The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-11-29
The Labor Problem.
The Richmond Times says

OF Tree 1aDOr IN the South assumes
new proportions of Importance. The
results of the expenditure of the
present year, both on the part Of the
planter and the freedmen, will be
summed up, guided by data furnish
ed by the experience of twelve
months of previous trial. In Eir-
ginia we have watched with eager
and curious interests the workings Of
that system which has been forced
upon us. To our own observations,
in order to test their correctness, we
add the conclusions Of others, whose
practical skill and knowledge as far
mers, eminently fit them for the for
nation Of correct opinions.
So far as tide-water Virginia is
concerned, to which portion of the
State our knowledge and investiga-
tions have been confined, the results
of the trial with free labor, with ne
groes as the ]aborers, have not been,
in the main, satisfactory There are
of course exceptions, but the burden
Of evidence inclines the other way.
The great bulk of farmers in Eastern
Virginia, from what we can learn,
are not encouraged to hope anything
more than o bare subsistence from =
renewal of their experiments with
freedmen. But the question of re-
newal or continuance of the associa-
ton as employer and employees does
The freedmen are developing de-
sire to get away from all contact or
Identification of interest with the
white man. This tendency was man
Tested at the close of last year and
the commencement Of the present,
by tho reluctance of the freedmen to
contract as hired laborers for wages
the word with Cuf1ee then was, to
cork lands on tie share Of the crop,
and although under this system the
farmer furnishes the land, the teams,
agricultural implements, feed for the
animals. taxes and seed, and the
freedman only his labor and finding
although, we say, under this sys-
tenn Cnffee got half, and much the
larger half OF what was made, yet he
exhibits no disposition to try work in
this way again.
Look for moment at the steady
and persistent efforts of the freed
men to dissolve all connection with
their late owners : First, they re-
fused to work for wages, and insisted
on working for 4 share of the crop,
the object being to escape the con-
troll and surveillance of the white
man, though the position might be
assumed by their voluntary consent
now they are disgusted with the share
system, and all over the country they
are clamorous to rent lands and work
them altogether on their own hook.
Cuffee has, perhaps, made enough
out OF the farmer during the present
year to buy an old horse or mule
wherewlth to run single plow, and
having this start, he deems that bT
renting land and working it himself,
and for himself alone, he will strike
an agricultural Ell Dorado of peren-
NAL existence. From this the next
progressive step will be to save
enough to buy about ten acres of
poor land to be held in fee simple
then goodbye to Cuhee as a la
borer.
We submit to the farmers of Vir-
glnla If this IS not a true picture of
the tendency of events And here
we see how our labor will be lost
the negroes will, at the earliest prac-
tlcal moment, place themselves in a
position where they can live like
dogs or hogs, and steal with impuni-
ty, free from the eye or interference
Of the white man. Having no idea
of the moral obligations of con-
tract, they regard its legal enforce
ment by the employer, although
they knowingly and voluntarily as
sumed its duties, as a hardship and
tyranny. Hence they will no more
of contracts, unless compelled there
to by dire necessity. With the strong,
intelligent and humane arm of the
white man no longer upholding them,
they are inevitably drifting from the
paths of civilization and usefulness,
and the phenomena Of an unprece-
IDENTITY short cotton crop, and Of
threatened famine in portions of the
South, explained by the lights which
we have sought to throw upon this
subject, are no longer matters of
amazement. The negro has always
resisted civilization, and it is not
strange that as soon as his fanatic
friends furnished him an opportunity
to get away from it, that he should |
gladly avail himself of every means
of obeying his inclinations and in
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