, 1872-10-23
COOLIES AND O

Or G. Young, one OF the BRITISH Com
mlssloners to Guiana, read a paper on the
question lis the Asiatic Emigration to the
West Indies likely to be a Permanent Fact
in Modern Geography ?" After speaking
of the condition of the few aborogines still
to be found in the West Indies, and more
particularly of those in British Guia-
ma, he described the state of African
portion of the population. He said -
"The negroes, Notwithstanding all the
waste of life and moral deterioration indu-
ced by slavery, had taken root in the soil,
had been emancipated, and now formed
the bulk of the population throughout the
Antilles and in Guiana. The Census re-
turns showed that their rate of increase
was very slow. Ia Guiana ii was given
at 5000 in ten years, upon a population
standing in 1861 at $4,000 or a little IN
der l per cent per annum He thought,
however, that this might be looked upon
as a temporary depression, and ascribed in
part to the circumstances peculiar to a
generation which had been nurtured in
slavery, or by emancipated slaves and pro-
Vided for by no masters. The men were
vigorous, the women prolific and an i'm
IiOF III III AAiC bOIlNOtIC - tLIA LA
their treatment of their children, such as
might reasonably be expected to accom-
pany their growing national prosperity,
would most probably re store their multi
plying power, which in the time of slavery
stood higher than at present. 1t could not
be doubted that the establishment of the
African race in tropical America would
continue to be a fact in modern geography,
and what they had now to ask was, whe-
Their the new Asiatic immigration was OF
such dimensions, and endued with such
conditions Of p%ermanency, as to render it
capable OF holding its own alongside the
existing agriculturist negro population,
and becoming in its turn a geographical
fact. Economically speaking, the answer
was Of the utmost moment. The Africans,
for the most part, contented with the
sweets of liberty, and as yet new to the
stress of those desires after luxury and
comfort, which impeiled free races to hard
continuous IabOur, had long ceased either
to reside on the plantations or to supply
them with labour sufficiently regular to
insure their profitable cultivation. From
the ruin which, owing to this and other
causes, fell upon the British West Indian
Colonies IS years ago, they had been re-
suScitated by the State-aided, officially re-
gulated Oriental immigration. Capital
had been drawn to them afresh, fields had
been reclaimed, public works undertaken,
and a new era of prosperity appeared to
have been entered upon, owing to the in
PRODUCTION Of the Coolies. Trinidad,
which formerly stood low among her neigh
bours in point of enterprise and wealth,
had doubled the area of cultivation and the
amount of produce the value Of estates
in jamaica had in some cases already dou-
bIed since the Coolies, four years ago, be-
gan again to come after q six years prohi-
bition. 1t would be asked, if it was pos
sible that the results of the introduction
of Africans during the time of the slave
trade could be matched by the immigration
Of Asiatic volunteers brought from o great
er distance by Government ships, under a
system liable to be stopped at the first out
cry of ph~ilanthropists, and so closely guar
ded that, as we learn from the last Report
of the Emigration Commissioners, the NOR
tality during the Middle Passage had been
reduced to below 30 in the 1 900, a better
rate than obtained in many parts Of Eng
land. Since 1S43, however, 1855 East
Indians, 1929 Chinese, altogether 1885,
1877 of these immigrants, had arrived in the
4 rI -