oSS MANUFACTURES. 



requiring greater skill, might be brought in for the simpler kinds of 

 work. The experience of the Saluda Mills with colored operatives, 

 already referred to, shows what may be done in this line. At an}' rate, 

 things will change very much in South Carolina before manufacturers 

 here will ask for a tariff of 40 per cent, on their products to protect them 

 from the cheap labor of other countries, or cease to demand its removal 

 in order that they may avail themselves of the new inventions and 

 cheaper machinery of other lands. 



The other natural conditions which surround manufactures, such as 

 the available water powers, and cheap land and building material of 

 stone, brick and wood in South Carolina, have :been referred to in detail 

 in the preceding chapters of this book. It only remains to mention that, 

 with the opening up of the great coal and iron fields of Alabama, now 

 in rapid progress, these materials will also be supplied here at low rates. 

 Mr. McCaughrin, President of the National Bank of Ne\vberry, and late 

 President of the Columbia and Greenville Railroad, says that when the 

 Atlanta and Birmingham Railway is opened this fall, coal from that 

 point will be delivered in this State for $4.50 or less per ton. 



With cheaper land and with cheaper and better raw material than can 

 be had elsewhere, and with cheaper and, as it would appear, more reliable 

 and effective labor, and with every advantage in the other natural condi- 

 tions of the environment, it follows that the future development of cotton 

 manufactures in South Carolina will be limited alone by the amount of 

 capital seeking investment in them. Although the laws which regulate 

 the movements of capital are perhaps as little understood as those which 

 compel the migrations of men and animals, they are doubtless as absolute 

 as those which govern the diffusion of gases. And it may be assumed 

 that when the tendency of production, prevalent everywhere, in opulent 

 countries, and especially in old established centres of manufacturers, to 

 reach a minimum rate of profits, is no longer checked by the importation 

 of cheaper raw material and food supplies, or by new inventions, cheap- 

 ening still more the cost of production, or by commercial revulsions, to 

 all of which there is a limit, but one resource will be left to capital — 

 emigration. This must come in the cycle of events, and, with the amaz- 

 ing rapidity with which history reaches maturity in these days, it may, 

 in the matter of cotton manufactures, come soon. In view of the advan- 

 tages offered by South Carolina, above detailed, a comparison of the value 

 of factory stocks and the rate of dividends exhibited by the mills in 

 Carolina, as shown in the enumeration furnished by the State Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, with those of other countries, would indicate that 

 even now some such movement would be profitable. Take for example 

 this statement from the United States Consul at Manchester, England, 



