The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1870-11-30
The Labor Question.

The Labor question.
In view OF the fact that the freedman has utterly
failed TO meet =" the requirements of the situation,
and disappointed the expectations and predictions OF
his so called friends is needfu that planters should
have an eve to the procurement of labor that will, if
entirely supplaht at least by competition, place
him in such dependent position as to force reeos-
milton of the demands of labor and OF the necessity OF
complying with contracts formally entered into 1t is
the experience of all planters that their employees have
the present year. been htess and incident than
they were during the last year. which is plainly evil
dent from the quantity of cotton yet in the fields
This is not only the in this region but throughout
the South. In portions of Arkansas that we have
lately heard FROM the large planters scarcely average
bale of gathered cotton to the hand while the fields
are white with the wasting staple, and this not"th
standing the favorable fall for picking. Planters are
forced to pet and caress the freedmen and moreover
absolutely fear to refuse them any request they may
make in the way of advances. The result is, before
the year half the freedman has drawn and squan-
dered his probable portion of the crop, and so with bis
utter disregard of moral obligations feels the balance
of the year, that he will be working for nothing, and
works. or ratheri refuses to work, accordingly. We
have heard of frequent instances in this parish OF
planters refusing to advance money to buy mustangs,
which are worse than useless plantation, but were
finally forced to it by some kind neghbor telling the
freedmen that if they would live with him, he would
furnish them with horses. So, planter must comply
with the most unreasonable demands fail to get Ia
Dor another year. In other words, from the dread Of
having his land and teams, his only source of profit,
left idle on his hands the planter slowly but surely
ruins himself in complying with the unreasonable de.
mands of the freedmen.
And to their nprovidence is, in great part, due the
present condition of the country in financial point
of view. They receive AL undue portion of the pro-
ceeds of the crops, and squander them upon trihes
Thus it is we see the anomalous state of things, that
right on the heel of good cotton crop and for which
high prices received, there is greater complaint
of striugency in the money market than at any time
since the surrender.
Nor is there any prospect of change for the bet
ter but on the contrary, fair prospect of one for
the worse. The question, then, comes home to US,
how to replace the negro, supply the needed slim
illus to his thriftless disposition"
Our immediate attention is called to this subject by
an article in the New Orleans Pcayune 1t very Justly
says:
The number of the freed people averse to laboring
in the field is growing-and let no man dream it will
not continue to grow-while those who remain avail
able can be made only on terms nearly ruinous to
the planter and as il this were enough, they too
often repudiae their contracts engagements at
the critical season, frequently to their own loss
as we'll that of the planter. Whether it be on
shares, the land rented whatever be the nature
of the contract the planter is liable to be the losing
party. A system such this must ultimately prove
system of ruin matter how teeming and varied the
resources of the soil and propitiouS the cline. Capt.
tal Skill experience and enterprise will seek other
fields if less fruitful, rather than remain to
render labor the lions share of the harvest con-
nue to the risk of losing entire through the in
difference of that labor to the moral obligations of
contract and its own first interests.
After giving general glance at the situation and
urging upon the planters the absolute necessity of tax
ing action in the premises, the writer thus
cudes, with suggestion which heartily endorse,
but which fear there will not be energy and enter
prise enough among the planters to carry out:
Whether our diminishing ranks of agricultural la
borers, shall be recruited from the border Southern
States where the hardy Caucasian husbandman is daily
suppanting the freedman from Cbnas teening and
frugal peasant hordes from those thrifty and agrcu
turiss, the Canadians; from Southern Italy, the
pleasant land of France" whose children find here
second mother land questions for common consid-
Grafton between those most competent to decide. As
we have said aim at least for the present. only to
draw the serious attention of our planters the agr
cultural situation regard the prospect far from
reassuring. The freedman does not up to the
requirements. He has been tried in all possible ways
has been INDUCED and humored; tried day aborer
on shares, and as tenant, and in each case terms
that would in few years, render European peasant
independents but the general experience is dsappont
ment and pecuniary loss with msgvings to the fu
ture. radical change must be had, if Louisiana is
| not to be allowed to become another Jamaica Our
planters should take time by the forelock They
most nearly, though all vitality, concerned as
they best understand their grievances and the needed
remedy. convention of planters to deliberate upon
the situation should be held at early day. Indiyid
ual effort accomplish but little and that of an
evanescent character We would suggest to our inte-
rior contemporaries that they urge upon planters
the holding of convention at early day, to devise
and ways Of securing the needed labor supply