The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-08-26
Failure or Aboiitionism I'm the Vest In
dies-The AboIittonists In Council.

| was the occasion for the assembling of small
| crowd of fanatical abolitonists at Abingdon,
in the State Of Massachusetts, The promi-
nent political agitators of the day, who
have so much verbal sympathy for the happy
negroes of the South, failed to report them
selves in person at the island grove" Poor
Cudjoe had to be satisfied with the rather unsa-
tisfactory assurance that, though absent in
body, they would be present in spirit" or
such impalpable objects as "spirits." Even
the apostolic countsaance' of William Lloyd
Garrison, we are told, was absent from the
meeting, and he only sent his friends long rig
marole of letter which might or might not
mean anything. The fair goddess of freedom
must have had dull day of it.
We will not rufae the feathers
Of single black Cicero or Demosthenes
by commenting on their vapid decla
nations. But we purpose. saying few
words in regard to the unfounded statements
contained in some of the letters which were
read at the Convention. And, first Of ALL to
pass over little theological flourish of Charles
Sumner, we find him saying that "all testimony,
whether from official documents or from travel
lers, shows beyond question that in all the Bril-
fish West India islands the condition of the
| negro has been improved by emancipation"
Now, this is statement that is utterly false
and unfounded. IF we take the island Of ia
maica, to which Mr. Sumner specially refers,
and which was in the days Of British colonial
<ba - &c thov
all, there is scarcely single vestige Of
prosperity to be discovered. The sugar
estates are for the most part dismantled their
boilers and coppers have been sold to the
more fortunate Cuban planter, and the estates
themselves turned into pastures for sheep and
cattle. Magnificent coffee properties, which for
merly produced from two to three hundred
thousand pounds of coffee annually are now
totally deserted and overgrown with tropical
vegetation-thei once elegant houses tumbled
into ruins-their mills and other expensive
works decayed and gone-while the outlying
lands, once yielding bountifully to the stroke
of the hoe and plough, are now uncultivsted
deserts, occupied by halfnaked negro squatters
and their unfortunate progeny.
These are startling facts which can be
enlarged upon but may not truthfully
be denied. There are undoubtedly some ex-
ceptions to the rule, but they are rare in
deed. But we are told by another of these
abolition correspondents-the Hon. C. F.
Adams-that the failure of emancipation is
only accounted for in the absence of coffee
and sugar. This is certainly the funda-
mental objection but any man can gee
that it involves the whole question of
emancipation. Sugar and coffee are the
staple products of the West Indies, and
when these fail then oil prosperity ceases. To
the very fact that the production of these
articles has not yet become quite extinct must
be attributed the continuance of constitutional
government in Jamaica. Every year wit
nesses a decrease in the crops-there being
only thirty six thousand hogsheads of sugar
produced last year-and, sad as the prospect
may be, II does appear very evident that. unless
some desperate exertion is made by the British
government in favor of this splendid colony, in
few more years she viii be blotted out alto
gether from the category Of sugar producing
countries. "If," continues Mr.. Adams, 'by
reason Of this failure 1t could be shown that
there were misery and famine in the land, that
starvation was in a fair way to turn the garden
into wilderness, should be ready to concede
something TO the argument" Then Mr.. Adams
contend, for the deepest misery does prevail
among the majority Of the emancipated
class In Jamaica, and, unfortunately, the
once fair land is being rapidly converted into
a desolate wilderness. In the cities espe-
cially the misery Of the enfranchised negroes Is
tenfold greater, and In many instances they fire.
quently starve. That actual starvation does
not exist In the mountainous districts is due to
the wonderful fertility of the coil and the illim-
table number Of tropical fruits which hang
from thousand boughs, inviting all to rich
and gratuitous feast And this very plen-
teousness Of the rich mountains Is the bane
Of the negro. The genial climate never
calls upon him for any expensive cloth
ing. He has no property, and Is therefore free
from taxes. His wife and children are left to
scramble after mangoes and exist as best they
can, and thus, freed from every responsibility,
he neglects the great gifts that God has given
him in a noble country, which falls into ruin
and degradation because of his sloth and
wretchedness.
The reports Of the dissenting missionaries
have invariably represented the condition
Of the negroes as most discouraging. But
two or three years ago the Right Rever-
end Reginald Courtenay, Bishop Of Kings
ton-a most exemplary and worthy pre-.
late-established an industrial school, at a |
vast expense, for the benefit Of negro children.
and, after the most praiseworthy exertions in
erecting commodious buildings, laying out
large gardens and employing competent teach
ers had to abandon the philsnthropic project be-
cause the negroes would not send their children