“Do Shippers nowadays get 40% of the Net?”
Now your reading comprehension is in question!
“Even when the Southern cotton bound for Europe didn’t put in at the wharves of Sandy Hook or the East River, unloading and reloading, the combined income from interests, commissions, freight, insurance, and other profits took perhaps 40 cents into New York of every dollar paid for southern cotton.”
It wasn’t net, and it wasn’t just shipping.
You are referring to things like "banking", "Insurance", "warehousing", and such.
Were these things not profitable? If so, couldn't the Southerners have done them for themselves at profit, especially when they would be getting an additional 40% of the cotton profits to provide capitalization?
They would have the added benefit of not having to do business with people calling them the worst scum on earth, as Liberals do to all of us nowadays.