The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-08-02
WEALTH IN THE LOwLANDs.

SOlH0 suggestive ldcLS III Lne SLdIlS-
tics of the last census affecting the
financial operations of the next fif-
teen or twenty years. 1t is shown,
for instance, that the Understanding |
debt of the United States amounts to
more than billion dollars. Six hun
bred millions of this will be due and |
paid in eight years, and the balance
will be due and paid within twenty
four years-perhaps fifteen. The debt
of states, counties, cities and towns
amount to nearly nine hundred mil
lion dollars. About six hundred mil
lion of dollars of this will be due and
most of it paid. Here then will be re-
leased an aggregate capital of over
two billions of dollars which must fins
new forms of investment. Economists
are discussing the purposes to which
this vast amount of money may be
applied. OF course great deal of it
will go into railways in this country
and in Mexico; much will be invested
in mining; but the great body of this
capital will go into agriculture and
m, nufactures New England and the
Middle States no longer present the
most inviting fields for many indus
tries; some of the old there are even
wearing out and becoming less prof.
table, as more favored sections give
place to the spindle and the loom, to
mills and furnaces. The cotton man
ufactories of the United States, even
those of foreign countries, must in the
main be replanted amid the fields
where the fleecy staple grows; blast
furnaces and rolling mills will be-
come common amid the iron fields of
the South, and especially
in Texas, where there are
some of the richest iron ores in the
world, in quantities equal to the de-
mand of wonderfully increasing
consumption. The makers of CAST
meres in France will find it more pro-
fitable to convert the fine woods of
Texas into fabrics here than to trans
port raw material across oceans to be
re-transported to all parts of the
world. Not alone are the industrial
possibilities of this country to be devel-
oped by surplus capital at home, but
the surplus moneys of the old will be
attracted to the new, as presenting
me- V1rAEfa hln Rnl1c fnr- 70 nj
ment. History repeats itself. The
vast railway system of the United
States has been built up on foreign
capital, and even our public securities
have been taken abroad. Federation
and states have grown great and rich
and independent upon the money OBJ
tanned abroad at low rates of interest.
Not only have riches been accumulated
on the employment of foreign capital,
but borrowers have grown able to be-
come lenders, and a redundancy of
money on both sides the Atlantic
must soon develop the waste places
of the West and South in a manner
heretofore unknown in the history of
modern progress. Texas, presenting
most inviting fields, will receive a !
very large share of this surplus cap
ital. From the delta of the Missis-
sippi westward, towards the Rio
Grande, stretches a coast region of
unsurpassed fertility. The world
needs sugar, and variety of sacharine
products are now called upon to con-
tribute their share to the general
want. The consumption Of sugar
will increase as the nations of the
earth advance in intelligence and re-
finement and wealth, and these low
lands are the natural sugar fields of
America. 1t has been demonstrated
that ample capital, invested in
sugar production from the sugar cane
pays an immense profit. The sugar
fields of Texas are so wonderfully |
adapted to the growth OF the sugar
cane, that under perfect cultivation |
they have been known to produce
three hogsheads of sugar to the acre.
and two hogsheads is the usual crop.
AT ruling prices of sugar and mo-
lasses the value of an acres product
at the lesser production, is over $500 |
for inferior products, while those who |
apply the refining processes on the |
pls ntation add largely to the profit. |
The great drawback to sugar pro-
duction in Louisiana is the periodical
overflow to which its lowlands are |
subjected, while those in Texas enjoy |
entire immunity from overflow and |
produce cane equally as good as they. |
A resident in the Texas sugar belt |
said the other day to representative
of THE STATESMAN: "We shall |
utilize our waste lands for few
years longer for stock raising,
and then they will be rapidly con-
verified into sugar fields" He is right;
capital, growing so plentiful, will
seek these lands, now offered at one
twentieth their real value, and then
sugar production, for which they are
best adapted, will become the great
industry Oh the lowlands. Why this
result should long be postponed we
cannot understand. Capital is the
key to the result, and |
before it the labor problem
will cease to be an unsolved question
Texas will be country of unparal
leled production. The rich, rolling,
black lands of northern and middle |
Texas will contribute vast quantities
of grain for the worlds consumption;
western Texas will become and unlim-
tied producer of meat and horses and
wool; eastern Texas will become the
great lumber mart of the southwest,
and in southern Texas, ON its lowlands
of unparalleled fertility, will wave
endless cane fields. Such is the in
dustrial era to which people of Texas
may look forward. The growth and
spread of population, the abundance
of capital and its profitable employ
ment in our midst, all combine to
make Texas, at an early day, coun-
try of woundrous agricultural and |