82 



FARMERS' REGISTER— INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 



'^ this is to be found in the history ol" our banks. 

 For many years we have had ^3,200,000 of bank- 

 in<T capital in the hands of joint stock companies. 

 The charters of these companies are just expiring, 

 and one of them only has ap|)Ued for a renewal of 

 the act of incorporation, and although tlie legisla- 

 ture have granted to new companies very favora- 

 ble charters, it is doubtful whether the stock will 

 be subscribed, so as to allow any one of them to 

 go into operation. If the stock of the bank of the 

 state be taken to an amount wliich will entitle the 

 suljscribers to claim cori)orate rights, it will be the 

 only one of the three banks to which charters are 

 offered, that will be able to raise a capital, and 

 this bank will not have more than ^600,000 of 

 the S 1,500,000 of stock which it is at liberty to 

 employ. Now there can be but three ways of ac- 

 countijig for the disappearance of so large an 

 amount of our banking capital; either it has been 

 withdrawn from the business of making loans on 

 interest, and vested in property in this state, which 

 with the same risk will yield a larger profit than 

 has been heretofore made by banking operations, 

 or secondly, it must be supposed that owing to the 

 diminished profits to be made on the cultivation of 

 lands, that persons in safe circumstances cannot 

 alford to pay six per cent, for loans to any large 

 amount. And that either fevv^er discounts will be 

 made, or the risk of loss on those made will be 

 greater than heretofore, so that the net profits of 

 banking capital will be hereafter less; or thirdly, 

 the capital must have gone to other states where 

 it is expected to be more productive. It will be 

 foreign to the purpose of this address to pursue 

 this topic further than to sliow from it, that capital 

 is at once scarce and unproductive, and it is only 

 necessary to say that there is no business now fol- 

 lowed in this state that will give a profit at all 

 equal to that formerly deiived from bank stock, 

 and therefore the first cause supposed has no effect 

 in withholding capital from the new banks, and it 

 is solely ascribable to the other two, and princi- 

 pally to the latter. It is but one more melancholy 

 proof of the depression of the profits of labor and 

 capital among us. 



It were alike unwise and unfeeling in us thus to 

 expose the weakness of our native land, if it were 

 not necessary to trace our maladies to their remote 

 causes, that they may if possible be cured. As 

 these causes are well understood, and generally 

 admitted, it will be sufficient for our present argu- 

 ment, to omit all minor ones and to point out those 

 only that are most important. 



Our first and greatest disadvantage is without 

 doubt the poverty of our lands. Scattered over 

 our territory and especially on our rivers, we have 

 tracts of land of surpassing fertility; but tlie gene- 

 ral character of our soil, if not absolutely sterile, 

 is at least churlish and ungrateful, making very 

 scanty returns for the labor expended on it. The 

 second cause of the diminished and diminishing 

 profit of our labor is the low price of our great staple 

 cotton. The wonderful improvements made in 

 machinery for the ginning of cotton, and convert- 

 ing it into thread and cloth by diminisliing the 

 price of fabrics made from it, has increased the 

 consumption of them many thousand fold beyond 

 what the most sanguine imagination could have 

 anticipated thirty years since. The demand for 

 the raw material has of course been increased in 



exact proportion to the consumption, but great as 

 that is, and although constantly increasing, the 

 plant is capable of being grown in so many lati- 

 tudes, and over so large a jjortion of the earth, 

 that the supply has more than kept pace with the 

 demand. The necessary consequence has been 

 that the price, although subject to many fluctua- 

 tions, has eventually greatly declined. This has 

 fallen with more weight upon us because of the 

 more limited and costly production with us than 

 in richer soils and wamner climates, and especially 

 in the states south and west of us. The more 

 southern states, from the strength of their soil and 

 the adaptation of their climate to the culture of cot- 

 ton, with less labor, receive a much greater return 

 from the acre than v/e do, and of finer staple; and 

 of course are able to sell to the manufacturer at a 

 less price, with greater profit. From the great 

 law of exchangeable value, they can receive noth- 

 ing from the manufacturer beyond a fair profit on 

 their capittd and labor, and we, who enter into 

 competition Avith them, must of course be content 

 to sell what cost us more, at less price, and must 

 necessarily receive less profit. But as we make 

 larger profits on the culture of cotton, than we re- 

 ceive on other exports, we have for a succession 

 of years constantly increased our production. And 

 although our skill in the culture has enabled us to 

 lessen the costs, tlie little profit we are able to re- 

 alize from it is the most promment cause of the 

 depression of our labor. 



The third cause arises from the cost of transport- 

 ing our products to a market. The great rivers which 

 flow f i-om the west to the sea throughout the state, 

 are interrupted in their courses by falls and other 

 obstructions, so that they do not admit of inland 

 transport for any distance from their mouths. This 

 evil is the greater, as the staples of the country are 

 generally of great weight and bulk, and when ihey 

 are brought to market a considerable part of their 

 value consists in the cost of their transportation; 

 and in very many of them of the easiest production 

 and in the greatest demand, (for instance, wheat 

 and Indian corn made in the middle and western 

 counties) the cost of transportation is so great that 

 it amounts to a total prohibition of the export. The 

 cost of import, fi-om the same cause it is apparent, 

 bears heavily on many bulky articles necessary to 

 a successful cultivation of the soil. An exorbitant 

 price is paid for salt in some counties, and even for 

 iron, the most necessaiy of all the gifts of nature 

 to the prosecution of agriculture and the other 

 useliil arts. Gypsum and lime, so essential as 

 manures, are altogether out of our power, from the 

 high price of carriage. This third cause, the 

 great expense of transport, as it is very obvious, is 

 also one of the greatest obstacles to the creation 

 of wealth in this state. The fourth and last to be 

 mentioned is the want of one or more safe sea 

 ports within our limits. The mouths of our sounds 

 and rivers are in almost every instance obstRicted 

 by sand bars and shoals. It is admitted that good 

 ports would be of great advantage to us, and yet 

 with deference to those of our citizens who hold 

 this to be the prime obstacle to our improvement, 

 we apjirehend that more importance has been at- 

 tached to tliis want than belongs to it. It is not 

 doubted that a sea port is always of value to a 

 country, and that it is of the greatest consetjuence 

 where it forms the access to a fertile country; but 



