The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-04-21 00:00:00

IMMIGRATION INTO THE WEST INDIA COLONIES
MR. SCOBLE AND HIS MISSTATEMENTS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.
SIR,—In your paper of Saturday there appears a long let-
ler, signed " John Scoble," on Immigration into the West
India Colonies, in which he coolly expresses his surprise that
you should have ventured to adopt views contrary to his own
on this most important subject, insinuatir, in effect that you
are not competent to form an opinion, and endeavouring to
prove to the world that he alone is qualified to pronounce a
correct judgement. In the course of this letter it will be seen
that others, whose authority is indisputable, have had the
presumption to show a similar distrust of the soundness of ,
Mr. Scoble's own opinions, and a disinclination to adopt the
measures proposed by the party with whom he acts.
In a recent pamphlet by this same gentleman, after an ap-
parent lamentation over his declining trade, and an ill-dis-
guised indignation that the public will no longer suffer them-
selves to be deluded by his figments, he, in consequence of
the London and provincial journals having taken up the cause
of immigration into these colonies, and the encouragement
of free labour. produce, says that "immigration is supported
by a venal press in the colonies, and a well-paid band of
editors in this country." Whether he intends to insinuate
that you are one of the latter it is impossible for me to say,
but the remark is both impertinent and suspicious • and un-
less you forthwith make the amende honourable, and at once
adopt a line of argument in accordance with his mandate,
your independence will be evidently questioned. En passanl,
what is the salary allowed by the Anti-Slavery Society to Mr.
Scoble, for his literary and itinerant labours
But, Mr; Editor, it is time to consult the judgment of
others upon this point, in order that the public may know
how far Mr. Scoble's sentiments are worthy of general re-
ception ; and with this view I shall, with your permission,
proceed to make a few extracts from certain parliamentary
papers, in which he makes a somewhat awkward appearance.
Sir James Carmichael Smyth, a gentleman of unquestioned
judgment and unsullied integrity, which Governor of British
Guiana, in a despatch to Lord Glenelg, dated 7th of April,
1837, writes—
" I now beg leave to submit to your lordship a copy of a
letter I have caused to be addressed to Mr. Scoble, acquaint-
ing him with the result of the several investigations. I re-
spectfully submit to your lordship that nothing can afford a
more satisfactory proof of the state of this province, than
the paucity of the complaints made known to me by Mr.
Scoble, and the mistakes and errors upon which the greater
number are founded."

And again on the Bth of August, in the same year :
" Your lordship will observe, and I am certain with con-
siderable regret, that the good which might be gained by the
observations of a judicious and impartial traveller, is, in the
case of Mr. Scoble, neutralized by the haste with whiCh he
arrives at his conclusions, and, but too frequently, upon er-
roneous and inacc►irate information."
Nor is Sir J. C. Smith singular in his opinions of Mr.
Scoble's qualifications. At the end of 1838,it appears he ac-
companied Mr. Ainstie and Captain Stuart to British Gui-
ana. Of his conduct there Governor Light speaks in the
following terms, in a dispatch to the Marquis of Normanby,
dated Gth May, 1838.
Mr. Scoble, and his companion Mr. Ainstie, are still here ;
of course, their object has been to watch with jealousy all
that is going on." This, surely, is not much in accordance
with his boasted Christian spirit, and argues very little in
favour of a dispassionate decision on the state of the coun-
try, and is very different from the course pursued by Mr.
Stuart, or, as he was designated, the Rev. Capt. Stewart, of
whom, in the same despatch, the governor says :
" If appearances and expressions previous to his departure
from this province are to be believed, Mr. Stuart was sat►sfied
that the labourer was as fairly treated by the great majority
of the planters as in any other free country, and that both
parties are in a fair way of understanding their mutual re-
lations."

