The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-04-04
A Tariff for the South.


The State of Georgia is rapidly developing
its great resources as manufacturing State.
The growth of Atlanta is due to the business
enterprise displayed there since the war in the
establishment of factories representing many
branches of industry. We are not surprised,
therefore, to find growing interest in tariff
for protection throughout the South. In re-
cent speeecE in Congress, Mr.. FELTON,, who
was elected as an independent Democrat from
the Seventh district, argued forcibly that iu-
dicious tariff is the hope of the South. Speak
ing of the future just opening so full of prom
Use for that producing section, he asked
Why is it that lands in upper Georgia, capa-
BILE of such varied and prolific production, are
not equal in market valne to the less intrinsi-
cally valuable lands in Pennsylvania, New
York and New England? There is no COM
pariSon in the natural fertility of the two soils,
or in the richness and variety of their prod
ucts. The mineral resources of upper Georgia
are fully equal to the mineral wealth Of any
Northern State. The reason for this difference
in the value of land is apparent Everything
produced on the lands Of the Pennsylvania
farmer from garden vegetable to ton OF
hay, the products of dairy and orchard, of stall
and vineyard, all find a constant and remuner-
alive home market. There is dense popula-
ton there, cities are there, railroads traverse
every settlement, with rivers made navigable
by government aid. These have made their
lands valuable. What has attracted that pop
ulation? What has crowded those cities, con-
structed those railroads, and is crowding those
navigable rivers with costly freight? / answer,
their manufacturing industries. Why is 1t
that the naturally bleak and sterile lands Of
Massachusetts, with their limited products,
are so valuable, while the lands of upper
Georgia and Alabama are comparatively
so inferior in market value? 1t is because the
citizens Of Massachusetts, have availed them
selves of the benefits of tariff laws and
erected factories and workshops to manufacture
the products of the lands of Georgia and Ala
bama, while we of the South have said "none
of these things for u.s." We have caught up
the shibboleth of some political leader and
shouted the absurd cry that tariff laws dis
eliminating in favor of furnaces and factories
were antagonistic to agricultural pursuits,
while Yankee skill and Yankee energy, Yam
kee enterprise and Yankee manhood were
carving fortunes from the raw products Of our
labor. -reE s.LrsgfL s.-tAL
And referring to South Carolina and Cal
houn's doctrines, he said: at rs H1el .r.i.
She reminds me of the mother who dies in
giving birth to her child She has given birth
to more wealth than any state in this Union,
and yet the throes of the parturition have de-
stroyed her. She is the state over which the
first banner OF free trade fioated. L believe one
of the first iron furnaces ever erected in
southern state was built in South Carolina, but
free-trade preiudices and theories strangled it.
If this state had manufactured the raw ma
terials which it has so abundantly produced,
her lands would still be valuable and the state
powerful But alasl her political theory was
''sel in foreign marktes. buy in foreign mark
cts. Old England and New England are de-
pendent on us for their cotton and we can die
tate commercial law to the world" The war
came on. Old England encouraged the growth
of cotton in India and Egypt New England
snapped its fingers in the face of South Caroli-
ma, and there she lies today under the first
banner of free-trade, desolate and poor: She
has sown, but others have reaped. She has
planted and watered, but others have gathered
the increase.
This is not the talk of a carpet-bagger, but
of one ''to the manner born," a native OF Ogle-
thorpe county, Georgia, and, as recorded in the
congressional directory, ga farmer by profess
sion and practice"