Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1862-04-24
From the London Athcnmum.l
A Capital Article for Negro
EmancipatiOnis 10 Read.
WILL FREE NEGROES WORK

Where once prosperity reigncd, there is
now poverty and distress hourishing
towns have assumed the character OF
poor country villages, forests have again
taken possession of land once in high
state Of cultivation, thousands of families
have been ruined or become hopelcssly
involved whilst the negro, for whose
sake sacrifices SO vast have been made,
has hitherto shown no inclination to take
advantage of the freedom which the ma
ton generously bestowed upon him. All
the predictions Of our pblanthropists
have been falsfed. The negro, unless
compelled by necessity will not work.
If he can make sufficient money in day
to cover the expenses of a whole week,
he will only work one dayout of the sew
en and he is moreover Tery charry of
entering into any conth hct or engage
ment that can be enforced by law" The
West Indian planters have, since the
day which proclaimed freedom to one and
ruin to the other resorted, but with indif-
ferent success, to every measure that
could possibly induce the blacks to work.
Their last ray of hope was that the pro-
lection given to colonial sugar would be
maintained /; but when, in 1S45, free trade
swept away this remnant Of an antigua
ted system, general despair seized the
cane growing community. We happen
ed to be in the steamer which took out the
intelligence Of the Sugar Act having pas
ed throug Parliament, and well remember
the anxious faces Of those who hastened
on board to know whether their doom
was irretrievably sealed. For year or
two the energies of the planters were to-
tally paralzed by the repeated blows
aimed at their prosperity only one or
two of the smaller islands, including Bar
BADGES, where labor happened to be abun-
dant, weathcred the storm. Jamaica
has to this day not recovered herself
Mr.. e. B. Underhll, in his new work
The West Indies their Social and Re-
ligious Condition, says
"There were very few disposed to take
hopeful view of the prospects of the
country. The newspapers, with scarcely
an exception, represent things in the
darkest light and FIVE may bebieve the
statement increasingly made, Jamaica is
hopelessly ruined. In the usual course
of things, the inhabitants of the country
are proud CT their native land, are dis
posed to hide her faults and to apologize
for her weakness. In Jamaica it is not
so. Planters, officials, clergymen, mer-
chants, shopkeepers seem to take delight
in exposing the worst features OF its So
cial life, in declaiming against the lower
classes of the people, in representing ev-
erything as gone to utter decay, and In
depreciating the prospects before them
Nothing is right. The Government is
extravagant and bad the officers are We
nal the Legislature is governed by class
interests, and addicated to log rolling"
the planters are poor, their estates worth
less, ana their cultivation thriftless and
uuskillful. The people are idle, vain,
| i'm mprovident, unchaste. Their religion is
hypocrisy their social condition is one
of African barbarism and dark supersti-
ton. In short the island is in state of
irretrievable decay. Such is the picture
which is held up to stranger and no little
pains are taken to make him believe it a
faithful representation. There is much
in the appearance Of Kingston to corrob-
orate it's view. Its wharves are COM
paratively silent ; the large stores and
warehouses which follow the line of the
harbor are but partially occupied, and
bctray but few signs of active business
some tenantless. Here forty years agt
the commerce of Central and Southern
America had its entrepot. 1t was th'
mart where the productions of the tropic
al countries of the West were exchanged
for the manufacturers of Europe. Thai
trade has found other channels The Is
land of st. Thomas has partially attracted
it; while cargoes are now sent direct from
the mills of Manchester to the markets
they intend to supply. 1t is only during
the shipping season for sugar that activ
ity prevails among the stores, which
were formely busy the year round with
foreign and intercolonial traffic. The
merchant of Central America rather pre-.
fers to avail himself of the facilities which
steam affords to visit the marts of Europe
than to stop half way at the warehouses
of Kingston, and the rich product Of the
mines of Mexico now goes direct to its
destination in the Golfers of the banks OF
: England, France and spain"
Trinidad has also had to pass through
terrible ordeal
"There years after the emancipation,
in 1841, the condition of the island was
most deplorable the laborers had fol
the most part abandoned the estates, and
taken possession of plotts of vacant land
especially in the vicinity of the towns
without purchase Or lawful right. Va
grancy had become an alarming habi
of great numbers every attempt to take
census of the population was batficd by
the frequent migrations which took place
Criminals easily evaded justice by alb
sconding to places where they were un
known, or by hiding themselves in the
dense forests which in all parts edged Sc
closely on the cleared lands. Drunken
ess increased to an enormous degree, as
sisted by planters who freely supplied
rum to the laborers, to induce them to re
main as cultivators OH their estates. Higl
wages were obtained, to be squandered in
f amusement. revelry and dissipation a
, the same time these high wages induced
diminished cultivation of food, and {
corresponding increase in price and il
the import of provisions from the neigh
boring islands and continent. The labor
, ers steadily refused to enter into contracts