DISINTERESTED TESTIMONY AS TO THE RESOURCES OF ALABAMA.

Views of distinguished men—Remarks of Hon. John Francis Maguire, M. P.-Remarks of Hon. W. D. Kelley, M. C-More natural wealth than New England-Generous spirit of the South-Meeting at Washington-Remarks of Hon. J. W. Forney-Remarks of Col. Printup. Correspondence of the New York Times, etc.

WE have already given, in other portions of this review, the statements of distinguished gentlemen as to the resources of Alabama, and as to the peculiar inducements offered to immigration and the investment of capital in agricultural and manufacturing labor. Cumulative testimony from distinguished strangers adds to the force of what has been already said.

At a dinner given January 15, 1867, at Montgomery, to the Hon. John Francis Maguire, M. P. for Cork, and editor of the Cork Examiner, that gentleman, in response to a toast, said:

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'England possesses two important elements of manufacturing success, coal and iron. Alabama possesses the same, and perhaps in greater abundance. As yet, it has not been discovered that Ireland possesses them in much abundance; still, as the coal beds of England are not very distant from any part of Ireland, there is no reason why Ireland should not become a manufacturing country; and in fact the supply of coal, on which Belfast depends for its unrivaled success in the manufacture of linen, is drawn from the other side of the channel. But look at Alabama, and what do you behold? Why a ridge of iron ore extending over a hundred miles through the center of the State, and coal beds as vast and inexhaustible as those of Pennsylvania. Here then are the two great elements of manufacturing success and national wealth placed by the beneficence of Providence at your disposal, within your grasp, soliciting your acceptance; and on every side, wherever you turn, you have the raw material of the most valuable fabric in your fields, at your very door. Why, I ask, should there not be a Lowell in Alabama as well as in Massachusetts? You purchase and consume cotton fabrics manufactured many hundred miles from your State, and yet you have every means in your own hands of supplying yourselves with the article for which you supply the raw material to others. The advan

tages are on your side rather than on the side of Pennsylvania. She possesses a magnificent supply of coal, but so do you; but she has to procure the raw material of her staple manufacture from you, while you grow it on your fields. Competition from England you can not dreadyour high import duties shut out all apprehension on that score, while the saving in transit, both of material and fabric, will enable you to compete successfully with the manufactures of the Northern States. The people of Alabama now perceive that their prosperity rested on a too narrow basis, and that the wisest policy is to extend that basis as widely as possible, so as to embrace every available resource. The total derangement of the labor system of the State renders a radical change indispensable, and the sooner the enlightened public mind of the country comprehends the seriousness of the position, and the means by which it may turn momentary evil into lasting good, the better. What has happened, terrible and trying as it has been, may have been intended by Providence for wise and salutary purposes; and if out of the present difficulty the brave-hearted men of Alabama fashion a glorious future of successful industry for their country, they may one day look back without regret and without bitterness to that desperate and, indeed, unparalleled struggle which will be recorded in the proudest page of the history of nations."

On the 18th of May, 1867, Hon. W. D. Kelley, member of Congress from Pennsylvania, addressed a meeting of citizens of Montgomery from the portico of the capitol of Alabama. He bore the follow

ing testimony to the wealth of the State and to the advantages offered to immigrants:

"Alabama has more natural wealth than all the New England States together. Alabama abounds in coal and iron, while New England is without any, save a little bed of magnetic ore on the borders of Connecticut and Massachusetts, so small that it would scarcely be noticed amid the broad veins of heaven-blessed Alabama. She has no coal, while coal and limestone in immense deposits lie in close proximity to your beds of iron ore. Some of the States of New England can grow no wheat, no corn, no rye. So thin and sterile is her soil in many places that they sow rye, not for the grain, but the straw, to manufacture into hats and other articles; and so wide apart do the stalks grow that at the proper season little children find employment in plucking them stalk by stalk, and laying them down perfectly straight, that those who are to work them into fabrics may have them at their greatest length. In my own dear Pennsylvania, it will be late in August before the wheat is ripe, yet yours in favored parts of the State is now ready for the sickle.

"But ample and diversified as are the agricultural resources of Alabama, she has deemed it wise to devote herself to one single crop, and depend on other States for corn and other products of the soil. This was the great error of her people; for that State is richest, most prosperous and independent, that can supply all its wants within its own borders, and by the diversity of its productions provide remunerative employment for all its people. You can do this in Alabama. Every vegetable grown in the North, can be successfully produced upon some of the beautiful hill-sides of your extensive State. Do you doubt this, and say, as one of your citizens said to me, that you can not raise root plants because their tendency is to run to woody fibre? I tell you that that is because your culture is artless, and because you continuously raise crops that exhaust the soil, and make no return to it in manures containing the elements you abstract.

"Invoke the aid of experience and science, and give to your land sufficient and appropriate food, before you deny to a State so broad and varied in its topography and climate, any measure of productive power. But to return to the contrast between your State and New England. She has no copper, lead or gold, while nature has given them to Alabama with lavish hand. I have been surprised in the last hour by discovering, through the kindness of your Governor, in the executive chamber, your capacity to supply the country with brimstone. Many of you probably do not know, indeed I apprehend that few of the best informed of you know, how primary an element of our life this is. A philosophic statesman has said that the best test of the advance of a people in civilization was to be found in the quantity of crude brimstone consumed per capita by its people. It enters into our chemicals, our cloths of all descriptions, and almost every department of science and the mechanic arts. And if you but develop your resources in that behalf you bring within your own limits the millions of dollars in gold which we now send abroad every year for its purchase.

