The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-03-19


port to-day for Liberia are confident that
they win be satisfied with that country
They have no reason 10 feel otherwise
They know absolutely nothing o. the
country. but they have been told that il
is good country for them by those they
trust They are certain 20 be greatly dis
appointed. StiH if they are willing 20
work and wait and are thrifty. they can
make homes for themselves. The coun-
try IS a wilderness. but it has q productive
soil and climate that encourages a lux
urious growth Of many kinds of vegeta-
ton.
The New York colonization society.
which is working in the interest Of L.
beria- does not assist emigration but
spends all Of its income in making a
scientific exploration of the country for
the purpose Of discovering what its nat
uraI resources are. Prof. o. F. Cook Of
Syracuse. New York. is in charge OF this
work lie has been engaged in 1t for two
years, and he has made two very inter
esting reports. The last one was publish
ed very recently.
From what he says Liberia has made
no progress in recent years. He says there
is grave danger Of the republic retrograd
ing.if retrogress.on has not already begun.
The trouble Is that the Liberians know
nothing about their country and are not
likely to know anything about it unless
means are adopted to educate the more
intelligent Of the youths among them, In
order that there may be leaders
10 point out its resources and
lead the way in developing them. There
are at present no roads, no means of trans
portation, no beast of burden. no cows
and, IN fact, very little Of anything that
IS necessary to progress and civilization.
The country, as already stated, is prac-
tically at a stand-still. Nobody seems to
know just what to do and very few are
doing anything towards building up the
country. There is no incentive to i'm
provement Unless therefore there are
radical changes in existing conditions
Liberia will remain pretty much as it
is for a good many years.
Coffee could be produced with profit.
and considerable is grown for export. In
1885 there were exported from all the
ports of the country 56S.9Oi pounds of
coffee, and last year there we're exported
from the port of Monrovia $40, s47 pounds.
There has been, therefore. some increase
in the production of coffee, but there has
been no improvement in the methods of
cultvating It or Of transporting It to the
ports.
Prof. Cook, however, says that if he
were a negro he would emigrate to Ii
IBERIA, though he gives no reason why he
would do so except that the negro IS ''at
home" there.
Some of negroes going from this
port to Liberia give as reason for emf
grating that they can make no money in
this country. the wages being so low. The
wages in Liberia, on the coffee farms, is
% cents per day, in local money, which
is equal to about u cents in gold. 1t
would take a long time to accumulate a
comfortable competency on such wages.
When a person invests 81, 1000 in an appar-
atus or instrument, desire to get out of
it all there is in it is the most natural
in the world. Twelve hundred dollars is
too big a sum paid for an instrument to
be laid aside to rust. Common business
principles demand that an effort be made
to get at least the value of a good rate of
interest on the investmen That is prob
ably the way the woman who lives next
door to Judge MARITIME in New York
thinks with regard to her new 81. 200 piano.
1t makes no difference that Judge Mar
tine is seriously i'll of nervous COM
plant; the woman's piano is too costly to
remain unused, hence she hammers it
from breakfast time till past midnight
every day. Some of the judges friends.
who hoped to promote his recovery, sought
the lawyers to ascertain If something
couldn't be done to save the sick mans
nerves. But the lawyers said nay. the
courts had established the precedent that
the pianist, and the cornet player and all
other musicians, amateur or professional.
may make all the instrumental racket
they please, and at whatever hour they
please, in their own homes.
The Spanish cabinet crisis. reported in
our dispatches yesterday. grew out of
what in this country we would call the ex-
ercise by the newspaper press of a legit-
innate function-the criticising of the acts
of public servants. Certain newspapers
accused certain Spanish army officers of
reluctance to go to Cuba to defend the
government because they were afraid they
might get hurt. Thereupon a number of
officers gathered into a mob and wrecked
the newspaper offices. The dispatches dig
Nifty the actions of the mob by calling them
military raids" when as a matter of fact
the spirit was the same as that which
sometimes manifests itself In this country
in a lynching. and the wreckers were a
mob of rioters, in military uniform.
merely. In this country such an affair
would be handled by the courts, and the
rioters would be run out of the army. In
Spain, however where there isn't much
liberty of the press, the military lawbreak-