New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-09-19

Succession of John c. Culbertson opened

Southern Land.
We have repeatedly referred to the fail.
ure of the South to take any practical steps
toward the division of its soil among the
masses as one of the surest signs of the
decay of statesmanship in that section
There are plenty of precedents in French
and German legislation, but they are all I'M
improved and probably unknown to the
men who chatter State sovereignty and shut
their eyes to State selt-destruetion. While
an American community may well shrink
from the extreme government tai interference
involved in such measures, laws, providing
| for the ready transfer of landed property
and enforcing It's division in cases of intest
acy would surely not be open to this ohjec-
| ton, and would tend to bring about that era
of small farms which will be the era oi ros
| perity for the impoverished South v her
| the Tribune first urged these facts upo.
public attention an indignant planter in
| Arkansas wrote us that we were wholly
| ignorant OF what We were trying to write
about, because, forsooth, he had already
| sold palt of his lands to six negroes. Even
journalistic Omniscience might be par.
doned for not keeping an eye upon every
individual Southern farmer The trouble
ia that the remainder of our CORE
spondents class have not done like him.
We are glad to see, however, that our
articles are not without effect. Sou h.
erners are becoming alive to the absolute
necessity of inviting immigration. Some
of the richest land in the world lies alb
solutely idle because the impecunious
planter can not bear to strip himself of
part of his ancestral acres for the sake of
MAKING the rest profitable. Other land.
capable OF yielding heavy crops under the
care, industry and skill that peasant pro-
prietorship always calls forth, is barren
now for the same reason. There are vast
plantations in nearly every Southern State
which would pay their embarrassed owners
tar better if they were cut up in small farms
and every other farm we're given away.
Some slight conception of this trath seems
to be stirring in Southern brains. Alabama
has made really hopeful beginning. 1t
has board of immigration. which is appa-
rently doing good work. Two years ago a
Germany colony was founded in fertile
| section. The land it occupied was then
| worth ten or fifteen cents an acre 1t now
| brings 81 to So. The land occupied paid the
| State in 1872 81 30 of annual taxes. 1t
| now pays Sll00. The colony is rapid "
growing, and several profitable branches of
| industry have been introduced.
| Georgia and Texas have both done some
| thing in the way of promoting immigration.
| Proies sor Francis A. Walkers maps show
that parts of Texas are as thickly settled
| by foreign born citizens as Illinois is. In
| South Carolina an unfortunate beginning
| W so Aho tnApuyCio Soh Ch'ioD VI
last year appointed an immigration com
missioner, but the debates in the conven-
ton showed that INN grants were wanted
for their voting capacity. and were looked
upon as sort of superior cattle, who could
be ruled politically as the poor whites were
before the war. Despising labor is not the
way to allure labor. The press of the Pal
metto State is now taking more sensible
| view of the situation. and is encouraging
immigration by every means within its
| power.
As matters stand now the average South
| ern planter is in the hands of the factor, >
who loans him money on the pledge OF his
future crop, and generally manages to alb
sorb nearly, if not quite, all the profits, SC
| that the planter works for hare subsist'
ence, and sometimes runs in Debt for that
If he should sell half or three.quarters OF
| his land to his ex-siaves at low rates and on
installments, he could probably cultivate
the rest without borrowing money, and
would make the profits for himself. nor fol
the fact IL There would be a vast increase
in the aggregate crops, and the South would
at last produce for herself the wealth she sc
| sadly lacks.-ChicugO Tribune