The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-06-02

its force and beauty. Aud what is the result !?
The result lis almost total ruin. Out of 9l7
plantations, 636 have been totally abandoned !
OF the remainder, 65 grow nothing but wood
or provisions. And the small balance are sta
ted to be on the road to destruction" -
The sudden transition from Slavery. to Free
dom was attended with circumstances calcu-
lated to obstruet and embarrass the regular
operations Of agriculture. The planters, proud,
mperious, and cruel, accustomed immemo-
rally to absolute authority, found it difficult to
stoop to measures Of Cancellation towards their
freedmen. They insisted~on debating the
terms of agreement for labor, and the freed
men had no alternative but implicit obedience,
and labor at half wages, or an assertion of their
newly-acquired liberty of action. They chose
the latter, and, in thousands of instances, left
their former masters without the necessary
labor to cultivate their sugar plantations.
ave could fill hundreds of pages" says the
reviewer, "with descriptions of the painful
and unavailing struggles of the employers to
escape, by hook or by crook, from the dreadful
necessity of treating with respect and al Turing
by wages those whom not long before, they
least Incidence. The only effect of those strug-
giles (but this effect they had to very great
extent) was to disgust the negroes, and drive
them to seek livelihood anywhere rather than
on the-sugar plantations"
The reviewer is free to admit that, in conse-
quence of this state of things, there was, upon
the abolition of Slavery, large falling off in
the production of sugar. There were other
circumstances in following years which had a
paralyzing effect upon the productive resources
of the islands. An earthquake in l843, fol-
lowed by a hurricane, destroyed III Of the
III of the sugar mills in Antigua, and swept
away the habitations of the people in town and
country. And, worse than this, I" there was a
series of droughts, that year after year, with
only two exceptions, occurred between 1910
and I849."
In l847, the great crash came, which resulted
from the fall in the price of sugar. In 1910,
West Indian sugar, exclusive of the duty, sold
at 49s. per cwt In l848, it had sunk to 23s.
5d.-a fall of twenty-five shillings and seven
pence out of forty-nine shillings In the eight
years ending in 1916, sugar had averaged tex
elusive of the duty BIS. Sd. per cwt. In the
eight following years, it averaged only 24s, cd.
per cwt. Notwithstanding this immense reduc
ton of price, there was an increase of produc-
ton amounting to four millions cwts. This
augmented product at the former prices would
have fetched fifteen millions more than it did
at the reduced rates whereas it actually sold
for seven millions less than the smaller crops
of former years. This was terrible ordeal for
the proprieters to pass through; and if we re-
feet that prior to emancipation their estates
had been almost hopelessly encountered with
debt, it is not to be wondered at that large
proportion of them failed to weather the storm.
In the small island of St. Lucia" says the re-
viewer, "an Encountered Estate Court was eS-
tablished in 1888, and, small as the island is,
in the first eighteen months, liabilities were re-
corded to the enormous amount of FL ,089,9
all debts incurred under Slavery A similar
state Of things prevailed in all the islands.
Nearly all the estates were mortgaged, many of
them beyond their value, and were liable for
more interest than they could possibly pay. The
majority Of the proprietors resided in England,
and thus extracted from the islands their very
AiGe- blood, a similar class of men have been
the curse of Ireland for centuries. 1t is lucky
nonresident blood suckers have been compelled
by Bankruptcy to disgorge their illgotten
wealth, and to surrender their pernicious con-
troll over the Colonies. The estates have in a
great degree passed into the hands of new pro-
prietors, who reside on the soil, and the effect
has been marked increase in the production
of the islands. The importation of sugar into
the United Kingdom from the West Indies
since 1910 has gone on increasing as follows:
Cwt.
From l84l to 1876 l4,629,550
From l847 to 1852 l7,9ls,362
From 1853 to 1853 l8,443, 33l
1t is highly interesting to note that in the six
years that followed free trade in sugar, which
began in 1916, there was an increase in pro-
duction amounting to 3,288,Sl2 cwts. This
fact shows that, in new hands, with free labor,
terrible as has been the ordeal through which
the Colonies have passed, they exhibit won
derful recuperative energy.
In this connection we will remark that eman-
cipation has taken from the fields large por-
tion of labor which the tyranny of Slavery forced
into them, contrary to nature, necessity, and
decency. We mean female labor. Under Free
dom, the negroes consult their selfrespect, their
domestic comforts, and humanity, by keeping
their wives and daughters at home Notwth-
standing this fact, the amount of sugar now ex-
ported greatly exceeds that of the last years of
Slavery, and is still increasing. Thus, in the
two last years of Slavery 1882 and 1881 they
exported to Great Britain 8,47l IA cwts In
the two years 1856 and 1857 they exported to
Great Britain alone s,736,654 cwts., besides a
large amount to Australia the United States
and other countries, to which new trade in
the article has sprung up.
| We close for the present our notice of this
valuable article in the Edinburgh RecieW In
our next, we propose to resume the subject
and to present other facts of interest
A FoRLoRN HoPE.-Spratt, the great South
Carolina champion of man-stealing, is fully i'm.
pressed with the arduous enterprise he is en-.
gagged in, in endeavoring to bring about a re-
vival of the slave trade. He says:
"Men, difident of its endurance, move away
from it. Its pious people are instructed to de-
plOre it. Its women and children are taught to
turn against it. Its friends, who speak for its
integrity, and who claim the means to its ex.
tension, are looked upon as agitators; and !
now, who speak truly what believe for its ad.
vancement and the advancement of humanity,
in which, under Heaven, believe it to be the