The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-01-21
The @esselwn.
ERRONEOUS STATISTICS AS TO
THE SOUTH.

Mr. M. G.. Mulhall is certainly a very
distinguished English statistician and
author. and is very much quoted in
American newspapers. The Messen-
ger has frequently awaited itself of his
statistical calculations and reports.
There is one mistake he makes in
dealing with the southern states. He
uses the census of 1870, that is utterly
unreliable, was never half taken, and
was designed to mislead. He starts
with this bundle of errors and makes
very ~unfavorable comparisons detri-
mental to the south. We are glad to
aee in The Chattanooga Tradesman a
paper by Colonel j. E. MACEDONIAN
discussing some of Mr.. Mulhalls Ger
rors" regarding the south. One of the
English statistician's errors is as to
the healthfulness of the south-its
suitability for Europeans. How do
you suppose he establishes the con-
clusion that it will not do for Euro
peans? You might reasonably think
he would examine the vital statistics
of the north, west and south, and draw
from them a conclusion unfavorable
to this great section. Az examina-
.tion might not be that at all. But no,
he goes to the immigration reports
and because he finds most European
immigrants going to the west or stop
ping in the east, he argues that it is
good proof that failed to come into
the south because of it's sickly climate.
Nothing could be more absurd and
more misleading. He says in the
south the foreign population amounts
to but 2 per cent. 1t is here that the
south is the one section where the
natives constitute nearly all of the
population and that has preserved
the traditions, principles, ideas, faiths,
etc, of the ancestors and kept them
alive and potent with the advancing
years. But health has had nothing to
do with the question of nativity or
immigration. Colonel MACEDONIAN
asks p%ertinently:
"Did he not know that the great
cause of sparse foreign-born white
population in the south is the pres
ence there. OIL S,UUO, 900 negroes? If he
did not know this he should read up
to better purpose than he has done be-
fore, when next he prepares to review
this section. He means, of course, to
convey the idea hat the southern eli
mate is unhealthy for white Euro
peans. Yet it is a fact hat tens of
thousands from Europe and from the
northern and eastern states visit the
south in summer and winter in search
of health. 1t is further a fact that
statistics OF mortality covering the
period from 1860 to 1880 show that the
southern white people are the health
lest people in the civilized world"
Another charge against tL> south is
that with all of it's vast Ia IS it is
unable to feed it's population-that it
does not raise enough grain for their
requirements. This is perhaps harder
to meet than the other absurd charge.
The south does not raise enough, we
think so because it imports both from
the north. The failure is not in the
inability of the south to do this, but
from unwillingness, Indifference, an
anxiety to grow other things that
fetch higher results, more r0onav The
south can really grow twice or Eve
times as much grain as it consumes,
but it thinks it better to grow cotton
and tobacco to the neglect of sereals,
and in hat The Messenger thinks it
very unwise. 1t should raise it's sup
plies and be Independent of the great
west. 1t needs more of the dairy
more fruits, more vegetables, more
corn, more wheat, more hog and hom-
my. Colonel MACEDONIAN puts his de-
fence thus:
Large quantities of southern-grOwn
corn are yearly exported to Europe
from New Orleans, Newport News
and Baltimore. The south raises com
paratively little small grain, for the
reason that but a trife Of southern
land is adapted to the profitable pro.
sduction of wheat. The middle and
eastern states have large cotton ant
wooden textile industries, but they
raise no cotton and less than 5 pei
cent. of the wool thei- mills consume
Does Mr.. Mulhall know why this il
SO?"
West Virginia, Virginia, North Car
olina, Georgia and Tennessee could
raise enough wheat easily to feed the
entire eleven southern states.
Mr.. Mulhall is lamentably blind in
some things he brings against the
south. If he has blundered in all Of
his Astounding statistics concerning
l. L. = Ls- -