Morning journal and courier., 1883-03-16
t5uuruaI arGb Courier.
SINGLE COPIES THREE CENTS.
Friday, March 16, 1883.

SOME IMPORTANT PROBLEMS.
 It has been for some time plain that the cotton factories of the South would come into sharp and dangerous competition with those of New England. During the last few years cotton factories in the South have increased in number rapidly and they manufacture 'sheetings and shirtings not inferior to the New England product. The cotton being near them the manufacturers save in cost of transportation. They are nearer the western and northwestern trade centers and SO can reach consumers in those regions at less cost for freight than the New England man ufacturers.
 This condition of affairs has given rise to an interesting and important railroad prob lem which a number of commission mer- chants in New York have been pressing upon the attention of the representatives of the trunk line roads. These merchants say that with freight rates as they now are they are unable to compete in Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, and other centers for northwestern trade with the southern manufacturers, who have now entered the market as active and formidable competitors. The only relief the houses in New York can see is reduction of the classification of domestics and 8 conse- quent reduction in freight rates. The trans- portation of these domestics to the West is very large source of income to the trunk
 lines, and of course they would like to foster the business, but how to do it is the question which is now disturbing the minds of their representatives who are considering the mat ter. A freight agent thus forcibly puts the case: s'We should get a smaller income for carrying the goods if we reduced the cIassif- cation, and would in no way benefit the northern manufacturers or merchants. The southern merchant has them at a material disadvantage and it seems beyond our power to remedy this state of affairs, much as we would like to do it for our own selfish req sons, if for no other. The development of the resources of the South by the infusion of new blood and the adoption of new meth ods is naturally followed by manufacturing the materials produced by her within her own lines. It is impossible to prevent this natural result, and we must suffer from it in common with the manufacturers and mer- chants. If there is any method of
 relief from such suffering I
 would thank the political economist who
 would find it, and not only thank him but pay him roundly for his solution of this ex-
 tremely practical and very puzzling question If this is true, as it appears to be, the cotton factories of New England have probably seen their best days. The advantages which the southern factories now have they will al- ways have. If the railroads of the East lower freight rates, the railroads of the South, which are of course interested in fostering manufacturing in that region, will do the same.
 Another problem in which Connecticut is specially interested was thus referred to by one of the far-seeing railroad men called up- on to puzzle over the cotton problem Connecticut will find herself in very much the same situation very soon. Now she has monopoly of the brass industry. Chicago has already cut into this. When the North west, with it's vast fields of copper, begins the manufacture of brass a similar question to this of the manufacture of staple cottons will arise and her manufactories will have to confine themselves to her legitimate markets the North and East-in spite of all we can do to help it." Are Connecticut and the oth- CT States of New England going to become, 1 through the changed conditions of manufac- 1 turing, trade and transportation, what the South used to want to make them?