Part 18 (1/2)

--A. The lands that are now liable to overflow are almost entirely abandoned.

Q. To how large an extent are they now abandoned?

--A. Taking in the whole of Mississippi Valley proper, from Memphis down.

Q. Has there been any computation or reasonable estimate that you know of the value of those lands affected by the overflow?

--A. I have never heard of it; but I will say that those lands which are liable to overflow now, if brought into cultivation, are just as valuable as any we are cultivating; probably more so, because they have the alluvial deposits upon them. There is a deposit there from 3 to 4 inches.

Q. You have no idea of the extent of those lands?

--A. I cannot give you the proportion. I will simply say it is a very large proportion.

Q. A third, or a half, or a quarter?

--A. More than a half. I saw it estimated some time ago, at least I will give it as a statement published in the _Planters' Journal_, published in Vicksburgh, that there are thirteen counties on the Mississippi River which, if all cleared up and put into cultivation, are capable of producing the entire cotton crop of the United States, and I have heard the question discussed.

Q. What prevents their being cleared up and put into cultivation?

--A. Simply the overflow.

Q. Have they ever been cleared as yet?

--A. A great portion of them; and now destroyed because the levee system is not complete. On these lands all the negro labor which is not found profitable on the poorer lands in the older States, could be made extremely profitable, not only to the proprietors of the lands, but to the laborers themselves.

Q. Do you think it would be within limit to say that one half of the alluvial plantation lands, such as you have described in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, is now practically destroyed by reason of this overflow occasioned by the destruction of the levee system?

--A. Yes, sir.

Q. At least one half?

--A. At least one half of that which has been in cultivation, and which can be brought into cultivation.

Q. Of that which is thus useless now, what portion has been formerly under cultivation?

--A. It would be impossible for any one to form an estimate, because it is so varied.

Q. The amount of land that has been improved and which is now destroyed by reason of the overflow, you cannot state?

--A. I cannot state it accurately; I will state it approximately; I should say at least one third.

Q. One third of the entire amount that has been improved is now destroyed by reason of the overflow, resulting from imperfections in the levee system?

--A. Yes, sir; that is what I mean to say.

Q. And of that which has not been improved but might be improved, how much?

--A. At least half.

As I have devoted some s.p.a.ce to the general condition of labor in the whole country, and as some of my statements and conclusions may be looked upon as extravagant, I deem it very pertinent to add to the appendix a portion of the testimony of Dr. R. Heber Newton, given before Senator Blair's Committee on the ”_Relations between Capital and Labor_,” in New York City, September 18, 1883 (Vol. II., p. 535).

Dr. Newton is recognized as a clear thinker and a ready writer not only on theological but on economic questions as well. His testimony on the points to which I have asked attention was as follows:

A LABOR QUESTION COMING

The broad fact that the United States census of 1870 estimated the average annual income of our wage-workers at a little over $400 per capita, and that the census of 1880 estimates it at a little over $300 per capita, is the quite sufficient evidence that there is a labor question coming upon us in this country. The average wages of 1870 indicated, after due allowance for the inclusion of women and children, a ma.s.s of miserably paid labor--that is, of impoverished and degraded labor. The average wages of 1880 indicated that this ma.s.s of semi-pauperized labor is rapidly increasing, and that its condition has become 25 per cent worse in ten years. The shadow of the old-world _proletariat_ is thus seen to be stealing upon our sh.o.r.es.

It is for specialists in political economy to study this problem in the light of the large social forces that are working such an alarming change in our American society. In the consensus of their ripened judgment we must look for the authoritative solution of this problem. I am not here to a.s.sume that role. I have no pet hobby to propose, warranted to solve the whole problem without failure. I do not believe there is any such specific yet out. * * *