It is full time that the nation should be roused to an acute sense of
the perilous position in which it has been placed, by a hitherto
unparalleled union of quackery, conceit, and imbecility. The system of
legislation which we have been pursuing for many years, under the
guidance of rival statesmen, each attempting to outdo the other in
subserviency to popular prejudice, is a manifest and admitted departure,
on almost every point, from the principles of that older system through
which we attained the culminating point of our greatness. We do not
complain of such changes as are inevitable from altered circumstances,
and in some degree from the altered spirit of the times—but we protest
against social changes, forced on, as if in mere wantonness, against
warning and against experience, either for the sake of exhibiting the
dexterity of the operator, or for the poorer and meaner object of
attaining the temporary possession of power. We look in vain, both in
the past and present Cabinet, for that firm purpose, prescience, and
honesty which were considered, in old times, the leading characteristics
of the British statesman. We can see, in the drama of late events,
nothing but the miserable spectacle of party degenerating into coterie,
and coterie prostituting itself to agitation and corrupt influence, for
the sake of the retention of office. It may be that such is the
inevitable result of the triumph of the so-called liberal principles;
and, indeed, the example of America would go far to prove that such
principles cannot coexist along with a high state of political morality
and honour; but that, at all events, is no excuse for the conduct of the
men who, reared under better training, have led us insensibly to the
path down which we are now proceeding with such recklessness and with
such precipitation.
The commercial crisis of the last year may well furnish the electors of
these kingdoms with some topics for their anxious and solemn
consideration. That momentous and uncalled-for change in the currency,
effected by the Acts of 1844, is already brought under the active notice
of the legislature; and though the process may be tedious—for the whole
subject-matter, it seems, is to pass through the weary alembic of a
committee—we are not without hopes that the common sense of the nation
will be vindicated in this important particular. Recent events, too,
have somewhat shaken the faith of many in the efficacy of that
celebrated panacea called Free-trade, without the promise of a foreign
reciprocity. A few more quarterly accounts, with their inevitable
deficits, and an augmentation of the income-tax, will serve still
further to demonstrate the true nature of the blessings which we are
destined to enjoy under the system hatched by Cobden, and adopted by
Russell and by Peel. Even now the credit of the great free-trade
apostle, formerly so extensive, is somewhat impaired by the novel views
he has promulgated for contracting the expenditure of the State. The
true means, as we are now told, for insuring the success of the
experiment of Free-trade, are the disbandment of our standing army, and
the abolition of our war navy; and pitiful stuff to this effect has
actually been enunciated by the man to whom Sir Robert Peel avowed
himself indebted for the most important lesson in political economy
which he had learned throughout the course of a long—would we could add
a consistent—career of statesmanship! Well, indeed, might some or the
old friends and supporters of Mr Cobden recoil in astonishment from this
display of weak and miserable fatuity! Well might they stand aghast, and
even doubt the evidence of their senses, at hearing such doleful folly
from the lips of their quondam oracle! If this is all the wisdom which
the Manchester manufacturer has gathered in the course of his recent
travels—if these are the deductions he has made, the fruits he has
collected from Barcelona banquets and Leghorn demonstrations, we give
him joy of his augmented knowledge of the world, his increased political
sagacity, and his extended experience of the motives and actions of
mankind!
Mr Cobden, we shrewdly suspect, has served his turn, and must now submit
quietly and gradually to lapse into the obscurity out of which he was
borne by the force of circumstances. He can afford to do it; and the
nation, we believe, will not think the less of him for retiring under
the cover of his former victory. On his part the contest was
strenuously, and we believe honestly, conducted. The principles he
advocated became triumphant, not through the will of the nation, or the
conviction of the majority of its representatives, but through a
singular combination of craft, weakness, and ambition. How those
principles, when reduced to practice, and in full operation, may work,
is the problem which all of us are trying in our different spheres to
solve. Hitherto the results of the experiment have been a palpable
national loss, with extensive individual suffering, and a diminution of
employment to the labouring classes; and though other causes may for the
present be adduced as tending to these calamitous circumstances, time,
the great expositor of human affairs, must soon decide in favour of the
one party or of the other.
We have thought it our duty of late to speak out so strongly and so
fully on the subject of the internal commercial state of Great Britain,
that we need not, on the present occasion, resume the argument, although
that is far from exhausted. Indeed, our intention in the present article
is to entreat the attention of the people of this country, and of
Parliament, to a case which will brook no delay,—which is of imminent
and paramount interest to us all; and which, if not now considered as
justice and humanity demand,—if not speedily adjusted, without the
interposition of those formalities and delays which are the last refuge
of a tottering ministry,—must not only entail the ruin of our oldest,
our fairest, and our most productive colonies, but sacrifice British
capital already invested, on the faith of public honesty, to an enormous
extent, and finally leave a blot upon our national honour. It is after
the most careful review of the whole circumstances and evidences of the
case,—after the perusal of almost every document of authority which
could throw light upon the subject,—after personal communication with
parties whose means of knowledge are unequalled, and whose high
character places them beyond the suspicion of any thing like
self-interest or dissimulation,—that we deliberately state our opinion,
_that not only are our West Indian and sugar growing American colonies
at this moment in imminent danger of being abandoned; but, through the
course of reckless legislation pursued by her Majesty’s present
Ministers_, THE SLAVE TRADE, _in all its horrors, has received direct
and prodigious encouragement_.
