like continuity for Southern enterprise over the ante-bellum years. The interpretation here given of the new South is now a platitude, but it may not have been a tilting at windmills when he wrote; indeed, its acceptance now may be due in no small part to Mr. Edmonds. Altogether, it is best to rest Mr. Edmonds' theory with the following passage, in which there is no confusion of his own thought and no controversy with anyone: "Since 1880, although the South is still (1894) practically without great accumulated wealth, her people have turned to manufacturing with a facility that not only shows that they are in no way lacking in capability to compete in manufacturing pursuits, but, considering the limited capital, this section has exhibited remarkable gains in developing its resources under adverse conditions. In a little more than a decade from the time the work of development may be said to have begun, it is not a question whether Alabama can compete with Pennsylvania in iron, but rather whether Pennsylvania can compete with Alabama. Nobody now doubts that the South can compete with New England in the manufacture of cotton goods, but many do doubt whether New England can compete with the South.... Since 1880 the growth of manufactures in the South and their success has been more than astonishing."[132] Edgar Gardner Murphy in his spiritual interpretation of the South showed himself discerning and gifted beyond almost any other writer. His conception of the economic history of the South may be held to have been secondary in his purpose and so in his thought. However, his position as an expositor of the section and the emphasis which he places upon his economic opinions regarding its past, make it incumbent upon the student to examine his views. In the following quotation the turn which he gave to the influencing argument of Mr. Edmonds and his personal slant in interpretation of this, are apparent: "The present industrial development of the South is not a new creation. It is chiefly a revival. Because the labor system of the old South was so largely attended by the economic disadvantages of slavery, and because the predominant classes of the white population were so largely affected by social and political interests, it has often been assumed that the old order was an order without industrial ambitions.