NEGRO EXODUS FROM THE UNITED STATES.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 52, 28 September 1878, Page 2

NEGRO EXODUS FROM THE UNITED STATES.

The account that appeare in the New York Herald of the enthusiasm with which the negroes in South Carolina awaited tho departure of the Azorfrom Charlostown shows that tha agitation is likely to be more lasting than might have been anticipated. The loaders have determined that the colonisation of Africa is the great enterprise of the immediate future, and they look forward to carrying out a scheme of emigration for not fewer than 1,000,000 out of the total of nearly 4,000,000 negroes now in America. The movement ho.s extended from South Carolina to Louisiana ; and at New Orleans a well-educated woman with negro lilooj in her veins, but showing no trace of it in her appearance, has distinguished herself by her appeals to the negroes thero to co-operate in the groat scheme. The Azor, which bears away the Brstconsignment, is a small vessel for the business, being only 130 feet long. 28 feet wide, and of 412 tons burden. Arrangements have been made on board to give every advantage to those who can afford to pay for superior accommodation, and the well-to-do emigrants may expect to have a fairly comfortable dip. A supply of fiesh meat and ieo for the whole distance, with a fair allowance of room to each passenger, affords a contrast to the passage which some of their ancestors took in the opposite direction. The Pall Mall Budget fears that disappointment awaits them, nevertheless, on their arrival at their destination. The immediate point is Bopora, a small settlement some distance from .Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. Here the climate is said to be fresh and healthy—altogether free from the fevers ai.d malaria of the coast. One negro from America who it appears has fettled here, has, done very well with his coiieo plantation; and the newcomers hope to do the like. Land is apparently good and cheap, but it cannot be said that so far Liberia has done much to justify the sanguine hopes which were at on<' time formed of its future; and the immigrants may find that the overwhelming numbers of the aborigines may interfere seriously with their prospects. At present the revenue of the republic is a txigatello of some XI 2,000 ; and although the trade seems to be increasing, this seems moro due to the products of tho interior than to the growth of business in the negro republic itself. Everything points to the necessity for great caution on the part of the promoters of this strange plan for the rccolonisation of Africa, and this is precisely the quality in which people of the negro raoo are deficient all over the world. In fact, wc must make up our minds to recognise the truth that the negroes have not got tho capacity which their more indiscreet admirers still claim for them. Hero and there an ablo man may arise ; but the experience of our own West India Islands, of Hayti, of the Southern Btatos, and of Liberia itself has shown conclusively that the Africans, even where they have everything in thoir favour, are incapable of organising eivilUed communities or devoting thcmsulvos to continuous labour, save under the control of Che white man or the pressure of threateuei starvation.

It U melancholy to think of the exulta tion with which (!,•■ erangelttation and improvement of tho black race was loolnd forward to some yearn ago, and to compare it with the miserable results that have followed. It may be that in Liberia a new course may be entered upon, but. having regard to what has taken place hitherto, wo cannot feel very sanguine as to the success of this exodus from America under the management of negroes alone.