The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1870-01-18
Immigration.

What this State should avoid above all
things is forced gration-one that
is attended with such profits to those en-
gagged in Transporting men from other lands
and vomiting them upon our shores, as
will make them altogether Indifferent as to
what sort of people they Introduce into this
country. TO such agencies the wrctched
raupers and criminals and ticket-of-leave
men will be as good as any other class of
men, They will rake society, and take
anything they can drag from it-such i'll
weeds and trash rs may cling to their
searching implements.
Now, Virginia would better wait-pa-
ticntly wait-for the voluntary inflow
ing population, which have something of
energy and ambition, and some of them
Il little of means, and who have intclli
gent IDEAS as to how they are to better
their condition, and an appreciation of
the peculiar advantages of this State
for the promotion of individual thrift
and happiness. Let us especially remem-
her that we are not to expect that we are
to haye class doomed to labor like asses
between whom and any chances of eleva-
ton there is Chinese wall which cannot
be passed either by leaping or under
mining. No, we must now have labor
that is not separated from other walks OF
life. Its followers must have unrestricted
opportunities for elevation in the social
scale. And the State will be all the better
off that this freedom and equality exists,
provided the laborer belongs to the
same type of man with those filling the
higher places, and we hope the day is not
distant when this will be the case in Virgil
mia.
That man who thinks only of getting Ia
borers into Virginia is short-sighted and
unphilosophic. The laborer that now will
come from abroad into Virginia will be the
father of the law-maker and the judge
or he will be the robber and the ut-throat.
The forced immigration bestows upon us
the latter; the leaving of things to their
regular and natural course gives us the
former. Which would you PREFER? Shall
we have the well-ordered and thrifty labor
of good and industrious people who have
ambition and pride enough to seek ever
their own elevation and happiness, or shall
we have that of the dregs and refuse of
other lands, insensate beings, stimulated by
no virtuous ambition, and restrained from
crime by no sense of right or honor3 How
would Virginia gentleman be pleased to
trust to the latter class? It would be O
Door reward for his confidence in that class
to have his house riAed and his throat cut
some fine morning when the sun rose
brightly and the birds sung sweetly in the
woodbinc that adorned his portal. Weneed
hardly refer to instances of the utter inefi-
cheney of the labor of this of-cast pauper
population of Europe. We have had enough
of them already in this State, and we may
thank Providence that thus far no throats
have been cut. But both on the north and
south side of James river it has been tested
and found utterly demoralized and unre-
liable.
Virginia had better have none at all than
the wretched mass that would likely be
gathered together by any system that may
by styled /" forced" ...
What we want, we repeat, is reliable and
good men-men who work for promotion
who may become proprietors of the soil
slavery is dead here)-and, again, men
who come in with means and are able to
= buy land and to cultivate it, and to add, by
their industry and art, much to the aggre-
gate production of the Commonwealth.
This sort Of population is desirable-it. will
increase the power and dignity of the
State. Any other kind will bring upon us
untold evils, and we warn the people. of
Virginia not to be too eager about imraigra-
ton, for they will then be in danger of
getting many more of the least desirable
sort than Of that only kind which we should
welcome to our State.
Let us remember that the attractions Of