The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-02-24
Letter from Colonel Frank q. Rufiin to
DIR. j. w. Wake, OF the House of
Delegates, on an Important Public
Matter,
SUMMER HILL, February -, 1873.

My Dear Sir-Will you allow me
who address you as my representative anc
my personal friend, to ask that you vii
see Mr.. ---, who learn is probably
one Of the most influential members of the
House, and get him to examine INTO the
q Iestlon discussed with you to-day, and
which you seemed to approve. | would
see Mr.. -- on the subject myssl, for
my relations with him are cordial, and
thereby save you the trouble, but for one
thing, which you who know me will UNDER
stand and appreciate and that is the ex-
treme reluctance with which l breach to
any one subject on which my personal
interest may be supposed to form my
opinions.or bias my judgment. know in
modern times this may be considered fas-
tidiousness, but in an earlier day it would
have been thought to be only proper deli
cacy and decorum. do not quarrel with
the new fashion: but | am to old to follow
it.
Colonel VIM. Lamb, the agent of the
Allan line of steamships, proposes to dis
tribute gratuitousy in Great Britain and
Ireland, and on the continent of Europe,
through the two thousand agents that the
line employs, as many copies as may be
monthly sent to them of periodical devo-
ted to the industrial interests of Virginia,
provided certain proportion of that Jour-
nal shall be appropriated exclusively to
such matters as may inform and invite i'm
migrants. The journal of Industry,
monthly paper owned and published in
Richmond, by responsible proprietors,
proposes, either at Colonel Lambs sugges-
ton or of its own motion, to the Virginia
legislature that if they will pay,
on behalf of the state, for gwen
number of copies of their journal
at cost, and will further subscribe
one-half, to VIII: 81 900, towards the sala-
ry of an editor Of the special department,
that then the propretors OF the Jour-
nal will devote the agreed proportion, say,
for instance, six pagt out of sixteen, folio,
to what we may call immigrant matter.
will forward the agreed number of copies
monthly to Colonel Lamb or any other
agreed agent of the line, and will pay the
other half of the salary OF the special editor.
1t will be borne in mind that from the
very character ofThe journal all matter
will be of more or less use and interest to
an Immigrant. as all will be industrial, and
Q large part advertisements and thus the
State will get necessarily more than it bar.
gains for, and the citizens be correspond
ingly benefited.
The cost to the state will be 81 900 sal
airy and about SIS, 900 to $4,000 cost of
papers purchased, being only 5000 more
than the amount asked for in the report
of the committee on immigration.
Without any agency or solicitation on
my part, direct or indirect, without any
knowledge even that such an enterprise had |
been projected, | find myself invited to |
become the. immigrant editor, and have
agreed to take the place if It shall be Cree
ated, because think can fill it.
The advantage of sending reliable in
formation of this character abroad once a |
month, thus keeping up continuous sup
ply of fresh information, will not pretend |
to argue with a man of intelligence nor |
the superiority of this mode Of dlstrlbu.
ting information over the plan of one cheap |
pamphlet, as proposed by the House COM
mittee of immigration In the very par
tial canvass that have made in the legls-
lature | find this fully admitted without
one dissenting voice.
In fact, / have heard but two objections
to the scheme. The first is that It lacks
official sanction and that the thing needs
the sanction of board of immigration.
The second is that the legislature will not |
vote 80 large an amount of money.
AS to the first, have to say that the |
official sanction can attach by simply max
ing the immigrant editor the comm IS ouer
of immigration. charged with this special |
duty land for the present with very few
other duties, because there will be yet
awhile very little else to do). Such ap-
pointment will authorize the use of the |
broad seal of the commonwealth as fully |
as if the appointee were required to SUBJ
init his work to the censorship or revision |
of board, whose other diverse and multi |
farious duties must unfit them for the dis |
charge of this one which will require
special and laborious application. Though,
to tell the truth, think the requisite sane
ton will be assured by the election of the
editor.
As to the cost of it, have to say that |
not only is it the cheapest plan of getting
that amount of reliable information dis |
tributed abroad, through as influential and |
difusive an agency as the periodical press,
but that if 1t cost much more it would be |
money wisely expended for an object of |
such paramount Importance that none but |
blind constituency could object to the
outlay.
1t cannot fail to have attracted your at
tention, that whilst the farmers of Virginia
have nothing but land with which to meet
existing and current obligations that this
fund is daily decreasing in market and pro-
ductive value neither can you have failed
to observe that our population, especially
the able bodied portion of it, is daily
leaving US. Weare all agreed that the sole
and single remedy for this double and
growing evil is the introduction into our
state of men from abroad able to buy and
competent to till our lands, with cash to
pay for the labor they will find here.
The admitted necessity of the
speedy application of this remedy is
obviously increased by the introduction
into our markets through the Chesa-
peake and Ohio railroad of precisely those
which have heretofore been the main pro-
ducts Of our agriculture. Already l have
been witness to the fact that one of the |
strongest and ablest commission houses of |
Richmond has sent an active agent to soil
cit consignments of that kind, and | have
conversed with an agent of a Kanawha
firm sent here to make engagements for the |
sale of corn, oats, and wheat. 1t is plain |
that if that competition, reducing prices in
Virginia as 1t inevitably must DO, is met by |
no countervailing measures that that great |
improvement must work US great present
injury. And the only countervail will be
found in the sale and subdivision of our