The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-08 00:00:00

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''IC.7L.DIL OF SOUIIIERN INDUSTRY.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
The effects on society are worth noticing of a re-
turning prosperity and a continued depression. We
know how differently each individual views the
same question according to his health, his mood, or
the state of the atmosphere, but more especially if
he be in a vein of success or the reverse. So it is
with communities, for a whole country changes
opinions as well as appearances with prosperity and
adversity, of which anextraordinary instance has been
furnished by Manchester, wherein the champion of
Free Trade advocates the resuscitation of Protec-
tion. It is positively beyond belief that a great
commercial emporium which has associated its
name with a principle, to the adoption of which
some nations attribute unexampled prosperity, which
among others has caused the fiercost controversies,
perhaps wars, which is at this moment with the inhabi-
tants of many a fertile subject of dispute, should
have wheeled round to advocate the very doctrines
against which it had successfully led a large and
enlightened portion of mankind. But so it is; and
the cause is said to be the depression of the cotton
manufacturing industry occasioned by the short
supply of the staple. This had its origin in the
American war ; and it is passing strange, but true,
that the very country whose agriculture was cut to
pieces, commerce annihilated, fields desolated, and
cities depopulated and destioyed, is likely to reco-
ver more quickly than the mart whose supply that
war interrupted. While Manchester is growling and
talking Protection, the Southern States are settling
into peace and prosperity. Even theNewYork Tribune,
whose sensatienal heading, the " New Rebellion,"
covered every campaign document circulated from
its office in myriads through the country, has now
turned over a new leaf. Political assassinations in
the South have almost ceased, and collisions be-
tween the races are few and far between. Indeed,
from the tone suddenly assumed, it is clear that
the Radical papers exaggerated the condition of
the South during the elections to make political
capital in the North. We are told by the journal
foremost in creating the evil impression how few
stopped to consider that the South covers a million
square miles, with twelve millions of people ; add-
ing that, as every collision has a quasi partizan
character, they are trumpeted about, and made to
assume the worst aspect. One county gets up a parti-
zan struggle; scenes of violence are then enacted, but
the whole State, however peaceful elsewhere, bears
the blame—versions of the fight come out in different
papers, so dissimilar, that they appear like new tales
of bloodshed, and entire districts are condemned
which are as orderly and industrious as any in the
Union. It is a fact, if we look carefully over the
telegrams, that the troubles and outrages will be
found to be generally confined to a narrow area in
a State. For instance, the neighbourhood of Savan-
nah gives to Georgia a bad name; of New Orleans
to Louisiana ; of Little Rock to Arkansas, and these
and other places to all the reconstructed States ; and
while our eyes are fixed on such localities, we
overlook the fact that they are but spots in
the mighty territory of the South. If the peo-
ple of Augusta are cutting each other's throats,
and race arming against race in Ogechee, what is the
South generally doing? Why, for the last year
producing two millions and a half bales of cotton,
each of which has averaged $lOO, representing the
pretty little sum of $250,000,000 obtained at the
depots, perhaps the largest price they have as yet
fetched there. Add to this the sugar and rice crops,
which have not only brought good prices, but
exceed in quantity those of 1867, and when we con-
sider that the South now supplies itself with Indian
corn and wheat, we give an idea of what the people
really have been doing. Here also is the answer to
the cry that the "free niggers won't work," and
here is the reason why Northern men go South to
settle, notwithstanding the odium attached to the
name cf a " carpet bagger." The truth is that
those who take an extreme part in politics opposed
to the prejudices of a sentimental people run an
unpleasant risk of being " ridden on a rail," but
those who purchase Southern estates and set to
work to develope their resources receive aid and
countenance instead of opposition from their neigh-
bours. As a field for investment the South at this
moment presents a rare combination of attractions.
Real estate has been depreciated to a positively
ridiculous degree, and in numberless instances now
sells at less than the owner expended on improve-
ments, though well situated, cleared and adapted
for the immediate production of valuable crops. It
is the fashion for people who hate Yankees, such as
"The Thirty Years' Resident in Canada," whose
letter of February 2 found a very congenial place
in the columns of the Standard on Thursday,
to cry up Canada and to decry the " Ameri-
can land-jobbers," and the United States generally,
as a field for emigration, and it puzzles Englishmen
beyond expression how this colony of "perfect se-

curity for life, limb, and property under just laws,
which are respected and always enforced," should
be deserted as fast as they succeed in enticing emi-
grants there, for another land " in which he would

find a total disregard of law and order, as witness
the almost daily accounts in the New York and

---
Chicago papers, and even in the occasional reports

in your own columns, of the almost innumerable

murders, shootings, robberies, lynchings, and other
horrible atrocities of the past year which have gone

unpunished." The solution of all this is k imply,

they lie; and when on the spot those they send ascer-

tain it. It is, then, the greatest folly ; for emigration

must be deverted to the antipodes or in spite of tilem-

selves they people the wasteplaces of the Union. The

" Canadian Resident " is justified in stating that

the American papers do report numerous crimes.
The English suppose that they of all people tell

most truth to their own detriment. But this is a
mistake, for whereas here a man requires to commit
a crime, and to get hold of that rare animal in Europe,
a reporter, before he has the honour of attracting

public attention, an American cannot think a
crime without it appearing in all the papers; and if

he commits a crime the übiquitous animals, the re-
porters, are there like vultures on carrion, when not
only that crime, but every crime he ever committed or
the family or the victim, together with every crime

of his parents and their parents, ani perhaps a
catalogue of the crimes besides of which his village

was the scene. The writer of the letter includes

lynching, among the murders and robberies, but he
does not explain that they were the murderers and
robbers who were lynched ; the very word dis-

proving his assertion that the atrocities go un-

punished. But it is not our object here to discuss
this ; for what we desire is to point out to these
" Yankee-haters " that they can find a section of
sunny land, once in a high state of prosperity and
soon again to be so, in which to settle, where they
will have full latitude in abusing Yankees without
locating themselves in an uncleared forest or in a
region shut up by ice for many months of the year.
North America is the finest field ever opened
for emigration, but these wise men desire to
bar it to their countrymen for fear of strength-
ening a hostile power. When we see a dog baying
at the moon we conclude that the animal is an idiot
even among brutes, and to us these efforts look

somewhat like this. These persons cannot prevent
America from becoming the overshadowing power

of the world ; they cannot prevent even their own

countrymen from settling there ; and if they could
they would only injure them. But what they can
and do do is to keep alive the feelings it is
essential to bury not only out of sight, but out of

mind, where they can never be resuscitated. One
of England's greatest objects should be to impress as
strongly as in her lies her image on the American
Continent. Happily for her the very Yankees these
people so hate have succeeded in doing this, and
her utmost efforts ought to be directed towards.
keeping up and perpetuating their work. Yet, with
a perversity which history will some day record
with amazement, the utmost efforts of these wise-

acres is directed towards making this nation with a
future no man can predict hostile, and their coun-
trymen have already to thank them for the Fenian
difficulties, the Alabama troubles, and the strength
of the Irish party in the United States. Why
should not English investors who do not know
what to do with their money seek for it an out-
let in tht now rapidly reviving South, with which
many of them so heartily sympathized during the
struggle ?