The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-10-20
work, not Immigration, is what Fir'
Sinia Needs.
For the Dispatch.
PrTrpsnrRG VA. October II.

PETERSBURG, VA, October II, 1868.
Messrs. Fditors,-It may be but as
straw on the tide that is setting in to over
flow the South, as already it has o great
part of the New England and Middle
States, what is proposed to be expressed in
this short letter, but nevertheless l wish to
say it.
Whenever any opposition is made to pro-
positions in public bodies to invite immi-
grants into this country from Europe, the
reioinder is that if no foreigners had come
to these shores this country would not have
been reclaimed from the savage Indians,
and we would not now be here in all the
enterprise and refnements of civilization.
Itmight with as much pertinency and plth be
urged againstany effort of the age to improve
the condition of mankind by Furnishing bad
men. Let uiCe haze its course; because If our
| first parents had not been created, there
| would be no bad men to be punished. Every
| civilized people, however, all good men will
agree, have found it necessary to have prl-
mitiye laws, because the race has followed
the sad example of the first Pair-to sin.
The race has degenerated. The foreign
Immigration has also degenerated; and it IS
lust as important and proper to keep away,
by all Unsuitable means, the degenerated
Immigration as it is to punish bad men.
The more that is done of the first, the less
will have to be done of the last.
It is ventured to be asserted that every
nat,Iralized citizen who came to this coun-
try thirty years ago will, on inquiry OF MIN
by any other person in the circle OF his ac-
ouaintance anywhere in the South, say that
the men who are coming now into this
country from Europe are inferior to those
who came at any former time. The mis-
fortune is that such creatures Of the lower
order will come too thick and fast without
any extra effort to bring them.
I will venture another assertion, that II
ell the natives and already-naturalized
citizens of this State will recover from ha-
bits of idleness engendered by the late ne
gro slavery, and 90 to work with q good
will, the complaint of lack of labor will be
less clamorous than it is. 1t is that COM
plant which, more than all other causes
combined, is inducing the desire and Civ
, ing loud voice to the extraordinary efforts
that are being made to bring here all sorts
and any quantity of emigrants from Eu-
rope. 1t is to the credit of our people that
more have gone to york than could have
been safely expected at once to do SO, but 1t
is nevertheless true that many have not
who might, and it may yet be must. Ger
\ tally mast, unless one or two things occur
soon that is, unless foreigners come in or
the negroes come down to their work.
will venture one other remark only-in
; part assertion, in part prediction. The most
. profitable labor in our State is free negro
: labor, when it is rendered by persons who
can be relied on. This species Of labor is
already reliable in some parts of the State
las l am assured by not few persons who
have employed it in those parts). There
is no sufficient reason in existing facts tc
contradict the prediction that as soon as the
negroes shall have persisted out for want Of
5 the comforts they will not now work to get
! the remnant of them in all parts Of tht
| State will become reliable.
l am your obedient servant,
r. R. COLLIER,