The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-11-11
For the National Er
RUINOUs CONDITION OF JAMAICA

For the National Era
"RUINOUS CONDITION OF JAMAICA"
characterization in the British West India
Colonies in 1873 astOunded the world and
the happy results seemed to electriiy the friends
OF Freedom Most auspicious did the success
of this bold measure appear to be on the Anti
Slavery cause in this country. Very soon,
however did the persistent shareholders, and
their apologists the Pro.SlaNery presses in oar
large cities, begin to question the truth Of the
favorable accounts received from the islands
and to blazon everything, real or fictitious, that
detracted from them while they studiously con-
cealed, or wilfully distorted. every statement
showing tie beneficial results Of immediate
emancipation. Now, rs real distress exists in
some of the islands many are vocicrous in de-
claiming that emancipation has proved a fail
ure! 1t rs we'll then, to look at authentic facts
Ihey need not deceive
Probably the friends of emancipation expect
ed too much. A nation Of slaves cannot he
converted by an act of Parliament, instantly
into naticn of intelligent laborious, and sue
cessful ngrichlturists or educated and exem-
pary Christians The faint and evils of sla-
very will last for one or more generations.
Gradual would be worse, even, than immediate
emancipation IL is impossible to educate II
people for freedom while they continue to be
slaves. But to our facts. From II recent file
Of Jamaica newspapers shall make some ex-
tracts, most of them from those who have not
been very favorable to emancipation, which
will give fair representation OF the present
condition of the British Colonies, especially ia
maica.
At a meeting in Liverpool, England, called
to hear three highly respectable gentlemen
lately from the Colony of jamaica. J, b Yates
Esq, is reported in the Liverpool Mercury
while he represented the planters to be iii II
f0rlorn state, owing to "a fatal and ruinous
depreciation y of their estates, said
"Thc condition of the remainder of the pop
ulation of jamaica, which numbered, perhaps
eight or ten times rs many persons as the
whites was, he was happy to say, greatly anne
'iorated' and "no ore could rejoice more than
he did, at the happy and prosperous condition
of the blacks
Mr. Watson at the same meeting, said:
"He had resided twenty.sevcn or twenty
| eight years in the West Indies Mexico ant
other parts, and he felt disappointed in thi
| dcputatOn. inasmuch rs they had not suggest
ed anything practicable as n remedy for tn
state Of things of which they complained .
| Since the LIST of January last he found that tn,
importation of British sugar had increased
53,ll7 tons and the importation of foreign
| slave. grown sugar had decreased 1896 tons
He thought that gave fair prospect that, after
few wears more our Colonies would be able
to produce, by free labor, all the sugar that
we required and he had no doubt in his own
mind, after having studied the subject forty
years, that eventually free labor would drive
slave labor out of the market"
At the same meeting the following resolu-
ton was passed
RESOLVED, That it appears to this meeting
that among the principal causes which have
tended TO the ruin now rapidly involving every
interest connected with jamaica, in the great
scarcity of available plantation labor--a scar
city which has been painfully aggravated by
the fatal visitations of cholera and smallpox,
to which the island has of late been injected
The editor of the Morning Journal, Jamaica,
September 80, 1852, says:
"Thosc who~tapcy that supply of immi-
grants. and distinctive duties, will do all that
is required, will find themselves mistaken The
mass of the population must be operated upon
and improved-the institutions of the country
must be remodcIlcd, and the future must be
lOOktu W II'Nhi'u W. Duti
as to any well-digcslcd scheme for adapting
our institutions to our circumstanccs-an plan
whereby either agriculture or commerce may
be encouraged, or parties may bo induced to
migrate to this island, and to make it their
home-we hear nothing of such. 1t enters not
into the minds of our Senators to conceive any
thing of the kind. 1t is troublesome to engage
in any inquiry for this purpose and easy, 20
very easy, to declare it impossible Z y to pro-
ceed to the business Of raising taxes for the
support of the Institutions" &c.
The editor Of the Liverpool Courier imputes
the dcclension Of the prosperity OF Jamaica to
the bounties on bcet-root sugar, which have
excluded slave grown sugar from the continent
al markets and forced them upon Great Brit
ain and the prevalence Of cpidemics He thinks
tho remedy is to be sought for in II fresh supply
of labor, assisted by decrease IN the duties on
colonial produce, u enable the planters to com
pete with Cuba and the Brdzils. lie adds :
+" Colonial property in the West Indies, ike the
old roadside inns and stage coaches of Eng
land has been seriously in jured by the pro-
gress of science and the principle of competi-
tom lie impntes the disastrous state OF
things in jamaica, IN great measure, 10 the
Sugar Act, and says:
North American vessels, laden with fish
proceed to jamaica, and there make their sales
for cash, with which they turn their backs
upon the producers Of taxed free grown sugar
and proceed to the Havana to load slave grown
sugar for the United States From such a
competition may not tho planters reasonably
ask to lie released
Whether they shall be 80 or not will main.
ly depend upon the question whether our sys-
tenn OF free trade includes protection to slavery
or il does not--whcther that nation which sac
rifced twenty millions to cnancipate its slaves
will accept cheap free-grown sugar, or It will
not Ii it will, the theory of combating slave
labor by free, will, we feel confident, receive II
speedy and triumphant solution"
The editor of the Jamaica Morning Journal
attributes the distress, in part, to the fact that
q" the Assembly has, for several years, gone on
the expenditure Of the island to ex.
coed the income or revenue and to the enor-
nous taxes to support the oncrous expenses Of
Government lie goes on to say
"The two great objects which the Legisa-
ture ought TO keep steadily in view, are, first
the improvement Of the existing population
and, second, the increase Of the laboring popu-
lation, by importations from abroad II to
these are added cndeayors TO increase the trade
Of the island and encourage agricultural pur-
suits, there can be no doubt that the prospects
of the Colony will gradually improve. In no
other way can they improve, Competency ana