We do hope and trust, that, notwithstanding all the political slang and
misrepresentation with which, of late years, hired and uneducated
adventurers have inundated the country, it is not necessary to point out
to the thoughtful and well-disposed portion of our countrymen the
extreme importance of maintaining the relations which have hitherto
subsisted between Great Britain and her colonies. These relations have
been notoriously the envy of every maritime state of Europe; they have
proved invaluable to us in times of difficulty and danger; and in peace
they have contributed greatly to our wealth, our commerce, and our
aggrandisement. In the words of a colonial writer, whose pamphlet is now
lying before us,—
“Great Britain had for ages acted on the grand principle of creating
a world for herself out of the countries of each hemisphere, to
which her ships might carry the treasures of her factories and
mines, and from which, in return, they might bring the products of
each clime, not as from a foreign state, but an integral part of the
empire. Her colonies fostered her marine establishment, which again
united the most distant of her territories with the parent country
in one mighty whole; (free trade substitutes foreign nations for
colonies, with what result the world will see;) affording all the
advantages which could be derived from trading with other nations in
different parts of the world, without any of the draw-backs
necessarily attending commercial intercourse, liable to interruption
from war, or the capricious policy of people having different
manners and customs from our own. She regulated this trade as she
thought proper, her colonies going hand-in-hand with her, and,
excepting in one unhappy instance, that of the Americans, where she
unjustly attempted to take their money to pay her expenses, concord
and prosperity marked the career of the nation and its dependencies.
In an evil hour her manufacturers, elated with their good fortune,
began to dream of making cloth for the whole globe. Political
economists, instigated by them, advanced the specious and deceitful
doctrines of free trade. The very phrase has a catching sound to men
who are not disposed to study the interests of one country as
opposed to those of another, and the belief in the infallibility of
tenets so strenuously recommended gaining ground, until it became
too strong for the government of the country, the humiliating
spectacle was presented to the nation of a minister, who during a
long public career, had been the most zealous opponent of the new
doctrines, proposing to carry them into effect.”[8]
Footnote 8:
_Thoughts on British Guiana._ By a Planter. 2d Edition. Demerara,
1847.
We now arrived at the point,—or rather we had reached it in 1846,—when
free trade interests, and those of colonial establishments, came into
direct and unquestionable collision. The Whig party, taking their stand
upon the maxim of “buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest
market,” thought fit to extend to the article of sugar the same immunity
which Sir Robert Peel had previously bestowed upon corn. The Sugar Act,
which received the royal assent upon the 18th August 1846, was, at all
events, a bold and a decided measure. It utterly repudiated the
principle laid down in former Sugar Acts, the last of which, contained
in the Statute Book, (24th April 1845,) broadly recognised the
distinction between sugars which were the produce of free and of slave
labour. This distinction is now utterly and entirely done away with.
There is, indeed, attached to the act, a schedule which, until the year
1851, provides for a reduced sliding scale of differential duties in
favour of the British colonist. Thus, in the article of sugar, muscovado
or clayed, there is a difference of duty, for the present year, in
favour of the colonies, of six shillings per cwt., which is to decrease
at the rate of one shilling and sixpence per annum, until the
equalisation is effected. This difference, however, is, as we shall
undertake to show, at the present moment merely nominal; and, even were
it otherwise, utterly insufficient and unjust. But, at present, let us
attend to the principle of the later act, which, as we apprehend,
embodies two positions.
1st, That the sugar-growing colonies of Great Britain stand in need of
no protection whatever; and, 2dly, That it is wrong to put any
prohibitory duty in the way of the free use and consumption of
slave-grown sugar in this country.
The first position is, of course, a matter of statistics, which we shall
argue exclusively upon that ground. There are, indeed, certain topics
connected with it, bearing less or more upon questions of public faith
and general expediency, which we cannot entirely throw aside; but we
shall attempt, if possible, to avoid all declamation, and to give a
plain and distinct statement of the facts, as they have reached us
through various channels. The second position involves questions of a
more serious nature. We have, hitherto, believed that if any Briton were
deliberately asked the question, what principle or what act of universal
philanthropy and benevolence he was most proud of as displaying the
Christian character of his country, he would, without hesitation, refer
to the struggles and sacrifices which have been made for the abolition
of slavery throughout the world, and more especially to the stringent
and costly measures adopted by Great Britain for putting down the
infamous and most inhuman traffic in human flesh and blood. We say that,
hitherto, such has been our belief, and most devoutly do we wish that we
had no cause whatever to alter it. But we cannot look at the complexion
of the late measures, and at their notorious results, without being
convinced that the race for power, and the thirst after mammon, which
are daily becoming more and more undisguised in the political movements
and revolutionary legislation of this country, are weaning us from our
finer and our humaner instincts, destroying our once generous
sympathies, and rendering us wilfully blind to our duties to God and
man, whenever a temporary interest appears thrown into the opposite
scale. Of these two positions let us now address ourselves to the first,
not because it is in any degree the more important, but because, very
unfairly, it has been made the excuse and the palliation for the other.
