New-York daily tribune., 1865-09-28

cording to numbers, then it follows that they
contribute over 81 ,000000 annually toward the
support of the Government. Beside this, there
is separate tax, in the shape of duties on
wheels, horses, mules and asses, levied for keep
ing the public roads in repair; and under this
head their contributions amount to at least
another million year.
There is another interesting class of figures
which demands notice. We refer to the
church statistics Of the country. Recently
prepared tabular returns show that there
are in Jamaica, beside the clergymen OF
the Anglo.Jamaican Episcopal Church, whose
stpends are paid out of the public Treasury,
about 100 ministers of different denominations
supported on the voluntary principle. Some OF
theSe ministers being still in connection with
missionary associations in England a portion
of the funds for their support is drawn from that
country; but from a careful examination OF
figures to which we have access we find that
the contributions of the native Churches, con-
ssting almost entirely of blacks, amount at the
very lowest to an average OF $3.50 per anhum
for each minster-none of whom, it may be
here stated, receives a salary Of less than S5oo
a year. Beside this, the negroes subscribe
consider BILE sums to keep the churches IN re-
pair. Since emancipation over 200 OF these
have been erected in all parts of the country
among them several substantial and elegant
structures costing from $4,000 to Sl5,Ooo each
for building; and fully one-half of all the
money spent in this direction has been raised
among the blacks. The voluntary contributions
of these people for the purpose of building and
keeping in repair churches and ministers resi-
dences has not amounted during the last q
years to one cent less than $500
There is one class more of statistics which,
as throwing light upon the question before us,
claims considerations We refer to the staple
products of the island 1t is true that there has
been a considerable falling OFF in these since
emancipation; but this is not attributable to the
alleged Incidence of the black people, but to the
abandonment of estates, either from the effects
Of the mischievous policy of coercion adopted
toward the freedmen in the first instance,
already referred to, or to the want OF
capital for working the estates, or to
faulty management, or TO the fiscal policy OF
the Imperial Government in admitting the
produce of slave labor into the British markets
on equal terms with the produce Of the free
colonies of the Empire. Some estates were
abandoned from one cause and some from
another; but no single case exists, TO our
knowledge, in which cultivation has been
abandoned because the free negroes could not
be got to work. 1t is fact, that at the period
of emancipation the majority of the Jamaica
sugar estates were burdcned with heavy mort.
cages Many Of them, indeed, were mortgaged
to the extent of double their real value. When
Freedom was given to the slaves the mortgages
took care to secure themselves to some ex-
tent, by laying hold of the compensation money
that had been voted by Parliament as an indem-
nifty to the shareholders: but many of the pro-
prietors were still left deeply in debt, and in the
uncertainty of the times, arising from the social
revolution which the experiment Of eman-
cipaiion had brought about in the British
West Indies, they found themselves
unable to raise sufficient means for
sustaining cultivation. Thus many of them had
no alternative but to abandon their estates;
and in other cases in which judic:ous and
economical management, adapted to the new
order of things might have enabled the late
| saveowners to wcather the Storm an obstinate
and foolhardy adherence to the old wasteiul and
coercive system that was pursued during Slav-
cry speedily brought ruin TO their doors. Then
came Free Trade, striking down forever the
monopoly which The West Indies had for a long
time enjoyed, and leaving the Jamaica planter,
dependent entirely upon free labor, to compete
with lis Cuban rival, who was able to recruit
his labor force with continual accessions OF
slaves from the baracoons of Western Africa.
But in spite of all these untoward circumstances
over 800 sugar estates still remain in cultivation,
most of them being properties in districts favor
ably situated as regards soil and supply Of water,
and in the hands of resident proprietors or les
sees. or managed for absentees on improved aud
economical principles. Until within the last
two years, during which time the island has
suffered severely from protracted drouth, the
staple products were steadily increasing year by
year. Jamaica now exports annually about
30, 900 tuns Of sugar, 10000 puncheons Of rum,
10000 lbs. Of coffee, nearly l,OOO,OC0 lbs of
ginger, and 5,000,0 900 lbs. of pimento, beside a
considerable quantity of dyewoods and hard
md nd
this represents the industry Of the blacks for as