Star.
London, England, 1829-09-24 00:00:00

CULTURE of SUGAR by FREE LABOUR.

FROM THE ANTI-SLAV ERY REPORTER, SEPT. 1829.
We are anxious to advert to a topic, on which the
Colonial pamphleteers and journalists have laboured bud during the
last month, to work on the public mind. We allude to the culture
of sugar by free labour. A writer of the name of Sanersaunv has
stept forward among the rest, and repeated the exploded fallacies
of the late Mr. M , as well as those of Mr. IMACQUIOI, on
the subject of the sugar imported hither from the East Indies.
which they hardily affirm to be the produce of slave labour, and
not the produce of free labour. Our readers of the present day
are, perhaps, not aware, that this controversy was conclusively
settled in 1823. The late Mr. M then employed his able
pen In endeavouring to establish this point; and the present race
of writers have, in fact, done little more, with far less of talent and
acuteness. to produce again his refuted arguments, and to fortify
them with his disproved statements. The refutation and disproof
may both be found in a pamplet entitled,
•' A letter to W. W. Wnerstoax, Esq. M.P." This pamplet was
deemed decisive at the time. The facts of the case are precisely
the same now as they were then, and the Letter to Mr. WHlT-
mons is just as complete a reply to Mr. Santessese's positions as
it was to those of Mr. M . It will there be seen that, not
only is there no instance in which the husbandry of the Bengal pro-
vinces, from which alone we derive our sugar, is conducted by
slaves ; but we have it pointed out to us clearly, and in every in-
stance, by whom the labour is performed, namely, by the family of
the Rot or farmer, and by labourers hired by him as they are
wanted, and whose rates of wages are distinctly given in the official
documents on the subject.
The whole effect on the public mind produced by Mr. SAINTS-
soar and others, proceeds from their wilful and deliberate misre-
presentation of the documents to which they refer. They quote,
as applicable to Bengal, passages which have a reference only to
the Malabar coast ! The existence of slavery, for instance, in some
recently-ceded district on the Malabar side of India, is made to
prove that sugar is cultivated by slaves in Bengal. The volumnious
collection of documents, printed by the East India Company in
1823, furnishes the most decisive and irrefragable proofs—(every
page is full of them)—that the whole of the agriculture of the
Bengal provinces is conducted by free labour. On this fact there
can be no controversy with an honest reader of these documents.
But, in order to overthrow this mass of testimony, what do such
writers as Mr. SAINTSRITAT do ? They resort to statements which
refer to quite another part of the world, and apply them to Ben-
gal ; and they hope to evade detection, because Malabar and Ben-
gal are both in Asia or in India. They might with equal conclu-
siveness prove that corn is grown in Great Britain by slave labour,
because there happen to be slaves in Russia. The only sugar, how-
ever, however, which we receive front India comes from Bengal.
Malabar imports sugar from abroad for its own consumption. The
proof of all this may be seen in the pamphlet to which we have re-
ferred, and which points in every case to the page of the authentic
work which it cites. There is also another pamphlet, published in
1824, which is equally conclusive on this point as the letter to Mr.
WHITMOAL It is entitled, East India Sugar, or an Inquiry re-
specting the means of improving the quality and reducing the cost
of sugar raised by free labour in the East Indies."
But if there were no such pamphlets in existence, the statements
of Sir Enwaan Heim Easy and Mr. Hume in the House of Com-
mons on the Ist of Alarch, 1826, would of themselves be sufficient
to refute every syllable published by Mr. SAINTSAURY, or a thou-
sand such writers. Sir E. H. EAST is a large Jamaica proprietor,
who had filled for years the situation of Chief Justice in Bengal.—
He denied, in the most explicit terms, that slavery was recognized
by law as a condition of society in Bet.gal ; and Mr. Huns added,
that he had been much in Bengal, and from what he knew of so-
ciety there, he would undertake confidently to say, that there were
no agricultural slaves there. Let a single extract more on this
subject suffice for the present. It is taken front the letter to
Mr. Witintonz already referred to. The letter writer quotes
the testimony of the Bengal Board of Trade, of the 7th of
August, 1792, to the following effect, as contained in the
first Appendix to the East India Company's great volume, printed
in 1823, pp. 51 to 60. " In this country (Bengal) the cultivator
is either the immediate proprietor of the ground, or he hires it, as
in Europe, of the proprietor, and uses his disuetion in cultivating
what he thinks best adapted to the nature of the soil or the demand
of the market. One field produces sugar, the next wheat, rice, or
cotton. The husbandman is nourished and clothed from his own
ground ; or, if he thinks it more his interest to sell the whole of his
own produce, supplies himself and family with the necessaries of
life from his neighbours on the next public market:' Contrasting
their state with that of slaves in the West Indies, it is added, "The
Bengal peasantry are freemen." " The Bengal peasant is actuated
by the ordinary wants and desires of mankind. His family assist his
labour and soothe his toil, and the sharp eye of personal interest
guides his judgment." This statement is followed by a great variety
of Reports from the presidents and collectors in the different pro-
vinces of Bengal, and extending through more than two hun-
dred closely printed folio pages. The existence of slavery as
a condition of society in Bengal is not once alluded to in any
one of these Reporte, although they give us a variety of
minute and detailed calculations of the cost of raising sugar.
In short, there is no more allusion to slave labour, as
forming a constituent part of the charge of cultivating sugar, than
there would be to slave labour in an estimate of the cost of grow-
ing corn in the county of York. Slaves are never mentioned ; and
the only substitute for hired labour ever hinted at, is the labour of
the farmer's household.
But we may spare ourselves the trouble of confuting the elabo-
rate mistatements of our adversaries on this question. The con-
troversy is fast tending to its termination. The march of events
will scarcely leave room much longer, either for misrepresentation
or misapprehension. The facilities already given in Bengal, by
Lord W. Butemce, to the investment of British capital and the
development of British skill in the cultivation of the soil ; the
almost certainty that those fiscal regulations which have hitherto
depressed the growth of sugar in Bengal, and prevented the large
increase of its imports into this country, will soon be repealed ;
the prospect of an early removal of the other restrictions which
still fetter the commerce of our Eastern possessions ; the rapidly
increasing population and prosperity of Hayti; the official state-
ments of Mr. WALD, as to the profitable culture of sugar by free
labour In Mexico; and the rapid extension of the manufacture of
beet root sugar in France ; a prelude, as we conceive, to its intro-
duction into this country, and especially into Ireland—all these
circumstances combined, afford a promise which can scarcely fail
of seeing a death-blow inflicted on the culture of sugar by slave-
labour, which all the misrepresentations of all the slave-holders in
the world, with all their clamorous partizans in this country, can-
not avert, or even long retard.