The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-03-18
Negro vs. Italian Labor.

Philadelphia Ledger.
 The movement for the encourage ment of Italian immigration to the canefields and cotton plantations of the south has not attracted the attention 1t deserves probably for tho reason that the great majority of people in this country share the beliefs that the south is absolutely dependent upon negro la bor. and that without the negro the supremacy of the south as cotton growing section could not be main tained for day or year. In gen. eral way these premises are true. but If they mean that other labor could not be substituted successfully for that of the negroes, the propositions are more open to question.
 It is not to be supposed that immi- grafton will solve the labor problem in the south within a few or many years. The question of numbers and of the fn creasing demands of the country as the undeveloped resources are opened up and exploited Is a factor that must not be overlooked. Inefficient as the negroes admittedly are, in comparison with white labor. the coming prob lem is not so much how to replace that inefficient labor as how to train and stimulate it to better efforts, to fit 1t to meet the economic competition that is inevitable. It is in this light, there fore, that the immigration of Italians into Louisiana and Mississippi and into other sections of the south must be considered.
 Alfred Holt Stone, in an article in the American Review of Reviews takes the view that 1t is through immigra- tion that the south is to realize the ultimate development of it's utmost re- sources, and he presents some facts and figures concerning comparison of the fitness of the negro and the Ital- ian as cotton growers which are abso- l lutely convincing that under present conditions the farmer would not have a ghost of a chance if the Italian ever became a serious competitor in that | field. The test was made on a cotton plantation in Arkansas, originally started by the late Austin Corbin as Q sort of foreign colonization scheme, and | ultimately turned over to practical southern cotton growers to be opera ted by tenant farmers-negroes and Italians. The following table conden- ses the results of that test during six, years from 1899 to 1904 inclusive: Negroes. Italians AnnTal sI average SSysT5age lint cotton, pT4,.,n oka.,n Average productions per ,o,,, Average cash product value,
 per hand nen acre $lSs4f 9S ss s2242s 2s N15MSi During p1h the period of this test the | proportions of the two races and the scope of their operations were chang
 Negroes. ians' | Squads at work. 1898 Q. .. 20S SS Hapds Rs1 oavStad a worE 1sSS 1888 sSS sSS sSS sSS | Squads at work. 1905 .. .. 3s 107 Hands at work, 1905. .... 175 50o | Acres cultivated, 1905 300 5000
 These instructive figures show that in the same climate and under exactly similar conditions the Italians produc- | ed T2.9 per cent more cotton per acre than the negroes, and cultivated 5.l acres for the negroes. Moreover, the Italians, accumulated live stock while | the negroes did not, of the former | only 2.S per cent failing to share the | community prosperity, while of the negroes AT per cent found themselves at the close of the period no better off ] than when they began.
 i Whatever the prophechy based on these statistics, the lesson is obvious enough If the negroes of the south | are not to be swept aside by the relent- | less competition of better labor. they have got to fit themselves to compete | on something like equal terms. At present they have the advantage of po- | sition and numbers, but that advan- | tage they will not hold for many years | against greater thrift. intelligence and | industry.