Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1870-11-25

success only foreshadows what the in
fuence and importance of the Cape Fear
Agricultural Association will be in very
leading industrial and social feature of our
section It has the sympathy and must
have til } support of all good citizens
southern Skill and Enterprise.
The ideal immigrant that many people
who listen with too much credulity to the
whispers of fancy, paint to themselves as
the coming man to redeem the South is a
Yankee, with head full of brains, pocket
full Of specie, skilled to labor, cunning in
machinery, to say nothing of the music of
his voice, the grace in all his movements,
and the dignity in his eye, ready to adorn
with equal grace the workshop, the corn
ield or the parlor. This is the gentleman
who is 10 come among US and teach us how
to plant and how to hoe, how to plant and
how to harvest. We may be pardoned for
saying we do not expect to derive much
advantage from the muscle of this ideal
than brain. We are oldfogy and South
ern enough to think our planters know as
much about their business as any Yankee
can tell them. We are not followers of
the fashion to extol Northern and to decry
Southern intelligence and progress. It is
said there is scarcely single instance in
the whole South where, since the war.
Northern man has planted cotton sue
cessfuiIy.
We have not, III view of oil the facts of
the case, been able to see any ground for
the constant depreciation of Southern
pluck, enterprise, skill, energy and in
dustry that is SO common in the mouths of
so many of our people. But we happen
to have an authority on this point more
potent with this class of syeophantic croak
ers than any opinion we can advance.
The opinion of Mr.. WELLS, in his official
report as Special Commissioner Of Revenue,
upon the industry, trade, commerce, &c,
of the United States for the year 1869, and
published by order Of Congress, will be
more potent than anything we may say.
These are days of strange events. of won
derful mutations. What man would have
been regarded as sane who, in the year
1865, would have predicted that in less
than five years the United States Govern
ment would rely upon the products of the
desolated, devastated fields of the South,
upon the skill, the energy, the industry
and the intelligence Of @ homeless, house
less. starving people, whose sons were all
prisoners of war, for the peans Of paying
off at an early date an indebtedness so vast
that its enumeration in figures conveys no
idea to the human, finite mind When
we look back aud see what, ender SO great
disadvantages, We have accomplished,
when we remember that during period of
only Eve years, in which no man could, on
his unencumbered real estate alone, borrow
even one per cent. OF lis admitted value,
our people have progressed from the point
of starvation to almost plenty, we are lost
in admiration.
Here is what Mr.. Commissioner WELLS
says in his official report. The truthful
ness of his picture of the South aud the
remarkable admission he makes must serve
as our apology for quoting at such length.
Remember, Mr.. WELLS is Northern man
and United States officer: "But no one
circumstance pertaining to the history of
the past more strikingly illustrates the
extent of the resources of the country and
the energy of its population than the re-
cent industrial resuscitstion and develop
ment of the South. Ia 1866 this section
of our country. which in 1860 represented
nearly one-third Of the entire population,
and emitting the value Of the slaves.
nearly two-sevenths of the aggregate wealth
of the nation, found itself, as the result of
four years Of civil war, entirely PROSTATE ;;
without industry, without tools, without
money, credit or crops; deprived of
local self government and, to q great ex-l
tent. of all political privileges; the flower
of its youth in the hospitals, or dead upon
the battle-felds, with society disorganized,
and starvation imminent or actually pres
emit. Furthermore, the first efforts of the
people of the South to improve their con-
dition were also in the highest degree els
couraging. During the years 1866 and
1867 the crops, both of cotton and grain,
were, to very great extent. failures. The
freedmen were not disposed to work for
ire; demanded excessive wages, and ac-
cepting them, too often rendered poor
service. The general result OF all attempts |
to revive production seemed, therefore, up
TO 1868, to leave both freedman and plant +!