much docility, and great physical power and endu rance qualities that admirably fit them for labourers. Considering from how low and oppressed a condition they have been lately raised, and how infinitely higher their position now is, it is hardly ground for disappointment that they do not immediately rise in large numbers to the higher grades of society. They have now opportunities of education which will enable them to rise, if they are fitted or when they are fitted for it. For the present we may deal with them in their existing position as the labouring population of the Southern States.

THE NEGROES AS A LABOURING POPULATION.

To understand the relations between the whites of the South and the blacks, as labourers and farmers, we must go back a little. In later slave times-in the States, at least, to which my inquiries were chiefly directed the slaves were not worked out like omnibus horses; in fact, the capital sunk in slaves was so heavy, and produce had become so cheap, that the principal source of profit was what was called the 'increase' of the slaves-the breeding them for the market or for new plantations opened in the more Western States. As in breeding-farms for other kinds of stock, the human stock was carefully, and, on the whole, kindly treated; and although the selling off the young stock as it became fit for the market was a barbarous process, still, the family relations being so weak as I have described, those who re

mained did not feel it so much as we should; and I think it may be said that the relations between the masters and the slaves were generally not unkindly. One old gentleman in Carolina dwelt much on the kindness and success with which he had treated his slaves, adding as the proof and the moral that they had doubled in twenty years.

Then it must be remembered that in all the older States the whole of the land was private propertythere was no unowned land available to squattersand through all the political troubles the rights of property have been maintained inviolate; neither by mob violence nor by class laws have they been interfered with. In some limited portions of the Southern States, occupied early in the war by United States troops, a good deal of the property of absent secessionists was sold for non-payment of taxes in a way which the Southerners call confiscation, but this was done by the authority of the United States Government. The Carpet-bagger and Negro State Govern ments and Legislatures never seriously infringed on the rights of property.

After the war the Southerners accepted the situa tion as few but Americans can accept a defeat, and, instead of throwing up their hands and crying to heaven, sought to make the best of the lands that remained to them. It seemed not impossible that, the property in slaves being written off as lost, the land might be as cheaply and effectively cultivated by hired labour, if the negroes could be got to work; at any rate it was a necessity to get it cultivated some

much docility, and great physical power and endu rance-qualities that admirably fit them for labourers. Considering from how low and oppressed a condition they have been lately raised, and how infinitely higher their position now is, it is hardly ground for disappointment that they do not immediately rise in large numbers to the higher grades of society. They have now opportunities of education which will enable them to rise, if they are fitted or when they are fitted for it. For the present we may deal with them in their existing position as the labouring population of the Southern States.

THE NEGROES AS A LABOURING POPULATION.

To understand the relations between the whites of the South and the blacks, as labourers and farmers, we must go back a little. In later slave times-in the States, at least, to which my inquiries were chiefly directed the slaves were not worked out like omnibus horses; in fact, the capital sunk in slaves was so heavy, and produce had become so cheap, that the principal source of profit was what was called the increase of the slaves-the breeding them for the market or for new plantations opened in the more Western States. As in breeding-farms for other kinds of stock, the human stock was carefully, and, on the whole, kindly treated; and although the selling off the young stock as it became fit for the market was a barbarous process, still, the family relations being so weak as I have described, those who re:

mained did not feel it so much as we should; and I think it may be said that the relations between the masters and the slaves were generally not unkindly. One old gentleman in Carolina dwelt much on the kindness and success with which he had treated his slaves, adding as the proof and the moral that they had doubled in twenty years.

Then it must be remembered that in all the older States the whole of the land was private property-there was no unowned land available to squattersand through all the political troubles the rights of property have been maintained inviolate; neither by mob violence nor by class laws have they been interfered with. In some limited portions of the Southern States, occupied early in the war by United States troops, a good deal of the property of absent secessionists was sold for non-payment of taxes in a way which the Southerners call confiscation, but this was done by the authority of the United States Government. The Carpet-bagger and Negro State Govern ments and Legislatures never seriously infringed on the rights of property.

After the war the Southerners accepted the situa tion as few but Americans can accept a defeat, and, instead of throwing up their hands and crying to heaven, sought to make the best of the lands that remained to them. It seemed not impossible that, the property in slaves being written off as lost, the land might be as cheaply and effectively cultivated by hired labour, if the negroes could be got to work; at any rate it was a necessity to get it cultivated some

how. The negroes, on the other hand, found that they must work or starve; and the feeling between them and their former masters being, as I have said, not unfriendly, the matter was arranged in one way or another.

Under the old system there were no great estates in the English sense-that is, very large properties, let to tenants. The large plantations were what we should call large farms, several hundred acres-up to, say, a thousand or fifteen hundred-being cultivated by the owner with slave labour. Some of the old owners, and some Northerners and Englishmen who purchased encumbered estates at a cheap rate, at first tried to maintain this system with hired labour, but the result has been to show that, as in almost all the States of the Union, large farming does not pay as well as small farming, and consequently the large farms have for the most part been broken up or let to small farmers.

There is a general concurrence of opinion, and not of opinion only, but of the most practical experience, that the blacks make admirable labourers when they are under sufficient supervision. On public works, and all undertakings carried on under professional superintendence, nothing can be better or more effective than their labour. They are physically exceedingly fine men; they stand any climate and any weather, and are quite ready to do a good day's work for a moderate day's pay, provided it is fairly and regularly paid. I heard of no case in which when such work has been offered to them they have preferred to squat down in

leness; that allegation against the negro character