The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-06-05 00:00:00

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.

THE BOMBARDMENT of ALGIERS will take place
THIS EVENING (Friday), and on MONDAY EVENING

next.
This Exhibition will be repeated every MONDAY and FRI-
DAY, weather permitting, during the Season.
Admittance, One Shilling.

Ebe tibtrpool giPtanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, JUNE 5, 1840.

We have received our files of the Berbice Advertiser,
to the 13th of April, and of the Guiana Chronicle and
Guiana Times to the 15th of April, all inclusive. The
former of these journals furnishes us with some very
interesting details respecting the prosperity of the
British Guiana labourers—details that will appear
almost incredible to many of our readers. Their truth,
however, may be implicitly relied upon in every parti-
cular. It appears that the labourers of plantations
Annandale and Lnsignan, bad jointly purchased the
plantation New Orange Nassau, on the east coast of
Demerara river, for fifty thousand dollars, to be paid
for in silver in the course of a fortnight. Well might
the Berbice Advertiser exclaim—" Hear this, ye per-
secuted coloured people of America ! Hear this, ye
thousands of English and Irish and Scotch who are
dragging out a half-starved existence ! The fact that
in the course of twenty months freedom, two planta-
tions have been purchased by the lately emancipated,
while others are preparing to buy as property presents
itself, will speak in favour of immigration with resistless
eloquence." This fact also speaks volumes in reply to
the base and unfounded calumnies to which the agents of
the Anti-Slavery Society have given currency. Can
we find any parallel in England to the case of these
Guiana labourers ? Who ever heard of such an
instance of labouring prosperity in this country ? And
yet, forsooth, the negroes are an oppressed and ill-used
class of people ! The planters are perpetually cheating
them of their " just rights !" So, at least, says Mr.
Scoble. How comes it to pass that these " degraded
and ground-down labourers" are thus enabled to
accumulate out of their savings such princely sums of
money ?

It appears that the above plantation, New Orauye
Nassau, which was devoted to the cultivation of cotton
and plantains, is to be converted to a sugar plantation.
The labourers who have purchased it may become rich
in a few years. If in twenty mouths after freedom,
they can pay down upwards of ten thousand pounds,
the result of hired labour, what may they not become
in twenty years, working on their own soil, and having
all the profits ?

We wish we could make known these facts to every
one intending to emigrate from Great Britain and
Ireland. While others of our colonial possessions
possess undoubted claims on the attention of emigrants,
we know of none that offers such numerous advan-
tages, or holds out such golden prospects to the in-
dustrious labourer, as British Guiana. This is truly a
land of rich promise, the soil of which produces almost
spontaneously all that is necessary for the support of
human life, and which gives a grateful and abundant
supply of exportable produce in return for the most
trifling amount of labour.

Much has been said respecting the unhealthiness of the
climate of British Guiana. On this point we beg to refer
the attention of our readers to the extracts which we have
given in another column, from .the excellent work of
Mr. Schomburgk, who has had the advantage of a
residence in the colony, and who has traversed it in
its length and its breadth. We feel convinced that
the time is not far distant when the tide of emigration
from this country will be directed towards our West
India colonies, and that they wilt yet rise, if judiciously
governed, into a degree of prosperity to which the
history of commerce can scarcely produce a
parallel.
All that is requisite in order to raise the West Indies
from their present state of depression is, the accession
of a continuous and abundant supply of labourers.
The Guiana Times publishes an extract of a letter.
which had been received from Mr. Carberry, the agent
of the " British Guiana Immigration Society," dated
at Boston, from. which it appears that the Legislature of
Maryland had introduced a bill giving permission to
liberate their slaves, ou condition of their emigrating
to Guiana and Trinidad. Formerly, this could not be
done, unless the slave consented to go to Liberia. It
is said that the planters in the sugar and the cotton
States of America are anxious to part with a large
portion of the negro population, which, in many cases,
had become redundant. We know of no fitter outlet
for them than our West India colonies, where it is al-
most impossible that they should ever become too
numerous.

Since the above was written we have been favoured
with a file of the Guiana Times and Chronicle to the
2nd of May, inclusive. These papers are chiefly oc-
cupied with discussions on the protracted struggle in
the Colonial Legislature on the subject of the Civil
List. The Guiana Times of May 2 contains an elabo-
rate and instructive review of this debate and of all the
circumstances connected with it, which we shall transfer
to our pages, if possible, in our present publication,
or, at all events, in our next.
It will be in the recollection of those of our readers
who are interested in the affairs of the West Indies that
Mr. Young, the Government Secretary of Demerara,
left that colony for England in the month of September
last, ostensibly for the purpose of promoting the cause
of immigration, and forwarding the general interests
of British Guiana. In this supposed character he
came provided with despatches from Governor Light,
which were said to have for their object the promotion •
of the same cause. Subsequently to Mr. Young's
arrival in London, he placed himself in close commit-,
nication with the West India body, and consulted with
them in a confidential manner on the subject of immi-
gration. Matters appeared thus to be going- on very
smoothly, and the most sanguine expectations of success
were raised in the colony by the reports from England,
At length, Mr. Young reached Demerara to report
upon the issue of his mission to the Home Govern-
ment. The Local Legislature was convened to receive
his report, and then it was discovered. that the gentle-
man had been to England, as the Guiana Times
remarks, " not to obtain a reform of the institutions of
the colony, nor to procure labour 'for the resuscitation
of its declining agriculture, but to suggest to her
Majesty's Government, themselves but superficially
versed in colonial affairs, the increase of his (the Co- .
lonial Secretary's) salary from £1,200 to £2,000, during
twenty-one years, and the proportionate augmentation,
during the same period, of the salaries of almost all the
other officers standing upon what is known as the Civil
List." If the COlonial Legislature consented to concede
these favours, it was announced that they, in return,
were to be allowed, hut only during the Queen's plea-
sure, to give their sanction to an immigration ordi-
nance. It was rendered imperative, however, that such
ordinance should prohibit the colony from seeking
labourers either in Africa or India. It was further
stipulated that the Governor should have the perpetual
controul over the annual amount to be expended 011
immigration purposes. The colony was also to have
the benefit of an import duty, which should include
articles of British origin and manufacture, the rate of
which was to be left to the discretion of the Govern-
ment, on its view of the public exigencies.
The Court of Policy, in which the government in-
fluence is predominant, acceded to this plan, buttliise
Combined Court remained, in which the former