MANUFACTURES. 577 



Tlie growth of manufactures has been gigantic. In less tlian one 

 generation there is an increase more than five-fold of the capital seek- 

 ing investment in these industries; three times as many hands are em- 

 l^loyed, and six times the value of raw material is converted to human 

 uses. .In spite of the much greater cheapness of all manufactured ar- 

 ticles, the aggregate value of the products has increased five-fold. 

 The amount of raw material that each hand manufactures is nearly 

 doubled in South Carolina, as well as in the United States, indicating the 

 great advance in skill and efficiency, together with the improvements in 

 machinery. If on the whole the percentage of the nett products on capi- 

 tal show a decline, this is in accordance with a general tendency of ca})i- 

 tal, where there are large accumulations, to accept lower rates of inter- 

 est and of profits, while the steady improvement of wages is a subject for 

 gratulation, the greater remuneration of labor,. moving parallel with its 

 greater productiveness, and pointing to that great goal of all industrial 

 systems, when each lal)orer shall be paid in accordance with the work 

 he does. 



It will be seen that the historj'- of South Carolina for this period docs 

 not conform with that of the country at large. The asterisks in Table C 

 will show that during the first two decades there was an actual decrease 

 in some regards, and no where ver}^ marked gains in her manufacturing 

 industries. This decline may in reality be said to have continued until 

 the close of 1876, as it was not until the restoration of civil government 

 at that date, that the wonderful recuperation exhibited in these tables 

 set in. As has been remarked, social institutions — now passed away — 

 unfavorable to manuftictures, checked their growth in Carolina during 

 the decade 1850 to 1860, immediately anterior to the war, notwithstand- 

 ing it was otherwise a period of great material prosperity in Carolina, as 

 it was elsewhere in the country. The war, as usually happens, was a 

 great incentive to the development of manufactures in the United States, 

 and to some extent, in South Carolina. But here the destruction of pro- 

 perty w^as too great, and the pressure of the contest, and subsequently of 

 military government, bore too heavily on every interest to admit of any 

 decided material progress. With a removal of this pressure the census 

 of 1880 shows a remarkable change. Manufacturing establishments are 

 increasing in numbers at a rate five times greater in South Carolina than 

 they are in the country at large; in fact, the 49-4 new establishments in 

 South Carolina represent nearly one-third of the total increase through- 

 out the country. While such an increase does not indicate the higher 

 development of manufactures, where the tendency is to the consolidation 

 of establishments, it is common to their early and vigorous growth, and 

 shows plainly the direction which the activities of the population are 



