New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-04-02
SOUTHERN POVERTY.

All Observant travellers in the Cotton States
are impressed with the appearance of thrift
! lesSness that CharacteTzes the whole country,
! from North Carolina to Texas. Withfew eXccp-
ionSthc towns have evidently seen better days; ;
the planters houses are sadly in need Of paint
and repairs new dwellings, are rarely met
with; the negroes live in the old cabins
constructed in the days Of slavery,
now much dilapidated by age and want
of care, or have built for them
selves wretchcd nuts less spacious and
comfortable than their old quarters. There
are few bridges across the rivers, and almost
none across the creeks, branches" and
smaller streams. The wagon roads are
in shocking condition, and the rail-
roads, save a few through lines Oper-
ated by Northern capitalists, are barely
passable for trains running ten or fifteen
miles an hour. No important new manuiac-
turing enterprises have been undertaken i'll
recent years. The old cotton mills at Au-
eusta Graniteylle and Columbus are doing
we'll but there seems to be no disposition to eS-
tablish Others Commerce at the seapOrts Is not
increasing, and at some places has fallen off.
Charleston has not rebuilt the district in the
heart of the city burned over at the close OF
the war Mobile has gone backward, and Cal
weston is said to have lost five thousand of her
population. Trade in town and country has
largely passed out OF the hands of natives
into those of Jews from Northern cities.
Everywhere the people show by their dress
and manner of living that they are
Door. Even the owners of large plantations
wear coarse clothing, live on palmer
fare than ordinary mechanics in the North,
and are oppressed with debts accumulated from
wear to year to meet their living expenses.
This Is the report brought from the
South by tourists, commercial travellers, and
newspaper correspondents and its sub
stantial correctness cannot be doubted.
The Cotton States are unquestiOnably poor.
In spite of the fact that they are producing
the most important staple of commerce. an
article which always commands cash in the
markets of the world, aud for which ships
come to their ports from every civilized ma
ton, they grow no richer from year year.
ManifCstly something IL wrong. Economic
laws are violated in some way. Plant new
community on the bare prairies of the West,
without resources, save fertile soil and
industrious hands to till it, and in
few years there will appear substantial
evidence on every hand of accumulated
wealth. Yet here are these old Southern COM
munities inhcriting the advantages of rail
roads, seapOrtS, navigable rivers and cities.
and possessing virtual monopoly Of pro-
duet which all the world wants and comes to
their very doors to seek, making no progress.
and living in a mere hand-tO-mOuth way. We
do not desire, in Inquiring for a reason for this
unsatisfactory condition of affairs to read
the Southern people a lecture on their folly in
repelling Northern settlers during the years
Immediately following the war. Most
intelligent Southern men are convinced
of that mistake, and we believe are
sincerely DESTROYS of rectifying it. Nor
do we intend to discourse on the unwise
system OF agriculture which puts all effort
into the production of cotton and neglccts the
food crops. This is subject on which SOUTH
ern newspapers have talked to their readers
for years, wisely and persistently, but with
little effect. The planters admit the force of
the argument, but habit is too strong to be
broken, and they go on in the old way. The
question we would wish TO suggest here,
rather than discuss, is whether the South can
hope for prosperity, even with an infusion
Of Northern energy and a greater diversity
of agricultural products, so long rs the great
body of her inhabitants who work the lands
have no interest of ownership in them. We
are aware that in some European
countries, and notably in England, the
tenant system is successful in securing highly
cultivated farms. But there the tenants are
men of intelligence, who have long leases,
which often descend from father to son. and
every incentive exists for keeping up the fertil-
ity of the soil. But even in England there
is nothing approaching the Agricultural
prosperity which exists in France under