So much for Mr. Scoble's title and capacity to become
an exclusive oracle in reference to this important question.
And here permit me to ofier a few remarks upon the subject
generally, and to retain assumed facts in his letter specially.
Having for some time past devoted much time and attention
to colonial immigration, the importance of the subject has
forced itself upon me in a stronger point of view, and led me
to arrive at conclusions widely different from Mr. Scoble's,
and more consonant to those of many able and talented
individuals who wrote upon the subject longlefore the pre-
sent scheme of immigration to the West Indies was proposed
—a scheme which, under proper government regulations,
'cannot fail to be attended with the greatest benefits to the
emigrants, to the colonies, and to the mother country.
Mr. Scoble complains that " the planters of the West
Indies propose gigantic measures of emigration." Is this a
crime? Are there not gigantic measures of emigration pro-
posed in this country to all our colonies, east, west, north,
and south ? Does he not himself advocate gigantic schemes
for growing cotton in Africa and the East? Why, then, in
the name of reason and justice, should the West India colo-
nies, the most valuable and accessible of all, where the
labourers would command ample remuneration, particularly
in Guiana, Trinidad, and Jamaica—why, I ask, should they
be invidiously excluded from the benefit of these measures ?
The remark of his grace the Duke of Wellington, that
" Great Britain could not engage in a little war," bears
directly, in fact, upon the point ; and I have no doubt all but
little-minded men will agree that immigration, to be generally
beneficial to all concerned, cannot be carried on in a little
peddling spirit.
Dr. Hancock, a very able and talented medical gentleman,
who had lived twenty-four years in British Guiana, (and who,
his own words prove, could not have been one of the hired
band of editors,) on his return to this country published, in
1835, a very valuable and important pamphlet, " On the
climate, soil, and productions of British Guiana, and the
advantages of emigration to that colony." In the introduc-
tion he observes,
' Although,' as Pope says,—
' Self-love, the spring of actions, moves the soul,
the author has riot, in drawing up the following remarks
had any other object in view than that of directing public
attention to one of the most desirable countries on the globe
for colonization, in order to relieve the sufferings of the poor
—to excite travellers and colonists to examine the hidden
treasures unexplored, and thus to extend the boundaries of
science, of commerce, manufactures, and all that of peace."

He subsequently says—
'' National wealth and power have ever been found to in-
crease with the accession of colonies, and to decline in pro-
portion as these fall off; history abundantly testifies to these
facts ; and that of ancient Rome especially. In later times
the colonial possessions of Spain have, from bad management,
nearly all been lost, and her foreign commerce, which for-
merly extended over the globe, is thereby almost annihilated.
Napoleon Buonaparte, with his forty millions of subjects,
became fully sensible that nothing but ships, colonies, and
commerce, could enable him to cope with the power of Great
Britain." p. 3.

Again—
" I may here quote a few words from a well-written pam-
phlet on emigration :—` From various causes, the fields of
employment have become crowded, and the labouring classes
are looking about fore more room and better means of sub-
sistence ; emigration, under such an impulse, resembles a
stream from an overflowing fountain, which may be guided,
but cannot be stopped." p. 3-4.
In a subsequent page the following judicious remarks are
particularly striking :
" Most planters have considered the labour of slaves to be
indispensable to successful cultivation in the coast; and with
reason, perhaps, as heretofore conducted. It is certain, in-
deed. that the cultivation of the coast cannot be continued
unless it be by the means suggested—by the introduction of
emigrants, and the use of animal labour. In proof of this we
might instance the Island of Hayti, where, notwithstanding
the endeavours of despotic chiefs, the cultivation has so de-
clined, that there is not now a sufficiency of sugar produced
for the use of the inhabitants."—p. 6.
Many extracts could be made from this able pamphlet to
show the advantages of emigration to British Guiana, hut I
have already trespassed too much upon your attention, and
therefore enclose the work itself, particularly directing your
attention to the remarks (quoted by Dr. Hancock) of William
Penn, Talleyrand, :the late Chancellor of England, Baron de
Humboldt, and Abbe de Pradt.
One other observation is, however, too valuable to be
omitted :

" Throughout this rich and beautiful country," the author
says, " the great rivers Essepuibo, Demerara, Berbice, Cou-
rantine, &c., afford an easy transit to the higher lands,
whence roads and canals may be opened to any other part of
the interior. If, then, the government and people of this
country desire to render the greatest possible aid to destitute
families, to introduce the benefits of civilization among the
native tribes, and at the same time to assist the planters in
forming colonies truly valuable, they will not be backward, I
presume, in rendering the necessary aid for effecting objects
so desirable."—p. 14.
This evidence may, perhaps, appear to be derived from a
partial witness; let us then hear Mr. Scoble himself, who in
a lecture delivered in Philadelphia, United States, makes the
following confirmatory remarks, on the truth and accuracy
of which I am willing to rest the expediency of emigration to
British Guiana.

