The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1901-08-28
This Market Should be Protected

Inc tOOaccO pfOUucI Ol lllS County,
naturally should come to Manning and
the merchants of this place should use
! every effort TO bring it here. II there
arc agencies at work which has a ten
dency to drive the product to other
markets, that short sighted evil should
be corrected. 1t will never do to allow
greed 10 enable other markets to get
the benefit Of q product that IS nattral-
! ~ ours, and as matter of self prOtec-
| tion our business men should use such
influences as will induce the growers OF
| tobacco to come to Manning.
We know Of no product that has so
greatly benefited our farmers as has to-
bacco, and as the farmers were bene-
fitted so were our merchants, the pro-
duct was marketed early. brought the
ready cash and at a season OF the year
when every thing was strained, relief
was had from the sales of tobacco;
! therefore it stands our business men in
need to watch out, take care Of, and
nurture this great industry, and see to
! it that Manning is not deprived Of it's
| benefits. Last week there was q break
on the Florence market at which over
1000 pounds was sold, q large part of
that tobacco went from Clarendon, the
SAME might be said of TimmOnsvile,
and where so much cash is paid out
there must follow a large amount of
goods sold. The Florence md Tim
monsville merchants will not permit
people to go from their markets grumb-
ling, they would see to it, that every
man goes away satisfied and if the
warehouse management is the cause
for dissatisfaction, whether from low
prices, sharp pratices, OR greediness to
get the money back by giving orders
to a store where the management is
interested, instead of paying off in cash
or check direc5 to the bank, so that
the seller can be free to trade where he
pleaSes, like man, the trouble would be
corrected in short order, if to do so. "a new
warehouse had to be erected to stop it.
1t would pay the merchants of this
town, in order to induce the tobacco
trade. to buy one of the houses here,
and run it at their own expense, with
no floor, auctlOneer, or commission
charges. The fact Of the farmers be-
ing saved the enormous cost of selling
their product would bring tobacco here
from all over this and adjoining coun-
ties. Fhe business men of Manning
could come together, buy, build or rent
a warehouse, and salary the force to
run it, sell the tobacco without cost to
the farmer. If they did it the invest
ment would be profitable: this mar
ket would have the strongest set of
buyers, and competition would be so
great that prices would attract the to-
bacco from every where, and then it
would follow that with the strong mer-
camille competition here, Manning
would enjoy a trade unpararelled in
her history. In our opinion the scheme
is entirely practical and more profit
able 5han to allow, by our own inert
ness, so much of this trade making
product, to be driven to other towns.
What crippled, then killed, the cotton
factorage business of Charleston, if it
was not the enormous charges, COM
missions, weighage, repairage, steal
age, and all manner of things to bleed
the raiser of the product out of as much
as possible. Competition sprung up.
first in the city, then it extended to the
country, and today the man who would
say cotton commission to a farmer
would be laughed at. AS the farmers
were being robbed out OF their sweat
made earnings in the days of the cot
ton factor so are they suffering now
from the tobacco warehouses at all
the markets. If the cotton factor
age charges was robbing, what are
you styling warehouse charges, where
it cost a farmer from twenty to forty
per cent to sell his product?
A merchant has the same right to
charge fees, when a farmer brings
corn, cotton, oats, or potatoes to his
store to sell, as man who owns tobac
co warehouse has who buys the tobacco,
there is no difference in the principle.
II a tobacco grower sells a hundred
pounds OF tobacco for ten dollars the
buyer has no right tn charge him two
dollars for buying it from him, it is
not so with anything else, and it should
not be with this.