people, who were clad down to 1870 in homespun fabrics, have changed to factory-made goods, in which estimate I am very much more than sustained by my correspondents, that change calls for seven hundred thousand additional spindles at the ratio of one to five, or seven hundred and eighty thousand at the ratio of one to four and a half.
These statistics, so far as they prove anything, therefore prove that while the spindles of the South have gained eleven hundred thousand since 1870, the demand of the South for cotton fabrics at the average of the country has increased in a ratio of more than double the product of their own increase of spindles; and I think all our observations tend to confirm these statistics.
A few sheetings and drills have been exported from the Southern factories and a few Southern goods have been sold in the West, but at the same time there has been a constantly increasing demand upon the North for medium and fine goods. These Southern goods which we have heard of from our salesmen were all made in the larger factories, which are well equipped with modern machinery—many of them being operated by men who would succeed anywhere—but they do not yet constitute a rule, nor must we forget or disregard the personal factor in dealing with this question. It is upon the personal factor, much more than upon proximity to the cotton-field, that the success of the Southern factory will depend. The advantage of position was only measured at a cent a pound four or five years ago. The freight from central Alabama to New England is now less than three quarters of a cent a pound. Very soon it will be down to half a cent; then what? The greater part of the Southern factories are, as you observe, too small to be economically worked, averaging but a fraction over five thousand spindles each. So long as these small factories are devoted to supplying Southern neighborhoods and Southern communities with checks, plaids, and heavy brown cottons, for which there is always a demand in that section greater than any other, they will succeed or fail according to the skill and aptitude of the owner or manager. It may have been observed that within the last few weeks there has been an overstock of these peculiarly Southern goods, and an effort has been made to check the production. Some of the Southern sheetings which have lately appeared in Northern markets must, I think, have been sold at less than cost.
I have referred to the personal factor as the main element in settling this question. In a small factory, wherever it may be, there must be such personal interest or individual ownership as to secure the necessary skill and judgment in the conduct of the work, and there must not be a set of stockholders who like cormorants swallow their dividends and demand them without regard
