The comet., 1879-12-27

ing him rs laborer alone.
How wildly has this generation act
ed AT the close of the war we were
absolutely, as farmers, in a better con-
dition than to-day. No want then OF
the absolute necessaries of life, with
sufficient cotton in the control of the
producers to supply the demands for
agricultural recuperation, with labor
ing population only requiring wisdom
and firmness in the Legislature and
capitalists or landowners, to mould it
then into capitalized labor. But the
evil was the world was cotton mad,
and the virus worked ruinous in
Southern veins. What was then held
was sold at fabulous prices. The crops
OF 1865 and '66 were eagerly sought at
the highest figures, and by the close of
the latter year our people looked only
to the cultivation of cotton, regardless
of the changed condition of the country
and its labor. A mania was upon us.
"Whom the Gods would destroy they
first make mad" 1t was an agricul-
tural carnival. Every negro to be
found, was, by fair means or foul, sup
piled with mule and plow or hoe,
and forced to the neglected fields, in
rudeful search for agricultural wealth.
Hiring labor and systemizing it, the
only way we can possibly succeed in
the cultivation of our systematic crops
was never thought of; we had no sys-
tenn in anything, but inaugurated the
miserable partnership or cropping
plan, which produced its inevitable
results, deeds of trust, which now
crowd the records, and agricultural
lien laws, which will remain for years
monument of our legislative, mer-
mercantile and agricultural folly. The
beauties of rural home life went down
before this madness there was no dig
nifty in farming. Tricks and chican-
cry were resorted to to secure the work
of the new man of society, and social
strife and isolation grew up in the
country. Production ended with cot
tom corn, oats, rice, peas, potatoes,
fruits, the hog, sheep and COW, were
forgotten in this FOOLS race, this blind
idolatry, while the farmers home
went to decay and his fields growing
up in briars and washing into gullies.
Goaded on in this by the hue and cry
of those who controlled the money
power, that augmentation of the par
ticular production was the increase of
national and individual wealth, and
the happiness of the people. Total
on all sides. Dept fell upon
us with crushing force; land neglect
ed and not half titled; stock gone; no
food crops the State filled with negro
tramps and moral paupers; nothing
fixed or permanent but the deeds of
trust; and $4OO, 100000, the amount of
5he sale of the cotton produced in the
State by this most pernicious course,
settled and centered in the hands of
,ur political enemies.
Has Mississippi benefited by this ?
)f what avail is it that the number of
Dales of cotton be increased, if in con-
sequence, the price is lowered, and
lbove all, if the labor system is made
wholly uncertain and unsystematic,
md the productiveness of the land de-
troyed? The producers are not BEN ,
get their trouble for the
fort; the gain nothing but eXhaus-
ion; the State loses on all hands
n material prosperity; and none re-
Dice but the money-lenders. Such
of production adds no. {
hing to the national wealth; it eX-
austs the soil as well as producers, ,
nd can only make the individual rich |
icher, and the numberless poor, poor s
+. The only certain and real road to d,
tate wealth and prosperity, whence {
hall flow in equal streams happiness 7
nd contentment to all, is the main
enance of the due proportion between =
reduction and consumption, with i
tbor utilized through a perfect sys- |
en-, by which labor and capital shall e
e correlative.
!.