and oppression," he said, "but here a soul cannot begin to be
infused into it through the sheer excess of privilege and license with
which it is surrounded." The credit system which was developed beside
the share system made a bad condition worse. On the 1st of January,
a planter could mortgage his future crop to a merchant or landlord in
exchange for subsistence until the harvest. Since, as a rule, neither
tenant nor landlord had any surplus funds, the latter would be supplied
by the banker or banker merchant, who would then dictate the crops to
be planted and the time of sale. As a result of these conditions, the
planter or farmer was held to staple crops, high prices for necessities,
high interest rate, and frequently unfair bookkeeping. The system
was excellent for a thrifty, industrious, and intelligent man, for it
enabled him to get a start. It worked to the advantage of a bankrupt
landlord, who could in this way get banking facilities. But it had a
mischievous effect upon the average tenant, who had too small a share
of the crop to feel a strong sense of responsibility as well as too many
"privileges" and too little supervision to make him anxious to produce
the best results.

The Negroes entered into their freedom with several advantages: they
were trained to labor; they were occupying the most fertile soil and
could purchase land at low prices; the tenant system was most liberal;
cotton, sugar, and rice were bringing high prices; and access to
markets was easy. In the white districts, land was cheap and prices
of commodities were high, but otherwise the Negroes seemed to have the
better position. Yet as early as 1870, keen observers called attention
to the fact that the hill and mountain whites were thriving as compared
with their former condition, and that the Negroes were no longer their
serious competitors. In the white districts, better methods were coming
into use, labor was steady, fertilizers were used, and conditions of
transportation were improving. The whites were also encroaching on the
Black Belt; they were opening new lands in the Southwest; and within
the border of the Black Belt they were bringing Negro labor under some
control. In the South Carolina rice lands, crowds of Irish were imported
to do the ditching which the Negroes refused to do and were carried
back North when the job was finished.* President Thach of the Alabama
Agricultural College has thus described the situation:

* The C