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Show 24 Assembly,) for the last year of the apprenticeship, and the first of full freedom. ll/uu. Sugar, for the year ending 9th-month, (Scp.) 30, 1838, 53,825 Do. do. do. do. 1839, 45,359 Apparent diminution, 8,466 " This difference is much less considerable, than many persons have been led to imagine ; the real diminution, however, is still less; because there has lately taken place in Jan1aica, an increase in the size of the hogshead. Instead of the old measure, which contained 17 cwt., new ones have been introduced, containing from 20 to 22 cwt.-a change which, for several reasons, is an economical one for the planter. Allowing only five per cent. for this change, the deficiency is reduced from 8,466 hogsheads, to 5,175 ; and this amount is further lessened by the fact, that in consequence of freedom, there is a vast addition to the consumption of sugar among the people of Jamaica itself, and therefore to the home sale. "The account of coffee is not so favorable. Coffee, for the year ending 9th-month, (Sep.) 30, 1838, Do. do. do. do. 1839, Diminution, (about one-third) Cwt. 117,313 78,759 38,554 25 " The coffee is a very uncertain crop, and the deficiency, on the comparison of these two years, is not greater, I believe, than has often occurred before. We are also to remember, that both in sugar and cofiee, the profit to the planter may be increased by the saving of expense, even when the produce is diminished. Still, it must be allowed that some de· crease has taken place, on both the articles, in connection with the change of system. With regard to the year 1840, it is expected that coffee will at ]east maintain the last amount; but a farther decrease 011 sugar is generally anticipated. " Now so far as this decrease of produce is connected with the change of syst~m, it is obviously to be traced to a corresponding decrease in the quantity of labor. But here comes the critical question-the real turning point. To what is this decrease in the quantity of labor owing 1 I answer deliberately, but wtthout reserve, 'lJfainly to causes which class under slavery, and not under freedom.' It is, for the most part, the result of those impolitic attempts to force the labor of freemen, which have disgusted the peasantry, and have led to the desertion of many of the estates. " It is a cheering circumstance that the amount of planting and other preparatory labor, bestowed on the estates during the autumn of 1839, has been much greater, by all accounts, than in the autumn of 1838. 'l'his is itself the effect of an improved understanding between the planters and the peasants ; and the re- 3 |
