East Saginaw courier. (East Saginaw, Mich.) 1859-18??, 1860-05-10
NUMBER Al.
JAMAICA DIsORGANIZED.

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condition of the West India Colonies, we
extract the following:
Our colonies have hitherto been looked
upon as drags upon the mother country,
and the colonsits have been treated moro
as aliens and outcasts than as British SUBJ
iects, and are held in less estimation than
the semi civilized inhabitants of the Isle
of Skye or the wilds of Conncmara -.
The time has come when their intrinsical
value and national Importance should be
drawn into close connection with home,
and have a representative voice in the
councils Of the nation. Instead of having
disjointed llgoverned and harshly treated
dependencies, with a sense of degradation
hanging over their heads, their credit
destroyed and their property rendered
valueless and insecure, from the constant
agitation of reckless demagogues their
vast wastes should be peopled and their
undeveloped resources brought into full
activity. They should at once be united
into a concrete whole, to form wall of
adamant around country which colonsts
delight to call their fatherland.
With a new e.a in colonial admins
tration-liberal, strong, confding, acting
and rejecting harmoniously--with
thorough knowledge of colonization to
people and subdue lands with resources
almost beyond conception what a prize
is within the grasp of an energetic gov
ernment-..a prize ofmore vital Importance
to England, as the heart of the colonial
empire, than ten thousand useless reform
bills. Trade and commerce, national
greatness, would keep pace with their ad-
vancement and prosperity. Her shipping
interest, languid and overstrained by for.
eign competition, would start into active
life; her commercial marine would soon
be doubled or qnadrupled, and with our
Great Easterns weekly steaming from our
principal seaports, Cherbourg would be
no longer menace and demonstration
would be made more powerful in arresting
hostile aggressive ambition and preser-
wing the peace of Eurpe than Channel
fleets fortified dockyards and rife corps.
Until this consumption, so devoutly TO
be wished, can be organized and carried
into effect, let me invite attention to tho
noble island Of Jamaica drifting to des.
truction.
1t is now twenty five years since free.
dom dawned upon our West India colo
nies. With the experience Of quarter
of a century of the working of q system
which promised so much, let us pause and
contemplate the results. In approaching
matter of such consequence let preju-
dice, misrepresentation and invective be
set aside and truth be brought into tho
foreground 1t is too serious subject
to be otherwise treated than in q calm,
dispassionate and unpreudiced manner
by facts, not sophisms--by broad, cath
olic spirit and not by narrow sectarian
views.
At the commencement Of freedom Ja-
maica was in flourishing state, carefully
cultivated with one-third of it still in
virgin forest, exporting LAG, 900 hogsheads
of sugar and 10000, 900 lbs. Of coffee, and
capable of doubling these crops with an
adequate laboring population. What has
happened Since her freedom she has
continued a progressive downward course,
till, approaching to zero, her crops--from
iragmentary, slovenly cultivated fields,
and with reluctant, inadequate and
rapidly retiring population--will stand
this year about 23, 900 hogsheads ofsugar
and 100000 lbs. of coffee, with no bet
ter prospect than the gradual extraction
of sugar cultivation, unless properly aid.
ed by the immigration of free races.
We are informed by the great histori.
an of the decline and fall of the Roman
empire who quotes it as remarkable
proof of national decadcncc, "that in tho
fertile and happy provinces of Campanio,
within sixty years after the death Of Con
stantine, and on the evidence Of an actual
survey an examination was granted in
favor of 330, 900 acres Of desert, unculti-
waited land, which amounted to onc-eighth
of the surface of the province, owing to
the mal-administration of the Roman
Emperors."
What will be hereafter thought Of
something like the following summary Of
an island Of such extent and inexhausti.
BILE fertility as Jamaica, drawn by the
future historian of our colonial empire?
AT the period alluded to no less than
653 sugar estates were in cultivation. A
comparatively small number Of these es.
tates were more suited for producing cot.
ton flax and plantain fibre than sugar,
and were consequently expected 70 fall
out of cane cultivation. The great ma.
jority have territory, fertile soil water
power substantial works, improved ma
chinery and virgin reserved land equal
to doubling their for mer crops with
sufiiciency of lsborcrs.
OF these upwards Of 800 fine estates
on the great plains along the sea shore.
capable Of making 100, 900 tuns of sugar
and $4,000 puncheons of rum are now
abandoned to nature nearly 500 beauti-
full coffee plantations, with climate, soil,
and virgin forest attached prominently
suitable for the finer qualities of coffee,
and capable, with available labor, of yield.
ing 50,000,00 pounds, having followed
the fortune of the sugar estates, aud up
wards Of half million Of acres Of tho
richest lands within the tropics, FIVE times
the extent OF Barbados, are covered with
a wild forest of guavas and cycroplas.
A traveller passing through thsse rural
districts, while he admires the grandeur
OF tho landscape, and is charmed with the
natural beauty of the scenery, feels chill