HAPPY NEGROES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 85, 11 April 1938, Page 5

HAPPY NEGROES.

DON'T WORRY AT ALL.

LIVE ON PLANTATIONS.

COTTON MERCHANT'S STORY,

(By Telegraph.—Press Associntion.)

WELLINGTON, Sunday

"The only colour problem in the Southern States was when the negroes were tampered with by outside people who came to the South and meddled," said Mr. H. Crump, of Memphis, Tennessee, who arrived to-day by the Empress of Britain. Mr. Crump is an officer of the largest firm of cotton merchants in the United States.

Mr. Crump said that impressions of negro and European relations in the South were usually inaccurate, being coloured by comparatively infrequent cases of outrages by negroes and lynchings by whites. The impression conveyed bj "Uncle Tom's Cabin." perhaps the most widely read piece of antislavery propaganda ever written, was greatly exaggerated. Actually, before the Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves, cases of outrage by negroes ■were unheard of, while he believed some stories of ill-treatmont of the slaVes were founded on only a small percentage of actual cases.

"The negroes and the whites in the cotton country mostly dwell in amity," continued Mr. Crump. "On my particular plantation there are about 25 white ■people, and 1000 negroes, and that is the usual proportion. The whites are the managers and the nejrroes the labourers, and there is little friction." Individual Outputi. America was far the la Test cottonproducing country. Australia produced about 10,000 bales yearly. Many American cotton planters had bigger individual outputs than that. A big estate would be about 10,000 acres and would employ about five white and 240 negro families.,

The conditions under which they live<l| reflected the state of the market. Last year the United States had a record crop, and the market was still low as a result of its being overstocked. In consequence things were not quite so good in the South.

Although as far as possible the cultivation and planting of cotton was carried out by up-to-date mechanical appliances, there were many essential processes, such as picking, that could only be done by hand. Various devices had been tried, but so far no adequate substitute for human endeavour had been |>erfected. Free of Cost. The negroes lived well under very fair conditions. They were supplied with their homes, gardens, fuel and water free of cost by the planter who employed them, and they were paid n bout "a dollar a day. They could keep a cow or two, pigs and chickens, and| were able to provide themselves with all the food they required. They were well content and many families had worked for generations with the planter families who owned the estates.

"The negro is the happiest person in | the world," he said. "Here's a story J that sums up his philosophy. I asked a! what was the difference between the black man and the white, and he replied: 'When a white man's worried he walks up and down and bites his lips and shakes his head, but when a negro's worried he just naturally curls up and troes to sleep.' In fact, they don't worry at all," concluded Mr. Crump.