Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1883-10-26
The View south.

The New south.
In its issue of October 20 the Now Orleans
Times De mocrat, the leading paper Of its
section, gives an elaborate and carefully-pre-
pared review, 60 columns long showing the
industrial condition Of twelve Southern states
to-day, and the progress that has been made
in them since the national census was taken.
The statas are Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas Kentucky,
Tennessee and Arkansas. The facts and fig
ures were obtained from the governors of
those states and other official sources, and
their cor pleteness and substantial accuracy
are vouched for.
For al practical purposes the review may
be taken as a new industrial census of the
South It tells marvellous story of present
prosperity and recent progress. The material
growth of the South was rapid during the
decade preceding the last census year. I.has
been far more rapid and wonderful since the
last census According to this review the
progress of the past four years is greater
than that of the preceding ten. Take the
item of assessed value Of property US show
ing the increase of material wealth. In 1879,
the year to which to which the figures Of the
federal census apply, the aggregate ASSESS
ment in the twelve Southern states above
named was 81, 1874, 100000. 1t is now s.
S25, 600, 600. This shows the enormous in
crease in four years of SGi1 600, 600, or be.
tween a half and three. quarters of billion.
At the same time there has been a material
reduction in the rate of taxation, while liber-
appropriations have been made for schools,
public improvements and other useful pur-
poses. Nor is this marvellous advance in
valuation" says the Times Democrat, "the
result of any initiation in value but the nat
ural sequence of grand crops, new industries
developed, now manufactures, mines and
lumber mills established
The progress in railroad building is equally
striking In the twelve states enumerated
tho mileage of railroads in 1879 was 1000.
1t is now 10000, showing an addition of o.
600 miles to the railroad system of these
Southern states in four years, or more than
1000 miles year. The cotton crop of four
years ago was five and three. quarter million
bales. The yield of the past season reached
nearly seven millions. In 1850 there were in
the four principal cotton manufacturing states
North and South Carolina, Alabama and
Georgia-12s mills, with Ijl 600 spindles
and o 800 looms. There are now in these
states 72G, $50 spindes and H. OOOllooms hum.
ming in 100 mills. This shows an increase
of more than sixty per cent in mill capacity
within three years, and the mills are reported
to be making handsome profits. Within the
past four years the amount of raw cotton
manufao .ured in the South has more than
doubled the consumption having increased
at far more rapid rate in Southern than in
Northern mills.
We have given the particulars of but few
items. The reports published by the enter
prsing journal from which we quote show
that the marvellous progress has been varied
in character and general throughout the
South OF course this review presents only
the rosy side of the question, and it relates
only to material things, but after all allow
ances are made it must be accepted as strong
and encouraging evidence that better day
has really dawned upon the South. EXPOSE
tons like that held at Atlanta last year and
at Louisville this year, and exhibits of South
ern natural products like that made in the
American Institute fair now in progress at
Boston, have done much to acquaint North
ern people with the boundless natural re-
sources of the South. For many years these
resources lay dormant and almost unknown,
and now it is in the highest degree encourag-
ing to know that an awakening has come in
the direction of a rapid and healthy develop
ment of the mineral wealth, agricultural ad-
vored region.
With all this the thought inevitably comes
that it is the South which has been the gain
or by the loss of its slaves and the general
results of the war. Her own people are be-
ginning to see that the abolition of sav-
that an era Of broad and general prosperity
such as now opens up would have been i'm
possible under the old state of things Many
questions in social and political life remain
to be settled, but the whole country is COM
ing to realize that these questions must be
worked out, often or always through pain
and suffering, to their solution, and that they
can never be settled by legal enactment.
From the day that President Hayes withdrew
the last Federal bayonet from the South this
great working-out process has been in prog
ress, and it will continue, helped on, inevita-
bly,, by this tide of material prosperity, which
means prosperity for the whole nation, and
is cause for rejoicing at the North no less
than at the South.