, 1875-03-17
The "RVIS"
THE LABOUR QUESTION.
IS PUBLISHED
EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.
CFrom the Colonial Standard, Jamaica.)

large influence and high position in New
South Wales, has lately delivered an ad-
dress to the Agricultural Society there,
which is replete with interesting remarks
on the Sugar question, and on it's kindred
subjects. 1t is curious to compare the ex-
p%erience gathered at the antipodes al
most of Jamaica, with our own, as this
paper enables us to do, and to mark how
the same causes which affect us detrimen-
tally produce their accustomed results in
New South Wales as well. On the ques-
ton of labour, for instance, Mr.. MacKay
says:-"The labour question is most per-
picking. [ have no feeling against any
kind of labour myself for few men have
had better opportunities for seeing that a
colOred man is as well treated as "a white
man. The will and ability Of each to
work is the standard by which his merits
are Judged. The cant about slavery III
this country is q mere cIap-trap, but I
have little faith in the col0red man as a
labOurer. He becomes as irksome as the
white man when he becomes dissatisfied
with his situation. ] have tried to look at
the question in various ways, and believe
that In a steady and sufficient flow Of inn
migrants we have the safest provision for
a sufficient labor supply. It has been
said that white men cannot labour in this
place. need only say that the hardest
work in Queensland is now and has al
ways been done by white men. | do not
know an instance on the face of the earth
where the white man cannot out-work
the colored man. The experiences of ia
maica are perfectly similar and the one
grand conclusion arrived at is also the
same as is forced on Jamaica-nameIy,
that " steady and sufficient flow of i'm
migrants is the only safe provision for
the supply of the labor market. "
The testimony from New South Wales,
only however adds to the immense mass of
evidence already gathered from every part
of the world where development in any
branch of industry or agriculture is sought
to be promoted, as to the necessity for
importing labour, While the negrophilists
were denying the existence Of this necessity
in Jamaica and keeping the country back
through their obstinate and perverse oppo-
sition to all efforts to get immigrants, ma
tural causes were at work elsewhere with
out any such restraints and results accu-
mulating to prove how blindly we were
being sacrificed to an idea. Mauritius
was among one of the earliest opponents
practically of the advantages of immigra-
ton !; and to pass at once to places nearer
to US. we may instance Demerara and Trini-
dad. But the truth seems to be intuitively
felt in all o untries where natural resour-
ces are waiting to be explored. Every
country on the Continent of America,
North or South, offers a more or less
liberal bonus to immigrants to en-
tice them to pour in. In nom is a
distinction made as to any particular class
of immigrants. All are welcome, and are
left to make their own way according to
their W merits. It is thus that Canada
and the United States have become the great
countries that they are, and that the other
States of this hemisphere, as soon as time
shall have settled their political excitements
and brought them peace and security,
will also become great. The kind of
immigration to which these countries re-
sort, does not supply all that Jamaica
wants; but we would like to see it more