New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-08-26


,;,o, n bsti,o IN such a case should bs considered
a. s civil petty With reference TO The "oos' 'Au
not simply in regard to the bakers alone ms We
take it. is sound politics, economy even IN reference
20 "piggers," whether raw or roasted
When the British Government conpeiied o"o-
seventh of her Colonial subjects to forego certain
priTi!eees-to use 81 ipOfensTe term-"u'on
hitherto for century or two they had enJo!ed a.
the expense Of the other six seyenths, II IL was
The misfortune Of the smaller class, i! WAS also
their fault l. Was their fault that 10 spite oil 'ons
years Of warning and reInonstrsnce they in'isted
upou remaining shareholders. The evils that iol-
lowed. if there were any, We're not because slave
~ was At length abolished, but because IL mao
been allowed 10 exist SO long That some evils uld
eDsue when affairs were brought to crisis We are
rot so foolish as tc deny. Legislation affecting cl,ss
interests always produces temporary clsarrap gemen.
and individual distress Thee have been ruined
in our own country by so small thing as the soou
ton Of duty OF salt; foreign trade and domestic
manufactures have each, in their turn, been para-
lived, ard those dependent on them reduced 70
poverty, by change in the policy oil Inc Govern
ment The change msy De right or wrong; THIS
imme6iste result is always the same. bu' mat
fact proves nothing. As we'll say that machinery
is . curse, because plsning machine, reaper
power.press, power-loom, or a sewing m'coihe
have thrown workm.n out OF employment VINO
hitherto had done clumsily with their hands what
il now done so deity and so wonderfully WIKI
aims Ct iron and fingers of steel We might safely
grant that West Indis Emancipation ruined the
nlanters. and set grant noting TO the argument
Only the fact happens to be that 1t did no such
thing They were ruined long before, II az ALL
while Slavery existed. Ruin would, indeed Dc found
10 be. as it was in some of the West lnda COLO
MES the normal conditional most slsveholdlpgcoun-
tries depending entirely upon that system, should
their affairs come to be suddenly wound up Espe-
cially was this the case in Jamaica. The decadence
of that colony is relied upon as an evidence OF
the disastrous effects of Emancipation, while the
historical fact is decay preceded that act by hall
century. Beckford, Pro Slavery writer, who
published in 1890 a work upon this island wnicn
he left thirteen years before, says that " great
"number of the estates were in the hands OF the
mortgages in possession and that he never
knew property of this sort even where II
was large ard the debt small that was
redeemed. So long ago as this, the planters were
complaining of the ruinoas condition OF the Colony,
ard appealing to the Home Government for aid.
Their cry for succor continued even IN the time of
Jamaca's greatest apparent prosperity IN the early
years Of this century; and in 1870, Mr.. Bright
sad, in relation to petition to Parliament from
the West India merchants and planters for relief,
"The distress Of the Weat India Colonial body IS
unparalleled in the country Many families who
formerly lived in comparative afiluence, are re-
&" duced to absolute penury." "They could not
Lord Chandos sad, on presenting the petition
A." bear up against such a pressure any longer
This was eight years before Slavery was abolished
The "pressure" was the accumulated weight OF
half century of debt and decay, and could be
borne no longer. Undoubtedly there was APP
preaching ruin, but it was the ruin of an interest
and not of An island, of class and not Of COM
munity. The distinction is important, and it is
well TO keep it in mind.
Wewill not stop row to consider whether Jamaica
and the Sugar interest are one and the same thing,
and whether when one goes TO the bad, the other
must 60 also. But croakiDg dOugbfaces and gro.l-
ing overseers, ignorant of the previous history Of
Jamaica, choose TO take the sugar returns of that
island as an evidence of the rapid decline Of the
whole West Indies since the slaves were made
free iabOrers We giant the decline, but date it
half century earlier. We grant that the stats
A: e. e = hat ali hut
We take the liberty of looking at them, not merely
since lo3S, but since $500. they will be found
instructive. The figures show that any ruin which
has fallen upon that Island, commenced even be-
fore the abolition Of the slave trade, and when an
Emancipation party had no existence even in the
beneyols Mt mind Of London Quaker. From Parlia-
mentsry reports before US, we learn that the de-
in the export of sugar in the second decade
of this century, as contrasted with the first, was
III ,53l hogsheads; the decrease in the ten years
from 1870 70 $780, as compared with the first period
from 1900 to 1910, was 39I ,92i hogshesds And
if this unanswerable, positive evidence of the alb
surdity of the assertion Of the disastrous conse
quences Of the abolition of Slavery we're not sufi-
cieDt, we have on the other hand, the negative
evidence Of the large Dutch sugar colony Of Sur
imam, where Slavery has been held as sacred as if
i! were under the special care Of the American
Tract Society but where, notwithstar ding, within
few years, 636 out Of her 9l7 plantations have
been abandoned, and of the remaining, 50 grow
nothing but wood and provisions.
A catastrophe, which these returns show was
surely approaching, was fastened by an act
which necessarily changed the relation of capital
and labor, as Emancipation did, was inevitable.