The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-07-28 00:00:00

THE WEST INDIA IMMIGRATION SOCIETY

(From the Morniug Herald.)

Attention has already been called to the establishment of
a " West India Immigration Society" in the city, an event
which may be hailed as most opportune in support of the
best interests of the West India body at large. It may be
proper to add, that it has received the sanction and the writ-
ten accession of almost every firm of any standing connected
with the West Indies, of which the prospectus bears testi-
mony by the list of names and subscribers appended. In
considering the objects of this society, which laudably seeks
to accomplish them by facilitating voluntary emigration only
from hence and elsewhere, it must be borne in mind that -the
government, well disposed as it was to lend its sanction and
to encourage, so far as the state of .ppblic opinion permitted,
immigration into the West Indies, to supply the deficiency
of labour notoriously existing, and so to increase the produc-
tion on which the receipts of a large branch of revenue were
contingent, were not able, nevertheless, to carry the measure
they proposed into effect, from the conflict of opinion and
prejudice arrayed against it in one quarter, and from the ini-
mical combination of another quarter in opposition ; inimical
only because the projected licence of immigration being con-
fined to the Mauritius solely, was too partial in its' propor-
tions and operation to benefit the West India interest in
the least. The measure, indeed, was announced to be one
of- trial only, the successful results of which might lead to
its extension to the West Indies ; but, as the old saying has
it, whilst the grass grows the ox starves. Such are the ne-
cessities, such the destitute position of the West Indies, for
want of an adequate supply of labour hands, that unless instant,
not prospective and distant, relief be afforded, the colonies
daily declining in .productiveness, may be ruined past re-
demption before the day of promised succour arrives. This is
no disputed question of freedom for the negroes, or coercing
them to work. The price of their redemption has been paid,
and large as it was, cheerfully paid by the nation in the sense
of humanity and for the consummation of the success of a
great and sacred principle. The coercion of negro or late
slave labour is happily quite out of the question. But it must
not be lost sight of that, in the free state, it is little likely they
will exert the same physical energies as when in the slave
state of compulsory labour: All history and experience is
there to teach that the masses work only as far as the means
of subsistence compel the application of industry, and that
few and far between are the instances in which provident ha-
bits lead to continuons labour and the saving and accumula-
tion of its profits for the benefit of families. That which is
true of civilised communities like England, is of more strin-
gent truth still as referrable to the West Indian labouring
population. For their wants, from physical organisation, ha-
bits and climate, are so few and so easily satisfied, that at
the present rates of wages ruling there two days work per
week are amply sufficient to provide for every emergency, and
therefore the negro, from temperament peculiarly careless of
to-morrow, and characterised by a certain slothfulness and
insouciance, works, and-will work, only so far as necessity
enforces, the measure of which may be easily estimated by
what has been already' remarked. The fruits of the earth.
growing almost spontaneously, form his chief food, and with
the banana, fig banana and potato, cultivated or procured
with the slightest cost of labour or expense, ho is satisfied
and dreams of nothing more. This is the ;real reason why
with-the same number of hands or population, production Is
on. the decrease, and is likely so to continue, as the example
of Hayti is there to demoustate. And it is from the pressure of
these considerations that the West India body are uniting
their efforts in the " West India Immigration Society" to
increase the number of labourers in a field so ample, and so
little explored and cultivated hitherto, so as not only to com-
pensate for the deficiency of labour now experienced, but to
augment its amount commensurately with the vast territories
till now lying waste ; whilst at the same time by the fair com-
petition thus brought to bear, the present race of emancipated
workmen may be stimulated to greater industry, when the
inducements to sloth are taken away by the virtual abolition
of the labour mai ket now enjoyed. To the mother country
it is of incalculable importance, both politically and commer-
cially, that the West Indies should be maintained as an im-
mense field of production for the tropical products, equal to
the supply, not of this empire only, but of the whole world.
And these colonies possess the peculiar advantage of more
close proximity to the parent state than any other portion
of the British dominions from which the same products can
be derived, and therefore are so much more secure of pos-
session, while they form the very best nursery of a commer-
cial marine, which must ever be the basis of naval ascendancy.
The system and regulations laid down for the promotion of
immigration on the most wise and humane principles, with
the view to the introduction only of a working population of
the best moral, religious, and sober habits, are greatly cre-
ditable to the society, and the strongest assurance of its suc-
cess and beneficial working to all parties, both in the profit
sense to the shareholders and liberal remuneration secured
to the immigrants.