er as a tenant or the owner of
the soil, and look himself upon cotton as a surplus crop.

Q. 8. What is the relation existing between the planters
and their employers?
--A. Friendly and harmonious. The planter feel an interest
in the welfare of his laborers, and the latter in turn look
to him for advice and assistance.

Q. 9. What danger is there of strikes?
--A. Very little. As a rule the laborers are interested in
the production of the soil, and a strike would be as
disastrous to them as it would be to the proprietors. There
is really very little conflict between labor and capital.
The conflict in my section, if any should come in future,
will not assume the form of labor against capital, but of
race against race.

Q. 10. How can the interest of the laborers of your section
be best subserved?
--A. By the establishment by the States of industrial
schools, by the total elimination from Federal politics of
the so-called negro question, and by leaving the solution to
time, and a reduction of taxation, both indirect and
incidental. It is a noteworthy fact that the improvement of
my section has kept pace, _pari passu_, with the cessation
of the agitation of race issues. The laborers share equally
with the landowners the advantages of the improvement, and
there is every reason to expect increasing and permanent
prosperity if all questions between the landowners and their
laborers in our section are left to the natural adjustment
of the demand for labor. For many years the negroes regarded
themselves as the wards of the Federal Government, and it
were well for them to understand that they have nothing more
to expect from the Federal Government, than the white man,
and that, like him, their future depends upon their own
energy, industry, and economy. This can work no hardship.
The constant demand for labor affords them the amplest
protection. Nothing, probably, would contribute so
immediately to their prosperity as the reduction of the
tariff. They are the producers of no protected articles. The
onerous burdens of the tariff naturally fall heaviest upon
those who are large consumers of protected articles and
produce only the great staples, grain and cotton, which form
the basis of our export trade, and which can, from