The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1881-02-17
IMMIGRATION.
BY REV. DIR. C. K. MARSHALL.


We publish the following letter, becaus
I 1t contains the real essence of relief for on
people. 1t is fifteen years since it was frs
uttered, and now, as then, contains plal
of easy execution, with a live and enter
prising people.
Major Harper, of the Kinds County Ga
zette, Mississippi, lately said: "The grea
want of Kinds is immigrants" and tina
county, as well as forty others, has vas
tracts of land which, if put into the hand:
Of an energetic company on the plan DIR
Marshall proposed, could soon be brought
under cultivation, and in short time bring
about a condition of prosperity heretofore
unknown amongst US. Major A. NJ. Pax
ton proposed that those who have no land:
to put into such a company be allowed t.
subscribe and pay money for membership
which is certainly an excellent idea
IT Is PROPOSED TO FORM A "JoINT STOCK
LAND AND IMMIGRATION COMPANY"
l. Land must be the basis Land sub
scribed and decided to the company will be
equivalent to the payment of so much mo-
ney, and entitle the subscriber to a number
of shares corresponding to the value of the
land 50 subscribed.
The capital stock of such a company
ought to be, say 81 ,000, 900, and they ought
to be able to command and control nearly
or quite 10000 acres of land. In Missis-
sippi hundreds of thousands of acres once
cultivated now lie waste, and, as whole,
the entire lands of the State for want of
labor are not, on an average, worth one
dollar per acre. immigration alone can
save US from being overgrown with weeds.
,. Let the landholders of any county
unite and subscribe their lands, so as to
obtain a sufficient extent of good tillable
soil, on which colony could be easily in
duced to settle. Immigrants always want
to settle in colonies for the sake of language,
religion, schools, and social relations. Sew
eral hundred families should be gotten into
a colony.
3. Let commissioners be elected by the
company to estimate the value of each sep
arate tract of land and let each subscriber
receive certificates of the number of shares
the value of his lands entities him tn. The
company, and all similar ones, to be incor~
porated, of course.
4. Survey the entire body of land, and
lay it off into lots of all desirable sizes, to
suit all sorts of corners, with roads and lanes
running through and rendering accessible
the entire property so laid off. Furnish
water privileges for mills, sites for villages,
lots for churches, and eligible grounds for
institutions of learning, and farms ranging
from ten to one hundred acres or more.
5. Lithograph the plates and publish a
pamphlet describing the advantages of eli
mate, soil, products, and their market val
ues, together with all the necessary infor
nation, in various languages, for Europeans
who may desire to remove to this favored
cline.
6. Send agents to Europe, or the West
open Offices there; charter your steamers,
and send forward the people. Have agents
on this side Of the ocean ready to receive
Z ar md -anH m
The Legislature ought to adUaHce the means,
If necessary, to facilitate the object Of the
companies.
:. Houses, cabins, or comfortable quar-
ters should be furnished on the lands for
immediate occupation. These the emigrant
would pay for at once, or as might be agreed
on with the company. Thsse would be of
very cheap style, to his taste.
8. Sell the alternate lots and farms at
low figure, on condition of remaining on
and cultivating the ground for five years,
paying the taxes and interests on the pur-
chase price, etc, etc.
In many cases it will be the interest of
the company to give away lots and small
farms to settlers. Indeed it were better
and would pay Immediately, if one half of
all the stock land were donated to tillers of
the soil, who remained for five years on it,
rather than that the enterprise should fail
or be long delayed. Besides, on fair and
reasonable terms, the resident landholders
could continue to cultivate their lands for
one, two, or more years, till required by an
immigrant or needed by purchaser
9. Make the stock of the company trans
ferable. Capitalists would invest largely,
and at once, as soon as a great body of
and rich lands belonged to the
company, and it sould show a solid basis for
energetic and businesslike operations.
Lands for raising hops in the Mohawk
Valley, New York, are worth $500 and $4Q0
per acre. The same quality of land on
which the hops, the castor bean, cotton,
sorghum, RICE tobacco, corn, wheat, barley,
potatoes, peaches, apples, pears, plums, and
numerous other things grow to perfection,
can now be purchased in Mississippi at 50
and SO per acre.
But, with such immigration organiza-
lions and land companies, those lands, in
ten years, ought to be worth $50 to $50 per
acre, and compensate all the financial losses
of this transition state. Have we the en-
ergy, the unwavering purpose, patience,
and faith for the performance of this work +?
1t must be done; and if we fail, somebody
will do it and reap the compensation.
A few Mississippians are sOlicitous to pros
mote the public good, and deem this the
great lever with which to raise the fortunes
of the State We believe in a few years
the population of the State may easily be
swelled from 10000 whites to several mil
lions immigration and cheap homes will
do the work. l am asked,
CAN WHITE MEN MAKE COTTON?
They always have made it, What is the
reason cotton cannot be made by white
men now, after having done it for near q
hundred years 10 all the less fertile and
afiuent districts of the cotton regions the
whites make neteen-twen tieths of all the
cotton that is made. | have known Ger
mans, Italians, Irishmen, Yankees, to make
crops without negro labor at all. Thous-
ands are doing it to-day, and will continue
to do it. If Sambo, Caesar, and Pompey
refuse to make cotton, George, William and
Thomas will do it.
1t is now about fifteen years since the
foregoing letter was published in the Rich
mond (Va.) Wing. During those years we
have seen no better plan proposed, and
therefore we insist on that, or better one
when found, as essential to the prosperity
and general welfare of our people
Planters are more and more disheartened
in their endeavors to obtain satisfactory
results from employing the freedmen. In
spite of every effort, not OUer one hundred
and Twenty-Five, or thirtyJfve days aoork are
performed by them on an average, from year to
gear. l mean what would be called days
work if rendered bywhite men. To expect
independence, comfort, and wealth from
such dawdling pretenses of industry, is to
seek for grapes upon thorns, and figs upon
thistles.
In some parts of the South planters are
importing white labor from foreign countries
This is the policy we advocate, provided
they have families. and may purchase the
soil, settle, and become citizens-not other
wise. We had a friend who brought sixty
reliable laborers from Western city. One
of them had family, and he remained the
year out; all the Others we're gone in less
than four months. They became tramps,
perhaps burglars and thieves, loafers and
beggars.
When a white man is brought to our soil
to take the shoes and cabin of the vanishing
negro, he soon takes in the situation, feels
degraded, thinks he has been deceived. and