The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1871-01-29

The tragedy which recently took place in
an interior parish, wherein one of the most
respectable planters Of the neighborhood
was killed by another in a quarrel about q
negro mans services, cannot be viewed as
q merely ISOLATED incident. It is really the
elimination of q spirit which pervades the
whole agricultural community of the Stat6
in . greater or less degree, the type, ON an
exaggerated scale, Of feelings which do not
generally take shape in 60 pronounced q
form.
Our system Of labor may now beproperly
termed the cut-throat system. Planters
bid for labor and over-bid one another for
it until wages reach point which leaves
nothing for the employer. This is but an
other shape of gambling. People are SO
allured by the prospect of prices for cotton
or sugar that they lose sight of q possible
decline and of the unreasonableness of the
wages which they are willing to pay as a
preliminary to the crop. Instead of mea-
surfing wages by the worth of labor, they
estimate them by the supposed price to be
obtained for their crop. Hence the plant
ers of this State are said to be, as a general
thing, on the verge of bankruptcy.
In South Carolina things are managed
differently. Either because there is more
esprit de corps among the planters or be-
cause negroes are far more plentiful than
here, the demand for their services is by no
means so frantic. We see by their local
papers that prime hands get from S5 to 81
per month, while here they can easily make
$25 to $50. This is an evil which fortu-
nately must correct itself pretty soon, for
these greedy gentlemen will soon be needy
ones if they keep on with their insane
policy, too much SO to give employment to
anybody, thus leaving the labor market
open to men of sense, who are not willing
to gamble in it.
Not only do these high prices far exceed
the value of negro labor, which was only $40
or $12 per month as slaves, and, of course,
is worth considerably less now, but it has
the direct effect of making it unreliable
and scarce. Negroes, as general thing,
do not wish or expect to lay up anything;
they look merely to the wants of the hour,
and will work until they arc supplied, but
no longer. Give them extraordinarily high
wages and instead of working more they
work less. You can can make no definite
contract with them. They are too indie
pendent to make such contract, and, even
if made, they would not keep it. Whether
these characteristics belong to their race or
their condition we shall not undertake to
say, but no one can deny their existence.
Unfortunately our white population have
encouraged them in these procffvities by
an unwise and indicate eagerness to Sc
cure their labor. So far does this go that
the common courtesies due among neigh
bors are often forgotten. Men who leave
one plantation under suspicious circum-
stances are received and welcomed on the
next. Indeed sometimes they are enticed
away; to the violation of their contracts
and the neglect of their debts. The result
of this policy is in the first place the COM
plete decentralization of the laborefs, who
become indolent, unreliable and dishon est.