New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1864-03-03
railway communication between New-York and
Philadelphia.
WEST INDIA RUIN.


There are falsehoods so gigantic and so hack
neyed that they maintain a very considerable
currency and credit on the strength of their
very audacty. The ignorant and superficial
suppose that they must have at least q sub
stratum of truth or they could not be kept
aliye-the mere fact that they have seen them
aAoat for number Of years, when, if they are
lies, they must have been exposed, and should
have been cxtinguished, long ago, being
sufficient for them. Of this sort is the
inconceivably stupendous fiction that the
West Indies are going to ruin since Emancipa-
ton because the ex-slayes will not work. Over
and over. has this been deliberately diSproyed;
we are now doing our best to circulate NJ. Au-
gustin Cochin's Results Of Emaneipation-a
standard work, accepted as authority every
where save by shareholders and their
tools, and for which its author was crowned
by the French Academy and knighted by
the Pope. The whole ground is most care
fully and thoroughly traversed in this standard
work, and the whole truth established beyond
controversy. That freedmen have in some cases
made less sugar than they did when slaves, is
undoubtedly true--many wisely choosing to
grow food for their families, or earn an honest
livelihood in many other ways, rather than stick
to sugar-making but that there has been an
immense progress-moral, intellectual, social,
and industrial--in the West Indies since Eman-
cipation, is as sure as the Multiplication Table.
Yet The Daily Nn,S does not scruplo to utter,
in the interest Of JEFF. Davis, the following:
IAN experience proves that tie African will not
work unless he Is made 10. and he cannot De made 10 un
less be slave. Ii really free, he won't work except
FOR bare subsistence"
To this stands opposed the statement Of Sir
Charles Grey, late Governor of Jamaica, who
says:
There are few races of men who will work harder
or more peIseyeringy, Nlen ley arc sws Of geiES @t
JrES Of hsr tabor, than tho African"
There is just where the shoe pinches The
.News. It wants negroes TO take their pay for
their work over the head and shoulders, or
across the back-aganst which they seem to
have an innate prejudice. White men, perhaps,
like to work for nothing but cut Of whip
occasionally; but "niggers" are so stupid that
they don't see it.. Hence the abuse heaped on
them by such journals az TIE Ners-to which
The Commsrcioi ddcertiser more fully re-
plies as follows:
"Ths wealth accumulated by the negroes Of Jamaica,
during the twenty seven years immediately following
their emancipation is 81 3 coo; and threehth0 Of all
the cultivated land In the island IL the bona tde prop
ery Of the coored people bought and paid Tor by their
own industry.
"As proof Of tho failure OF emancipation The Daily
Nsrs contrasts the exports Of 1909 and 1910 with those
Of 1883 and ls5f In 1899 and 1870 tho British West
Indies had monopoly Of the English market; whereas
in 1888 and 1854 that market thrown open 10 the
world BIZ perfect equality between British colonial
products and those OF foreign countries beside which
there existed war In 1909 and lei TO prevent i'm
portations OF colonial produce from foreign countries
The selection Their. fore Of such comparative statistics
is gross deception The true merits Of the question
will better appear by tho following statistics Of the
British West India Islands VI the moment immediately
preceding emancipation and fourteen years AFTER emnn
oipation We must here call attention 10 the fact that
The population Of the Islands rapidly declining pre-
yious 10 emancipation.
1881. 1882.