The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1861-04-05

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FRIDAY MORNING April. s, 1851.
Ts xsampede Her Slaves I. 10 Reduce vir-
GtNla - the Condition or \ Spanish Anne.
rican kepablic.
The saddest misfortune that can belong to
country Is the want Of a well ordered system
Of productive industry. With the lack or de-
cay Of productive industry is ever found the
lack or decay Of all the higher attributes OF
society--mornls, intelligence, religion, letters,
arms, arts, everything. Industry, manuai
toll, labor-eflicient, productive, organized,
disciplined labcr-this Is the foundation OF all
social thrift, of individual and public piety
md morality, Of national prosperity ana en-
pire.
Says MAcaHxcos, the traveller and statisu-
cian
Ell the population, and productive inda'sry, and
ths 90 m MERGE OF Mexico, were comms nsurato with
its natural fertility, and with the extent OF the
esrth's surface which it comprises, II would have
been before the prssen, time one of the wealth.
"a, and most powerful States OF the world: With
the most fertile resources aud With all climates,
soils and productions, with magnlheent forests,
with the precious and most of the useful metals In
abundaace- Mexico Is = pow erless and declining
State"
Declining, indeed, 1t is for though 1t has
extracted from the earth one hundred ana
fifty millions of the precious metals, II Is
poorer at this day than when the mines were
discovered, although its exports OF produce
other than metals. in 1907, We're 81. az, they
had fallen off in 1912 to 81 100000, and
mono can tell what they are at present, or
even whether there be any at all. Mr.. WApDr
THOMPSON says in his Recoilections OF Mexico ::
1.-The immense estates Of which have spoken,
of eighty and a hundred leagues square, WI q
= .l~e1 4, a raj -
twenty thousand mules and horses, yleid very
little profit. Perhaps not acre om zen ,'olsdna
On s. estate. esas6 x SSd aed or
horses for the army; but, WIN TINS eAee ~, ~,
there are very few occasions when rne gysnsralIv
small. tItby novels of ten or we've fee. square.
built of nburnt bricks with small eaeios s1
corn for t rer,il is cultivated in Mexican
village the same idleness, fifth aud s4uanu Po,r :
lsgs."
Without an organized system OF efficient
labor the lands stand uncultivated, and nc
surpIus products are raised for expectation
There is conseq uently no commerce, nomoney
no market Property cannot be sold, all BUS
mess is paralyzed, all enterprise annihiiated
Universal stagnation prevails. and "idieness'
filth and squalid poverty" the hahdmaios O
social despair, sit idly by her side.
The story of Mexico is the story OF all con
tinental Spanish America. A vast region, o.
boundless capabilities, of prolific fertility, OF
exuberant productiveness-smitten In every
part with wretchedness, all that it ever en-
joyed of civilization in ruins, and every IN
terest of society not only pros ate in the dust,
ut PROSTATE without hope Of recovery.
Various have been the theories advanced to
explain the admitted social, commercial ana
political pros tration of Spanish America
Some have ascribed it to the prevailing reli-
pion: some to the Incidence and thriftlessness
of the Spanish character; some to the indis-
criminate mixture of races, and the enervat-
ing effects of long continued hybridism. In
regard to the first of these alleged causes, 1t
is a sufficient refutation to say, that all OF
good that is left in Spanish American society,
has been rescued by the Church; and, II
abuses have crept into this institution, 1t is
only q proof that even the Church itself has
partaken of the general decay. The other
reasons alleged are but results, and not causes
are but facts needing explanation, and not
explanations themselves. The great fact un-
deriving the whole phenomenon is, that these
countries have been unable to prosper because
they have been without a system of PRO
ductive industry" The enervated native
could not toll or be made to toll, being with
out the req uisite muscular vigor; the naughty
and delicate Spaniard could not and would
not labor in the fields and the African race,
monopolized by the islands, had been i'm
ported on the main land in too small num-
bers to achieve any decided results at the pc
Rod of the Revolution which brought uni
versal emancipation From their discovery
to the present day, these Spanish Provinces
AID Republics, embracing the most fertile re-
gions of country on the globe, have been with
out a system of organized, efficient labor
This is the true explanation, this the suffi-
cient and exclusive reason, why they are
still, after three hundred years OF intercourse
with civilization, but little else than primi-
tive wilderness.
If we would know what would have been
the condition of the Southern States Of our
own portion Of the continent, but for their in
stitution Of African labor, we have but to
con template that Of the Spanish Republics Of
Central and South America. Ii we could by
one fell blow strip these, our Southern States,
of every element of prosperity and every cher
1shed attribu te of civilization, we have but to
deprive them of their institution of African
slavery. If we would reduce Virginia to the
deplorable condition of anarchy, poverty, and
squalid wretchedness, exemplifed in the
worst Republics of Central or South America
we have but by fixing her dcstinies with the
abolition North, to stampede her negroes and
uproot her slave institution.