Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-05-23
Golden Opportunity for Capital and
Labor


New York Bullstin.l
The Southern States, for the first
time since the war, are now restored
absolutely to Self-government.
They have now the management of
their own affairs in their own
hands. The political ferment and
in the incessant chickering's between
opposing races, which have been
their almost every day history these
past fifteen years or more, are hap
PLY no longer operative, and to-day
it may safely be said there is no
part of the country where law and
order are better maintained than
there. Under this changed condi-
ton Of affairs capital and labor
have rare opportunity. The for
mer, we know, is proyerbially
timed, and the latter rarely leaves
old grooves of its own volition;
but it will be strange if the induce
ments which these States are now
holding out do not put courage
into the one. and fresh enterprise
into the other.
At time when idle capital was
rarely so abundant and profitable
investments never so scarce, and
when complaints as to a surplus of
skilled and unskilled labor are heard
throughout the North and East, it
is worth while to be at some pains
to ascertain what these induce
ments are really worth. The jour
mails that come to us from the gulf
States have constant applications
for money and men to be employ d
in various agricultural, manufac-
turing. mining and commercial un-
dertakings. In the border States
there are also attractions in that
respect which ought not to be un-
derrated. In Louisiana sugar and
rice plantations can be bought al
most as cheaply as at the close of
the war. In Texas cattle raising
promises large and sure returns for
the investment of capital, as like
wise its rapidly growing farming
interests. In Georgia, Alabama
and Mississippi numerous manu-
featuring enterprises are under way,
but languishing for the very suste-
nance which Northern capital and
Northern skilled labor can supply.
The colored man in those States,
Notwithstanding all that has been
said on the contrary, does not de-
yelop well as skilled laborer.
Brought up as a field hand, his old
habits naturally cling to him in
spite of himself; and though here
and there he can devote himself to
the preliminary painstaking to
qualify himself for mechanical or
skilled labor, his total efforts in that
way we are led to infer do not
amount to a great deal.
There is urgent demand in all
these States for the right kind of
Northern immigration to make up
for this deficiency, and if some sys-
tematic endeavor were made by the
Southern people themselves to make
known to the labor organizations
in our great cities the advantages
they have to offer, we are inclined
to think it would result in mutual
advantage. We are not unaware
that something Of this kind was at
tempted without success a few years
ago by the labor bureaus at Mem
phis, New Orleans, Charleston, Sa-
vannah, and other points; but that
failed chiefly because of the then
unsettled condition Of the country,
and resulting discouragemeuts
which attended almost every effort
to revive commercial and industrial
enterprise. The time is propitious
now for the reorganization of these
agencies, and for disseminating
such information in regard to the
inducements which particular To-
cahties are prepared to present as
will attract the attention Of the
capitalists as well as the emigrant.
There is something supremely
absurd to be told of American me-
chanics and artisans and industri-
our people of small means emigrat-
ing to Australia and the yet COM
paratively new countries on the
Pacific, when within a few hours
travel of New York, a region is to-
day awaiting re-development, with
climate for salubrity, with towns
and cities containing all the con-
ditions of advanced civilization, and
with railroads and rivers aflording
easy access to home and foreign
markets. country suffering sim
ply from the impoverishment en-
tailed by civil strife and a pro-
tracted period of bad government,
but susceptible now to the speedy
recuperation by the means we have
indicated.
We repeat, the opportunity is a
tempting one for labor alike, and
unless our countrymen North aNd
East have quite lost their old-hme