The Express.
London, England, 1852-10-27 00:00:00

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LONDON. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27.

Maros Belie/moan—the hero of the Derby bribery
case, and author of the Essex election harangues—
( x. whipper- in, and present SECAKTARY-AT-WAR, is—
it is whispered—to go to Jamaica as Oovernor•Gene-
ml. This will relieve the Derbyites of ono most
troublesome colleague in London, and give them in
the West Indies a most reckless partisan. Will it
not do more? Does this appointment foreshadow
any contemplated ministerial markeuvre for cheating
as oat of our cheap sugar?
While the slightest uncertainty exists about the
fate of the Sugar Duties, it is the business of every
man who talks about Free Trade or Protection to
learn the facts of the case of the West Indies, and to
communicate to his neighbours such facts as lie may
obtain. 'Mere is something truly surprising in
the hequent neglect of this task during all the years
teat the controversy about the Sugar Duties has
bee* going on. In the midst of the vehemence of
the West India interest about the ruin of Jamaica
from the paucity and dearness of labour, and the
assertions of not a few economists about the obliga-
tion incumbent on us "to except the West India
from the category of Free Trade;" amidst the
confident but vague declarations of thorough-
going Free-Traders that in the very nature of things
free labour must answer better than slave labour,
and the retort' of imaginative writers and speakers
about the indolence and low animalism of the negro
nature—el " the pumpkin-eating, two-legged cattle"
who ere our fellow-subjects in our sunniest provinces
—how mane of us could tell, if asked, what the
supply of labour is in any of our West India colo-
nies, and how it is paid ? By all means let us know
something more of this before we get up, in Parlia-
ment or out of it, to argue, on any fade, on the
ground of the paucity and dearness of labour in
Jamaica and the other colonies.
In the dims of slavery a negro man weeded sixty
square feet in a whole day. A negro labourer
inow
weeds eighty square feet ; and he often does t in
six hours. Perhaps, if he were paid so as to make
it worth his while, he would weed a hundred
feet. How is he paid ? What are the money
wages in these colonies which are suffering so
(carnally from the dearness of labour ? In Jamaica,
where every planter you meet tells you that
the dearness of labour is driving him to bank-
ruptcy, the wages of able-bodied cultivators range
from tki. to la. a day. Boys and women have much
leas. We are clamorously desired to restore the old
Sugar Duties, because the Jamaica planters are ruined
by Laving to pay their best labourers from 4s. 6d. to
rim. per week. If this was known to the Donetshire
farmers, what would not they claim—compelled as
they were to pay more than this to their labourers in
the best and the wont of times? What will our
midland and northern farmers my to this—paying,
as they now do, from 10s. to 15s. per week to their
labourers? " But," it may be asked, "is not the
food given on the ground ?" No, it is not. The
labourers board themselves. "Bat," again, "provi.
'ions may be so cheap as to make these wages really
high." Judge for yourself about that. Flour oasts
from 725. to els. per barreL Butter is Is. 7d. per lb.
Eggif are from I Id. to 2jd. each. Ham is ls.
per Lb. In remote districts prices are higher
than this. The flour—almost the whole of it—is
imported from the United States, where the wages
of labour are sheet four times these of Jamaica. How
can the female Moser live but by reserving some
of his lbws ler his own w? He must he that—
he mast work over kties—or steel, for be (moot
live eel beep his bemsheil es live or six billings
a week. Asa biro se the pintas
protest sad ressesteatieg--ezensp ell their
side insolent prejudises about Nee nave mature—
going to the world's eel he Meurer, whim they
think they can have dug sheep—trying gyres-
ticeship first, and Coshes mast. and invitations
to Germany, Africa, eel the baited Staten after-
wards, and never trying the sigh experiment whe-
ther there really is any bliss, of loser st all—
trying it by the only available sethed.et oirleg la-
bour its due reward. They complahlthet deirlabsumrs
go away often—and eapseislly whoa meet wanted—
to cultivate their owe pleb of growedl. To be sure
they do ; for without their own nob of grimed their
infants could es be M. If the Lamella ma-
nufacturer paid his spleen and menus may Ave
Of six shillings awoe. eel only at weds seem
in the year, tuning them off elms set
should we Mane any cos hat. the angloyervite
mom west and some as it suited thewo sad got their
sublisesse sheethee if they could? Thee is
notloggedinsgro in such a nestle. English-
men do the some dung ; sad, if they
saw ee imported to ell their new,
we would most them to vsedur lu we, sess,
toiled a bettor selmilebese elsu-they tumid. The
Brush agrioulturist. essibeierer, or beim-
man, to when it is legeetast to be able
to rely as • senstent sopply of Meer.
pays wages all the nee med. arid sash
wages ea the labourer an sabeist en. The Junkie
planter must do the muse before he has say rind t.
complain of being left in the larch ix want of
If he pays low wages. the labourers will ge:Tao:rusz
at the earliest possible inemest to their own
If he tares this off what he as do without them,
hewill sot be able to whistle thew back at sop
time ; for their crops ripen at the semo doe as his,
and me more pnetable to Ass. We speak et
Jamaica, became the loaded asenainis are heard
from Abase,: bat there is not a mit better story to
tell of ether colonise eels it be British Oakes,
where wages ease *es 18$. per day for a
tint-Haas Sold MA Is Shia wog time. Is Astir*
and St. Ws the Magnin nay N. wasp; in Bar-
bados 71d., met is amp dais, when they an 10d.
In Moat Bernd and It we are anwel, the pay
is not more than Id. at and the labourers have
often to wait Wei he one that poor pay.
We will sit eater es the horrors of the Coolie
immigration, or any ether imsdpation. The mere
fact that the 46,500 ismignabo bresglit into Owlet
aloe. were almost all shes, leeseunt to telL The
vice and misery, the wad and physical
thus introdusod. are uses et s glum. To tr1.11:19
the isirewdssi it wee heed assessary to add that
of hos .111 pisses, swam, sad a Yid JAM
The wavy weld have bees lifter spent in Biel,
good wages to the native Isboursvu They ireuli
have does the week hotter, site all; foe the issei-
crane were hoed to have SO strength of limb car
heart. 'they were virtually slaves, without having
been " to the manner born ;" so they worked like
skies, while they sinned like convicts, and pined
like captives. While the colony is burdened with a
heavy debt, the planters have been praying for a
kind of labour which would be dear at any nominal
cheapness.
In one colony, Guiana, we see that a heavy tax is
laid on the importation of popular articles of food.
This drives the labourers to the tillage of their own
ground plots rather than the estates of the planters.
In another colony, Dominica, there are heavy duties
on the exportation of those articles of food whkh are
raised by the negroes on their own grounds. In the
tint case, the money extorted from the labourers by
the tax is spent in introducing foreigners to lower
the wages of the natives ; and, in the second, the
negroes learn to consider government, both home and
colonial, as their direct enemy, and they " keep
themselves to themselves," confine themselves more
and more to their own resoutoes, and avoid the
planters. Nowhere, amidst such management us this,
do we see anything like fair experiment as to the
value of free labour in the West ladies. Its develop-
ment has been obstructed by tampering with wsges,
by hostile taxation, by every restriction that selfish-
ness could dictate, sad. especially by such impedi-
ments to the ale of land, sad such insecurity in
the leasing of it, as have made the labourer the
rival and the enemy of the employer, when
he was intended to be only • victim, or, at
best, a tool. And matters are not mending
as regards the connexion of employer and labourer.