New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1866-01-31

southern Poor WhiteSI WHO tells mem tnat
Liberty is liberty to work." VIGOROUSLY,
they are very needy; undeniably, they are less
habitusted to labor than the Blacks. Formerly,
they contnvst to pick up few dollars now and
then by hunting runaway slave for this or that
planter, or by selling whisky clandestinely to
his negroes and getting paid in stolen meal or
bacon. Mean ways these; yet they eked out
the meager subsistence of many Poor White.
The old false pretense that Whites can't work
at the South is now discsrded-nobody affects
to doubt that they can work there at least as
effectively as Blacks. Germany and Ireland
are entreated to send laborers to the South;
even Coolies from the East Indies have been
talked of but there seems to be no sort OF re-
lance on the labor of Southern Whites. "WDl
the negroes contract" "Will the negroes
work 7" were asked till the questions became
too palpably absurd; but no one has asked
whether the Whites would work. 1t has been
quietly taken for granted that they would not.
We non.concur in this assumption.
Why not give them fair trial. There must
be Half a Million men and boys-say between
l6 and Coin the ex.Slave States who can only
live honestly by manual labor. They need
food, clothes, and nearly every comfort of life.
They own no land; they have no skill in law.
yer-craft or other headwork; they are too proud
to beg, and must work or steal. Yet few OF
them are at work this day; not many expect to
work steadily through the ensuing genial season.
Were seven-eighths of them set to work adyan-
tageously, they could not fail to add at least
One Hundred and Fifty Millions per annum to
the wealth of our country-equal to the burden
of our National Debt. How long shall this
mine Of wealth remain unproductive1
We pray the statesmen and thinkers Of the
South to look to it. 1t is not possible to go
back; we must 60 forward. The Poor Whites
are the strength and glory Of their country. If
they work, the South must rapidly increase in
wealth and comfort; if they remain idle, the
South must remain impoverished, ignorant, i'm
potent. And now is the time-when old things
have forever passed away-to Undue them with
wholesome conceptions of the nobility Of Labor
and the manlness Of living by your own honest
and useful e1ertion.
We hope soon to hear that thousands of Cotton
and other manufactures are springing up beside
Southern rivers and among the glens of South.
ern mountains; the cheap food, ready cotton,
infinite water-power, and abundant children, Of
the Southern hill country rendering that most
favorable region for manufactures. But the inn
mediate want of labor in Agriculture cannot be
supplied by Blacks alone. We shall not grow
half the Cotton and Food that should be grown
this year unless Whites are extensively EN-.
ployed therein.
And why should they not BET If any planter
finds negroes scarce or indolent, let him re.
solve to do without them and employ Whites
instead. We are confident that tens of thou
sands would gladly hire out to work by the
month for fair wages and good treatment gen.
orally. They would probably refuse to work
with Blacks; and there is no need that they
should. Let those planters who are tired of
negro labor, or cannot rely on it, give White
labor fair trial. Let them advertise that they
want it-that they will have no other-and they
will be surprised at its abundance and efficiency
And he who gives White labor fair chance and
fair wages will soon find it as easily at the South
as at the North.