New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1860-03-19
Jamaica plsnrgnnizesl.

From m article in recent number Of the King
ton Standard, upon the present condition Of III
West India Colonies, we extract the following.
Our colonies have hitherto been looked upon d
arags upon the mother country, and the colonist
have been treated moro as aliens and outcasts tina
as British subjects and are held in less estmatio
than the seniciviIized inhabitants Of the Isle 4
skye or the wilds Of Connemara. The time ha
come when their intrinsical value and national in
: portance should be known aud acknowledged, an
/ that they should be drawn into close connection
. with home, and have representative voice in tn
councils OF the nation. Instead of having dis
r jointed, nIgoyerned and harshly treated Deepen
I denotes, with sense Of degradation hanging owe
Z their heads, their credit destroyed, and their prop
erty rendered valueless and insecure, from TIL
r constant agitation of reckless demagogues, thei
d vast wastes should be peopled and Their undeyel
oped resources brought into full activity. The,
should at once be united into a concrete whole, x
|, form wall of adamant around country which
| colonists delight to call their fatherland-
t 4 With new era in colonial enthusiastically
/ era strong, confding, acting and rejecting har
cation to people and subdas lands with resources
: almost beyond conception what prize is within
, | the grasp OF an energetic government prize 81
more vital Importance to England, as the heart d
the colonial empire than ten thousand useless re-
form bills. Trade and commerce, national wealth
and national greatness, would keep pace with their
. advancement and prosperity. Her shipping inter
est languid and overstrained by foreign competi
ton, would start into active life her commercial
| marine would soon be doubled or quadrupled and
. with our Great Easterns weekly steaming from our
principal seaports, Cherbourg would be no longer
4 a menace, and demonstration would be made
more powerful in arresting hostile, aggressive am
bition and preserving the peace of Europe, than
Channel fleets, fortified doekyards and rifle corps
Until this contamination, SO devoutly to be wished,
can be organized and carried into effect let me in
vite attention to the noble island of Jamaica drift.
1 ing to destruction.
1t is now twenty-five years since freedom dawned
/ upon our West Indian colonies. With the expe-
rience of quarter of century of the working of
4 system which promised SO much, let MS pause and
contemplate the results. In approaching matter
Of such consequence, let prejudice misrepresenta-
ton and invectiye be set aside, and truth be
brought into the foreground. It is too serious
4 subject to be otherwise treated than in calm
dspassionate and unparalleled manner-by facts,
not sophisms-by broad catholic spirit, and not
4 by narrow sectarian views.
4 AT the commencement of freedom Jamaica was
in q fourishing state, carefully cultivated, with
one-third OF it still in virgin forest, exporting
10000 hogsheads Of sugar and 30,000,000 lbs. Of
coffee, and capable Of doubling these crops with an
adequate laboring population. Whathas happeneds
i Since her freedom she has continued progressive
| downward course, till, approaching to zero, her
crops-from fragmentary, slovenly cultivated fields
and with reluctant, inadequate and rapidly retir-
ing population-will stand this year about % 900
| hogsheads of sugar and 100000 lbs: of coffee,
with better prospect than the gradual extinction
of sugar cultivation, unless promptly aided by the
| immigration of free races.
| We are informed by the great historian of the
decline and fall of the Roman empire, who quotes
It ~ q remarkable proof Of national decadence,
v that in the fertile and happy provinces Of Cam
pania, within sixty years after the death of Con-
stantine, and on the evidence of an actual survey
an exemption was granted in favor Of $50 900 acres
of desert, uncultivated land, which amounted to
oneeighth Of the surface Of the province, owing to
the mal-administration of the Roman Emperors y
What will be hereafter thought of something
Like the following summary Of an island of such
aud ,lnf Gas
drawn by the future historian of our colonial EN-.
pires
At the period alluded to no less than 653 sugar
estates were in cultivation. A comparatively
small number of these estates were suited for
producing cotton, fax and plantain fibre than su-
gar, and we're consequently expected to fall out of
cane cultivation. The great majority have terri
tory, fertile soil, water power, substantial works,
improved machinery, and virgin reserved land
equal 70 doubling their former crops, with suff-
cheney of laborers
OF these, upwards of 800 fine estates on the great
plains along on the sea shore, capable of making
100000 tuns of sugar and so 900 puncheons of rum.
are now abandoned to nature; nearly 500 beauti.
full coffee plantations, with climate, soil, and virgin
forest attached, preeminenty suitable for the finer
qualities Of coffee and capable with available la
Dor, Of yielding 50,0o0,000 pounds have followed
the fortune Of the sugar estates, and upwards of
half million Of acres Of the richest lands within
the tropics, i've times the extent of Barbados,
are covered with wild forest of guavas and cy.
cr0pias.
a traveller passing through these rural districts,
while he admires the grandeur of the landscape,
and is charmed with the natural beauty of the |
scenery feels chill come over his soul amidst the
wreck of so many fine properties At every stage |
of his progress he il reminded of silent decay and
consnmmated ruin and with such evidence he is |
unable to draw any other conclusion than that the
remainder Of the totterng estates must ere long be
swept into the maelstronl.
Lest it be suspected that West Indian portray |
ing the agricultural and social degradation of his
ture, let Mr.. Bgelau an intelligent American tray
eler who visited Jamaica in 1850 speak: at is |
difficult to exaggerate and yet more difficult to de-
fine, the poverty and industrial prostration Of ia
maica The national wealth and spontaneous pro-
auctions Of the island SO great that no one can
starye, and yet it seems if the faculty of accu-
mutation were suspended. All the productive
power Of the soil Is running to waste the finest
land in the world may be had at any price, and
almost for asking. Labor receives no compensa.
ton, and the product Of labor does not seem to
know the way to market. Families accustomed to
wealth and every luxury have Witnessed the decline
of their incomes until now they are wrestling with
poverty for the commonest necessaries of Iife.r
Again, !. Providence has benignanty indented the
island with sixteen secure harbors and thirty bays,
all aiiording good anchorage If it designed
to provide against the idolence and supineness of
her inhabitants by inviting TO her shores the enter
prise and capital Of other nations.
Such are the natural resources Of this diiapi
lated and poverty stricken country, capable of
almost everything, and actually pro-
iucing nothing which might not become staple
with proper application Of capital and skill. It's
inhabitants are miserably poor, and daily sinking
deeper and deeper into utter helplessness and
abiect want
/. This picture, them SO faithfully portraying the
state Of Jamaica, was deemed too
deeply shaded by certain party but the pro.
gressive downward course of ten years has dark
ened those shades without the least prospect of
being relieved.
To an honest statesman and patriot living amidst
the ongoings Of busy nation, and witnessing the
progress Of this wonderful age there is something
painfully perplexing in contemplating such wide.
spread desolation, wholesale ruin and receding
civilization in one of our most valuable colonies
To q colonial minister especially, whose more i'm
mediate duty is to grappe with these evils there
rests solemn responsibility and imperative obi.
cation to apply an effectuai remedy, and above
all, and at once to obtain the whole influence of
Government to arrest the present systematic and
dangerous crusade carried on with nnblushing Ell.
frontery and misstatement by the Anti-Slayery So
ciety and its satellites, which may conyuse colo
NAL society to its center, and eAtnguish Jamaica
as an exporting colony.
RULES FOR SLEEP = AZ, Improvement on Dir.
HaN.--lst As soon as you are in bed have Bridget
hand the wash-bowi to You. Then place it imnae-
liately beneath the small of yonr back, and you
will Immediately sink into calm alumber 1t
should not remain in that position long enough to
produce stmpor,
a u t,t..r. e.e .at.t.. -- /