HtoifM*>IMmft4MM in* 

 THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 



OF 



POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND THE BELLES LETTRES. 

 VOL. XV.] APRIL, 1833. [No. 88. 



THE WEST INDIA QUESTION. 



THE only remaining difficulty in the final settlement of the ques- 

 tion of slave emancipation is found in the clamorous demands for 

 compensation, to the planters. We purpose, in the following re- 

 marks, to lend our humble, and yet timely, assistance to the advocates 

 of entire emancipation, by demonstrating, not the injustice or the 

 inhumanity of the system, but the inexpediency and ruinous ten- 

 dency of the nature of compulsory labour ; that an honest remune- 

 ration of the toils of the negro will be found to be the only profitable 

 policy ; and, finally, that emancipation is compensation. 



So certain does the writer, after an extensive knowledge of the 

 system in slave countries, feel of the enormous loss sustained by the 

 planter in the employment of compulsory labour, that he does not 

 hesitate to declare his conviction, that the true cause of the present 

 extreme depression of the West India interests is mainly attributable 

 to this erroneous policy, and that the emancipation of the slaves, 

 though now viewed with alarm, as a measure of spoliation and ruin 

 to the planter, will, in reality, prove to be the greatest boon that was 

 ever conferred upon the possessors of property in any country of 

 modern times. 



All political economists of large and extended views, have agreed 

 in the truth that the forced and unwilling labours of the slave 

 are incomparably dearer than the remunerated operations of one 

 whose stimulus to toil is self-interest. In this opinion many en- 

 lightened proprietors of slaves are themselves agreed, and so con- 

 vinced of this truth was the late Mr. Jefferson, that so early as the 

 year 1786, that illustrious statesman introduced resolutions into the 

 legislature of the State of Virginia, declaratory of the worthlessness 

 of negro labour, and of the expediency of re-transporting to Africa 

 the entire black population of the State. The learned and profound 

 political economist, Cooper, of South Carolina, has also proved, by 

 minute and irrefragable calculation, that no comparison whatever 

 exists in the value of slave and of free labour ; though this writer 

 does not include the immense annual losses, by incendiary fires, 

 the cost of armies, navies, and police establishments, the decrease 

 of the population of all slave countries, and the consequent deficiency 

 of the amount, and increase of the value of labour. In fact, the 



M. M. No. 88, 2R2 



