The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1893-09-12

labor supply, and will soon hold the
p)ethoric bank account. Cheap pig
iron, cheap cotton, cheaply manu-
featured cotton goods, sugar, rice,
tobacco and many other productswin
help raise its fallen fortunes. No Con-
gress can legislate to protect the
Northern laboring nan from the active
competition of his black rival at the
South. The South is now marching
onward and most OF this progress is due
to anlabundant supply of cheap, patient
and contented labor.
The rapidly increasing population OF
the South supplies too much labor for
the production OF its staple crops.
While other farm products can be
added, such as increased grain and
forage crops, stilleven with q sufficient
production of cereals and meats to
supply all domestic wants, there will
be too much cotton, rice, sugar. and
tobacco to insure remunerative prices.
The excess of labor, especially the
whites, can be applied to cotton spin
ming to the best advantage to laborer
the Carolinas and in Georgia, which
will be the great cotton spinning sec
ton of the South. These States will
soon manufacture more cotton than
they produce, eve though the pro-
duction be increased, as 1t will be.
Evidence of the prospective increase
in this line Is found in the constant
building Of new mills, the published
reports OF profits in this business, and
the quotations Of the selling price OF
cotton-mill stocks in the Charleston,
Atlanta and Augusta papers. Some
Of these stocks pay 20 to 35 per cent.
,~, ,oo, o~l coll fD, oIdn IN QIyS
per share, 300 par. The white labor
gathered into mills and other manu-
featuring enterprises, will but make
mor room for the negro in the cotton
fields. When 1t comes to iron +
mining and smelling, the negro is in
his proper element. Even now they
are used in this work as far North as
S%parrow's Point, Md, and in the iron
works around Philadelphia, Pa. A
recent press dispatch from Pittsburg,
Pa, gives the following significant in
formation:
About $50 negroes from the South
arrived at Brinton station to-day. Col
ored laborers will have the first chance
works in preference to foreigners who
apply for work. James Garley, general
manager of the plant, expects nearly
1000 others in a month"
After Mr.. Carnegie gets all he wants
of Southern surplus labor there still
will be more than enough left in the
South to insure an abundance of cheap
labor there. NS the cost of clothing,
housing and feeding the negro in the
North will be in excess of the amount
necessary in the South for his wages,
clothing, food and housing, his labor
still will be fifty per cent. cheaper in
the South than in the North.
Said o New England shoe manufac-
turer to the writer: 81 make no shoes
that | can wholesale for less than $50
per pair, because my educated and
organized labor costs me from 50 to
$3.50 per day. 1 cannot apply such
labor on coarse or common work"
"Who,"I asked, twill make shoes
for the poor man
"It must be DONE" he replied,
"where labor is cheaper" Now,
while the negro is a poor cotton mill
hand, he is certainly q descendant Of
ST. Crispin. He is the very best of
shoe Hands and soon must be utilized
to maAe shoes for poor peoI .. And
men of ante-bellum days, for the negro,
then a slave, made some Of the best
hand-stitched work ever worn. He
can and will do it again. In the
tobacco factories of Richmond, Lynch
burg and Danville, Va, and in the
tobacco factories Of North Carolina,
the negro looms up in all his glory {; he
is at home and makes himself useful.
Nor will this useful man, brother
and citizen be useful in these factories
alone. He grades railroads, is brake
man and train hand on the road, and
the time may come when the banded
locomotive engineers and switchmen
shall become SO ~exacting in their
demands that they will have to stand
aside, and the negro may fill every
yard as switchman, may play fireman,
may even take the cab and run the
engine. The great party of progress
sive ideas, which has held the reins Of
the national government for the last
thirty years, has crammed every
postal car IN Southern lines full Of
negro mail clerks. All of this, done
as a party measure, only proves that
if the Negroes faculties are sufficient to
qualify him for railway mail service
he is certainly able to handle the
throttle of q locomotive.
The North has the money to-day {;
the South has an abundant supply of
the best labor on earth. A new era is
dawning, and the next half century
may make the South relatively tho
richest section of the Union.