The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-03-31

and wonder of the world. There is noth ing with which to compare it. Ant while the Southern States have mad
 great progress, the progress in this in
 dustry has not been quite conlnensur d ate with the South's unequaled natura
 advantages.
 Tt was but a few weeks ago when J
 Stephen Jeans, secretary of the British
 Iron Trade Association, told in tht
 Manufactures Record of the matchles'
 advantages for iron and steel making
 of the Alabama district, thus confirm
 ing what Abram S. Hewitt said some
 years ago, when he stated that that
 section, with it's abundant stores of ore
 and coal and lime stone in such close
 proximity as is found in Alabama, bids
 fair within the next quarter of cen
 tury to dominate the basic steel indus
 try of the world But MT Jeans had
 to admit that Alabama-and what is
 true of Alabama in this respect is true
 of the whole of the whole South-has
 not quite measured up to its own op-
 portunitess I do not say this in any dis arrangement of the iron and steel inter-
 ests of the South, but rather to call at tention to. the vast possibilities of the future if the diversified industries upon
 which iron and steel must depend are developed in the south as they have been in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, 1 During 1901 Pennsylvania made over 7- 100000 tons of pig iron, aginst 1,200 900 | tons in Alabama, which shows the pos ] sibflity ahead of Alabama. But the making of the pig ircn in Pennsylvania was but small part of what was ac- ! complished in this industry It was the | turning of the big iron into the finished i form-into ship plates into steel rails 1 and into every ohter line of industry { into which steel enters-that added vastly more to the employment of the people and to the wealth of the state than simply the production of pig iron
 itself
 "rhe iron interests of the south will never reach their full potentialties until they have developed along the gulf coast great shipyards, creating mark ct for the finished product and helping to diversity the manufacturing in- terests of the south Following this would come the thousand and one other industries, in foundry and machine
 
 a home market for the product of the furnaces of Alabama and other south ern states thus ohviating the necessity under which they now labor of finding a market in the North and West and at times even in Europe, for their out put. The ironmakers of the south are hampered by the lack of a home mar ket They can only sell the bulk of their product by paying from $250 to $4 a ton freight for it's delivery to some other market and thus compete with this burden of freight added to the cost of their production With home mar ket they would have vast advantage and the south would begin to attain un- to that position in the iron and steel world which is naturally it's right by virtue of the abundant resources with which it has been blessed
 "The enormous oil eushers of Texas add emphasis to the need of shipyards along the Gulf coast The development of a merchant marine would create in the south a number of shipyards and do more to strengthen the industrial growth and prosperity of that section than anytbing else except the construc- i tion of our isthmian canal, and we could not be in position to get the best results even from the canal unless we have shipyards and ships ready to han dle the traffic which would pass through it. Possibly $509, 100000, or one-thrd of the export trade of the United States, | originates in the south, in cotton, lum- Der, naval stores and other goods No other section will be more benefited by cheap and abundant freight room than this section. The cotton mill people of | the south who have been the leaders in | it's industrial advancement nearly all | of whom gre pre-eminently strong southern men-southern by birth and | sentiment--as well as the leading iron | men of that section, have for years been | strong advocates of a subsidy to aid | our merchant marine. Surely the peo pie of the south at large and it's public | men can hardly fail to appreciate the "act that tine views of these great deal- | CTS in southern industry are worthy of | every consideration,
 The patriotic reasons are powerful | enough to appeal to all who desire to see our nation maintain it's present | splendid position on land and sea the world over, and this point might b. en- larged on almost indefinitely, but at this time l vii lay special stress on the tremendous importance of the develop ment of the souths industrial resources, which must inevitably follow the stimu- Jus to shiphuilding and shipping inter ests which the passage of the ship sub sidy bill would give, What has been done at Newport News may be dupli- cated at several of the southern ports and even more, There should be built up great i.ou md steel works where au the parts which enter into the construc- ton of the largest ships will be manu- factured. There should be iron and steel plants from which finished pro- ducts of all kinds are turned out, to be shipped in American bottoms to the farthest part of the earth. Then would come such development of the splen lid resources of the south as would jus .ify the prophecies of those who have declared that within the next genera ton the south ought to dominate the basic steel industry of the world.