The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

--4.---

TimES:—lt is a singular coincidence in the history
of our Colonial Empire that while Victoria, in the
seventeenth year of its independent existence, is
undergoing a legislative crisis indicative of the highest
vitality, Jamaica is resigning into the hands of the
Home Government a Constitution some two cen-
turies old. Seldom has any political measure, never
has any measure affecting any of our colonies, been
received with such unanimous approval in both
Houses of Parliament as the Jamaica Government
Bill. The debate on the second reading in the
House of Lords on Tuesday night elicited no dif-
ference of opinion. Lord Russell, who has himself
held the seals of the Colonial Office, was followed
by two ex-Colonial Ministers, both of whom sup-
ported the bill in terms of unqualified satisfaction.
They all agreed that Jamaica distrers may b 2 traced
in groat part, and Lord Taunton was disposed to
ascribe it almost entirely, to the action of the
Colonial Legislature. It must be confessed that,
whether we look to the character and conduct of
this Assembly or to the example of other West
Indian Colonies under conditions precisely similar,
this conclusion is almost inevitable. We are met
at the outset with the fact that out of some 450,000
inhabitants, including less than 14,000 whites, only
1,797 possessed the franchise, and only 1,481 voted
at the date of the last election. This is startling
enough, but if we had the means of distinguishing
the white from the black and coloured returns we
should probably arrive at an infinitely more signi-
ficant result. A House of Assembly thus elected
could not be otherwise than exclusive, but in
Jamaica its exclusiveness was aggravated by a tradi-
tional spirit of faction. The power of originating
money votes, without the sanction of the Crown,
formerly vested in this House, was, indeed, abo-
lished in 1854, and transferred to the Governor
with the Executive Committee. Up to that time,
however, it did possess and grossly abused that
power, and since that time it has employed its right
of appropriation in the same unscrupulous manner.
According to Lord Grey, " the whole administra-
tion of the affairs of the island was distinguished
by corruption and jobbery, and by a total absence
of judgment in adapting measures to the existing
state of society." According to Lord Russell, the
House of Assembly very much increased the debt of
the island, allowed a small minority to keep up an
incessant agitation, obstructed all useful legislation,
and succeeded in defeating the experiment of eman-
cipation. These are hard sayings, but they are
borne out, not only by the unprecedented act of
political suicide committed by the very Assembly
thus impunged, but also by a comparison of Jamaica
with the neighbouring colonies. If we refer to the
" Colonial Office List" we find Jamaica described
as " the largeit and formerly the most valuable of
the British West Indies." Its area is more than
equal to the area of all the rest (excluding British
Guiana) put together, while its population is rather
less in proportion. In fertility it certainly ranks
among the first, and its exports used to be far in
excess of any other island. Yet, unless the process
of decay be arrested, it will soon be distanced by
Barbadoes, which is scarcely one-fortieth part of its
size, and contains but a third of its population.
Taking as a test of prosperity the production of
sugar, Lord Russell shows that, while it has largely
increased since the abolition of slavery in Barbadoes,
Trinidad, and Antigua, it has dwindled in Jamaica
from 1,356,000 cwt. to 471,000 cwt. Now, it so
happens that Barbadoes and Trinidad present a
marked contrast to each other in respect of the
supply of black labour. In Barbadoes there is a dense
black population which has been compelled to work
in order to subsist at all. Trinidad, with an acreage
nearly ten times as great, has a population of little
more than half, and of this population a consider-
able proportion consists of imported coolies. Still,
both have managed to flourish in spite of Emancipa-
tion and Free Trade, and Trinidad comes very near
Barbadoes in the value of its exports and imports.
Lord Grey ascribes the success of Trinidad almost
entirely to sound policy. " Trinidad, in 1846, was
in a most distressed condition: Its finances were
embarrassed, and it was with the greatest difficulty
that the Government could continue its existence.
But, by adopting sound principles of legislation, by
eschewing jobbery and corruption, Trinidad is at
this moment in an extremely prosperous condition,
and that, too, in spite of the fact that large sums of
money have been expended in public works and other
directions." Coupling such instances as this with
the discovery of a sufficient cause for the decline of
Jamaica in the notorious vices of its Legislature, it
is certainly difficult to avoid the inference that its
present depression is artificial, and the presumption
that it is curable. We must be on our guard, how-
ever, against pushing this last presumption. too far.
" Cessante causd cessat et effectus" is not a maxim of
politics, and evils which grow up in the course of a
generation may take a century to eradicate. The
same peculiarity in the social condition of Jamaica
which has brought about the failure of representa-
tive institutions must seriously retard its prosperity
under any form of Government. This peculiarity
is the want of a resident proprietary body—a body
almost essential to the idea of a true colony. India
is a dependency of the British Crown, but it is not,
properly.speaking, a colony, because there is but a
very small class of Englishmen, and that not the
governing class, who have made it their home. In
this sense Jamaica, at least since the epoch of eman-
cipation' has scarcely been more a colony than
India. Estates are chiefly managed through agents
and overseers sent from this country, and many of the
planters who reside on their own lands are " only
anxious," as Lord Grey says, " to make their for-
tunes and return home as speedily as possible."
Such a state of things is obviously fatal to self-
government, for the legislative power must needs
fall into the hands of a few individuals who may
have time to spare or may care to make a trade of
political life. But it is also highly detrimental to
agriculture and every other element of national wel-
fare. We know by sad experience the effects of
absenteeism in Ireland, and absenteeism must be
far more ruinous where the peasantry is composed
of negroes but lately emancipated. Such a popu-
lation specially requires the influence of a superior
class resident among them, and it is too much to
expect that they will prove capable of initiating the
means of their own improvement. Education, in
the largest sense, will be the first and most impor-
tant task of the new Government. The' next will
be the settlement of the " land question," as it is
beginning to be called, and the disposal of the
2,500,000 acres now out of cultivation. The negroes
have already acquired property by degrees, and
Lord Grey expresses the opinion that even if the
Legislature had not immolated itself, political ascen-
dency must soon have passed from the white to the
black race. If it were at all probable that the num-
bers of the former could be materially reinforced
by emigration, or that West India proprietors would
ever reside personally on their estates,
we might
naturally deplore this prospect. As it is, we must
be prepared to entertain it as the least hopeless solu-
tion of an almost desperate problem. As free la-
bourers the Jamaica negroes have rapidly deterio-
rated, and few will dispute Lord Grey's opinion
that they are wholly unfit for political power. It
remains to be seen whether the " magic of pro-
Pertv " under a paternal Administration, can turn
them into honest and industrious citizens.

