The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1871-08-03
From the Rural Carolinian for Augast.
How to Encourage Immigration.

From the Rural Cdrolinian for Augast.
How to Encourage immigration.
very much regret to learn from the address
to the German Society of Charleston, that the
Society has been called upon to assist German
emigrants to Newberry to get off to Walhalla,
in the upper part of the State, or to leave the
State altogether for the West. When 1 left
home, year and half ago, I hoped that the
landowners in Newberry had their eyes, sufi-
GENTLY opened to the necessity of introducing
intelligent and skilled labor from abroad to
have caused them to make the little nucleus OF
Germans they had received contented at any
hazard, as an inducement TO others to follow.
But it seems, from this report, that was mis-
taken. Our land owners have yet to learn,
what it seems ought to be manifest to the most
short-sighted, that if we would encourage emil
grafton we must give the emigrant an oppor-
tunity of bettering his condition. 1t is the
height of folly to suppose that Germans, or any
other class of emigrants. will leave their old
homes, and friends, and all that is dear to them,
and be content to settle down In South Carroll
ma as day laborers, and live on bacon and corn
bread. Everybody makes loud professions of
being anxious to induce emigrants to come into
our State If we really desire it, we must Of
fer opportunities for procuring land and per-
manent homes to those who come.
This brings me to one of the suggestions l
desire to make. 1t is that it would be a prof.
table investment to all our large landowners
to divide their lands into small tracts and ac-
tually give away, or sell at very low prices, al
ternate tracts to permanent settlers from the
North or from Europe. have no doubt, if
we could increase the population of South Car
olina, within the next five or ten years, twenty
to thirty per cent, with industrious emigrants,
that the prices of our lands would be enhanced
to more than double their present value.
Would not our landowners in this way be moro
than compensated for giving twenty to thirty
per cent. of their lands? We ought to have
an immigration society in every county, with
an energetic central society in Charleston.
Our planters should subscribe alternate Sec
tions of their lands to the society, and fix con-
ditions, one of which should be fixed residence
for, at any rate, q number of years. on the part
of the emigrant to whom it was given or sold.
Some arrangement should be made to facilitate
the procuring of supplies at reasonable rates
for the first few months. With such induce
ments, believe we could get emigrants in
large numbers. believe intelligent Northern
ers andsEuropeans would settle among us per
manently, be contented and prosperous, and in
evils we are now suffering from.
I have q special reason for offering these sug-
gestions at the present time. Peace is conclu-
ded between Germany and France. The his
tory of emigration to the United States shows
that it is always greatest for the two, three or
four years after great war. The wars of AS
'49 sent us the heavy emigration of '5Oe54.
The great war of 'G6 sent us the hundreds of
thousands of Germans of the last three years.
The great war of 10 will send us hundreds Of
thousands more for the next five years. Shall
not we of the South make some effort to profit
by it? am we'll aware that the tide of Ger
man emigration flows so strongly to the west
ward that it is difficult to turn its course or
even to snatch individuals from the current.
But two populous and highly enlightened prov
inces are being torn violently from France.
against the almost unanimous sentiments OF
the people. Emigration will most likely be
heaviest, for the next few years, from Alsace
and Lorraine, and they will rather avoid than
seek the German current Besides, they will
naturally seek more Southern climate, Here
seems to me to be chance for Virginia and
the Carolinas, Kentucky and Tennessee, that
ought not to be lost. Emigrants from those
provinces would be all We could desire. They
would be cultivators of the soil, wine-growers,
tobacco-growers manufacturers, etc., all that
we need to make our State prosperous. They
would have all the industry and thrift of the
German, but would suit us much better on ac-
count of the climate trust some earnest ef-
fort will be made to profit by this opportunity.
But would repeat, and urge it upon every
one, that all will be useless unless we can offer
the emigrants reasonable facilities for procu-
ring permanent homes. b. y. u.