"But who knows what the resources of Alabama are? They have not been tested by experience or explored by science. When interrogated as to them by strangers, you tell them that you have the everglades or piney woods; the broad, rich cotton lands of Alabama; the hill country and the wheat-growing region to the north of us; and north of them again, but still within your limits, pasture and cattle lands. Inadequate as this statement of your resources is, when you are able to proclaim it in connection with the fact that you have established a generous system of free schools, and secured, by law, fair wages for honest

labor, millions of toiling men will come to dwell among you, and alleviate the burdens that now oppress you.

"I am gratified in being able to report that I have found throughout the South a generous spirit, a readiness to acknowledge the right of all to travel freely, and to discuss with frankness and candor the issues of the day; and though in some quarters a different spirit prevails, I believe that in five years the South will be more liberal than the North has been."

An informal meeting of Northern and Southern gentlemen was held at the rooms of Mr. John W. Forney, in the City of Washington, 553 New Jersey avenue, on the evening of Friday, February 12, for the purpose of consulting about the proper means for the development of the South. Among those present were Hons. William D. Kelley, J. K. Morehead, Henry L. Cake, and Daniel M. Morrill, of Pennsylvania; Hon. Ignatius Donnelly, of Minnesota, Hon. Samuel Pool, United States Senator from North Carolina; General Longstreet, of Louisiana; Hon. D. K. Cartter, of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia; Hon. Joseph S. Wilson, Commissioner of the General Land Office; General Horace Capron, Commissioner of Agriculture; Colonel Joseph W. Cake and Geo. H. Boker, Esq., of Philadelphia; Mr. Ghio, Superintendent of Weldon and Portsmouth Railroad; Captain Hotchkiss, J. S. Barbour, Esq., President Orange and Alexandria Railroad, and John Ridgway, of Lynchburg, Virginia; Colonel Blanton Duncan, of Kentucky; Colonel Printup, of Georgia; Hon. Hiram Barney, of New York; General John C. Fremont, of New York; General Thomas L. Kane, of Pennsylvania; Hon. John S. Carlisle, of West Virginia; Geo. W. Riggs, Esq., and J. D. Hoover, Esq., of Washington, and several others.

A great many facts were elicited during the consultation, and at the adjournment it was resolved that a summary of the proceedings should be laid before the public.

Colonel Forney introduced the subject by remarking that he had long felt the necessity of a demonstration in the right direction for the development of the material productions of the Southern country, in which he believed lay the true solution of the problem of practical restoration between the two great sections. After the election of General Grant, as the important part of the political work, had been accomplished, he believed that all good men in the North should devote themselves to the development of the substantial interests of our country. So he turned his eyes to the South and went down there, a volunteer pioneer of the extreme men of his school, for the purpose of seeing whether he could

not attract others to follow his example, and in that spirit he wrote four or five hasty letters from a portion of one of the eleven reconstructed, or recently insurgent States. When he returned home, he found that he had struck the right chord-a chord that was thrilling from one end of the country to the other-proving that the Northern people were anxious to be placed once more in unity with the South. In the South he found that while they had some differences in politics, there was no difference about material interests. They were all of one party in regard to them. Never, at any time, had any cause so thorougly enlisted the attention of the entire Southern people as this. He found an equal unity among the Northern people to assist and to encourage them. All interests— moral interests, financial and political-and all parties in the North, are struggling to see which should obtain the mastery in the South. The little work that he had accomplished had been followed by some wonderful demonstrations. Many persons had called to see him, and hundreds of letters had been addressed to him, asking for information. Several prominent men of the North and the South being in Washington, they suggested this informal gathering for general consultation. They were there citizens of the same common country-they were there one brotherhood, belonging to the same common stock. The chief political work for which the Republican party had set out having been accomplished, he now proposed to devote his energies to the development of the resources of the South.

Judge Kelley said, that during his Southern trip he found, to his surprise, the finest wheat fields he had ever seen in any region. He had seen in Louisiana fields of wheat that would yield to the acre twice as many bushels as the most fertile fields of the Northwest, and in localities where the expense of transportation to Liverpool or New York was comparatively nothing. On the farm of Hon. J. R. Robertson, sixty bushels of Southern wheat to the acre had been raised, and it could be carried to the tropics in flour without danger of souring. Never before was such a thing known. These magnificent fields were visible from the railroad, and within sight of the steeples of New Orleans, while splendid patches of white clover could be seen in every direction. He had as soon expected to find gold growing on the trees, as a natural crop of white clover within sight of New Orleans. The whole South abounds not only in natural agricultural wealth, but in iron regions, and in coal with which to smelt it. The South has also the richest copper region in our country, all within sight of a road soon to be constructed through the valleys of the mountain region of Tennessee and Virginia, opening up vast fields for investment of Northern capital from the Northeast to the