The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1869-02-24


~ tho court--the fourth Mondayin March
when think in all probability this oft
continued case will be tried. ..
v,rstrta-Her state Debt-The ssNew
Movement - Immigration - Her
Destiny and that Of the Nation.
Correspondence OF the Richmond Dispatch,
NEW YORK, February Is, 1869.
Five months ago took the liberty of adj
dressing you some communications having
reference TO immigration " and your
State debt. The confidence then ex-
pressed that your State bonds would i'm
Drove has not been belied by what has
taken place since. The ex-coupons stood
5l1b at the time, and they are now between
81 and SIS, otter payment of the July ls6S)
coupon; and the new bonds, which have
IS per cent. interest accumulated upon
them, are now about 62, instead of 81 in
September. The registered stock flags be-
hind, it is true, but will eventually COM
mand az much So the ex-coupons.
The fact is, that capitalists in this city
and in Baltimore, as well as in Europe, seem
of opinion that new era IS daWnlng on
your State and on the border States gene
rally. Your "new movement" as you
very properly call it, is of course much
applauded by those interested in your eVl-
dences of Indebtedness. None OF the bond
holders, am sure, regret that you have re-
manned unreconstructed thus far. The en-
bryo state, politically speaking, in which
YOU have remained pending the advent
Of General Grants administration most peo-
nile out of Virginia think has been the very
best that could have befallen you while the
chaotic state of affairs in and about Con-
qress and in the Legislatures of the recon-
structed States existed.
The troubled waters are gradually sub
siding, and the rainbow Of more placid
future dimly pierces the scattered clouds OF
political fanaticism.
Democrats though many of us may be,
we all, without distinction, hail the advent
TO the helm of State Of General Grant, the
great pacifcator. This country, and espe-
oially YOU border States, require plain,
honest men like the two Generals that have
held command OF Richmond while you were
and are in state of transition.
There is, therefore, a very robust faith in
YOUR immediate future, both among Ameri-
cans and among us foreigners at the North.
Your new movement is the first STEP and
if the wise men who initiated It, and who
mean to carry il to gloriously successful
achievement of the patriotic aim they are
striving for-your political, moral, and ma
terial regeneration-are properly supported
by the people at large your status will i'm
prove SO rapidly that the happy change will
take yourselves and your well-Wishers by
surprise. Your Legislature in session, your
finances placed On o solid footing by an
arrangement fair and equitable with West
Virginia as regards her honest share of the
debt, and have no doubt measures will be
taken by the State to establish q liberal
immigrant fund.
Your State will have to create State i'm
migrant agencies in Richmond, in New
York, at Liverpool, Havre, and Bremen,
and sub-agencies will have to be establish
ed on the Continent and in Ireland.
For bona fde immigrants bonus of at
least ten dollars per head--man, woman,
and child-will have to be secured to the
agents to whom they are traccable, to be
paid, of course, only after the immigrants
Shall have been settled On the lands for two
years at least.
The State will have to be ready to assist
the immigrants with something like fifty
dollars head to buy seeds and implements
and do the needful for shelter and fencing.
This cannot be done without certain taxes,
that may have to be levied in q quarter
which it would be impolitic in me to alude
to now already, and an issue of tive-year
six per cent. immigrant-aid bonds by the
State may, besides, become necessary. But
these bonds would sell at favorable rate,
think, as they would be q lien on the pro-
perty improved by the immigrant who is
benefited by the State aid. ~#.-
Your State has no lands to give away, |
am aware; but there are plenty of land
owfers, | am sure, who will sell him as
much as he can cultivate on ninc-years'
term, or they will 60 half-shares with him.
The value of q white immigrant who
either settles down on land and improves it,
or who is 8 plain mechanic or laboripg man,
is oman, woman, and child,) set down at
about thousand dollars head, to start
with. But besides their capacity Of labor
and consumption, good many Of them
bring along money, or they have inherit
ances in immediate prospect, and the money
is sent to them as they 60 on extending their
operations.
I allude to what will have to be done
merely to show how desirable it would be
were you to have an election soon, so that
your newly organized State Government
may take the necessary steps 10 enter the
lists Of competition for immigrants which
will be opened, Immediately on completion
of the Pacific railroad, between the Atlantic
and Pacific States.
If Virginia is earnestly bent on replacing
the emigrating negro, whose tendency is
southwark, by the white, Woodworking i'm
migrant, she has to take in hand this mat
ter largely and generously; and if there is
anything that will pay hundred, nay, e
thousand-fold, it will be the State aid al
luds to. ILL ..
Reducing things to figures, always the
most practically demonstratiye and persua-
sive, and calling each immigrant-nan,
woman, and child-to be worth 81 200 to
begin with, l think with proper State aid
you may attract, on an average, 10000 hui
man, being per annum during the next ten
years, representing an annual gain to the
State of SIC, 100000.
The real estate appreciation in Richmond
and oil overthe State would be just as sudden
and extraordinary as it was in California
in 1850, and as has been again the case in
the Mission Dolores " near San Francisco
quite recently, when real estate there i'm
proved ten-fold in ten months.
But there is deeper moral and political
motive that should inspire you people of
the South to cast aside ell notions Of preju-
dice, jealousy, and false pride, and bury in
deep oblivion all bitterness and remem-
brance Of a past never to return, and that
is the great future you will conquer in this
great Union within the next ten years.
The Government Of this great nation, that