The two positions, indeed, are so interwoven, as to be in some respects
entirely inseparable.
It is hardly necessary here to do more than remind our readers of the
great and generous effort made by this country for the abolition of
slavery in our colonies. For that purpose the nation agreed, without a
murmur, to pay the large sum of twenty millions sterling—a sacrifice to
principle and philanthropy which every one must allow to be unparalleled
in the annals of the world. At the same time we must not allow our
praise or admiration of this act to hurry us into extravagance or
exaggeration. The sum of twenty millions so granted was not a boon, but
merely compensation to a class of British subjects for the compulsory
surrender of a property which the law entitled them to hold. The
institution of slavery in the colonies, be it specially remembered, was
not the work of the planters, but of the British nation and crown. The
lands of Jamaica and other West Indian colonies were originally patented
on the special condition that they should be cultivated by slaves, for
the promotion of the national wealth; and the policy so originated was
continued under the sanction of laws equally sacred with those which
relate to any other species of property whatever. Nay, more, it was from
Jamaica, and not from the mother country, that the first proposals for a
partial suppression or cessation of the slave-trade proceeded. The
importations from Africa had become so great, that the people of that
colony requested that for some time the trade might be stopped; and
their petitions were rejected, on the ground that any such measure would
be injurious to the mercantile interests of England. But at last, to use
the words of the writer whom we have already quoted—
“The country became aware of the cruelty and injustice of that
infamous traffic, and abolished it. Years afterwards, she awoke as
from a dream, and began to abuse the planters for possessing slaves;
declared they had no right to hold them in bondage (although she
sold those slaves to them;) had them valued by commissioners whom
she appointed; paid eight shillings in the pound of this valuation,
and set them free, without any consideration whatever for the landed
property, buildings, and machinery, amounting to much more than the
aggregate price of the slaves, which were to be rendered useless and
valueless from want of labourers. The appraisement by those
commissioners, as directed by the Act, was based on the average
sales in each colony for eight years preceding the passing of the
bill, which was in 1833. The value of the slave property was thus
distinctly ascertained. The land, buildings, and machinery were not
taken into consideration, because neither the Parliament nor the
people admitted that they were to be placed in jeopardy by the
emancipation of the slaves. On the contrary, an opinion prevailed
that, with a free population, the planters would be more prosperous
than they had ever been.”
Of the inadequacy of this compensation, however large it may appear upon
paper, there cannot be a doubt. Enormous sums had been expended in the
cultivation of the estates, in the building of works, and the
transportation of machinery, all of which were jeopardied, and, as the
sequel has proved, most frightfully deteriorated in consequence of the
measure. But the public demand that slavery should cease for ever
throughout the British dominions was peremptory; and, in pursuance of
this laudable desire, the government of the day did not hesitate to
adopt a course which will ever be a dangerous precedent; to
“Wrest once the law to their authority:
And for a great right do a little wrong.”
“This frightful experiment,” as it was termed by Lord Stanley, then
colonial secretary, was therefore decidedly of the nature of a
compulsory bargain, forced by the people of Great Britain, no doubt from
most praiseworthy motives, upon the holders of lands and slaves in the
colonies. The terms of that bargain ought to have been adhered to by
Parliament with the strictest good faith and scrupulosity. They had, on
the part of the nation, expended a sum of twenty millions upon an
experiment, the success or failure of which involved an amount of
property which it would be very difficult to estimate, but certainly not
short of two hundred millions sterling. The greater portion of this, be
it remarked, was British capital, expended under the sanction and with
the full consent of the British Government; and no one can doubt the
fact that so large an interest as that was never before put in peril for
the sake of any experiment whatever. Still it was made; and we maintain
that the voluntary payment of the twenty millions gave the Government or
people of this country no shadow of a right to depart from one iota of
the bargain which they had forced the colonists to accept. The Act of
1833, which emancipated the slaves, also provided that, for six years
more, they should remain in a state of apprenticeship, obviously for the
purpose of preventing any violent outbreak, or an entire cessation of
that labour which hitherto had been compulsory. The intermediate period,
considering the risk which was incurred, was by no means a long one. It
was not a boon to the planters, but a distinct condition, from which no
consideration whatever should have induced the Government to swerve.
We need not detain our readers with any account of the manner in which
emancipation was carried out. It was submitted to by the colonists, not
without apprehension, but in the best possible spirit. Every thing was
done to facilitate the plans of Government; and on the 1st of August
1834, there was no longer a slave throughout the whole of the British
dominions. In closing that eventful session of the Jamaica House of
Assembly, the Governor, Lord Mulgrave, used the following terms:—“In
conclusion, I must express my firm belief that, in your future
difficulties, your ready recognition of the natural rights of your
fellow men will meet its best reward in the revived diffusion of
national sympathy, and the cheerfully continued extension of British
protection.” These are honeyed words—let us now see how the promise has
been kept.
