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ARTICLE II.

The Trade of the Southwest.-The Valleys of the Mississippi and the Amazon.*

NATIONAL OBSERVATORY,
Washington, Dec. 16, 1851-)

GENTLEMEN: I am in receipt of your esteemed favor informing me that a railroad convention is to be held in New Orleans on the 1st Monday in January next, and inviting me to be present and "address the convention upon the southern and western commerce; the home and foreign trade, as they are influenced by facilities of intercourse and communication by railroads or otherwise; or to prepare a report upon these subjects to be read before the convention and placed among its documents.'

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My official engagements put it out of my power to attend; and I regret exceedingly that present active calls upon my attention will not at this late day allow me to give as much time to the consideration of the vast subjects which are about to occupy the attention of the convention as their importance deserves.

Times have greatly changed in consequence of railroads, steam, the telegraph, and improvements in ship-building. You all can recollect, gentlemen, when the price of cotton depended upon which way the wind blew. If easterly winds prevailed, so as to prevent the arrival of the cotton fleet in Liverpool, up went the staple. Some swift-footed sailor was despatched over with the intelligence, and he who could outride the mail and reach your markets first made his fortune. But steam and the telegraph have done away with this. There is no more room for that sort enterprise, as it used to be called. New York and New Orleans, with the forked tongue of the lightning, now talk daily together about the price of cotton and everything else; and there is no more chance for the merchant to display his enterprise by getting control of private and peculiar sources of information. All information now as to the state of markets is common.

Salem once had command of the tea trade. Her merchants, ascertaining that the stocks on hand were small, and the sources of immediate supply scanty, would club together and buy up for a speculation all the tea in the country.

But now a cargo of tea arrives: the fact is known. The Tele

The following communication from Lieutenant Maury to the Southwestern Railroad Convention, held at New Orleans, on the 1st Monday in January, 1852, commends itself to the perusal and study of every inhabitant of the South and West. And we trust it will be the means of inciting a more lively interest in a system of internal improvement connected with the Gulf of Mexico and its cominerce.-Editor.

graph may "pass the word fore and aft" through every State, and ask, Who wants?

If Salem merchants should demand one farthing more than those of New York were willing to take, the telegraph would give the order to New York. And so with every article known to com

merce.

Southern and western merchants now, by reason of steam and lightning, can stay at home, send out orders, and get from France and England their supplies much sooner than a few years ago they could get them from Baltimore, New York, or Philadelphia, after having gone there to order them. The consequence is that southern and western merchants do this; and there are now in that section of the country houses engaged in importing direct from abroad.

The fact is, the producer and consumer are much nearer together than they used to be; consequently the factor does not keep the large stocks of former times on hand. He draws from the sources of supply just in proportion as the channels of demand are choked or free.

Thus the chances of speculation are small, and profits are brought down to the smallest figure.

All these circumstances have impressed themselves upon the business of the country, imparted new features to it, and made necessary important changes in the mode and means of conducting it.

These changes, and the cause of them, have powerful bearings upon the subjects which the convention is called upon to take into consideration.

They and the operations of the warehousing system have caused men of business to establish in St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Louisville, foreign importing houses. The duties collected in these three cities for the current year amount to nearly a half a million, and the value of the foreign merchandise imported direct to largely upward of a million and a half. These importers and the warehousing system are recovering back to the South a portion of the direct trade. The duties collected at Charleston this year are greater than they have ever been; and Charleston imports largely of Havana cigars for New York.

It is true that the quantity of produce coming to New Orleans in search of a market seaward has fallen off; and, consequently, the number of vessels arriving and departing has decreased. This is what has alarmed, and justly alarmed, the people of New Orleans. The cry is, what's the matter? Here there is a decline where there ought to be robust, vigorous health; depletion where we ought to look for habits plethoric and full. What is it that has brought our city to this state of decline? It appears to me that a satisfactory answer to this question is a necessary preliminary to

the treatment of the case to the application of all the needful remedies.

It is in the domestic trade, I apprehend, that the great falling off has taken place; or rather, I should say, it is in the export trade by sea, whether domestic or foreign, and not in the imports by sea, where the decline is; and if a decline in the quantity of produce going out of the mouth of the Mississippi has taken place, why, of course, a decline in the quantity delivered at New Orleans from the upper country has preceded.

To satisfy gentlemen as to the correctness of these views with regard to import trade of the Mississippi river, I am enabled, by the politeness of the commissioner of customs, (who has furnished it,) to quote the following tabular statement of the gross revenue collected at New Orleans for the last five years:

Gross Receipts from Customs.

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149,187 15

211,526 19

64,795 37

1851...... 2,296,636 08 "The revenue collected at Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Louisville, and other ports similarly situated," says he, "was derived from importations of foreign merchandise via New Orleans."

The importation of coffee (free) at New Orleans does not appear in this statement.

The returns since July 1, 1851, compare favorably with last year up to the present date.

There are other places in the valley where duties are collected also; but this table shows a regular, steady, and business-like increase in the direct importation of foreign merchandise into the Mississippi valley by way of New Orleans. The duties upon it have increased during the five years ending with the 30th of June last, in round numbers, from $1,715,000 to $2,722,000, or, at the average rate of nearly 12 per cent. per annum.

