The Express.
London, England, 1851-10-08 00:00:00

BRITISH GUIANA.

The Royal Casette says :
The last fortnight has been a very quiet one in Bri-
tish Guiana. Every one who can do so seems to have
been taking advantage of the long vacation of our lawyers,
in the midst of which we now are, to recreate himself, and
enjoy a little fresh air.
The Court of Policy is appointed to reassemble on the
22nd instant, when the plan of reform in our political insti-
tutions, as laid before the court on the 25th ultimo, will be
brought forward and considered.
The weather during the fortnight has been remarkably
fine. More favourable "harvest time" could scarcely be
imagined. Accordingly, we are glad to state, that the
crops of most estates are being rapidly taken off, and that all
is business and activity about tho boiling houses. Notwith-
landing the rather downward tendency of the British sugar
markets, as reported by advice* received by the present
mail, the prices of produce in the colony still remain firm.
la trutn, our mercantile men resident in the colony are as
well able to take a long-sighted view of the prospectire
state of the sugar trade as any body of men, perhaps, on
the other side of the Atlantic. We, who arc in the colony,
and see the difficulties with which the growers of sugar
have to contend, sec under no apprehension that
' any great increase of the article can, in the pre-
sent position of the world, bo expected from the I
principal sources of supply. On the other hand
we should not be at all astunished at a very great decrease
taking place with startling suddenness from those quarters.
As far as we are concerned we are, happily, under no alarm.
under God's blessing the British I% est Indies ore safe.
Capital for the moment may be more profitably invested
elliewhere in the cultivation of the sugar cane ; but we defy
say man to show us where it can be invested more safely.
The two great sources of supply at present are Brazil and
Cuba ; but, as sugar-producing countries, the position of
both, dazzling fur the moment, is eminently unsatisfac-
I tory. Their sky overhead may be clear, but there are
clouds already lowering in their horizon, while the roll of''
distant thunder fails on the car. With all their slavery
and all their crops the British West Indies would
not change places with them for any consideration. In
Breed the slave trade has already been abolished by
the Chamber of Deputies ; and the public opinion of
Brazil has ratified the decree of its legislature. But with-
oat the slave trade, the sugar production of Brazil cannot
be kept up at its present high-pressure rate, any more than
the speed of a locomotive can be maintained without a con-
stant supply of steam. There as to Cuba, what sane man
would guarantee its existence, in its present condition of I
the greatest sugar-producing colony of the world, for a I
twelvemonth together? Cuba resembles a barrel of gun-
powder exposed in a place where an accident may ignite it
he a moment. Thank God ! Great Britain has nothing to
do with the crimes of which that fine island is at present
the theatre, and snub:, it is to be feared, eventually prove
tba vktim. Piracy, annexation, civil war, ace not
this. calm and safe conditions on which a tropical
country, fed by slave labour, can long maintain its
mercantile and agricultural supremacy. Political agi-
tation in the last century laid the French colony
el' St. Domingo in ashes; and it is easy to sec that
political agitation in the present, if carried on—no matter
how, or by whom—will do the same for Cuba. A more
miserable delusion never entered into the brain of man,
than to suppose that in the (resent age we can go hack to
the heathen days of the old Itomans, when a handful of
republicans could keep the great mass of their fellow-beings
in abject slavery. The monstrous anomaly of free institu-
tions for the few, and chains and stripes for the many in
Cuba, is too nauseous and hideous an imposition on the
common sense of mankind to be long tolerated, under any
pretexts, in the present age.
On the whole, therefore, we come to the comfintable
conclusion, very prevalent in this community, that neither
of our neighbour., Cuba or Brazil, is to be envied at this
moment; and that, compared with those neighbours, the
star of the British West Indies is in the ascendant.