Immediately after the Emancipation Act was passed, the produce of the
West Indian estates began rapidly to decline, and their value to be
correspondingly depreciated. This was the inevitable consequence of the
abridgment of the working hours, and of the withdrawal of a great number
of labourers altogether from plantation employment. In fact, the want of
adequate labour began to be felt most painfully throughout the colonies.
Notwithstanding this the planters went on, making every exertion they
could, under peculiarly difficult circumstances.
The increased expense, occasioned by the altered circumstances of the
colonies, soon absorbed more than the compensation-money which they had
received, and in addition, they were urged by Government to provide
“more fully for the administration of justice, for the consolidation of
the criminal law, for establishing circuit courts, amending the
workhouse laws, improving the state of gaols for better prison
discipline, establishing weekly courts of petit sessions, providing
places of confinement for prisoners, raising an efficient police, &c.;”
things, no doubt, very desirable in themselves, but not to be
accomplished save at a grievous cost, which, of course, was thrown
entirely upon the shoulders of the planters. The following extract from
the answer of the Jamaica Assembly, in reply to the Governor’s address
at the opening of that chamber on 4th August 1835, will show the state
of the colonies at the close of the year immediately subsequent to
emancipation: “Seeing large portions of our neglected cane-fields
becoming overrun with weeds, and a still larger portion of our pasture
lands returning to a state of nature; seeing, in fact, desolation
already overspreading the face of the land, it is impossible for us,
without abandoning the evidence of our own senses, to entertain
favourable anticipations, or to divest ourselves of the painful
conviction, that progressive and rapid deterioration of property will
continue to keep pace with the apprenticeship, and that its termination
must (unless strong preventive measures be applied) complete the ruin of
the colony.”
We now come to a matter extremely painful in itself, inasmuch as it
involves a gross, flagrant, and dishonourable breach of our plighted
faith. The colonies which had already suffered so much, even under the
apprentice system, again became the object of fierce attack by the
Liberal party in England. Every one knows how easy it is to get up a
shout upon any vague pretext of humanity, and how frequently the
credulity of the people of England has been imposed on by specious and
designing hypocrites. With this set of men, Africa, has been for many
years a pet subject of complaint. They have made the wrongs of the negro
a short and profitable cut to fame and fortune, and their spurious
philanthropy has never failed to engage the support of a large number of
weak but well-meaning individuals, who are totally ignorant of the real
objects which lie at the bottom of the agitation. Utterly regardless of
the nature of the bargain so recently and solemnly made, throwing aside
and trampling upon national honour with unparalleled effrontery, these
men began to denounce apprenticeship in the colonies as something worse
than slavery, and to demand its instant abolition. The subject of
declamation was a popular one, and unfortunately it gathered strength.
No one thought of the condition of the colonists, who had been already
subjected to so much hardship, and to whom the continuance of
apprenticeship for a certain period had been solemnly and advisedly
guaranteed. The spirit of our constitution does not recognise the
presence of any representation of the colonies within the walls of the
Imperial Parliament: and although it is popularly, or rather
ludicrously, said that Jamaica is as much a portion of the British
dominions as Yorkshire, we have no hesitation in meting out to the one a
measure of injustice which no Parliament and no Minister would dare to
venture in the case of the other. To our shame therefore be it said,
that the agitation, so subversive of good faith and of public morals,
was crowned with success. Two years of the apprentice period were
curtailed. A robbery to that extent—for it was nothing else—was
perpetrated upon the unfortunate colonists, and on the 1st of August
1838, unqualified freedom was granted to the negro population.
The following were the immediate and extremely natural
consequences:—“There was no violence; the mass of the labouring
population being left in quiet possession of the houses and grounds on
the estates of their masters. For successive weeks universal idleness
reigned over the whole island. The plantation cattle, deserted by their
keepers, ranged at large through the growing crops, and fields of cane,
cultivated at great cost, rotted upon the ground for want of hands to
cut them. Among the humbler classes of society, respectable families,
whose sole dependence had been a few slaves, had to perform for
themselves the most menial offices. Still the same baneful influence
continued to rule the Government. In all cases of difference, the
stipendiary magistrates supported the emancipated mass against the
helpless proprietor, and even took an active part in supporting the
demands of the people for an extravagant rate of wages, alike injurious
to both classes.”
So much for the “sympathy” which was extended to the colonists for their
ready acquiescence in the Act of Emancipation! Like most Whig promises,
it had served its purpose, and was thereafter cast aside and forgotten.
It might naturally be supposed that this violent curtailment of the
period of apprenticeship, would, out of mere shame, have impressed
ministers with the propriety of doing something for the relief of the
colonies—not by way of actual pecuniary assistance, which was never
asked—but by giving every facility in their power to the introduction of
free labour from every quarter whence it could be hired or obtained.
However, a course diametrically opposite was immediately pursued; and,
up to the present time, no facilities whatever for procuring labour have
been given to the colonists, and every obstacle has been thrown in the
way of the importation of free labourers from the coast of Africa.
