Plan for the South

Southerners have usually blamed a lot of their economic troubles on a handful of Northern villains. Among them: absentee owners of Southern industry, tariffs which raised the price of products bought by the South, higher freight rates, and even the lingering effects of the Civil War.

But last week, in a hard-hitting, 55,000-word analysis of the South by the National Planning Association Committee of the South, the Northern villains were brushed away as myths. N.P.A., which has Southern businessmen, farmers and educators among its members, pinned the blame for the South's plight squarely on its low level of production and the low productivity of the Southern worker. This, said N.P.A., was caused to some extent by climate and poor health, but mostly by lack of education and industrial training, by primitive industrial processes and obsolete working equipment. Neither natural nor capital resources, said N.P.A., have been developed in ratio to the population. The birth rate, at 25 per 1,000, was nearly 50% higher than the rest of the U.S. for 1930-1940, while per capita annual income was only $276 compared with $567 elsewhere.

To boost the Southern standard of living, N.P.A. suggested that new capital investment of $4 to $5 billion annually should be encouraged "from whatever source available," including absentee Northern owners. N.P.A. also proposed that the South should shift its emphasis from agriculture to industry. Agricultural workers should move into factories and the number of "uneconomically small farms" should be reduced. On the other-hand, the number of medium-sized mechanized farms should be increased, and some of the cotton and tobacco farming replaced by diversified crops. Above all, there should be "larger output per capita" in industry and agriculture.

Also needed, said N.P.A., was a change in U.S. tax policies that would help the South to help itself. A nationwide increase in personal income-tax exemptions would give Southern purchasing power a greater boost than the rest of the U.S., because so many Southerners are in the lowest income bracket. Corporation taxes should also be lowered for "the small number of large, national companies which provide the greater part of industrial expansion" in the South. Warned N.P.A.: if stiff tax rates prevent the accumulation of capital for that expansion, "the main driving force for Southern industrial development will be eliminated."

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