The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-02-18
RIRI,.G LABoRERs UNDER THE BUREAU
ORDER.


Much lust criticism has been bestowed
by the press in New Orleans and in the coun-
Try parishes upon the scheme of the freed
mems bureau for securing employment to
freedmen by means Of furnishing planters
with subsistence for their hired laborers.
But also a good deal which has been said
seems to SAVIOR more of heat and haste than
of calm examination. The chief objections
urged against the proposed arrangement
apply especially to the terms Of the bond
which planters are required to give for the
reimbursement of the cost of supplies
received from the bureau. If some of these
objections are we'll founded, others strike US
as not justified by logical or legal con-
stIuction of those terms, but as resting on a
view of them which is partial, strained and
distorted. Our planters, it is quite true,
stand in no such relation to the bureau as
implies a duty on their part to treat the offer
of supplies in this case as gift horse which
it would be ungracious and ungrateful to look
in the mouth. They have perfect right to
sc1utinize the animal and to discover his bad
points before taking him at any price, or even
for nothing. For the bureau, in its announce
ment of the offer, displays at least the virtue
of frankness, and makes no pretense what
ever that it is actuated in the matter by any
solicitude for the welfare of planters. In its
circular of the 23d ulbmO, for example,
agents are expressly instructed 'that the
distribution of these supplies is solely for the
purpose Of securing employment to the freed
men b. enabling the planter to furnish them
with subsistence for the time being" There
is, of course, nothing Of the gift horse about
this proposal. It simply remains for planters
to consider whether the bargain would serve
as a horse, q vehicle, or a motive power of
any description to help them through with
their crops. Some of them, we know, have
concluded, while looking upon it as a hard
bargain, to accept it as the best arrangement
which they can make in their peculiar cir
cumstances. The argument by which they
! are led to this conclusion is thus indicated by
the Baton Rouge Advocate:
Pepuiless and destitute of credit, the ma.
! jOrity of cur planters are not in condition to
! argue the matter, aud unless financial arrange.
| men's can be made in New Orleans or elsewhere
! by the city factors they will be compelled to COM
ply with the terms and accept bread and meat for
their lsborers under the terms offered them. The
| cost of the meal and pork be easily met,
should 10 great misfortune betide and the balance
realized can 60 10 pay old debts. The factors are
unable at any rate now, 10 make advances, bat in
order TO cont oil the crop let the New Orleans
! chants be prepared when it is made, TO repay the
/ advances made by the government, and in this
manner control the matured crop.
The practicability of the suggestions here
made is disputed, and, we think, without sufi-
cient grounds, by one Of our city contempora-
ries, which says:
When our contemporary learns, as he must have
! done ere this, that neither the planter nor mer-
chant viii be allowed to control the crop, even if
| payment for the advances ia rendered to the
| bureau, he will change his opinion to the prac-
! tcability of the late order. When once the sup
plies are furnished the crop becomes bound
to the bureau, and it will not be released, either
upon payment Of the bureaus claim or upon
| Shipment of a sufficient amount of the crop to
lquidate their claim, IL Is the object and inten-
! ton of the bureau 10 obtain possession Of the en-
! tire crop, and efier satisfying themselves ont of
the proceeds will return 70 the planter such bal
ance as may be left.
A comparison of these remarks with the
| text Of the order will exhibit a considerable
strain upon the logical Specification and the
! legal effect Of the latter. 1t is assumed by
our city contemporary that the paramount pur-
! lOnE u Tic HCllOAut ID ~ llNO1N6 buO DldulSI
in Obligations which viii compel him to put
his entire crop at the disposition of the
| bureau. But the sole object of it, as set forth
| in,the text of the order, is to secure employ
ment to the freedmen; and the bureau would
! be bound in law to abide by this statement of
| the object; and the law would adjudge all
other parts of the order as incidental or sub
! 81 T.
contemplation, the bond required of the plan
| ter must be regarded as designed solely to
secure the bureau against loss on account of
| advances; and, consequently, reimburse
ment of these advances before the shipment
| of the crop would have the effect, in law, of
satisfying the bond and renting the crop to
the control of the planter. The purport of the
bond is that the planter ''binds himself to re-
imburse to the bureau, before the expiration
| of the year, the full cost Of such supplies
from the proceeds of the crops, or other pro-
ducts Of industry, raised by him, or from the
moyables on the plantation used in the cult
walton Of the crop; and he further agrees that
when said crops, or other products, are pre-
| pared for market, the same, or his por-
t-Ol4 luS4COi, S4IAiA NC Oh pSu iOL atLt ~ SUCH
merchants as may be designated by the
bureau, in the city of New Orleans, La, and
that, Immediately upon the sale of said crops,
a sufficient amount OF the proceeds accruing
! therefrom, to the full amount, If necessary,
shall be turned over to the proper officer of
the bureau, in liquidation Of his just indebted
ness for the subsistence advanced"
IL, H. 10 e.
for the supplies out of the movables on the
plantation, and it would be preprosterous to
suppose that, having done so, he would be
still under legal obligation to ship his crop to
a merchant designated by the bureau, because
| the only rational, honest and legitimate pur-
| pose Of demanding such a shipment is to
assure the bureau Of Naturalization out Of
the proceeds of the crop. But We are not
confined to legal inference. 1t is clear that
the contingency Of a settlement with the plan
ter before the shipment of his crop is contem-
Mated by the order itself from these words