Under such a system the decline of the colonies was, as a matter of
course, inevitable. The following is the Jamaica statement of the
relative amount and value of the exports of that island at various
periods:—
“The destructive result to property, by the changes thus
precipitately forced on the colony, will be best manifested by a
reference to the exports of our three great staples—sugar, rum, and
coffee.
Hhds. Punch. lbs. Annual
Sugar, Rum. at Coffee, at Value. £
at £20. £10. 60s. per
100 lbs.
Average of the five years 131,962 50,462 23,625,377 3,852,621
ending 1807, last of the
African trade
Average of the five years 118,490 48,726 24,394,790 3,588,903
ending 1815, date of Registry
Act
Average of the five years 110,924 41,046 18,792,909 3,192,637
ending 1823, date of Canning’s
Resolutions
Average of the five years 95,353 35,505 17,645,602 2,791,478
ending 1833, first five of
slavery
Average of the five years 42,453 14,185 7,412,498 1,213,284
ending 1843, first five of
freedom
“Up to 1807, the exports of Jamaica, progressively rose as
cultivation was extended. From that date they have been gradually
sinking; but we more especially entreat attention to the evidence
here adduced of the effect of emancipation, which, in ten years,
reduced the annual value of the three principal staples from
£2,791,478, to £1,213,284, being in the proportion of seven to
sixteen, or equal, at five per cent., to an investment of about
thirty-two millions of property annihilated. We believe the history
of the world would be in vain searched for any parallel case of
oppression, perpetrated by a civilised government upon any section
of its own subjects.”
In other places the alteration and decline has been even more startling.
The following table exhibits the state of exports from British Guiana,
at intervals of three years, beginning with 1827, and ending as above
with 1843:—
Year. Sugar. Rum. Molasses. Cotton. Coffee.
Hhds. Puncheons. Casks. Bales. lbs.
Dutch.
1827 71,168 22,362 28,226 15,904 8,063,752
1830 69,717 32,939 21,189 5,423 9,502,756
1833 63,415 17,824 44,508 3,699 5,704,482
1836 57,142 24,202 37,088 3,196 4,801,352
1839 38,491 16,070 12,134 1,364 1,583,250
1843 35,738 8,296 24,937 24 1,428,100
And during the whole period of those changes, there was a constantly
augmenting consumption in the mother country of all the articles of
colonial produce!
The causes of this extraordinary decline of production are abundantly
clear, and the facts now adduced ought to cover with confusion those
ignorant and pragmatical personages who averred that, under a system of
free trade, no loss whatever would be sustained by the planters. No
doubt, had free labour been ready and attainable, the loss would have
been much diminished; but the misfortune was, that free labour could not
be found within the colonies to any thing like the required extent; and
neither time nor opportunity were afforded to the planters to obtain it
elsewhere. The friends of the African have either persuaded themselves,
or endeavoured to cheat the public into the belief, that the negro has
attained a point of civilisation and docility from which a large
proportion of the inhabitants of the British islands are at this moment
very widely removed. They promised, on his behalf, that when
emancipated, he would set down seriously to work, and, with a heart full
of gratitude, proceed to earn his wages by toiling in the service of his
employer. It is well for those gentlemen that they did not offer any
tangible forfeit in the event of the failure of their protégé. The negro
is perhaps more fully alive than any other class of mankind to the
luxury of undisturbed idleness. He has few wants, and those few are
easily supplied in such a splendid island as Jamaica, where his
provision ground, with the smallest possible amount of cultivation, will
afford him every necessary, and some of the luxuries of life. What he
cannot raise for himself must, of course, be obtained by labour; but a
very slight portion indeed of the primal curse now lights upon the
emancipated negro, who has no ambition, and consequently no motive to
persevere. Nor, indeed, can we wonder at this, if we only reflect
seriously on the scenes which are visible at home. Do we not all know
how difficult it is to rouse the western Highlander to any thing like
active exertion? How many thousands of the Irish are there at this
moment who will not work, preferring to depend for life itself upon the
precarious existence of a miserable root, which, of all articles of
human food, requires the smallest degree of culture? And can we, while
such things happen among Christians, in a land where the severity of the
climate ought to be of itself a sufficient inducement to exertion,
wonder that the negroes, who have neither the same advantages, nor the
same cogent motives for labour, should abandon themselves to a life of
lazy sensuality, and look upon the neglected cane-fields and choked
coffee-plantations with an eye of utter indifference?
The great object of the planters, therefore—for the existence of the
colonies seemed to depend upon the success of their endeavours,—was to
obtain labour at any cost, from any quarter whatever. It has been
perfectly well ascertained that the constitution of Europeans will not
admit of their pursuing out-door labour in a tropical climate, and
therefore white labour is out of the question. The natives of Madeira,
indeed, have been tried, but they are unfit for the work, and even were
it otherwise, the supply from that quarter is limited. Coolies were
brought out from the East Indies at an enormous expense, equal to
two-fifths of their wages for a period of five years, and after all, it
was found that two Coolies could hardly perform the task which one
African can accomplish with ease. Instead of assisting these efforts
towards emigration, government, as if actuated by the most rancorous
hatred to the colonies, threw a formidable obstacle in their way. We
borrow the following passage from the pamphlet of the Guiana Planter.
