The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-09-06

and between the two It resulted that the planters fell
over head aud ears in debt A great many OF them
regularly n year or more behndhand and IL
the crop-which Is precarious in this
State than others-failed or fell
short the factor took all and the laborers, employed
to great extent wages often lost all their pay, cx
cept what they had consumed during the year. / do
not doubt that in such loss and wrong fell
upon the negro aborer through the reckcssness dig
honesty of the planter, but | satisfied also that
much oftener the planter would have honestly paid If
lac could and that he well his workman, was the
victim OF bad business system his lack of cap
ita and Of business thrift 1t of the incidents
OF the reorganization OF labor basis in state
where the culture of cotton is less certainly renunera
i've than in more fertile regions To show you how the
lien law worked, here is statement made to Inc by "A
planter OF the charges which he had known
TO be paid for advances made by fac
tor He instanced to me the case Of
planter who required from his factor loan or advance
OF 50 900 TO make his crop. For this he paid per
cent per month, to which assured per cent
per annum was sometimes added, making really nine
teen per cent. Then the arrangement was that the
factor should buy all the planters supplies for him. and
for this service he charged him and half per cent,
aud billed the goods to him ut 'tlme prices which
added eight or ten per cent TO their cost Then the
and half per cent again should not have believed
such system possible had ! not precisely
the same thing regularly done by the sugar
planters in the Sandwich Islands two or
three years ago or course business except
the slave trade gould bear such drain Some planters
complained TO me that they could never get advances
from the banks who preferred lend to the factors
but this viii hardly surprise any business man. The
profits great enough for the bank and the factors
to divide.
One of the natural results of this system has been
discomfort among the negroes-the aborers who often
lost their wages At least % 900 of them have left the
State; and this emigration, which last year already
began to alarm the planters has not ceased. 1t has
been increased by other causes, of which will by and
by speak; but satisfied, from conversation with
leading colored men, that the lack OF prosperity here
and the well founded belief that they could do better
elsewhere has been OF its main
LIEN LAW.
The repeal OF the Lien law has course left the poor
and mprovident among the planters without credit and
they are naturally in poor spirits But they will pres
emily see that it is their salvation. Already they
planting than ever before They see that to
raise bread and enough tor their laborers will keep
them out of the hands of the factors More Will be
harvested in the region of Georgia this year than
in any year since the
nave gwen TINS statement or the industrial con-
diton of Georgia because it certain that many of the
incidents of Georgia society grow mainly out of the fact
that the State and particularly the planting region
Is far less prosperous than the cotton region OF Aran
sas Louisiana Mississippi and is so mainly for
the reasons have giventhe poverty of the SOIL the
precarousness of the in the far southern countless
where 1t is peculiarly exposed to the attacks of insects
and the poverty and unhrft of the planters That you
may not think have overstaed this lack of prosperity
give you here some figures from mercantile report,
which find in Georgia journal The business failures
in the State amounted IN the last six months to the
great of 2956,2l5. This is agreater loss by far
than is reported from any other Southern State greater
even than in South Carolina, the following figures
show. In fact Georga's liabilities double those Of
almost any other Southern State and more than ten