The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1862-06-06
FREE HOMES FOR THE LAHORE EN-.
From the Montreal Herald


The HOMESTEAD LAW INTHK UNiTEr
STArEs.-While we are discussing and
hesltatIug apoal our oiley for securing q
population--on the one hand sending
agents 10 solicit new Inhabitants, and on
the other. through petty jealousies, pre-
ferences, and fears. not unfrequently pla-
cling secret obstacles in the way Of settle
ment by augers--while we are one day
declaring that no land shall be sold except
to bona tdc settlers, and the next selling
vast blocks to an English Land Company,
who everybody knows never mean to set.
tie, but 70 make p.oht BY peddllng out
what we have sold In block. and who can
afford to pay Il 900 to member Of Par
lament for bullying the Government till
they make the grant on terms more profit
able than was at first intended, tie Amer
itaa Congress has adopted the most CON-
prehensive policy for the encouragement
OF immigration which has perhaps ever
been devised. By the Homestead Act,
which recently became a law, every man
who will settle upon Them may have l60
acres Of land for nothing, and without any
conditions to drive him back into the re-
moter corners or the inferior tracts OF the
public domain. Partial offers of such
gifts have often been made before, but we
doubt whether any endowment on 30 mag
ni6eent soale has ever been conferred
on the money less sons of labor, not of one
country; but Of the civilized world. We
lately mentioned the passage through the
House of Representatives Of the law which
forever prohibits the Introduction of slave
ry upon any Territory now in possession
of the United States, or which may at any
future time come into their possession -
We described this as the chief point in
the ayowed programme Of the Republican
party, which, by the election Of Lincoln,
and the secession of the South, obtained
the control Of the Government last spring.
But the Homestead law is the complete
ment Of the prohibition Of slavery in the
Territories, or rather, perhaps, one is the
complement Of the other. The great
scheme Of policy would be maintained If
either Of them had failed Of adoption, On
the other hand, even the gift Of land
would have been poor attraction to Free
men who are 10 cultivate their farms with
their own hands, if by the side Of them
there should exist an institution which
makes all labor degrading, and the occu-
patton Of an inferior caste. And, on the
other hand, the most effective way to shut
out slavery is to people the new lands,
where it might otherwise sock to extend
itself, with men whose position places
them in natural antagonism to the plantA-
ton system.
The attention Of the world is naturally
turned to the exciting scenes which are
being enacted and are expected tc be ca.
acted. by the hosts of armed men now
confronting each other. Bot war is in its
nature temporary, and perhaps the few
engagements which are called decisive
battles OF the world would be reduced in
numbers ii we could eliminate from them
those which were mere symptoms Of the
direction Of moral and physical forces.
rather than the impulses which produce
that direction. The civil transactions Of
the last few months At Washington will
make their impression upon ages tocome,