“This very large importation of people was effected at the expense
of the planters exclusively, who lavished their means freely on what
they fondly believed to be the only chance that remained.
Government, goaded by the _vis a terqo_, threw an impediment in the
way, which was the abolition of all contracts formed out of the
colony to which the immigrant was destined. This, like a two-edged
sword, operated both ways; it prevented people from going to a
distant country where they had to _search_ for work; they felt that
without an assurance of employment for a limited period, they would
be embarking on a very precarious undertaking; and the planter could
not derive the desired benefit from the labour of immigrants unless
they were bound to remain with him for a certain space of time.
Nevertheless, so fully aware were the latter of the necessity for
additional hands, that they continued to import them, trusting to
their remaining where they were located, notwithstanding the
cancelling of their agreements; and the intending immigrants, who
were chiefly Madeira people, after a time, learned from their
friends, already settled in the colony, that there would be no lack
of work for them.
“Want of contracts operates injuriously in another way still,
besides those we have mentioned; it is found that immigrants for the
first six months require much care and attention, and also
considerable outlay, because they then undergo a seasoning to the
climate. Now, planters are not inclined to take a man from the ship
under the prospect of paying more for medical attendance, wine, and
nourishment, than his labour is worth, provided he is at liberty to
depart as soon as he finds himself strong enough. The impolicy of
refusing to us the privilege of entering into agreements for at
least twelve months, out of the colony, is herein exemplified, and
there is considerable reason to fear that there will be great
backwardness in applying for the next batches of Coolies on this
account, as they will not enter into contracts here. Every man says,
‘I am not in a hurry, I shall wait until I can get seasoned people.’
It is well known that of the last lots of Portuguese and Coolies;
(those of 1845-6,) nearly one-half have been since that period on
the sick list, most of them not seriously ill, but in that feeble
and inert state which change of climate is apt to produce.”
From all this, and from the experience of centuries, it is evident that
the African alone is physically suited to undergo with case and without
danger the fatigue of field labour in the climates which are suited for
sugar cultivation. We shall presently allude to the obstacles which have
been thrown in the way of obtaining a supply of free labour from that
quarter; and we think we shall be able to convince the most scrupulous
reader, that the line of conduct adopted by the pseudo friends of the
African, is one most admirably calculated to foster the state of
barbarism, cruelty, ignorance, oppression, and crime, which is the
melancholy characteristic of the inhabitants of that unhappy country. In
the meantime, let us go back to the history of our colonies, whose
singular case of unmerited persecution is by no means yet brought to a
close.
In 1842, a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire
into the state of the West India colonies, and from their report, which
is now before us, we make the following extracts. Resolved,—
That, unhappily, there has occurred, simultaneously with the
amendment in the condition of the negroes, a very great diminution
in the staple productions of the West Indies, to such an extent as
to have caused serious, and, in some cases, ruinous injury to the
proprietors of estates in those colonies.
“That while this distress has been felt to a much less extent in
some of the smaller and more populous islands, it has been so great
in the larger colonies of Jamaica, British Guiana, and Trinidad, as
to have caused many estates, hitherto prosperous and productive, to
be cultivated for the last two or three years at considerable loss,
and others to be abandoned.
“That the principal causes of this diminished production, and
consequent distress, are, the great difficulty which has been
experienced by the planters in obtaining steady and continuous
labour, and the high rate of remuneration which they give for the
broken and indifferent work which they are able to procure.
“That the diminished supply of labour is caused partly by the fact
that some of the former slaves have betaken themselves to other
occupations more profitable than field labour; but the more general
cause is, that the labourers are enabled to live in comfort, and to
acquire wealth, without, for the most part, labouring on the estates
of the planters for more than three or four days in a week, and from
five to seven hours in a day; so that they have no sufficient
stimulus to perform an adequate amount of work.
“That this state of things arises partly from the high wages which
the insufficiency of the supply of labour, and their competition
with each other, naturally compel the planters to pay; but is
principally to be attributed to the easy terms upon which the use of
land has been obtainable by negroes.
“That many of the former slaves have been enabled to purchase land,
and the labourers generally are allowed to occupy provision grounds
subject to no rent, or to a very low one: and in these fertile
countries, the land they thus hold, as owners or occupiers, not only
yields them an ample supply of food, but in many cases a
considerable overplus in money, altogether independent of, and in
addition to, the high money wages which they receive.
“That one obvious and most desirable mode of endeavouring to
compensate for this diminished supply of labour, is to promote the
immigration of a fresh labouring population, to such an extent as to
create competition for employment.
“That for the better attainment of that object, as well as to secure
the full rights and comforts of the immigrants as freemen, it is
desirable that such immigration should be conducted under the
authority, inspection, and control of responsible public officers.
“That it is also a serious question, whether it is not required _by
a due regard for the just rights_ and interests of the West Indian
proprietors, and the ultimate welfare of the negroes themselves,
more especially in consideration of the large addition to the
labouring population which it is hoped may soon be effected by
immigration, that the laws which regulate the relations between
employers and labourers in the different colonies, should undergo
early and careful revision by their respective legislatures.”
