Weekly Trinity journal., 1869-08-07
Coolie Labor at the South.

The convention at Memphis upon the subject
of importing Chinese labor to take the place of
that OF the African, was but repetition of the
many very bombastic exhibitions which are
chronic in. that region. All the ex-Generals and
ex-Colonels, and exGovernors, ard ex-Honora-
bles of every degree figure at these conventions
and crate upon the necessity of rebuilding the
South, but in no convention yet held has there
been man who has had the good sense to tell
the people to go to work themselves.
A convention held in Memphis but few weeks
ago resolved, in the name of all the various
Commercial and Industrial interests of the South
ern States, and they heartily favored, "as one
of the most powerful means of developing the in
exhaustible resources (of the South), the influx
of capital and labor from the Northern States n
and it pledged welcome to Northern emigrants,
and full and complete protection of the laws to
life, liberty and property. Thus they asked for
the free white labor of the Yankees, the Irish,
the Germans and Scandinavians, to cultivate
their fields and gather their crops.
But hardly had the stentorian eloquence of that
convention ceased to be heard before another
convention was called, and has since been held,
for the purpose of importing untold thousands
of Chinese, who are to do all this development
| of inexhaustibe resources for nothing. Two
men who have been in the Chinese coolie trade
were present, and offered to make contracts for
| the supply of any number of laborers, whereat
the old slave interest became enthusiastic and
jubiliant once more.
Right here, and before this coole trade pro-
ceeds any further, the gentlemen from the South,
whose highest ambition is to wax fat and strong
upon the unpaid labor of other people, should
fully understand that there never can again be
in this country any labor which is not essentially
and really free. The trade in coolies is not a
new one. 1t has been carried on ia Cuba and
Brazil and in other places, and if anything could
be worse than slavery it has been the coole sys-
tenn in those countries.
That system never be tolerated in the
United States, and Southern people may as wei
understand that fact now as to learn it hereafter
| in q more expensive form. There is no objec
ton to the introduction of labor from China o.
| elsewhere but that labor must remain free. NJ
concentrator be allowed to introduce tel
thousand laborers and sell their labor for tern
of years. at so much per head, to be paid to him
No contracts of that kind, being nothing les
than a revival of slavery and the slave trade
will ever be tolerated by the American people
1t has cost too much to get rid of slavery in on
form to permit it be revived in another. Th
horrible cruelties of the coolie system in Cuba
and elswhere, will never be permitted in thi
country, and every laborer in the United States
| of whatever color or race, shall be free 10 asl
for his labor whatever value he may put on it
and unless paid that sum go elsewhere. free o
all contracts binding him to service and labo
for life term of years. If the Southern peo
pie wish to employ Chinese labor on these terms
they may do so, but never as poems or as slaves
TO any extent.
The hostility of the South to free labor is ont
of the reasons why its ''i inexhaustib!e re-
sources remain undeveloped. That develop
ment can never be made, except by the hand o
free labor, owning and controlling the soil il
cultivates. So long the Southern people
cling to the idea that they can have their labor
performed for nothing, and by population Of
serfs, poems, coolies, slaves, SO long the South
will remain comparatively unpeopled and three
fourths of its territory a stranger to the hand o.
| industry. Chicago Tribune.