The morning call., 1893-10-21
PEONAGE AT THE SOUTH.

A paper by George K. Holmes lately
read before the American Academy of
Political and Social Science at Philadel-
phia sheds light on the real condition of
the South at tue present time. Before the
war the cotton lands of the Southern States
were held in large estates and farmed by
planters with unpaid labor. Under thrifty
management cotton could be laid down at
New Orleans. Memphis, Mobile or Charles
ION for less money than it was worth in
the market; thus though impoverished
planters were undoubtedly in debt to their
factors the class, as a whole. were pros
porous.
After the war no one had any money,
aud no landowner could command labor
to work his plantation. The thing which
all classes needed was food. When at the
end OF a year or two this want was sup
piled, the question arose what was to be
done with the cotton plantations? The
old planters could not work them, for they
had no labor So they leased them out in
small holdings to tenant farmers, whites
and blacks indifferently, for a given per-
centage of the crop. With few. exceptions
these tenant farmers were penniless; they
had to borrow money for tools. for labor,
for food, for clothing. A class of money
lenders arose at the South who stood ready
to LEND on the pledge of the coming crop.
But they would only lend on cotton crop,
and having the tenant farmer at their
mercy they set the rate OF interest at the
h ighest figure the industry would bear.
Loans at % per cent and 40 per cent were
quite common, aud it is safe 10 say that
the bulk OF the cotton now raised at the
South is raised with money borrowed at
high rates.
The consequences are serious. In the
first place. as the lenders will advance on
nothing but cotton, and will not listen to
farmer who proposes to raise hogs or
corn, the production OF the fiber has been
enormously stimulated, until it is ow twice
what it was on the average before the war.
And. simultaneously. the farmer, instead
of growing his own food, las to buy it
from the factor. who charges his own price.
Again, it is at least doubtful whether
any agricultural industry eau be conducted
with borrowed money. The interest on
the loan eats up the small profit of farm
labor. No agriculture can stand that. 1t
ensues that the tenant farmers are hardly
ever able to liquidate their Indebtedness
70 the factor; that he owns them, and
every implement and head of cattle on the
place; that he can compel them to grow
the product he wants instead of the prod
uct their interest requires; that they are,
in fact, his poems, slaves in everything but
the name.
Another curious effect of this state of
things is that cotton land has no value. It
would be absolutely worthless if no ten
ant farmer could be found tS york ii with
borrowed money. Nc one will buy it or
lend money On it, because no one wants to
place himself in the position of having to
farm il. This explains the curious anom-
ely revealed by the census that farm mort
cages are so rare at the South-the product
of the land is property, worth money in
the market, but the land itself is valueless
in actual present money.
MIR. Holmes takes a dark view of the
future and does not see any way out of the
slough of despond. To Northern men it
appears that by Industry and economy
tenant farmers ought to be able to work
their way out of debt and emerge from
their condition of peonage. But Mr..
Holmes considers the inertia which pre-
walls at the South an insuperable barrier
to betterment. Everybody is satisfied to
live from hand to mouth and to slumber
in a supine condition under which labor
secures food and clothing. If he is right
the outlook for the Gulf States is not en-