The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-08-25 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS,

Our correspondents must exercise a little patience. The
length of our assize reports compels us to omit or post-
pone many communications with which we are favoured.
We shall feel obliged if " A Town and County Elector" will
favour us with a personal interview at his earliest conve-

nience.
We beg to express our acknowledgments to the publisher of
the Ludlow Standard for favouring us with a copy of the
first number of that journal, from which, it will be per-
ceived, we have extracted an account of the murderous
attempt on Mr. Mackreth's life.

Ebt Ethrrpool gptanTrarti.

TUESDAY MORNING, AUGUST 25, 1840,

We have received our files of the Jamaica Royal
Gazette and of the Jamaica Standard to the 18th of
July, inclusive. These papers contain much important
matter relating to the present position and future pro-
spects of the island. We learn from the Standard that
the weather had been for some time of the most pro-
pitious character for taking off the crops ; but we are
sorry to add that they have exhibited a decrease upon
last year's ruinously small crops as great as that year's
was upon the one preceding. This decrease is not at-
tributable to the weather. It has arisen from the dif-
ficulty of getting labourers to plant the canes, and the
disinclination they have evinced to attend to the sub-
sequent processes in the cultivation. This is extremely
melancholy, and shows most strongly the necessity
that exists for the immediate interference of the Im-
perial Parliament on behalf of this once prosperous
colony. Sugar is likely to be much dearer than it is
even at present. It is to be hoped that the complaints
to which the great increase in the price of this neces-
sary of life will give rise will induce our legislators to
direct their early attention to the adoption of some re-
medial measure, which is now as much necessary for
the salvation from ruin of our West India colonies as
it is for securing to this nation an adequate supply, in
future, of an article of such general consumption. We
see no remedy of a practicable nature but the one for
which we have so long contended—
immigration. We
feel convinced that the day is not far distant when the
table of the House of Commons will be loaded with
petitions from all parts of the kingdom in favour of
West India immigration. The friends of negro eman-
cipation will soon discover that this is the only plan
that can be adopted for successfully working out the
" great problem" of free labour. We have reason,
therefore, to look forward to their co-operation in the
agitation of this important question.
The prospects of the coffee crop are described in the
Royal Gazette as highly favourable; but much will
depend upon the disposition of the labourers to secure
its collection. There is reason to fear that their idle-
ness or contumacy will frustrate the bounty of Provi-
dence.

With reference to the general condition of the island
the Royal Gazette remarks, that " estates are thrown
up—men of little property are gathering their all and
leaving our shores—tracts of country are without a
medical practitioner—the white population are every
day decreasing—our merchants feel the general dis-
tress—our shipping are leaving our harbours half
loaded, and having to take in ballast—trade is at a
stand—energy is paralyzed—and day after day distress
becomes more apparent. Bold and vigorous measures
are our only safety; immigration is our resource; and
even these will not aid us without the powerful protec-
tion of government—government must protect us, or
our island falls." Iris, indeed, plain that without im-
migration the island will become a dreary waste.
In proof of the great defalcation in the amount of

the coffee crops, the Royal Gazette has published a
statement of the quantity exported during each of the
last four years.• We request the attention of Messrs.
Sturge, Scoble, and Co. to the following figures :
Amount of Coffee exported in the years—

1835
1836
1838
1839
1840

27,362,7421bs
19,446,059 „
13,551,795 „
8,897,421 „

5,889,786

(expected)
Shewing a deficit in the quantity made and expected
for the present year of 3,007,633 lbs.
Much has been said at the anti-slavery meetings in
this country respecting the increased imports into Ja-
maica, which have been dwelt upon as indications of
the prosperous condition of the island. On this sub-
ject the Jamaica Standard has furnished the follosiing
statement :

The gross amount of Jamaica Importations, from the
United States, British America, &c., &c., was, as published
in our paper on the 4th of September last—
For 1835
1836
1837
1838

£1,718,763

1,756,504
1,504,223
1,442,570
(Those for 1839 we have no means at present of obtaining.)
From this table, however, it is pretty apparent that a very
serious decrease in our general importations has been taking
place, to an extent nearly equalling the whole of our British
supplies put together—amounting, as between 1836 and 1838,
to the enormous deficiency of £310,000 !

We have received our files of the Guiana Chronicle
to the 10th of July, inclusive. They do not contain
any political news of importance. It appears that the
" Voluntary Immigration Society of British Guiana"
has been reconstructed, on principles which are calcu-
lated to secure a most desirable object, namely, the
union of all parties, without reference to politics, in
strenuous endeavours to procure an accession to the
labouring population of the colony. The principles
upon which the new society is based are described by
the Chronicle as equitable in the extreme. It recog-
nises the propriety of every subscriber contributing to
promote immigration according to his means. The
same journal suggests that he who takes the larger
number of immigrants should be called upon to pay
more than he who takes a smaller number. We are
glad to hear of such an unanimous determination on
the part of the planters and merchants of British Gui-
ana to promote the influx of fresh labourers, and we
trust that their exertions will not pass unrewarded.
The colony only wants an addition to its industrial po-
pulation in order to render it one of the most prosper-
ous countries on the face of the earth.

In our last we made some remarks upon the alleged
mis-appropriation of the funds of the Catholic Bazaar,
qualifying our statement on the subject by saying that
" if our information was correct" the proceeds had been
applied in payment of the rates and taxes of those
parties who have been placed on the registry through

the instrumentality of the Protector Association. In
reference to the statement to which we allude the fol-
lowing letter appeared in the columns of the Albion of