New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-06-16

Eth ARTIFICIAL

pRESTrcEsmp-CoMMEscE or THE
FREE-LABoR SYSTEM.
simultaneously with the unien Of the Guiana
sslou;es under one Government, and the important
Affiliations which, between the years 1926 and
ssso, had been made in the legal relations Of the
masters and slaves, attention was called to an
alarming decline beth in the total number and the
Elective force of the slave population. The total
rumber OF slaves in Demerara and Esseqnibo,
which, BY the registration of 1917, had been "a, 1853.
vas reduced by the registration of 1882 to 65,5l7,
and that notwithstanding the introduction between
IG5 and 1924 of 4701 slaves brought from the ISL
aids and newly registered The total of the Berbice
sedstraton, which had stood at "a 549 in 1917 had
sunk by 1891 to 20,645 showing an absolute dmi-
u~tssn for the whele of British Guiana of twenty
Aeusand slaves, or one-ffth of the entire slave
stipulation in fifteen years. Nor was this the
wsrst Of it. There was every prospect that, I'm.
ssr the existing system, this diminution Of the
hlsr strength Of the colony must continue to go
- for years to come. Although the disproportion
~ males TO females had considerably diminished,
10 increase, but, on the contrary marked de-
crease had occurred in the number Of children
ander the age Of ten years. They bad stood in
Dsmerara and Essequibo, by the first registra.
ton, at l7,226. In 1892, they numbered but
I2,23l, showing a diminuton of nearly 5000, and
Aslding out but dismal prospect as to the future
supply of labor. The Demerara and Essequibo
registration of 1917 had shown between the ages
Of ten and thirty q, I24 slaves. This class was
reduced BY the registration of 1882 to y, 1913.
The diminution in the class between thirty and
fnty-the very prime of life-was still more re-
narkable. 1t had sunk from Is, 996 to {, 345. On
me other hand the class of those over forty showed
N increase of ii $685. This change in the relative
proportion of those over forty goes to explain in
part the diminutiou in the number of chidEn, an
undue proportion of the women being now beyond
he age of child-bearing. The slave population,
which in 1917 had been vigorous and effective, a
picked body of laborers, almost the entire number
ssder fifty, was now growing old and decrepid
aad was undergoing constantly accelerated and
SminutiOn of numbers and a still greater one of
effective force
The Registrar in his report for 1882, after no
tsisg these facts, adds the following remarks:
" Fer several years back West India estates have
" done but little more than pay their expenses,
seaving little or profit upon the capital In
vested; and diminution of future effective la
Der so great as the colony seems doomed shortly
to experience, piA no doubt gradually render
small estates longer Yorh cultirating. The
cultivation of sugar, coffee, and cotton consti-
~shtutes almost the whole wealth and employ
- nent of this colony. The two latter have been
"csltiyated with loss for some time past, and the
slaves Ofmany Of these properties have been trans
ferred to sugar estates rhieh are mostly short.
handed, and the land abandoned" Il
This statement is of Importance as conclusiysly
lssvine that the introduction of FREQ labor ieto
the colony is in way responsible for the final
extinction of the coffee and cotton cultivation,
which had been long in progress, and which was
predestined, even had the slave system continued
II also goes to show that the elimination of labor,
Il which, subsequent to the emancipation, the
sugar planters so loudly complained, was not solely
due to the withdrawal of the emanGpated negroes
fssn the plantations, but, in considerable degree,
also 10 actual diminution in the effective labor
nag force of the emancipated population. In 1882,
The colony stu contained upward of $4,000 labor
srs Of African birth. Nearly the whole Of these, in
fAe of the next ten or fifteen years, either died
Of, or became superannuated. Nor was there any
adequate proportion Of young people by whom
their places could be supplied 1t is plain then
hat, if the slavery system had been left undis-
es bed, the colony was destined to an inevitable
decline from lack of labor. Nor would it have
been possible to apply the remedy made admissible
by the free-labOr system of immigration from
abroad--a remedy which, after much expense,
Encouragement, and dear-bought experience,
eeems destined ultimately supply the sugar planta
mons with all the labor they may require, while, at
the same time, an opening is made for class of
small farmers ard freeholders employed IN the
raising Of food for the domestic consumption of
she colony
Notifications in the slave labor system identical
with those introduced into British Guiana were IN
hOduced also into the colonies Of ST. Lucia and
Trinidad, they being like British Guiana, con.
qsered colonies, and as such subject to direct
legislation on tbe part of the Crown. Similar
changes were strongly urged upon Jamaica and the
other original English colonies But the local
Legislatures of those colonies decidedly refused.
In their case the only resort was to an act OF
Parliament But in the unreformed Parliament
the West India interest was very strong, and the
Nni,try hesitated. The b,tinate resistance OF
the West India Legislatures to any modification of
the slave System, induced the reformed Parliament
20 take a step which more complying spirit might
have prevented or delayed. This was the passage
sf an act apnco HE alike 10 all tine slave colonies