New-York tribune., 1868-01-01

women who were competing with them IN the
common labor mart of our national industry
The labor OF q slave working at cost ot ten
cents per day, tends 10 reduce the wages OF the
freemen around him as much as If no were
freeman and that were his wages. The South
was a great convict prison, in which 100000
of innocent prisoners were undertaking and
Woodworking the laboIing class Of the North.
OGsettng this tendency in Slavery to lower
the compensation for labor throughout the
North as well as the South was the reduction
Of cost of living effected on behalf OF the
Northern labOTer as a consumer of the products
produced at q lower cost by the expressions OF
slave labor than they could have been sold
for had not tho wagess of the slave,
principal ingredient in their cost, been sto-
len. While the Northern labOrer bought his
cotton goods cheaper because they were raised
by unpaid labor, he sold his own labor
cheaper by being obliged to compete with the
same unpaid laborer, and, as the net result OF
Slavery, his loss exceeded his gain in about the
proportion that his entire earnings exceeded tho
small portion of them which he expended for
goods produced by slave labor. AS certainly,
therefore, "a the whole is greater than part,
the Northern lab0rer was affected by the slaY-
cry and was made freer i'll the emancipation
of the Southern slave.
But while the freedom of labor is indispen-
sable to o fair division of the profits of indus
try, elements, in some sense, antagonistic to
freedom, viz: law, order, and security - capi-
tai, are essential to the continuance of industry
itself. Throughout the Southern States, that
mutual antagonism and distrust between the
no
in the Government by the analogous conflict
between the President and Congress, ana by
their respective policies of reconstruction, has
not yet been reconciled. The year opened with
the substantial overthrow by Congress OF the
Presidents policy basing reconstruction on the
white vote only, and conceding the control oil
the South to the late Rebels. Congress substl-
tuted the policy of universal suffrage, excud-
ing only Rebels who had violated un official
oath TO Join the Rebellion. They aimed SO to
reconstruct the South as would preserve the
power in the hands of loyal, freedOm-loving
men, and prevent Southern reaction toward
Slavery. This has been the salient political
event of the year, as it is one OF the great
leading events in the history of our country.
Upon its wisdom the Republican party has
sfaked not only its ascendancy but its ex-
istence. The influence Of the Administration
being thrown against the return OF the south
ern States to the Union on this basis, recon-
struction is retarded. Industry in the ten
reconstructing States, meanwhile, has been
greatly embarrassed, but the consequences
are by no means so serious as might
have been expected to follow so great
social and political revusion as the
i fin nI In
those districts of Mississippi and Louisiana
which have suffered from foods and the worm
In other sections Of the South the freedmen
are working well, saving money, schooling
their children, making little ado about politics
excfpt TO vote, and have committed, as race
or class. few or no eXccsses. Their deposit OF
over SS,0O00OO in the savings banks during the
year, and their great interest IN their schools,
are the best proofs of their advancing welfare.
While, in 1866, under the workings of the
Presidents policy, the mere intimation that
colored citizens desired to vote caused mas
sacre Mt New-Orleans, another at Memphis,
and threw the whole South into ferment IN
which similar explosions at other points were
imminent, in 1867 every black man III the ten
States who desired has voted, with less yio-
lcnce than ever attended an election conducted
by whites alone.
Unfortunately, the reconstruction laws were
so framed that the silence Of those opposing
their operatiOn counted as effectively as their
vote. and hence in many of the States tho en-
tire Rebel vote stayed away from the polls.
But by whatever obstacles it has been embar-
rassed, the country has reason to be grateful
that while Slavery in Rebellion and Conserva-
-. ho,ro c1,o ,iv #
impartial Suffrage, like Emancipation, has never
cost the country a life nor tear, but has proved
as stainless in operation as it is just III prln-
cpe. Indeed, had it not been enacted, the
social violence, the murders and expressions OF
blacks, which began under the Presidents
reconstruction policy would hav" "i'0"uy
inaueurated that slow but malignant ana
fostering var between the races which mas
impoverished the British West Indies.
Nor is it fair to attribute the distress which
prevails at the South in any degree to the de-
lay in reconstruction, or even to emancipation.
Had Slavery survived the war; and, still more,
had the States been reconstructed on the Presi-
dents plan, there would still have been great
present diminutiOn in the production OF cotton,
as compared with the years before the wal;
and as the price fell from the war standard, the
net result would have been one of heavy loss
to the chief branch of Southern industry. This
would ultimately have been felt IN the suffer
ing of the laboring freedmen and poor whites.
The immediate cause of the present poverty
of the South, and its possible distress during
the coming Winter is a decline in its production
occasioned by the war and the decline in the
value of its staple product incident to peace.
The entire shipment for the year will not OK
coed 10000 bales, worth about SS7 100000 in