In The First
Place, Lowell Is Not Open As A Manufacturing Town To The
Capitalists Even Of New England At Large.
Stock may, I presume, be
bought in the corporations, but no interloper can establish a mill
there.
It is a close manufacturing community, bolstered up on all
sides, and has none of that capacity for providing employment for a
thickly growing population which belongs to such places as
Manchester and Leeds. That it should under its present system have
been made in any degree profitable reflects great credit on the
managers; but the profit does reach an amount which in America can
be considered as remunerative. The total capital invested by the
twelve corporations is thirteen million and a half of dollars, or
about two million seven hundred thousand pounds. In only one of
the corporations, that of the Merrimack Company, does the profit
amount to twelve per cent. In one, that of the Booth Company, it
falls below seven per cent. The average profit of the various
establishments is something below nine per cent. I am of course
speaking of Lowell as it was previous to the war. American
capitalists are not, as a rule, contented with so low a rate of
interest as this.
The States in these matters have had a great advantage over
England. They have been able to begin at the beginning.
Manufactories have grown up among us as our cities grew - from the
necessities and chances of the times. When labor was wanted it was
obtained in the ordinary way; and so when houses were built they
were built in the ordinary way.
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