Morning journal and courier., 1880-02-27
cSournal and Courier.
Friday Morning, Feb. 27, 1880.
GOOD NEWS FROM THE SOUTH.

Material prosperity will do as much to set
 things right in the South as any s'policy" that
 can be devised, and the improvement in the business of that section is therefore exceed ingly gratifying. A correspondent of the Chicago Inter Ocean who has been travelling | through the Southern States, and has enjoyed
 unusual facilities for meeting business men, ! makes most cheering report of the condition 1 of affairs in that section of the country. He | finds that the people are just learning the l true way to manage free labor, and the blacks
 are also just beginning to have an idea of the l accumulation of property. Where formerly 1 they either rented land at 8 high price or hired out at sixty dollars year, they are now buy ing land or, with accumulated earnings, ,remov- ing to other sections of the country. In the city of Macon, the correspondent found ten
 freemen who are worth $15, 1000, twelve who are rated at $1o, 900 each, and quite a large number whose possessions are reckoned as worth $5, GOO. All of this money and equiva-
 lent has been accumulated by those negroes in
 the South since the signing of the emancipation
 proclamation. In North Carolina the negroes may not have been quite as successful or fared
 quite as well as in the interior of Georgia but
 now that the price of cotton has advanced, the
 planters express willingness to do better by
 them. The great increase in the cotton crop
 since 1870 is shown by the following: In that
 year the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida,
 Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi,
 Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ten
 nessee and Texas produced 1855, OPS, 300
 pounds of cotton, and in 1878, when the last
 statistics were made up, the same States pro-
 duced 2.316, 221 ,250 pounds, or an increase of
 notfar from ], 1000, GOO, 900 pounds A marked
 change in the cotton trade is the continued in-
 crease in rail shipments from the producing
 country to the consuming centres and ship
 ping points East, and this is being facilitated
 by the increasing activity in railroad matters
 which exists everywhere in the Southern
 States. One of the leading causes of this in-
 crease is the growing disposition to do away
 with the service of middlemen. Agents of Eastern spinners are found in nearly all in- terior towns, who buy on small commissions and ship by rail virtually to the mill doors.
 The cotton factories at Atlanta and Augusta,
 in Georgia, are doing a fourishing
 business, and 8 company is about ready to erect several factories in Columbia, North Carolina There are seventeen factories in operation in South Carolina, having capi- tai of over $2, 900, ,OOO and employing 2,296 operatives. These factories have 95, 43s spindIes, with 1883 looms in operation. The profits range from IS to 50 per cent, the lat ter figure being the return from the Vest minister factory. The improvement in ma- chinery is another marked indication of pro- gress in the cotton growing States and, gener- erally speaking, the agricultural implements are much better than they were under slave labor. There are other indications of reviv- ing business in the South besides those in the cotton trade. The gold mines in North Caro-
 lima are being proftably worked; coal has been found which promises to be quite 8 bo- nanza to the owners of the land; the lumber business was never better, every mill in Georgia being run at full blast, and the result vast production of long, clear yellow pine. Live oak for ship building is in great demand, and at Doboy recently, sixty-five vessels were loading at once. At Beaufort thousands of negroes find steady employment in the quar- rying of phosphate found in the bed of the river. At present this phosphate goes large ly to Baltimore and Boston, where it is manu- factured into fertilizer and reshipped to the South to enrich her worn out lands. In time the Southern people will manufacture it them selves, as they are now learning to manufac- ture their own cotton goods.
 There is evidently more thrift and prosperi- ty in the South now than there has been for twenty years. and the outlook is pleasant o,oa be naorIs of %bat sectior nav afriof attention to business and make some needed corrections in their political methods they seem likely to enjoy long season of success.