gia; prospect which seems plainly to