Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-03-03 00:00:00

FREE LABOUR IN THE WEST INDIES

IT is most satisfactory to find, that the
prejudices against the immigration of free
labourers into our West India Colonies are now
being rapidly dissipated, and that even such
undoubted philanthropists as Lord BROUGHAM,
in the House of Lords, and Mr. •BUXTON, in the
House of Commons, are becoming reconciled, as
well to its propriety as to its practicability. It is,
in fact, not only a proper course to pursue, for the
interests of those islands, to promote such immi-
grittion, but it is the only practicable means of
restoring their prosperity. It is a question, the
plain and obvious bearings of which cannot but
recommend themselves to every impartial mind.
The case has been thus clearly and forcibly argued,
—" Take first the position of the immigrant
himself. He is;by the very nature of the case, a
creature in the most abject state of destitution or
degradation—a Coolie perishing for want of food,
or a Negro holding his very existence at the

capricious will of a chief. He is brought to a
country where, for no 'consideration but that of his
unskilled labour, he obtains continuous 'employ-
ment, good wages, good treatment, and the means
of instruction in religion and civilization. Is it
too much to ask that, in return for such
advantages, he should stand bound to work ?
Take, next, the question of slavery—of that
infamous institution against which the efforts of
the philanthropists are ultimately directed.
Europe must have sugar, and has shewn plainly
enough that if Jamaica cannot produce it, Cuba
may. If Cuba secures the privilege, not only
slavery but the slave-trade itself continues to
flourish ; if Jamaica wins the market, Cuba and
the slave-trade go down together. Is the Anti-
Slavery Society prepared to protect Cuba in its,
monopoly, for fear an immigrant should get a
day's imprisonment too much from a Jamaica
:magistrate? We cannot understand such a policy,
nor can we believe that Parliament will ever
approve it: It is possible that a planter might be
too hard with his labourers, though the checks
upon such severity would be instantly forthcoming ;
but, considering the nature of the alternative and
the fundamental importance of the question, we
really cannot conceive that the philanthropists
of this country can do otherwise than encourage
the British Colonies, if only as the rivals of Cuba
and its slaveholders." Thus argues the leading
organ of public opinion in this country ; and the
argument is one which adopts so thoroughly the
ray lam of the case, and is so consistent with
plain, practical common sense, that a question
which can be so sensibly and so strongly main.-
tained, must in the end prevail.
And it is most important, not to say most
essential, to the prosperity of the West Indies,
that it should prevail. They want labour there—
the cultivation of the soil cannot now be carried
on fully and profitably, without more' labour.. The
old Negro, that is the former slave population, and
their immediate descendants, whose labour is at all
available, are not only not sufficient, but are in a
great measure, as far as their numbers go, becothe
inefficient, for the work that there is to do.
Their inefficiency may be owing, probably, in a
great degree, to so many, since they became their
own masters by emancipation, choosing other
occupations—which is certainly a very natural
result of such a change in their circumstances,
however inconvenient and injurious it may be to
the staple interests of the islands ; and if their
inefficiency is also to be traced to their having
been emancipated from slavery, and rendered
thereby indisposed for the requisite exertion, it
must be remembered that the transition
from the degradation of bondage to the
privileges of freedom, could scarcely avoid
having effects, for a while at least, unfavourable to
the continuance of that severity of toil to which it
was formerly found necessary to drive them, and
at which to keep them, with the whip,—though
that would certainly not seem to be any good
reason why they should have been still kept in
slavery. But, at any rate, more labour is now
imperatively demanded ; and it must, to answer

the purpose, be the labour of those who, being
accustomed to a tropical climate, can endure the
heat to which they will be exposed. Coolies are
found suitable enough, we believe. But Negroes
answer better still, and they are more easily pro-
cured, and more likely, we understand, to become
adapted to the state of civilisation around them.
The only drawback, more particularly, perhaps,
in the case of the latter, is the risk of their under-
going the treatment that slaves used to be subject
to—of being harshly, if not cruelly dealt with, in
forcing upon them their daily drudgery. But
surely it is not impossible to protect them from
improper treatment. Of course they must be
made to work —they are taken there under a
distinct engagement to do so. But are not our own
free labourers and operatives, here at home,
obliged to work ; and, if they will not, are they
not made to do so ? When an able-bodied man
applies to the Workhouse for relief, is it not the
first thing that is done with him to set him to
work, and make him work, as the condition of his
being supplied with food ? And the Coolie or the
Negro immigrant, in the West Indies, can have no
reason to complain if he is similarly dealt with.
The principle is a Christian one. " This we com-
manded you," says the Apostle, " that if any
would not work, neither should he eat." And it
is to bring the poor Coolies, and the wretched

Negroes, under civilising and Christian influences
—or ought to be—that is one of the greatest
recommendations of the system of immigration, by
which they are transplanted from a state of
barbarism and demoralisation, to one which may
be made to them a state of the greatest blessing,
both for this world and the next. This view of
the subject has been forcibly taken, in an Ame-
rican pamphlet *to which we have, on a former
occasion, alluded, entitled The Negro Labour
Question : By a New York Merchant,—the object
of which is to show, that the constrained labour of
Free Negroes, under proper regulations, while it
would supply the market of labour in the Southern
States of America, and the West Indies, much
more effectually than it is at present, would at the
same time be the means of eventually civilising
Africa. And on this plea it is, that the writer
contends, " they are the friends of humanity
they are the friends of human civilisation and
progress—they are the friends of commerce, of
industry, and of all that can advance a people
who would thus engage in an arrangement which
so many and such high interests evidently
demand at the present moment. Were there no
other question," he adds, " than this—the de-
graded condition of so many millions of our
fellow creatures in Africa, who are capable of
being elevated and made useful, and even honour-
able, in their day and generation, while at the
same time they contributed, by their industry and
their example, to promote all that can make the
nations great and good, surely it would be deserving
the highest and foremost regard of our statesmen,
our philanthropists, and our divines."

REFORM MEETINGI IN THE CITY OF LONDON.---A
requisition is being signed to the Lord Mayor to convene
a meeting in the Guildhall for the Purpae, of taking into
consideration the Reform Bill which was 'introduced into
the House of Commons, on Monday night, by Mr.. Disraeli.
It is understood that the Lord Mayor is ready to accede
to the wishes of the requisitionists, and it is probable that
Friday, the 11th inst., wilt be the day fixed tor the meet-
ing, no earlier date being Convenient to the Lord Mayor.
It is also said to be in contemplation to have a great metro-
politan demonstration against the ministerial measure.---
Star.

RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.—A parliamentary return issued
yesterday morning shows the number of accidents to rail-
way trains in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland,
and of persons killed and injured thereby, during the
half-year ending December 31, 1858. The number of
accidents was 29"; of passengers killed, 15 ; and injured,
322: There were also 7 servants of companies killed
and 21 injured ; and one person killed and another in-
jured who were neither passengers nor servants of com-
panies. The total killed was 23, and injured 344.