New-York daily tribune., 1858-11-05

key, are, without land. home or scarcely rag TO
rheir backs. In tba, period large part Of then
have acquired free-holds Of their own, paying q
rouns price too. Some Of them have become rich,
vbls the great bulk of them, n the Custom
House records of imports incontestibly prove, are
fed md clothed in style utterly unknown TO them
in the days Of Slavery. Let Us assure Mr. Cobb
that in making the following statements, be has
been grossly deluded. and is in danger Of grossly
deluding others:
No, alone in material wealth hes been The decline Of
these once hourishlrg colonies. The condoa Of the
negroes physically, Intellectually and morally, keeps
pace with this downward tendency. Their numbers
are annually decreasing from disease the result Of un
cleanliness ard from want the result OF inprovidence.
Increase of crime is propoItionae with the spread OF
misery. Chape.s and schools are abandoned, and
faithful teachers aud MISSIONARIES have returne1 in
despair 10 Europe.
the reports Of travellers and the local newspapers
c4n be relied on these islands have not yet reached
the lowest depth of degradation and misery 10 which
they doomed. Every year but adds to the desaa'
ton, physical and moral.
So long as Slavery lasted, the numbers of the
neeroe. did annually decline. From one TO three
per cent Of the whole population we're killed of
every year by over work. But from the moment
of emancipation as the census returns show, the
number began TO increase and has gone on increas-
ing annually Nevertheless, the working force is
at this moment considerably less than it was the
dsy Slavery was abolished, because the proportion
Of children TO the whole number is very much
greater than il was then. The elder part of these
children, instead Of working naked in the cane
felds and sugar mills are now in school, comfortably
clothed. and learning to read and write while the
care of the younger ones keeps the mothers out Of
the field. The story about the faithful missions
ries and teachers going back to Europe is all fudge
Every community, black and white, has its vaga
bonds and scoundres - We have seen them II
Georgia itself, if Mr.. Cobb never did, and of both
colOrs and conditions too, white freemen and black
slaves-but the condition of the English West In
dia negroes taken as body their condition, moral,
intellectual and pecuniary, has improved quite as
fast as under the circumstances, could have been
expected. They have not only had their own ig.
ncraAce, poverty and degradation to struggle
against but the great body Of the white residents
OF the islands, who, in too many cases, have con-
tended to the very last, contest which in Js-
maca they have hardly yet given over, to keep the
negroes after emancipation, in the same degraded
and helpless position which they occupied as aaves.
1t i. true that the sugar crop has diminished,
and that the nonresident proprietors-nine-
of the English West India negro plantations are
still the property of nOn.resideats-have ceased to
be the nabobs they once were and hence alone has
arisen all the hue and cry about the total ruin OF
the West Indies, cry, let remark, which used
10 be raised, from time to time, quite as loudly
while Slavery lasted, and with quite as good rea'
son, too, as it ever has been SINCE But this dimi-
mutton of the sugar crop, and the abandonment OF
estates about which We hear 80 much has not been
owing TO laziness on the part of the negroes.
The negroes are not fond Of working for other peO
pie without pay-a trait of character which seems
10 establish certain degree of brotherhood be-
tween them and the white people;-but when they
themselves are to gain anything by it, when they
are paid and paid down reasonable hire, there is
not people on the face of the earth more ready to
work, nor people on the face of the earth who
in tropical climate can or will, year in and year
out, do so much work as they. The English
planters have changed their tune as to the indO-
lence of the negroes since by importing emigrants
as they have from ireland, Germany, Madeira and
the East Indies, they have had the opportunity to
make comparison. The conclusion they have
come 10, as communicated to us by practical plant
ers, surveying with pride their thrifty and we'll
kept cane-feds, is, that of all laborers on West
India sugar plantation the creole negro, the negro
that is born in the West Indies, is the best, and
next TO him, by all oddA the native African. taken
out of captured SLAYER, and, instead of being
driven by the lash, after the old fashion, put into
the field to work for wages. 1t is true that the
negro will not voluntarily work so many hours in
the day, nor will he accomplish SO much labor in
an hour as is customary with white men in cold
and temperate climates; and that, for the best
reason in the world, neither they nor anybody else
can do it in tropical climate without speedily
breaking down under the operation. And now
We come TO the true explanation of the deficiency
of labor of which the English negro planters have
so loudly complained and from which they have no
doubt severely suffered. In the slave time the
total labor of the colonies was devoted to panta-
ton crops. From the moment the slave-trade and
the transfer Of slaves from one island to another
was put stop TO, the population began to decline.
Long before the abolition of Slavery every plantation
rad become short handed and in spite OF the efforts
to force more and more work out of the negroes the
production had in consequence seriously declined.
The sugar mills were kept at work all night during
the grinding season, and it would have been the
same with the field labor-as long as there were
any negroes left to kill of-bad it been possible to
work them in the dark. Emancipation put stop
10 all this BY means Of the whip the negro could