The Newberry herald. [volume] (Newberry, S.C.) 1865-1884, 1883-04-05

they cost twice as much as on the
Tyne, and the manufacturers of
New England and their represen-
tatives in this city would cheerfully
beggar all the railroads in the
country before the natural adyan-
tages of the South as a cotton man.
ufacturing region should be allowed
to turn the productive energy of
Fall River and Pawtucket into
other channels.
The special favor asked of the
railroads is change in the classif-
cation of domestic dry goods and a
reduction of charges. These "do-
mestics'' are now shipped as first
class freight on the railroads of the
trunk line pool. At the present
rates the Eastern mercE ants and
manufacturers complain that they
cannot compete in Cincinnati, Louis.
vile, St. Louis and other distribu.
ting centres in the West with the
Southern manufacturers, who have
not only the advantage of working
with their raw material at their
very doors, but are able also to
effect a considerable further saving
in commissions, as their sales are
made to Western merchants by
their own agents. The margin of
difference is already wide enough to
cause genuine alarm for the future
Of the cotton manufactures OF the
New England States. What this
margin will be when the Southern
manufacturer has learned by ex.
perience to make fuller use Of his
advantages the Eastern mill-owners
have as yet scarcely dared to in
quire.
Yet this is point which neither
the railroad managers nor the man.
ufacturers can afford to overlook.
It was made sufficiently clear at
the conference in Commissioner
Fink's Office on Wednesday, the
proceedings of which were reported
in the Times, that the relief afforded
by lower freight rates from New
England to the West must be tenn
porary in character. The Southern
railroads will make corresponding
reductions, and, as their rates are
high, they can go further in such
war than the trunk lines. But the
rapid extension of manufacturing
in the South and the introduction
of improved methods, added to the
advantages already mentioned, must
within a short time leave the New
England mills out of the race for
those coarser and heavier grades of
cotton goods in which the value of
material employed, rather than the
labor expended upon it, deter.
mines the selling price of the finish.
ed article. The competition ofthe
Southern mills is not as yet for
1nidable in the amount of product.
The Northern States had, in the
census year, POI cotton mills, run
ming 1O,094,850 spindles and 214,.
962 looms, and consuming 1884,
598 bales Of cotton; while the
Southern States had 100 mills, rum
ming 58S,696 spindles, and consum-
ing 188,744 bales of cotton. The
rate Of yearly increase in consump-
ton, as shown by Mr.. Atkinson's
supplementary inquiry, and by
more recent unofficial reports, is
considerably greater at the South
than in the Northern States.
So long as the New England
manufacturer must pay from 1920
to 81 bale for freight on his raw
material, making his yearly freight
bill on the same amount Of cotton
from seven to ten times that Of his
Southern rivals SO long as he must
pay also considerably higher rate
of wages, and, on the average, a
higher price for the power that
drives his spindles and looms, he
cannot reasonably hope to COM
pete, on similar grades of goods,
with the mills Of Georgia and the
Carolinas. The advantages at pre-
sent enjoyed by the Southern man.
ufacturers are, moreover, certain to
be increased. Many of the South
ern mills are now equipped with
old and worn-out machinery, and
few of them have well.trained or
competent operatives. But even
| under these imperfect conditions
the profits of cotton manufacturing
there are far greater than in New
England, as is shown by the high
dividends of some of the leading