The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1866-04-05
COLUMBIA.
Thursday Morning, April 5, 1856.
The Labor Question.

Thursday Morning, April 5, 1855.
The Labor Question.
George Fitzhugh, Of Virginia, con-
tributes to DeBo,v's Reoiep for April
an able article on the labor question,
North and South. He says, truly,
that, including Africa, the West In
dies, Mexico, South America and our
Southern States, on account of the
general indisposition to work on the
3 part of the. negroes; they render
worthless far the better half of the
globe. How to remedy this evil, is
the great question of the day, for the
productions of warm latitudes have
become necessaries of life to civilized
mankind.
Mr.. .McCulloch long since main
ptained that the laws sof political eco
.nomy and free'competiton would not
apply to the negro, and Mr.. Carlyle
has shown that tho laws of supply
and demand have no influence what
ever on the conduct and industrial
habits of the free and improvident
negroes of the West Indies.
r Mr. Etzhugh takes the position,
that while the negro slaves worked
eight or nine hours day, the negro
freedmen will not average three hours
a day, and fortifies his position from
experience. He says that, as serfs or
villeins, the laborers of Europe did
not work three hours day, yet all
had homes and. the rude comforts and
necessaries of life But now, to live
at all, these same laborers have to
labor ten hours day. He remarks
very pithily on the former times, there
were no poor houses and no poor
laws, because there were no poor un-
provided for.
Mr. T. takes Sup the suggestion
made in many of the Northern papers,
last fall, thata convention Of capital
lists, of merchants and of farmers
should be held in New York, to take
Z 'pto consideration the subject of CIV
I g value and efficiency to the freed
~ rs labor at the South. He is in
1,.vor of such a convention, and says
= "Never did convention have such
iaportant, worldwide matters of
pressing interest to deal with as will
this. Probably it will not be able to
! s@avert the storm aof social revolution
that impends over .Christendom, but
hit may do something to mitigate its
4 force and destructiveness. All are
4 concerned in its deliberations, in its
resolves, and in the measures it shall
adopt or advise, and all therefore
should be represented in it. Rich
land poor, practical men and theoreti-
tal men, abolitionists, socialists, pro-
elayery men, agrarians, women and
women's rights men, Northern men
and Southern men, blacks, whites,
mulattoes, Indians, Mongolians and
Europeans, should attend at its meet
ing, and take part in its deliberations.
Y A Worlds Pair, that has to do with
'trifes light as air.. compared to the
appropriate business of this conven-
~~tisn, attracts strangers from every
quarter of the globe. AS far as man
is superior to bullocks, horses, fowls,
vegetables and machinery of all kinds,
will our industrial convention be su-
perior in Importance and interest to
a mere worlds fair
Such convention might concoct
some plan or scheme to improve the
value of the freedmens labor. Our
own opinion is, that the experiment
has not yet been fairly and fully tried.
We believe that, with fair dealing,
kindness, and efforts to educate and
iiienlighten our specaliar class of work
: ers, the freed labor of the South
will, after agtime, compare fayorably
with that ofany other country. !, ],
$500 - "0t;
The MARCH OF, IMpnovEEENr.- ~
Through freight trains are now run
ming between Lynchburg, Va, and
- RAt!anto On on6 oJco bat1yoa,, 10,