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Show ...... _ ~~~ 'T,--............. . 26 suit of it (if other circumstances be equal) cannot fail to be a considerable increase of produce in 1841. I am told, however, that there is one circumstance which may possibly prevent this result, as it regards sugar. It is, that the cultivation of it, under the old system, was forced on certain properties which, from their situation and other circumstances, were wholly unfit for the purpose. These plantations afforded an income to the local agents, but to the proprietors were either unprofitable, or losing, concerns. On such properties, under those new circumstances which bring all things to their true level, the cultivation of sugar must cease. "In the mean time, the imports of the island are rapidly increasing ; trade, improving ; the towns, thriving; new villages rising in every direction; property, much enhanced in value; well·managed estates, productive and profitable ; expenses of management diminished; short methods of labor adopted; provisions cultivated on a larger scale than ever; and the people, wherever they are properly treated, industrious, contented, and gradually accumulating wealth." p. 132. "1\Iy narrative respecting the British West India islands, being now brought to a close, I will take the liberty of concentrating and recapitulating the principal points of the subject, in a few distinct propositions. " 1st. Tlte emancipated negroes are working !Dell 01> the estates oftlwir old masters.-Nor does Jamaica, , 27 when duly inspected nnd fairly estimated, furnish any exception to tl1e general result. We find that, in that island, wherever the negroes ore fai1·ly, kind~ ly, and wisely treated, there th ey are working well on the properties of their old masters ; and that the existing instances of a contrary description, must be ascribed to causes 'vhich class under slavery, and not under freedom. Let it not however be imagined, that the negroes, who are not working on the estates of their old masters, are on that acc.ount, idle. Even these, are in general, busily employed in cultivating their own grounds, in various descriptions of handicraft, in lime burning or fishing-in benefiting tllemsclves and the community, through some new, but equally desirable medium. Besides all this, stone walls are built, new houses erected, pastures cleaned, ditches dug, meadows d1 <tined, roads made and macadamised, stores fitted up, villages formed, and other beneficial oper.ations effected; the whole of which, before emancipation, it would have been a folly even to attempt. The old notion that the negro is, by constitution, a lazy creature who will do no work at all except by compulsion, is now for ever exploded." p. 137. "2d. An increased quantity of work thrown upon the marl<et, is of course followed by the cheapening of labor." p. 138. " 3(1. Real property ltas 1·isen, and is rising in val· ue.-1 wish it, however, to be understood, that the comparison is not here made with those o1den times |