" British Guiana," he says, " is a colony on the coast of
South America, and one which will ere long rival, in its wealth
and population, the state of New York. It is capable of
sustaining a population of forty millions, though the actual
number of the inhabitants is now only about a hundred
thousand. It possesses an inexhaustible soil of amazing
fertility and depth ; it has hem, ascertained by actual mea-
surement, that in some places the rich alluvial compost
extends to the depth of one hundred and forty feet. There
are those fields of cane which have been kept up by a process
called rattoning' from forty, fifty, sixty, and seventy years.
It is only necessary to thrust the top of the cane into the soil
when it springs up, and spontaneously yields the richest
produce. This is the province called Demerara."
I will not spoil this passage by a single observation.
To return, however, to the letter under consideration ;
it is there affirmed that, notwithstanding the outcries of the
West India body to the contrary, they never were in a state
of greaterprosperity than at the present moment. If dimi-
nished crops, increased expenditure, the entire abandonment
of many estates, the loss of hundreds of acres of cultivation
on others, the excess of expenditure over the revenue by
which the proprietors of many are deeply embarrassed, be
marks of prosperity, Mr. Scoble is correct. But if, as I
believe, they are indications of decay, and portentous of
ruin, I do not envy that obliquity of mind which could hazard
such an astounding paradox in the face of officially recog-
nized documents proving the contrary.
If our commerce or shipping has not materially and ob-
viously declined, whence does it arise that, in the port of
British Guiana alone, where formerly a fleet of seventy or
eighty sail of merchantmen were constantly found, and the
merry song of the sailor at the capstan continually rose on
the breeze, but sixteen or eighteen are now to be seen, and
many of these, instead of rich freights of sugar, coffee, cotton,
rum, and molasses, clear out in sand or mud for ballast, and
sek in foreign slave states those productions which our
neglected colonies no longer afford.
Scoble must look upon the British public as stultified
to an unparalleled extent when he expects
unt of
atnhieomtobelieve
that there is but a slight diminution in the sugar'
tphan.tne d
ever. colonies,\%rh a
tandsays
yt
sh totrhde
John
oahrne
ienxpaonloedre from the
u:nslttatnteci
dated February 15, 1840 :
Russell upon this head, in his despatch to Governor Light,
you are at issue with the planter proprietorsat this moment pros-
perous," I will not at present enter Into theciuestioofnßurpitoinshwahincih.
Gui-
ana, namely, whether the colony is
unques-
tionable. The return appended to your
from 6th
or the reverse. The decline ofpi oddesupeneteihs
oflsthOctober, 1839, shows a decrease on the quarter,,t
July to 10th October, as compared with 1831,
sugar, of 7,259 hogsheads ; rum, of 2,014 puncheons ; 183-, 1833, in
mo-
lasses, 7,309 hogsheads. But in coffee the decrease is still
more remarkable, being a decline from 1,613,228 pounds to
346,350, or more than three-fourths of the whole production
of former years."
' The statement of the West India merchants, in their, me-
morial of the 17th ultimo, is as follows :
" The deficiency in the last year's crops, in Demerara
alone, exclusive of 13erbiee was shown to be no less than
£930,000." Some part of this decline may be owing, as you
assert, to the lateness of the season ; but no doubt can exist
as to the fact of a remarkable falling off in the quantity of
produce during the first year of freedom."
Nor is this the only evidence, for it appears from a parlia-
mentary paper that the average crops of British Guiana for
six years, viz., 1831, 1832, and 1833, being the last years of
slavery ; and 1835, 1836, and 1837, being the last years of
the apprenticeship system, was, 62,195 hogsheads of sugar;
whilst the crop
,531, being bsteiilnl groao
rdeiminutionof
remarkable,
1,9_,h6e6n4 hwoegcsohmeaedsto;
ofanldB3tBhewfaalslinsg2
compare the crop of 1839.
The average as above of the six years is, 62,195 hogsheads,
whereas the crop of 1839 has only reached 29,729, exhibiting
the alarming deficiency of 32,266 hogsheads ; and this, not_

withstanding the extensive introduction of machinery, which
ought to have produced a considerable increase.
It was my intention to have gone through Mr. Scoblc's
letter in detail, but I find I have already trespassed too
largely upon your columns ; I trust, however, you will per-
mit me at a future opportunity to resume the subject, as it
is not confined to the interests of the West Indies, but es-
sentially affects the prosperity of the British empire ; and the
cause of truth is compromised when any garbled or fallactons
statements are allowed to circulate uncontradicted.

I have the honour to be sir,
Your obliged and humble servant,
AN ENEMY TO THE SLAVE TRADE
AND-SLAVE PRODUCE.
London, April 6, 1840.