The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-01-17
IMMIGRATION.

The Norfolk Journal has an excellent
editorial, from which we extract the follow
ing:
The Virginian who goes northward or
westward, and returns to his home, is con-
WINGED that there is a serious deslderatum
of some sort, somewhere, that must be
supplied in Virginia. He has seen bright,
smiling, thrifty, growing villages and
towns in his travels !; he has seen cities
hourshing, expanding, full Of life, activity,
energy and busting business, on sites
where nature would not seem to have
selected them. He has seen manufactures
putting, and blowing and whizzlng and
whirling. He has seen commerce flourish
ing. He has seen small farms and large
crops. He has seen on ali sides evidences
of Improvement and signs Of thrift. And
when he comes back to Virginia, and looks
around on the abandoned old fields,
the wildernesses of woods, the decaying
villages, the sleepy towns, the cities that
are growing so slowly it is hard to perceive
that they are growing; when he compares
the soil, the climate, the water-power, the
rivers and bays and harbors of the North
and West with those Of our own State, he
knows that there is something wrong in the
industrial economy of Virginia. He knows
that our natural advantages are superior to
those he has seen SO protitably utilized else
where. He knows that our lands are as
rich, our mines as broad and deep and long,
and filled with minerals as valuable, our
streams running from the mountains as
well suited to factories, our rivers as lnylt-
ing to commerce, and our climate more
temperate, more agreeable, more healthful
and more attractive to immigrants from
Europe.
Why is it that Virginia is in the back
ground, while other States, newer States,
States inferior to her in all the resources
essential to wealth and strength, are mov-
ing upward and onward with wonderful
speed? 1t is simply because capital and
labor are wanting here because our popu-
lation is not in proportion to our territory ;
because the advantages with which nature
has blessed us are allowed to lie idle and
unimproved on account of the inability of
our own people to employ them to the high
est benefit Of which they will admit. The
remedy for all this is immigration. Let
us have such people from Europe as have
settled and are still settling in the Western
States, and Virginia will soon be seen in an
aspect very different from that she now
presents. Let our Legislature devise the
means of making known on the other side
of the Atlantic, the inducements that our
State affords to immigrants, and we shall
soon have men and money enough to i'm
part q new impetus to trade in all its
branches. Let us have immigration, and
we shall have State second to no other
State in enterprise, in progress, i'll pros
perity, in-wealth, in contentment.
With the opening of spring the immi-
grants will be coming again in thousands to
America. The West will be waiting to re-
ceve them but, with timely efforts on the
part of Virginia, thousands Of them can
be induced to seek settlements here in ouI
own State. The Legislature, we trust, will
push on the good work with energy, and
enact law that will meet the necessities
and wishes and expectations of the people