DAILY NEWS. —lt is not without reason that Mr.
Gregory Iproposes to-morrow to inquire whether
the House of Commons will have an-opportunity of
expressing an opinion on the propriety of the seve-
rance of the national collections in the British
Museum, and the transportation of some of them to
South Kensington, before an estimate for that pur-
pose is moved. The superior attractions of South
Kensington have been seen in past sessions to draw
with irresistible force the expenditure of public
money in that quarter, sometimes in the shape of
Treasury' grants, sometimes by disbursements from
the surpluses of the Commissioners of Works, some-
times by votes in the estimates, sometimes by bill.
But it has also happened before now that attempts
have been made to oust the House of Commons of
lits power of veto, by the assertion that Government
has already committed itsolf, and that the faith of
the public has been inferentially pledged. And, at
any rate, the rejection of an estimate has become
too rare and exceptional an event to make its pro-
posal a fair or fitting opportunity for taking the
opinion of the house on matter of principle. We
may, however, assume that on this occasion the-bill
which Government has announced will be submitted
before any vote is asked for the purpose of carrying
out its-provisions. We should feel certain that this
course would be adopted did we not remember that
a like bill was rejected by a decisive majority in
1862, and yet that in every year since that date some
step has been taken, either by the purchase of land,
or by the procuring of plans, to induce the house to
nullify its own determination, and to allow pro-
ceedings to be taken which might afterwards be
represented as forbidding it to renew its protest.
It will, however, need reasons new as well as
strong to carry Parliament in 1866 to the reversal
of its policy so emphatically expressed in 1862.
If we are to have the case presented again on
merely the same grounds which were then rejected,
a different conclusion can hardly be expected or
desired. The necessity for doing something is in-
deed stronger now. The collections have grown,
though the house room has not been enlarged. Some
of them are now, as then, of necessity kept invisible,
because there is no place where they can be shown ;
and none are exhibited in the way they ought to be.
But this undeniable fact is no argument on either
side. All admit that we must build; the question
is, where shall we build? In 1862 the Exhibition
Commissioners offered the bribe of land at South
Kensington at a price Of only £lO,OOO per acre.