Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1883-04-17
Manufacturing Enter.
Home
prise.

We understand movement is on
foot to organize a joint stock Company
in our community. for the purpose of
manufacture. We do not yet know
the exactplan proposed or the method
to be pursued, but tins we do know,
that unless some cooperative step is
taken, our business life will be re-
duced and that speedily, to such a
low ebb as to imperil the interests
of the whole community. Our prop
erty is depreciating, our mechanics
are seeking new homes; labor, both
skilled and unskilIed, is emigrating,
and all the channels of industry are
becoming every year more and
more stagnant. The cause of all this
can be readily discerned-the most
casuals observer can see and assign
the reason therefor. Around us
everywhere progression is rapid and
improvement substantial. Why is it !?
Because the people where this state
of affairs exist have perceived the adj
vantages of their localities and have
used those advantages. With the
facilities that we posses there can be
no reason why we should not keep
pace with other towns and counties,
and hold our own in the continual
struggle for supremacy. We have
about us a large, prosperous and con-
tinually increasing agricultural inter-
est. railroad facilities unsurpassed,
ready markets, and people capable
of speedy mechanical education, and
yet we have but little manufacturing
enterprise among us; we send to for
eign parts for almost every thing we
use Our farmers arc raising good
crops and prospecting, but where go
the profits of their labor and the re-
suits of their prosperity? The answer
Is plain, and the fact cannot be con-
troyerted-into and to form a part of
the arealth of those communities ,chich
prosper on The profits Of manufacture.
We pay yearly to them this purchas-
ing tribute, as the provinces of the
oiden time did to Rome under the i'm
perial yoke. To keep the result of ag-
ricuitural prosperity at home, we must
receive the benefit. of this margin of
manufacture ourselves. To accom-
plish this we must embark in mechan-
ical pursuits, and we can only do
this by the cooperation of private
capital 1t is difficult to intelligently
consider a subject of this magnitude
in single letter or editorial, and we
only seek to suggest the Importance of
it in this issue. If the farmer buys
his harrows, ploughs. drills, wagons
and other farming implements which
are manufactured at home, the profits
of the manufacture remains and is
circulated or invested at home. But
this is not all, it takes labor to pro-
duce them; this labcr becomes COM
ponent part of the community, must
expend its wages here, and the re-
quirements of expenditure furnish a
proftablemarket for the farmers pro-
duce- The result is, an increased de-
mand for his supplies and retention
of the profits upon his necessary pur-
chases. A wider field, however, is
open to the manufacturing skill, and
sale of such products beyond the
limits of our county bring to it a
tributary profit from other localities.
Many of our prominent business men
are now considering this subject, and
we are glad to learn that they have
reached the conclusion that it is i'm
possible for US to stand still, that We
must either retrograde by continuing
in the old rut, or progress by calling
forth the latent enterprise and re-
sources that lie within ourselves
BY the cooperation of individual cap
ital, we may inaugurate new era,
which shall infuse life into our bus
mess channels, new blood into our
streams of life, chase the wolf from
our doors and bring in its place the
pleasant forms of thrift and plenty
The columns OF this paper arc open
to any communications upon this sub
iect, and we invite its full discussion.
COUNTY ITEMS From the Shop
herdstown Register we clip the follow
ing items:
The paper mill in this place has
been sold to Mr.. Van Allenstyne, of
Troy. New York.
The fire-year-old daughter of Mr..
H. T. Link. near DuffieIds, in falling
from chair the other day, broke her
arm.
At the last regular meeting of Phoe-
nix Division No. IS, Sons of Tenn