This document is a very important and valuable one, more especially when
considered in connexion with the subsequent measures of the government.
It bears out unequivocally all the statements which we have already made
regarding the decay of the colonies, the cessation of the emancipated
negroes from work, and the necessity of some large and comprehensive
scheme for promoting immigration. It does even more; for the tenor of
the last paragraph clearly shows that, upon a calm and dispassionate
review of the case, an impression had forced itself upon the minds of
the committee, that the work of emancipation had been carried out too
precipitately, or that some effectual means for regulating and
sustaining labour should have been taken by the legislature, at the
period when they violently curtailed the stipulated term of
apprenticeship. Indeed, subsequent experience has shown, that some such
measure ought to have been enacted, if only for the sake of raising the
condition of the negro in the social scale.
As after events have shown, the report of this committee, though fair
and impartial in its views of the case, was calculated grievously to
mislead the planters as to the course which the Parliament of Great
Britain was likely to pursue, in dealing with them and with their
interests. They saw an admission recorded of the hardship of their case,
coupled with a recognition of their right to some effectual remedy; and
the natural consequence was, that they again took courage, and did every
thing in their power to redeem past losses by renewed exertion and
expenditure. It did seem that at last some portion of that sympathy,
which had been so early promised, but so woefully neglected, was likely
to be accorded to them by the mother country; and in that delusive
belief they determined to struggle on. Had they at that time obtained
the slightest inkling of what was to follow, their course would have
been widely different. Whatever might have become of the estates, an
enormous amount of new capital, embarked on the faith that Government
would at least deal with them in a just and open manner, would have been
saved, and the ruin which is now impending over many families, not only
in the colonies but here, would have been averted. But with Parliament
urging and stimulating them to fresh exertion, how was it possible to
refuse? What possible grounds had they then for suspecting that the
protection which had been accorded to them in the most solemn manner,
and for which they were bound to give an equivalent, would be withdrawn;
that Britain, who had forced the Emancipation Act upon her own colonies,
and who had announced, in a voice of thunder, her future determined
opposition to the existence of the traffic in slaves, would at once
descend from that position and become the customer of less scrupulous
countries, the largest encourager of that odious traffic in the world,
and that to the detriment and ruin of her oldest and most valuable
colonies, which she had forcibly deprived of their labour?
The reciprocal relations which existed between the mother country and
the West Indian colonies were these. Up to the year 1844, the rate of
duty levied upon colonial sugar was £1, 4s., while that imposed upon
sugar grown in foreign countries, was £3, 3s. Thus a protective balance
of thirty-nine shillings per cwt. was left in favour of the colonies. In
return,—and we adopt this statement from _The Economist_, a journal
bitterly opposed to the West Indian claims,—“1st, They were confined to
the British markets for their supplies of lumber, food, and clothing;
2dly, They were prevented importing fresh labour, under what we always
deemed an unworthy suspicion—that immigration would degenerate into a
slave trade, and immigrant labour into slavery; 3dly, They were
precluded the privilege of sending their produce to Europe in any but
British ships, which not unfrequently entailed an extra cost of two to
three pounds a ton upon their sugar; 4thly, And at home, out of regard
to the landed interest, their rum was subjected to a high discriminating
duty in favour of British-made spirits, and their sugar and molasses
were entirely excluded from our breweries and distilleries.” These
sentiments are coloured by the peculiar views of the talented journal
from which they are drawn, but in the main they are true; and the writer
ought to have added, that the West Indian planters were also subjected
to high protective duties in favour of the home refiner.
Such was the system of reciprocity established between the mother
country and these colonies, until the spirit of innovation, which so
peculiarly marks the present age, and which, if persevered in, must
sever the last remaining ties which have hitherto kept the integral
parts of the British empire united throughout the world, was brought to
bear upon these devoted countries.
The first innovation was made in 1844, when free labour sugar only was
admitted upon more favourable terms than before. To that measure,
coupled as it was with a distinct assurance that the Government would
continue steadily to oppose the introduction of slave-grown sugar into
this country at competing prices, no opposition was offered. Another
slight alteration of the duties took place in 1845; but it was not until
the succeeding year, 1846, that the Whigs, in their zeal for free trade,
and with the view of gaining, at any cost, a little temporary popularity
at the outset of their accession to office, determined, without warning
and against remonstrance, to give the _coup-de-grace_ to the colonies,
and to throw the markets of Britain entirely open to the kidnapper and
the oppressor of the slave!
