The Camden Journal

MANUFACTURES AT THE SOUTH.

The growth of the manufacturing interests of the South is one of the most gratifying evidences of our increasing prosperity. Few, even among our intelligent citizens, are aware of the extent to which our people are engaging in this branch of industry; and no one acquainted with the importance of manufacturing establishments in developing all the varied interests of the country can fail to see in the movement a greater degree of prosperity than has heretofore characterized the southern States, while confining themselves chiefly to the production of raw material.

But the most gratifying fact connected with this growing interest, especially to us as Georgians, is the lead which our State is taking, It has been estimated that there are now in operation in Georgia forty cotton mills, employing near 60,000 spindles, and consuming 45,000 bales of cotton annually. In this estimate, which seems to us to be below the true mark, no calculation is made in our paper mills, bucket factories, iron establishments, flouring mills, &c. In Tennessee, it has been reported to the Secretary of the Treasury that there are thirty factories, employing 36,000 spindles. In South Carolina, the Hon. William Gregg says there are sixteen factories, containing 36,500 spindles, and about seven hundred looms, consuming 15,000 bales of cotton per annum, He estimates the capital invested in these establishments at about one million of dollars, and the number of operatives they give employment to at 1,600. There are in Alabama twelve factories, with a capital of $500,000, containing 12,580 spindles and three hundred looms, and consuming about 5,500 bales of cotton annually. It is said that machinery for others is contracted for sufficient to make the number of spindles 20,000, and the looms 550.

Thus we have in our States ninety-eight manufactories of various descriptions of cotton goods, containing 140,000 spindles. There are doubtless many other cotton mills in the other southern States, which would swell the number somewhat. In addition to these, there are others going up not only in this State; but everywhere else at the South. We hazard but little in saying, that at the end of the next five years there will be perhaps two hundred cotton factories in operation in the Southern States consuming near two hundred and fifty thousand bales of cotton per annum, and giving employment to twenty-five or thirty thousand operatives. The effect of such a diversion of labor upon the productions of the South, the price of cotton, and the habits of those who will likely be employed as operatives, must be immense. All the cost of the transportation of the raw material to England, of its manufacture there, and its transportation back to this country, will be saved to our people. The general price of cotton will be increased by the competition which will ensue between the manufacturing establishments of Europe and the northern and southern States; and great good to society must result from the employment of thousands of idle and immoral persons, who are now consumers and not producers.