The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-10-09 00:00:00

DEFICIENCY OF CROPS IN JAMAICA.

In another of our columns will be found an official return
from the Customhouse, Kingston, showing the exact quantities
of sugar, rum, and coffee, the staple articles of the island, ex-
ported from Jamaica in the years ending August 1, 1834 and
1835 respectively. The year 1834, it should be observed, was
remarkable for the deficiency of the crops when compared with
`that of either of the five or six preceding years, and, therefore,
if the return be intended to show the actual loss sustained by
the planters in consequence of the adoption of the " apprentice
system," a most unfair comparison has been drawn by taking
it as the standard, instead of taking the average of the five years
previous. However, the official return of the exports from the
island of Jamaica for the year ending August 1, 1835, when
compared with that of 1834—a year.he remembered in which
there was a great falling off in the exportations—exhibits the
following deficiencies in quantities and value, estimating the
Value at the average prices netted to the planters on their con-
signments of 1831:

Sugar 10,`296 tons, at £2O £205,920
Coffee 3,290 do. at £BO
Rum 529,262 gallons, at 2s. 4d. 61,747

Making a total of £5:l3X7
the loss sustained by the planters in the year eliding August 1,
135, a year which promised to be eminently productive, if they
kid possessed the means of maturing the grov.ezh of,:ithe produce
of their estates, and preparing them for the markets.

But the loss does not end here. In addition to the twenty
millions now in course of payment by the British public for
slave emancipation, end in addition to the increased price which
every consumer of sugar must now pay fur that necessary of
life, the loss sustained by the shipowners should also be taken
into consideration. Had the .supply of freights in this equalled
that oflast year from Jamaica they would have received for carry-
ing the deficient quantities the following sums:—

Sugar at £5 per ton
Coffee....d0.
Ruin at,6d. per ga110n.... 13,231

£81,161

This sum, large as it is in amount, forms but a part of the
shipowners' diminished profits on the carryiug trade from the
West India islands. Hitherto, we have not alluded to the de-
creased value of freights in consequence of the decreased supply
of produce, nor have we referred to their other losses from the
same causes operating more or less powerfully throughout the
whole of our West India possessions. However, in the absence
of any positive data we shall not be far wrong if we say that the
amount of loss already stated will be more than doubled.
It may not be generally known that the consumption of sugar,
the produce of the West India islands, in Great Britain,
amounts to 220,000 tons annually. There are but very few
housekeepers who have not by this time discovered that the in-
creased price of this article averages two-pence per lb.—an ad-
vance produced by 'no artificial means, but by a positive discre-
pancy between the supply and the demand. By this rise in the
value of sugar the people of Great Britain have to pay in addi-
tion to the interest of the slave emancipation loan, no less a sum
than £4,106,666 Ms. 4d., to say nothing of the proportionally
increased price of the Brazilian, Mauritius, and other sugars in
common use. In these calculatiens nothing is haz ivied on
conjecture or on assumed grounds;—they are founded on an
official document, and supported by the simplest rules of arith-
metic which the veriest tyro in any national school can work.
We have foreborn to notice the articles of rum and coffee, the
prices of which are also, to use a mercantile phrase, "looking
up." The annual consumption of West India coffee, in Great
Britain, is from J 8 to '2O millions of pounds. An advance of six-
pence or even three-pence per lb. on this article would mate-
rially increase the amount of the sacrifices we have made to
give "complete emancipation" to the slave population of our
West India and other colonies., Honest John Bull was impa-
tient until he had obtained his whistle ;—he has got it, but he
has not yet paid f ,r it.

Let us see, then, in plain figures, how the account stands,
and what we are called upon to pay annually for this fine nica-

sure:—
Interest of twenty millions
Rise in price of sugar.... .. .
Rise in other produce 1,22x,C00
Loss to shipowners 165,000

TetiDivf the whole

This is a pretty tax to begin with for the first year. Next
year we calculate that it will increase, and so on year after year.
John Bull, you are an ASS !