The act of 1846, as we have already said, provides a differential scale
of duties on the imports of sugar, by which, for the present year, the
colonist has to compete with the slave-master at a nominal advantage
only of six shillings, and at the expiry of four years the duties will
be entirely equalised. Here, then, are the final results of that
_sympathy and protection_, which were promised by an official of Lord
Melbourne’s Government to the deluded West Indians in 1834! Here are the
fruits of that agitation, and toil, and sacrifice, which Britain
cheerfully undertook, in the cause of Christianity and truth, and, to
the honour of our race, for the emancipation of the negro, and the utter
suppression of the odious traffic in human flesh and blood! Here is the
denouement of that series of international treaties by which Britain
proclaimed herself the champion paramount of freedom, and the vindicator
of the African liberties! Was there ever, we ask, upon record, a similar
instance of defalcation of principle and of perfidy? Of violated
principle, because, disguise it as they may, the results of the late
measure must tend, and have already tended, to an enormous increase in
the exportation of slaves from Africa; and Britain, so long as this law
remains on her statute-book, dare not again claim credit on the score of
her vaunted humanity. Of perfidy, because, in carrying out emancipation
in her own colonies, then utterly free from the imputation of
participating in that unholy trade, a distinct pledge was given on the
part of Britain, that, whatever might be the result, free labour should
not be subjected to undue competition with the compulsory efforts of the
slave! View the case in any light you will, and the inconsistency and
treachery of the authors of the measure become more odious and apparent.
In order that we may understand the true position of the colonies, and
the situation in which they have been placed, confessedly by no fault of
their own, it will be necessary to ascertain what is the present cost of
production of sugar there, under the curtailed and crippled system of
free-labour, as compared with that of the slave-growing colonies. We
apprehend that it will not be denied by any, that the soil, climate, and
natural position of Jamaica and of British Guiana are in no way inferior
to any in the known world for the growth and cultivation of the
sugar-cane. No statement to the contrary has ever yet been hazarded; and
so far as the application of capital can go in rendering production
cheap, the British colonies have unquestionably the advantage of the
others. Let us look then to the matter of cost.
According to one authority, the Planter of British Guiana, it would be
as follows,—
Cost of production in slave £13 0 0
countries per ton,
Cost of production in British 25 0 0
Guiana,
Difference per ton in favour £12 0 0
of the slave market,
In other words, slave-grown sugar can be produced at _twelve shillings
per cwt._ less than in free colonies, besides the additional advantage
of uncontrolled and unlicensed transport.
The above probably may be taken as the extreme case, because the cost of
production has always been great in Demerara, owing to the smallness of
the population; but the general hardship will be sufficiently shown and
understood, by the following extract from the resolutions of a meeting
of St David’s parish in Jamaica, on 2d October last.
“The great influx of slave-grown produce into the home markets has, in
the short space of six months, reduced the value of sugar from £26 to
£14 per ton; while, under ordinary circumstances of soil and season, the
cost to us of placing it in the market is not less than £20 per ton.”
“From many calculations,” writes a highly intelligent and experienced
correspondent, “the lowest rate at which sugar _can_ be produced, is
about twenty shillings per cwt. on the average, or twenty pounds per
ton. No doubt some estates may, and do, grow it cheaper than others.
They may have advantages of situation both in regard to weather and
command of labour, but one thing I am certain of, that no number of
estates taken collectively, can grow it much under twenty shillings.”
With regard to the additional argument against the navigation laws,
which certain free-trade journals have adroitly contrived to extract
from the statement of the planters’ grievances, our correspondent
writes,—“A long article has been written to show that we have got all
that was demanded some years ago, with the exception of the abolition of
the navigation laws. This I hold to be a very minor consideration, as,
even were these abolished to-morrow, a saving of one shilling per cwt.
freight would be the very outside. No doubt a letter appeared in the
_Times_, stating that last year’s freights were six shillings per cwt.
from Demerara, which was quite true,—but what are they now? The great
rise was caused by every bottom being employed to import grain, which
raised freights in America to nine shillings per barrel for flour, which
are now one and sixpence,—so that shipping of every denomination was
dear. These men forget, or will not remember, that we asked for measures
which we hoped might benefit us, at a time when we could reasonably
calculate upon this country keeping faith with us. But had we _then_
been told that in 1846 slave sugar would be introduced at a _nominal_
differential duty of seven shillings per cwt., to decrease annually till
all sugars were admitted at the same rate, our demands would have been
very different. Indeed I have no doubt that many would at once have
abandoned their estates; and, though a desperate course, it would yet
have been the wisest, and those who might have pursued it would have
saved a further loss.
“I mentioned a _nominal_ differential duty. What I mean by that is, that
the slave sugars are all so much better manufactured, which the great
command of labour enables them to do, that, to the refiner, they are
intrinsically worth more than ours. In short, they prepare their sugars,
whereas we cannot do so, and we pay duty at the same rate on an article
which contains a quantity of molasses. _So that, if the duties were
equalised, there would virtually be a bonus on the importation of
foreign sugar._ I have a letter before me in which is written,—‘Whilst
at Jamaica, offers came from the Havannah to supply sugar all the year
round at 12s. per cwt.,’ as I said before, in no Jamaica estate can it
be grown much under 20s., and assuredly by none at 12s. The refiners
estimate the value of Havannah, in comparison with West India free
sugar, as from three to five shillings per cwt. better in point of
colour and strength. The reason is, that these sugars are partially
refined or _clayed_.”
If these are correct data, and we do not anticipate that they will be
impugned, the result will be this;—
Cost of production in slave £12 0 0
countries per ton,