The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-25

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| epitbets applied to us by our enemies natu-
rally sevolves upon those who are the most
iniIred by them? II we assiduously devote
ourselves TO this work of reconstruoting the
reputation of the race by successfully prose-
cutting the work before us in this land, 1t need
not hereafter be told u.s. as If pointing out
| new fact that il we remain poor in country
rich by nature in the profusion of its produc-
tions, il must be great dishonor.
IL can never be sufficient for q few to be
! extraordinary exceptions to the race, for the
| ACQUISITION of the arts and sciences, general
intelligence, wealth, or any other di distinction.
But it should rather be ON exception that a
few should be found who had not SO distin-
guishe ed themselves.
This peninsula, as have stated, is to be
absolved from the disabilities of past ages
mainly by those whom God has identified
with it as its original inhabitants. For this
| cause, God, perhaps permitted the cruel
| slavery in foreign lands of our forefathers,
that we might return as the missionaries OF
| Christian civilization.
We have been poor people, from the
combination of number of causes operating
| against us, traceable to our inauspicious
antecedents, which had been intensified by
sordidly human agencies during the prolonged
| reign of unchecked wickedness in past times.
Still it becomes us to bear in mind that the
masses of mankind make no allowance for
| the disabilities under which we have labored,
and still do labor more or less, and which
| keep us back in a rich country. Nature,
without the assistance of art, has made our
country an acknowledged garden spot, which
garden the exactions of the judgments of
other nations demand that if we be not infe-
rior as q race, we shall improve to paradise
by labor, and by the application of the arts
and sciences. We must find wherewithal to
lay the foundation of an abiding negro
republic, whose perpetuity shall be
guaranteed by the general education
nations like individuals, cannot succeed
to any great distinction, unless industry,
perseverance, and straig ghtforwardness to-
wards all with whom, without distinction,
they shall chance to deal, be permanently
established prerequisites and active prin-
ciples.
We must adhere to the binding require
| ments of the Constitution; but such laws
should be enacted from time to time in the
progress of our development as shall encour-
age and invite foreign capitalists to make in
vestments in the country.
FINANCES.
very important policy which 1T will be
the earnest effort of the administration to
carry out relates to the regulation of the
| finances. We must guard against a recur-
| renee of an insuficiency of income to meet
| the expenses of the State, for where this is
| SO frequent as to establish large annual
| average against the republic, it is certain to
| lead to serious consequences. Our real
| danger lies not in the actual amount of debt,
| contracted as il has been thus far among our
own people, but in the rate of increase. If
there be no probability that the increase will
cease, there can be no security against ul-
| innate, perhaps early, bankruptcy. The GUS
| toms duties, our chief source of revenue, are
r. IL. loks
| increase of the consuming power of the
people. Advance in this branch of the reve-
nue. will depend upon the improvement of tho
people, native and Liberian, and upon those
additional facilities for the interchange of
commodities in the interior of which we shall
soon speak.
We must have sound par value currency.
Import and export duties should be paid in
the old currency and in gold and silver coin.
The old currency should be taken out of the
hands of the people, if they will consent to
take ''greenbacks" for it at par exchange,
upon the authority of q law which you may
think proper to pass; the holders of the said
currency making known the amounts they
severally possess. The aggregate amount of
it out is supposed to be between fifty and
sixty thousand dollars. This proposition car
ried out will considerably relieve the depressed
condition of our currency. 1 have no doubt
that the sum required for the aforesaid re-
demption in ''greenbacks" can be Sc
Gu. ed upon a loan of six per cent,
paying the interest in gold, and the
principal in a given time to be settled
by authority of an act of the Legislature
If we pray, nothing doubling, and exert our
selves, the money will come from somewhere,
either in ''greenbacks" or gold.
LABOR.
Know ye, friends, that the source of all
earthly riches is labor. When inteligently
and constantly pursued, whether by farmers,
mechanics, common laborers, DOCTORS law
yers scientific men, or men of literary or
mercantile pursuits, proper industry will
not fail to produce good living, if not sub
stantial fortunes.
The dignity of labor, then, is the means
, by which good faith in all our transactions
can be most nobly sustained; and it cannot
generally be national, unless it be COM
mon in the case of every man,
woman, boy and girl able to work.
, The ease and comfortable circumstances
5 which will speedily accrue to these laborers
, in a country rich by nature like ours will soon
drive all the drones out of the national
beehive.
If we can more fully organize, not to say
. inaugurate, a system of labor, our general
. prosperity must and will be sure. We shall
always have par value currency. / have
promised that the fifty or sixty thousand dol
+. lars of our old currency shall be, at least, on
: a par with American ''greenbacks," aud
further, St Shdls remain so. SO soon as a little
time shall have elapsed, this state of things
can be brought into being.
AS have remarked, the work which is tc
. be accomplished for the general prosperity Of
y | he tho xyirtr1a of tba md tb h.