The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-07-10
the winter they must huddle and SILVER elsewhere "

might DO something 10 remedy this
The Registrar General tells that our neghbors are
dying around US in unusual numbers and we have been
weakly allowing silly people 10 chatter and noisy eng
nees to tight while ought to have pressed ON the
work We take up the day-la sheet in any large
mandatory, and find half the signatures are crosses IL
our faut that these have not the full use OF their
faculties that they dumb and deaf TO absent friends
and blind to the distant monitor We enter court of
Jaw and some such scene as this is going docs
that little boy know the nature of an oath ~ Examine
MN, MT Associate 90 Little boy where do bad people
go TO when they die % 'To hell please sir Chat
right good boys 'swear him. crier" Perhaps we
finish our walk by turning into Exeter Hall where we
hear that the Divine wrath is kndled against us az M
ton because we have not converted the Ashantees to
Christianity into the House of Lords where we find
an eloquent Peer demonstrating that our fleets and our
armies should go forth and compel all the world to put
away slavery.
OF these secondary duties has cost money and
more English lives than the whole of the Crimean war;
The sailors who have succumbed to ieyers coast
OF Africa would have manned channel fleet; the
ney spent upon that African squadron would have built
two channel fleets We have been brought almost into
conflict with America, and have exchanged sharp
words with France Our reward has been signal i'll
success, and general declaration from the whole world
that our interference has been nsolence and
tives entirely selfish We may wrap ourselves up in our
virtue and our national conce but IL is true that we
have failed it is true that have only aggravated the
evil 1T true that we have given unnatural relative
have pursued it to the neglect of others more pract
cable and more imperative II seems to be true
that we are about in reckless despair at our fail
ure to sacrifice primary duties to what has almost
taken the form of mania, and to do q great
wrong in the hope that we may obtain little good
In some remarks upon this subject yesterday we spoke
generally of the position Of the British possessions with
IN the Tropics with reference to Asatc and African labor
The subject is too important to he left entirely in the
hands Of those who natical the subject Of the
blacks, and wish to fory those observations by re-
ference to particular colony Let take Mauitius 1t
is the finest island in the world. Alexandra Dumas, who
upon this occasion has knowledge of what he writes
about has described it wildly that the French people
think OF 1T as lost paradise. 1t has interesting pop
uation, for we there, upon small SCALE several
problems which at all times have troubled the world
gradually working themselves out, The old race of
slaves and their thoroughbred black children and grand
children nearly extinct Every cholera smallpox
epidemic sweeps them off by scores. The. mulattoes
thrive, and are increasing in numbers, wealth. and inn
portance, but they rather faction than popua-
ton. They trade in the towns; they do not
work in the fields. They in nearly every case
the offspring of ilegtimate passion, and they
hate the white arstocracy with hatred that is
repaid by contempt. mulatto jury will acqut
atto if he be clearly guilty of murder rape, rob-
berry and any white criminal would challenge any
atto jury which to decide his fate. But neither
of these two hostile populations cultivate this
island For labor the planter must depend upon impor-
ation scarcity of labor is the normal state of Maur
thus The rent of houses Is three times the amount of
houserent in England, because there builders
For want of hands they cultivate nothing but sugar. and
therefore import every other necessary from abroad
beef and mutton Even when sugar is at high prices the
planters profits not to be measured by quotations
The positions of master and reversed Dribng
aborers and paying crimps absorb the profits The In
dams petted and coaxed and bribed to work For
tunately, they of low caste, and meeting from
every part of India and being mixed with Chinese and
Europeans and hybrid races, they lose all caste
and religious preudices In the rare instances Of mar
rage their children lose their language, and ndopt
the Creole French They easy to govern, good
agricultural aborers and well behaved quiet ct-
zens but there not enough of them and there is
succession.
They leave the cane-felds they have gained
a little money and engage III small branches of
mcrce having made little more money thus they go
back to their country; for there but few
of their own race to tempt them to stay. Thus the
planters supplied with just sufficient labor to enable
them to sparsey cultivate portions of the island
the bulk of the island is and Jungle but the labor
market is kept high that every laboer going out is
certain to make fortune There intellects
thoroughly twisted by this morbid smelanthropy that
they probably regard this state of things with secret
pleasure MEANWHILE Cuba reoices The dear labor that
is forced upon free colonies is weight in the of
competition
1t enables the Cuban planter to pay high prices for
African slaves and hold out Incentives to the risk of
illicit cargo Thus the negro undcrgoes the middle pas
sage in order that certain Hndoos may enjoy protected
monopoly of the labor market at Maurtius. Unwse in
our generation we weigh scale while tighten
ing the other Add to this the injustice committed upon
those Indians and Cinnamon who kept from his high
mart of labor, and see how foolish have been the
dongs of our impractical philanthropsts.
The true policy if you would compete with Cuba slave
ry is not to seek for grievances and make complaints
that the coored of mankind subject to the
mon lot of laboring humanity but to people the islands
of the tord with Asiatcs and Africans laborng in
freedom Instead Of crying Stop the transport of la
borers the cry of the philantbropst should be- Strain
effective Do not create mpelimens and call them
regulations do not regard with hostility the efforts of
the colored to compete in freedom with their
patriots in slavery do not invent opprobrous nicnames
for conditions of labor which easy than those
proposed to your soldiers and less enduring than those
imposed upon your middle-class countrymen pro-
ceeding to India.
Work with the men who have pecuniary interest in
putting down slavery aid them in competing with the
Spanards and Americans who buy and sell and traffic in
mankind be reasonable enough to admit that China
man or Hindoo must be pressed by the same necess
ties to labor which coerce your white untrymen
and acknowledge that the lot of African cannot
be TO luxuratc in paradise of unearned plenty Fence
them round with all necessary securities against the
pidy of bad men give them greater securities than you
gave the Irish when they crowded your unhealthy
ships fleeing from famine but do not wall up this stream
of hungry emigrants do not kill these black with
your ljudg, kindness, sacrifice great imperial in
terest 10 false aud maudln sentiment Mere yitupera
tive defamation is an easy, popular and useless
thing instead OF this who would be useful to their
kind should help in council and should aid us to dis
cover how that which must be done may be well and
safely done