As Marylanders, so long and so intimately associated with
this class of our community, we cannot but feel a deep soli-
citude in their future welfare. Their present condition has
been forced upon them without any agency of their own.
They are not responsible for it. From former services and
dependence they demand our sympathy and assistance, and
all impediments, if any exist, to such employments and avo-
cations as they are fitted for, should be removed. But to
admit the negro to social and political equality, is contrary
to long established habit—revolting to taste and judgment,
and violative of the laws of God, who, in His own wise prov-
idence, has placed the two races as far asunder as light is
from darkness. The welfare of each demands that they shall
move in their appropriate spheres. When freed from it, com-
motion, agitat'ion and conflict will inevitably follow, and a
war of races, ending only in the extermination of the weaker,
will be the end of the experiment.

Labor then being the key to production, and absolutely ne-
cessary to the cultivation of the soil ani its full develope-
ment, it becomes interesting to investigate the nature of
labor—what it accomplishes ! what are its wants and duties!
and how ought it to be dealt with ?

WHAT IS LABOR ?

According to Webster, labor is defined to be "physical toil,
bodily exertion, muscular strength, painful effort, directed to
some useful end." In agricultural pursuits, it encounters
fatigue, exposure to all weather—heat and cold, wet and dry,
frost and snow. It has one never ending round of duty, from
sun to sun, from week to week, and from month to month.
There is no period of the year at which farm labor may not be
usefully and profitably employed. Then, what does labor
accomplish?

Labor fells the forests; drains the swamps; furrows and
plows the fields; sows, reaps and harvests the crops; threshes,
clears and prepares them for market: makes roads, digs
canals, builds houses, towns, villages and cities. From the
sowing of the seed to the harvesting of the crop—from the
humblest cottage to the palace and full-grown city, this in-
dispensable agent, labor, is always present—always toiling—
always necessary. Its wants, then, obviously become the
next subject of inquiry.

The wants of labor, primarily, are food, clothing and shelter.
But since the system of involuntary labored as been abolished,
and we now buy labor like any other commodity in the mar-
ket, its demands must not be neglected. In this age of scarcity
and competition, not only the physical, but also the moral
and intellectual wants of labor must be supplied. The wages
of labor like every other commodity are regulated by the laws