The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1893-08-23
DIRECT TRADE with EUROPE.
Port Royal to Realize the Dream of
Past Generations.

Il
Col. 1. w. Avery has given the fol
lowing interesting news on the direct
trade movement to the Atlanta Consti
tuition:
"The money stress here and in
Europe has slowed up direct trade. II
has only slept, however. 1t has not
only kept intact, but been quietly per-
fecting.
1t was planned to start so as to
bring people to the Worlds Fair by the
South, but the stress stopped it and
the dull trade summer gap had to be
bridged. The fall will soon be here
with it's crops and ships can thrive for
the winter and will sail and direct trade
begins in earnest.
new great line from England to
Port Royal, S. c., has been arranged
as new victory and striking result
OF the direct trade movement. The
emancipation of the Port Royal and
the Central railroad made the project
possible anda certainty that, with
Carolina and Augusta money and mon
interested and the Georgia, Nashville
and Chattanooga and Louisville and
Nashville railroads and their connec-
tions to back it, the thing would bo
tried sooner or later. The Johnson
over Mr.. Welsford, their agent, who.
with Pat Calhoun, went to Port Royal
and fixed the scheme, which has since
been completing. They have twenty
five steamers. The line starts in Sep
tember. Both sides of the water are
bcingworked up. Their English agent
is here. An American agent is there.
All preparation is making.
~ IF
Port Royal plan doubted our success
direct trade agitation, but soon saw it
could be done and has been an effective
worker for it.
=" All things have been to aid direct
trade and give it success. The very
stress has made more ships idle and
turned more capital and enterprise to
get Southern trade. Our Southern
farms have made fine crops, with less
debt than years before to support
direct trade, with greater freedom
from interfering restrictions. The
money pinch has been harder West and
North than South has made Southern
advantages shine out has turned
notice South, and will flood folks
and dollars Southwark to settle and
invest. And this will help direct
trade.
But the largest idea of all is this
The great bug-a-boo used against
direct trade by its few opponents has
been that New York was the immov-
able citadel of financial exchange, the
Interchangeable money center of this
country, and it could not be changed.
This panic and furry has broken New
York's supremacy as the only moneyed
center Of America and the domination
of her bank paper. The question
springs out right here, is not this the
chance of the South to strike for
financial emancipation, which she so
ardently Graves and needs, and establish
her own money power and indcpend-
ence and build up her own money cen
ter?
"The last few days have proved that
New York exchange is no longer
sovereign and has lost, anyhow for the
time, its negotiability and that there
are financial exigencies it cannot meet
and public demands it cannot supply.
Its scepter broken, it's prestige shatter-
ed, and the South, the most unharmed
part of the land by this money trouble,
is now in good condition to start the
effort to build up her own money inde-
pendcncc. And direct trade is a
powerful means to do it.
{" And our great cotton crop, soon
ready to move, is tho agency to start
with. 1t seems providential Over
two-thirds of the crop goes to Europe
and tho money is ready to come here
direct Tor it, instead of through North
ern channels as heretofore. We have
but to seek it. Foreign money, and
not Northern money, has to buy it.
The chance is at hand for us to use if
we will Let us invite it. We have
time to arrange for it. 1t can be done.
Onr merchants met to plan means to
move the cotton. This is the solution
of tho problem. Our banks favor it.
And it will lead to larger and direct
money relations with Europe and the
giving the South money center.
The idea is vast and valuable and the
end in our grasp if we will only take it.
We are certainly on the threshold
of immense commercial and industrial
changes in the South and beneficial re-
volution wrought will find tre-
mcndous factor in successful South
ern direct trade with foreign lands,
planting manufacture in the midst of
raw material, carrying products direct
to market, erecting a money center
where IL is most needed and enforcing