The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-20 00:00:00

Duty of the Southern States.

While the North felt to a heavy extent the effects of the
late war, the South realised its desolation in the fullest
degree. Our armies traversed the length and breadth of
the rebellious States, and the devastation which neces-
sarily follows in the wake of victorious columns was the
result. Towns and cities and whole counties were laid
waste. Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana,
Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia all bowed
before the irresistible force which swept over their borders,
prostrated their habitations, and made deserts of their once
blossoming and fruitful fields. This was the consequence
of war. War always is productive of losses to one or the
other parties which it requires years to make good. The
North experienced the baneful effects of strife in the ex-
penditure of blood and treasure; the South realised them
in the exhaustion of life and money, the destruction of
property of all kinds, the emancipation of her greatest
source of wealth, the slave, and the almost universal with-
drawal of labor from her plantations. In the Northern
and Western States there was but a slight decrease in
agricultural products in the first year or two of the war,
and when it closed the old free States were well supplied
with all the necessaries of life, while the South was not
only impoverished, but on the very verge of starvation.

This was the condition of the South at the termination
of the rebellion, and the prospects of its people were of the
gloomiest character. But, while everything was calculated
to dishearten them, they had much to encourage them in
their efforts to restore their States to their former influence
and power. They were possessed of rich lands, of noble
rivers, of mines of gold, silver, iron, and coal ; of fine sea-
board harbors, and the soil and climate peculiarly adapted
to the culture of cotton. To develops these natural re-
sources would, of course, be the prime object of the people.
Their requirements were pressing, and it is gratifying to
all true lovers of the country to know that the Southerners
have entered into the work with the proper spirit and
zeal. To accommodate themselves to circumstances is,
no doubt, a difficult task. The question of labor has
proved a knotty one, but recent movements indicate that
they are gradually and surely arriving at its solution.
There is now hardly a county to be found in the South
where the owners of farms and cotton plantations are not
perfecting arrangements with the freedmen for the cul-
tivation of their lands. They have come to understand
that if a negro is paid for his services he will work, and so
they are making contracts with their late slaves, and pre-
paring to plant in the coming spring. This system of pay-
ing liberal wages will prove of infinite value to the em-
ployers, while it will also satisfy the employed, who
hitherto have received nothing for their labor but their
bread and rough clothing. If the Southern people re-
solve to do their utmost to recover the ground which they
have lost during the war, they will not fail in its accom-
plishment. Let them abandon their antiquated ideas, and
the foolish and destructive heresies which they have so
long maintained, and turn their attention to the development
of their section and the interests of our common country,
and all will be well with them. Though they feel the effects
of the war more than the North does, they yet have the
opportunity of lessening the evils hanging over them, and of
finally bringing order and prosperity out of the present
confusion and depression.—PhilVelphia Enquirer.