Now, the reason that the export sea-trade of New Orleans has decreased, and the foreign import trade increased, if traced back to first principles, will be found depending for an explanation upon the railroads which have crossed the mountains from the east to tap your valley; upon steam and lightning; upon the improvement of ocean navigation and ship-building in other parts of the country, which have opened new outlets on the one hand; and upon the obstructions to navigation at the mouth of the Mississippi river, which have clogged up the old channels.

In consequence of the first three of these, a punctuality and certainty have been given to commercial transactions which, as

before stated, have broken up almost entirely those transactions which were formerly known as "commercial speculations." Punctuality in filling orders and delivering goods when they are required is now a vital principle to wholesome commerce. Dealers and factors are brought down to the smallest margin for commissions and profits. Merchants will tell you that profits now consist in parings made by close cutting a little here and a little there. Therefore, to save the handling of the produce of the Mississippi valley, once on its way to market, is profits. Hence much of that produce which used to be shipped from New Orleans to New York, and then reshipped thence for European markets, and all that foreign merchandise which used to be imported into New York, and sent thence to New Orleans, are beginning to go and come direct to New Orleans in order to save the transshipment. Many of the agencies which used to be employed between the producer and consumer have been stricken down by the lightning, and the tendency of the steam and the telegraph is to bring the producer and consumer more and more into direct intercourse.

In evidence of this, we may point to the importing houses that are springing up in the cities of your great valley-in St. Louis, for example. There the wholesale merchants do not, as formerly, buy of the eastern importer, and, of course, do not pay him his fees, commissions, and profits; but they are beginning now to go direct to the foreign producer, as the eastern importer does, and order direct, thus saving the expenses of one agency, or the part of one at least.

Hence we account for an increase of imports. The enterprise of Illinois has created another mouth to the Mississippi and placed it in Lake Michigan. Much of the produce which formerly touched at New Orleans on its way to market now goes through that canal,* and, for several articles, its influence is felt even in the State of Louisiana itself; for some articles even from thereabout are and flowing up instead of down stream; sugar is one, molasses another. Before this canal was opened the sugar of Louisiana, in order to reach the consumer in the lake country, had to go down to New Orleans, then round by sea to New York, then up to the lakes, and so across by water, boxing the compass to get to Chicago. Now this canal is beginning to supply that whole region of country with sugar and molasses, which it attracts up the Mississippi.

We

The opinion seems to prevail throughout the United States that all the agricultural products exported from the Illinois valley go north through the canal. So far from that being the case, the official report of business done on the canal, in 1850, shows that a larger quantity of flour and grain came out of the canal into the river on its way south, than went from the river in the other direction. have not seen the official statements, except for the year 1850, but we are persuaded that the course of trade has been uniform in this respect for at least four years past. Tabular statements of the trade on the canal for 1850, will be found at page 320 vol. VI. of the Western Journal.-Ed.

This lessens the receipt of freight at New Orleans; but it benefits both producer and consumer; and it is not, I apprehend, any part of the objects of the convention to interfere with a business so legitimate and proper as this is, and which all the railways in the world can no more bring back than they can stop up that canal. It is the object of the convention, I take it, to assist the sugar and molasses to get to Chicago by railway, if sugar and molasses shall prefer that to water carriage.

Another case: We now buy Virginia hams here in Washington that are cured in Terre Haute, on the Wabash. By the old and natural roads to market, that could not be: the route of the ham would have been down to New Orleans, thence by ship to New York, and thence back by packet into the capes of Virginia, and so up the Potomac to Washington-a two or three months' voyage, during which, in consequence of the climates through which it must have passed, and the storage it must encounter, it probably would have come to life again. At any rate, it would have been quite too lively for the market by the time it reached this place. Now, in consequence of these railroads which have been tapping the Mississippi valley, the "Westphalias" of Terre Haute can reach here in a week or ten days by paying cent a pound. They come up the Ohio instead of going down, and across by railroad instead of around by water. Consequently, so much the less pickled pork now goes to New Orleans.

The commercial history of this ham, which used to appear in New Orleans in the shape of mess pork, is that of much produce in the valley of the Upper Mississippi. Here, therefore, in these tapping railways, is to be found another of the silent causes which have lessened the deliveries of produce at New Orleans. To add to the deleterious effects upon New Orleans of this tapping of the Mississippi river at the other end of its valley, and on the eastern side, are the bars at the Balize, and the influence which the depth of water there exercises-the baneful influence which the bar there exercises upon the models and the sailing qualities, and, in fact, upon the whole economy of the ships that are built for the New Orleans trade.

It is bad for owners to be compelled to build ships that will not answer equally well for all trades. The best carriers, therefore, cannot come to New Orleans. If they could, New Orleans would soon find her merchants shipping the produce that lines the levee direct to its foreign port of destination, wherever that may be. As it is, the ingenuity of ship-builders has contrived peculiar models for cotton ships. These are immense carriers, and can take cotton to England at rates which a few years ago would have been considered ruinous to owners. These vessels, being once loaded, and over the bar into blue water, will take cotton to Liverpool nearly as cheap as they will to New York or Boston. The voyage

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