The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-12-30
Free Farms for White Immigrants.


We print this morning a report OF the
proceedings of a meeting held at Robertville
in this State, on the 2lst instant. when
number of planters agreed to give tracts OF
land, free Of charge, to European farm hands,
upon certain conditions recommended by
committee and agreed to by the meeting.
1t is now generally understood, that it will
be difficult to direct to the seacoast the tide
of white immigration which sets toward Vir-
ginia and Georgia, and towards the upper
parts Of this State. Other things being
equal, the immigrant will avoid the low
country, but when he is offered land free OF
all charge, he has reason for preferring the
cotton and rice OF the seaboard to the corn
and wheat of the mountains. In nearly
every Southern State lands can be bought
at fairly low prices, with easy terms of pay
ment, but in no State Of which we have
knowledge, except South Carolina, do the
landowners propose to give the immigrant
farm large enough to support in comfort
him and his family,
The general principle of giving away
part OF tract Of land, in order to enhance
the value of the remainder, needs no vindica-
ton here; but it is possible so to hamper the
grant with conditions and restrictions as to
destroy its attractiveness, and make it power
less to accomplish any substantial good.
This is the danger suggested by reading
the "Three Conditions" OF the Robertville
planters.
The first condition requires the immigrant
to work for the first six months for the donor
of the land, at the regular wages. This is
indirectly exacting price for the land. but
the chief objection is that the immigrant is
required to work for others at the very time
when he should be hardest at work for him
self. With fences to repair, with q house
and outbuildings to put up, with land to cul-
tivate, with q thousand things to do to make
wife and children comfortable, he requires
for his own active use every hour Of daylight
II the immigrant is starving and cannot
wait until his food comes out OF the
ground, he may win bread by working six
6ays in the week for the donor OF the land,
while on the seventh day he scratches the
soil so as to make, in time, few bushels OF
corn or a handful Of cotton. But this is not
the class OF immigrants we want. or that we
expect to obtain.
The second and third conditions are Who'll
" impracticable. We may dismiss the
second with the remark that, under it, an
immigrant could not exchange word with
negro. OF the third, it is enough to say
that the immigrant could not, by any agree
ment, strip himself Of his natural right to
appeal to the courts for redress, nor would
he forfeit his land by going into court in di-
rect opposition TO the terms of his agree
ment
The plan OF giving away surplus land to Sc
ect immigrants Is the best thatThe low coun-
try can adopt But the conditions should be
few and simple. The donors might stipu-
late that a just proportion Of the land should
be regularly cultivated; that none of the
land should be sold by the immigrant until
after the expiration Of certain number OF
years; that the land should not then he sold
except to certain class Of immigrants; but,
at the bottom of it all, should be the explicit
declaration that, after a stated time, ten
years for instance, the land should be held
by the immigrant in fee simple, and be, in
fact, as absolutely his property as though it
had been bought and paid for with his own
hard-earned money. Unless the immigrant
can sec his way out Of the woods, and can
look forward to the day when he can do as
he likes with his own, gift OF land will be
rather stunned than sought, by those whom
we most desire to attract into the State.