Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1868-02-25
snrrruERN LANDS.

. W. Ia NI L
SOUTHERN LANDS. -sr .4,s
The lands OF the South have, for the
nreseut. almost entirely lost their value.
The landowners, for the most part,
heavily in debt, cannot make their realty
available for the payment Of their debts.
suits swarm in the courts, and vast guam
Titles of fertile lands must change own
ers. at nominal prices. Adventures,
whose object in pushing onward the de-
; structive measures of JacObinism has
beep 10 distress the landowners and de-
preeiate the value of the lands, so that
they might be enabled to buy them up
At a dollar or less per acre, find their in
fernal Iabours crowned with success and
are beginning to buy for cents broad
: lands that will in few years be worth
to them dollars. There is nothing of
ppbIic concern in this country, no legis-
Iation, no Governmental action, into
which private greed does not enter.
Everything is intended to give profitable
q. io5s. and occasion for hsartless specula-
tions. Never in the world was there
Government 80 corrupt, so prostituted to
subserve private interests. 1t is impossi-
ble for a Government to last long, that is
administered with SO utter lack OF pa
triotism and principle. &C
The conspiracy against the people of
the south, by those who hold and WELD
the powers Of government, is complete
success and the ruin Of the Southern
planters an accomplished fact When a
large class of men are in such straits,
those who undertake to advise them are
very likely to advise that which is inn
practicable, We always hesitate so give
advice to the planters OF the country, in
regard to their Industrial policy because
it is to be presumed that they, with all
their dearest interests at stake, have re-
fieoted much mere msturely on the
whole subject than We have; as they Ger,
tainly have, what We have not, practi-
cal knowledge Of the subject.
power Of the country is always, at last,
with the landowners; and advises the
people of the South to cling to their
lands. But nine land Owners Of every
ten would reply that it is not within their
power to retain their lands, because they
cannot prevent their sale under exeeu-
ton or by foreclosure, for payment of
debts.
The Bulletin urges that it Is q fatal
error to contract with negroes for labour
! by the year, since ths planter takes upon
/ himself all the chances of loss by failure
OF the crops, or low prices. Probably the
/ first planter to whom this was mentioned
world agree that the system is 3 ruinous
one, if it could be avoided out he would
say, how am to have lsbour other
wise? l have no means to pay for it by
the month. l can only pay for it when
| | shall have raised and sold the crOp.' !
/ Other journals advise all who have not
/ work to do in the cities, to resort to the
country, and engage ineontinendy in the
cultivation of the soil: but married
man who hardly has bread for his chill
| dren for the morrow Is only Knocked at,
when told that he ought TO go to the
country. He has no means to get there,
/ and none with which TO purchase what
is necessary to enAtle him to commence
| farming. "a et
There is no doubt that the cultivation
of cotton on the old plan ought to be aban-
Goned. The planter is little less than in
sane, who now incurs heavy debt for
advances to enable him to engage in the
hazardous game of cottonsplanting. 1t
would be better for him to risk it betting
against faro.
And every one who looks around a
city like New Orleans or Memphis, and
sees what an immense per centage Of the
men, and especially of the young men of
the city, produces nothing whatever that
adds 90 the common stock of wealth,
must knog that there are thousands
upon thousands Of the1 who not only
ought to be cultiyaling the soil, adding
to the productions and increasing the
wealth Of the country but who would
be fsr more contented, of far greater
WORTH in every point of view, and far
more respectable, Lhgn while existing in
the semirgenteel pauPer!sH OF ll-paid
clerkships, in brieGess law Offices, OF, in
one way or the other, and in different
degrees of doubtful respectability, upon
the town.
Why would it not pay capitalists as
well to advance means to associations of
men Of the cities, willing to accept the
life Of farmer in the country, to assist
them il stocking their farms aud begin
ming new life, as il does to invest their
moueys in banking or in the costly felly
Of building palatial steamers, to be run
at loss p?
Say what you will as to the causes of
oaf present decay aud distress, and in
vent what plans you will to restore pros
perity to Memphis; bgt one Of the chief
causes Of our distress is that too IaGng
n3en in the South, and especially in its
towns and cities, consume and do not
prodgce, seeking to live without doing
any sort Of woTs that is fit for man to
do. The statistics Of these non producers
who live by the different devices OF fnod,
ern civilization, in Memphis alone,
would astonisl4 those who have not re-
iected on the subject. This eyil was
nothing, when the country had mines OF
wealth Ia its lands, and the Ia
bouF of the piantsF and the ne
gro produced in abundance tSat
with which these non producers We're
fed and pampered, But gow the
evil has become enormous ana intOlersS
Die, ami the la,lds are actually burden,
and no abundance or surplus is produced
by any body, with which TO feed the
drOnes and painted bgtteTdias, or thoes
who do the work of women, keep the
thousands Of retail shops, and dispense
liquors and cigars by the small, in the
many hundred cd5drets of the city.
If We do not need more producers and
less consumers, how does it happen that
almost everything that is seen displayed
for sale in the pIOvision-storss of Mem |
phis comes from the Northern States?
Must We dia0oys go To the North for food? |
What reason is there for expecting our
banks TO do any business and continue
solvent, in city 50 fed, sitting on the |
verge OF Que State, and looking west and |
south into two others all as fertile as the 1
Delta OF the Nile, and which yet cannot
supply their single large city with food |
Why should we expect prosperity when
We employ the miil-owners of New Eng
land to manufacture into fabrics the
cotton that comes to Memphis as its