REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
79 
in domestic life could be purchased at New York prices, the 
cost of double transportation deducted. 
To a still greater degree is it true, that the lumbering and 
mining districts suffer loss, since the cost of transportation of 
the raw materials to the factories in the East, and of the man¬ 
ufactured articles back again is necessarily heavier than for 
most other articles. 
The question of means, therefore, is really the only one that 
requires to be settled. 
The building of factories, and the furnishing them with ma¬ 
chinery, &c., necessarily involves heavy expenditures, and 
consequently none but men of heavy capital, and corporations 
with large means in the aggregate can engage in the business. 
Nor will men of this class invest their money in manufacturing 
so long as the attractions of other branches of industry and of 
speculation in real estate are so much greater. Money has no 
endowment of either conscience, patriotism or philanthropy 
and usually goes where it can increase its gains most rapidly 
and surely; it will not be forced. 
It is clear, accordingly, that if we would induce the invest¬ 
ment of capital in the manufacturing business, we must adopt 
some course which will make it relatively profitable. It is 
our opinion that the Executive of the State, in his late Mes¬ 
sage to the Legislature, by the recommendation of an exemp¬ 
tion from taxation, for a period of years, of all capital invested 
in certain branches of manufacture, has prominently brought 
to the notice of the State one means of securing this very 
desirable end, and we would, therefore, avail ourselves of this 
opportunity to cordially endorse such recommendation and to 
re-urge it upon the attention of all who are actively interested 
in the material progress of the State. 
THE PROMINENT COMMERCIAL WANTS 
Of the State are : First, a more solid and unfailing basis for 
its currency; secondly, the practical abolishment of the credit 
system, now so ruinous to both merchant and consumer; 
thirdly, more adequate means for transportation of the pro¬ 
ducts of the State to the great markets of the country ; 
