St. Landry democrat., 1879-05-17
Differing Edeas upon Southern
Labor.

We have seen some sensible letters
from the country parishes to the late
New Orleans papers touching upon the
colored exodus to Kansas and regard
ing it by no means as an unmltlgated
evil. The writers speak OF the careless
and inefficient work Of the unskilled
colored laborer, his want Of thrift, the
difficulty in inducing him to use the
modern improvements in farm imple-
ments, and his neglect of them when
used his tendency to i'll treat or neglect
domestic animals, and the rack and ruin
of all things in his charge. They con-
tend that the white planter ilfthe midst
of this unprogressive system becomes
unprogressive himself, clings to the old
traditions and though the relations OF
master and slave no longer exist, yet he
is quite content to accept the existing
order of things without exercising judg-
ment and energy to alter them for the
better.
SO far VIC 60 with these writer's, but
no further. Their plans for amending
these evils do not seem to us feasible
They take it for granted that the re-
mOval of the cOlored element would in
stantly bring an influx of white laborers
from the North and West. That is very
doubtful for it would depend upon q
remote contingency that the planters
|, IN, ~
of their dearly beloved land. Such
men as we want here, intelligent, indus
trious and energetic, always work with
view of accumulating property and
sitting at some time under their own
vine and fig tree. The kind of vassalaec
to the soil which ploughs, that others
may garner would not suit them in the
least. So, unless the planters abate
somewhat of what the Germans call
"turf hunger" a kind of unreasoning
love for soil, which they cannot cultivate
and which lies waste, we are not like
ly to have white immigration to any
extent to the South. The class of pco-
pie who M ght come, would be willing
to brave the perils of acclimation and
develope the resources of the coun-
try with home in view, but certainly
not otherwise. Moderate wages will
not tempt them to this climate, and we
have little hope that the planters will
offer them the only inducement which
would bring any number to the South.
But there are numbers of unemployed
men here, acclimated too, who might
turn to agriculture with decided advan-
tage to themselves, as we'll as the country.
They crowd into cities to get some
pitiful clerkship, which hardly keeps
soul and body together; they lazily
terd together at street corners; they
are lawyers and doctors who have made
up their minds to starve genteelly in a
learned profession, instead OF making
an independent livelihood by manual
labor. There are myriads of these
individuals all over the South, whose
time is their sole possession and it would
be good thing for them, and the COM
munities in which they live, if they
would fill up the ranks of labor depleted
by immigration.
1t is a sud thing for a country to de-
pend upon foreign element to open up
it's resources-in fact to be entirely
helpless without it-when there is ma
terial enough lying around idle and
loose9to restore more than lost pros
perity. Until the South learns to utilize
her own sons, and teach them the dignity
of any honest employment she need not
look to other States to build up her
agriculture. II strangers able and will
ing to work come here in any great
numbers natural sequence would be
that in n short time landed property
would be apt to change owners. 1t is
universal Inv of nations that Skilled
strength and energy prevails over indo-
lence and obsolete ideas. Progress,
like the war chariot of the ancient
Scythians mows down all who oppose it.