The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1857-12-19
Tho Downfall OF Exeter Hall.JThe Slavery
Question Touched Bottom.

Tho Downfall OF Exeter Hall.-The Slavery
Question Touched Bottom.
A fierce war is beginning in the English jour
mails in relation to the labor question in the
West Indies. which forbodes much discussion.
and in the end a complete abandonment OF the
| wild and impracticablc theories of Exeter Hall.
The humantarians have ruled the policy of
| the English Cabinet toward the English colo
MES in tropical America. and that of other Eu-
ropoan governments in the same direction, long
enough to stamp their schemes for turning the
West Indian negro into a free and Independent
laborer, with utter failure; and in view of the
| practical results they have attained there is
now great upheaving Of the public mind in
| Europe, as we'll as in America. which is destined
to produce vast results throughout the civilized
world. The question Of the abolition of negro
slavery has touched bottom and the rebound
must now come. The leading journal of Eng
land and of Europe. has come out in opposition
to the crack-brained ideas Of the Exeter Hall
enthusiasts, and taken the ground that the world
| expects Of the negro race that it will produce
cotton and sugar, and has thrown open its
Coitlllle W CltlHlc vi tuc
| interest of the West India colonies.
A correspondent Of the London Tines thus
| paints the condition of these islands, and who
| ever has visited them must acknowledge the
| truth of bis picture:-
''Does the earth own possessions fairer to the
view and more grateful for the labor of man?
Yet, what are they nows Wrecks, ruins de-
1 4ho 20, nj 81
wealth and fading civilization, which become
fainter and fainter every year; with towns at
once filthy, noisome and painless; with man
'sions, once grand and stately, tottering to de-
cay; with Jew tradesmen occupying the houses
and mimicking the display of princely mer
| chants and with race of negro squatters
| parading their insolent idleness on lands which
they have occupied without purchase, and ex-
| hausted without cultivation. Do not tell me of
| this or that weeks price of sugar-of its in
| creased production on some 1000 or 5000 acres
| in Trinidad and. Demerara-of l 900 coolies sent
here and 500 landed there or of some puerile
scheme of protection in Jamaica. All this is
as gnat to megatherium. | am speaking of
| grand empire-a bright constellation of colo
| of great bulwark in war cast down and
dismaniled-of material clement Of peaceful
prosperity wantonly flung away-of moral
| blight brooding over islands which in other
| hands than ours and under other counsels than
ours, might have been the suns and centres of
| widespread happiness and civilization"
For all this desolation the remedy admitted
| by the Times il to make the West India Islands
'as full of inhabitants as queen ant is of
eggs" by importing negroes apprenticed to la
Dor from Africa.
But this remedy is as impracticabe as the
grand theories of the Exeter Hall philanthro-
pists. Louis Napoleon has failed in endeavor-
ing to establish trade in free niggers; and he
went into ii with all the advantages that can
| possibly be brought to bear in its favor. We
| want no more barbarian colonization on this
| continent "a the Committee of the South
| Carolina Legislature has declared the slave
| trade to be; and the scheme of free negro i'm
| poriation is worse in many respects than the
slave trade. Yet England owes debt not only
to the languishing and decaying planters, but
also to herself, In that portion Of her national
| strength which she 40 ruthlessly destroyed.
| The opportunity is now afforded her TO do jus
| tce to them and to herself. India is the field
for the restoration Of the English planting in
| terest. India il crowded with laborers who
need employment, and skill. and organization,
which the ruined planter OF the West Indies can
| give them. II will be far more economical to
| transport to India the few hundreds Of inteli-
| gent agriculturists who arc now dying out IN
Jamaica, than to bring there the millions of
laborers necessary to revive the dead prosperity
| Of the West India colonies. Their knowledge
and effort in India would produce results far
! beyond those which are exhibited in the island
Of Mauritius. Let the government Of England
| grant them lands in India in exchange for
| those they now possess in jamaica, with small
loan to establish the necessary machinery and
| plant-as she did to the Irish landhodcrs few
| years snce-and she will do two things emf
| ncntly in accordance with the wants OF the age.
She will save generation Of skilled men.
whose exertions in the East would be priceless,
from the humiliation that now mcnaces them;
and che would open a new era to the over
crowded East.
As for Jamaica. IL must follow the course of
| the other Africanizcd islands of the West In.
dies. First comes the utter barbarisn that is
already eliminating in Hayti; and then they
will follow the course Of manifest destiny, and
be brought on to our Southern platform.
Throughout the tropical regions Of Mexico,
Central America, Hayti, Jamaica, and the
other West Indies, the United States has to re-
store the domestic relation between the white
and black races. and re-cstabish the institution
of slavery. Wherever il exists now, the condi-
tion of the negro is superior, in a moral, social,
religious and intellectual point of view, to the
degraded free negroes who seat his yams and
! singers at Buckra," as the London Tine has