The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-04-14 00:00:00

IMMIGRATION INTO THE WEST INDIES.

(From the Jamaica Standard of Feb. 15.)
We observe by the town papers, that a Mr. Watt, agent
for the Messrs. Mitchel, has lately arrived in the New Phoenix
at St. Ann's Bay, with 140 Irish emigrants, which he is re-
ported to have selected with great care, from a neighbourhood
where both himself and his family are well known. The
people are described to be of a superior description for their
humble sphere of life, and give every promise of turning out
an acquisition to the several properties upon which they have
been located. Only keep rum from them—that bane of
nine-tenths of all the emigrants who have ever yet come to
this country—and we have little doubt of their success—none
whatever, indeed, either as regards their comfort or their
health, if they will only abstain from intemperance and prove
moderately industrious. For this purpose, we have often
thought, that were employers to encourage a taste for sweets,
among their newly-arrived peasantry, by sharing out sugar
made into " beverage," instead of the too often deleterious
mixture of new rum and water with which they are supplied,
a habit of temperance might thereby be instilled into them,
which would prove in the end not less advantageous to the
master, than morally as well as physically beneficial to the
labourers themselves. In the cider counties of England, it
is a practice almost universal, to allow a certain quantity of
that liquor per diem, to each person, at something less than
its equivalent in money wages, and the result has always
proved, with the most useful effects ; why then, should not a
similar custom he adopted among the sugar parishes of Ja-
maica, where the juice of the cane, (more especially when it
is flavoured with that of the lemon, which is to be found in
abundance in almost every pasture or hedge-row) is certainly
much more nourishing as well as palateable, than any new-
made cider that we ever saw. The country negroes, gene-
rally, are a temperate race,—and why? from no other cause
than that from their very childhood they have been in the
habit of using the cane juice as their only beverage, in special
encouragement of which, the old system, with all its faults,
allowed a pint of the same per day, to every person on the
estate during crop, a practice neither discontinued nor taken
into any account under the more liberal agreements of the
new. It is a fact, we believe, of almost univeripal application,
thath
noT
satneobrsoeboxre'l eaudrrteeaisnintr aeemsefiteonesr for
the
sswt
reoent
gs
ei i
rs
snt itbileadn,t br,a et r inst.lih ttle
hi
eohr
we would advise all those having the management of immi-
grants
he
d withs desired, inhabitants, dsi*t
y ii
sm ama
subject
udg
br
jsa.
eot
ci immigration
fruitful nti
cahn hi
as
als a ns
Jamaica,—
and
longoa scan-
tilyle a—
like industry among the labourers or prosperity
toif
a thensuy Pt
plantershi lanything
occu-
pied the attention of our readers ; but, like many other mat-
ters in which the public weal has been concerned, it has
unfortunately been much snore discussed than acted upon.
Not so, however, with the people of other colonies In
Trinidad and Demerara, for instance,—the two colonies. next
to Jamaica in extent, as well as in uncultivated lands,—the
strongest efforts are being made, both by
public
purpose
co-operationand private interest, to effect this desirable
cargoeso conse-
quentlyf we find in the former the arrival of severallately announced, one of which we observe is composed
American emigrants, and another of German. By a return
of labour performed by some of the former, during the first
two weeks of their arrival, it would appear that they each
accomplished from two to three " tasks " per diem, in
" weeding" canes,—the " first weeding of young plants,"
which also included " moulding," being divided into tasks
of 3,600 superficial feet ; while for the " third weeding of
ratoons" the task was 6,400 feet. The price paid, we may
also observe, was " four bits, with an allowance for each
task of half a pound of fish, and two gills of rum, or its equi-
valent,—say, in all, five bits per task." So that these la-
bourersand thus, it is said, encouraging the other labourersdoniiipriieo
n
the property, " from sheer shame,
perform
ld A
" to
were earning from 3s. 9d. to ss. 6d. sterling per day,
d
tahveeirryusguoalodtaospkpo! Trinidadide
rSn
it an nn db anr r
of slavery and
assertion, that the labourers, both in the time
—rttamfiatcytowfhreicfhergriinvgestoththee
the apprenticeship, were much overworked ; but which could
d that
scarcely have been the case, certainly, if now it is found
they themselves can very easily accomplish twice the quail.