372 THE WEST INDIA QUESTION. 



slave system is the true and paramount cause of the distresses of the 

 slave-holder. 



The planters of Jamaica have ever been loudly clamourous for 

 protection, in the shape of increased duties upon the produce of the 

 the East Indies ; though the sugars of Bengal are raised in a coun- 

 try not superior in the advantages of soil and climate, far inferior in 

 the advantages of inland distance from the sea, and subjected to the 

 cost of a navigation of twelve thousand miles. The free labour of 

 the East Indies is most assuredly not a quarter of the cost of the 

 slave labour of Jamaica, for the rate of wages throughout the entire 

 peninsula of Hindostan does not exceed the average rate of 3d per 

 day for the able-bodied peasant : and though the wretched and plun- 

 dered natives of the East are subjected to more privation, nakedness, 

 and hunger, than the negroes of our West India possessions, yet, in 

 the outward show of liberty, and that hope which animates a man, 

 who is master of his own powers of locomotion, exists the true cause 

 of the inferior price of the produce of the East, and the absence of 

 the incendiary fires and insurrectionary movements which lay waste 

 Jamaica. 



In the United States of America this contrast is equally remark- 

 able. The productions of the Northern States of the Union, where 

 free labour is alone employed, are not a quarter of the value of 

 the crops of the Southern planter. Thus, grain being the staple 

 production of New York and Massachussets, we find that the average 

 produce of wheat upon the most fertile lands may be estimated at 

 forty bushels per acre, at half a dollar per bushel a fair average 

 price : thus the entire remuneration of the Northern farmer is about 

 twenty dollars per acre. But, upon the other hand, the produce 

 from one acre of cotton in the States of Georgia or South Carolina, 

 will be found to exceed four times the value of an acre of wheat j 

 for the produce of an acre of cotton will usually average about 

 four cwt. of clear cotton to the acre, the price of which is more than 

 twenty dollars per cwt. at the present time ; and thus above eighty 

 dollars per acre is the return derived from the soil by the planter in 

 the South. And, though the income of the slave-owner of South 

 Carolina is thus shewn to be four times greater than that of the 

 farmer of the Northern States, it is yet known that in the Southern 

 division of the Union, all is distress, languor and decay, whilst the 

 Northern States are rapidly rising to a condition of prosperity un- 

 exampled in the history of the world ; exhibiting, in their bound- 

 less commerce and splendid public works, the best evidence of 

 abundant wealth and national power. 



We trust, then, that the claims for compensation will not be suffered 

 to obstruct the final settlement of this great question. The in- 

 creased value of the landed property of the West Indies, by the 

 diminished cost of cultivation, will, in a very few years, prove to be 

 the largest measure of compensation. The increase of population by 

 the increase of the comforts of the labouring classes, will very ra- 

 pidly cheapen the cost of production mutual satisfaction will result 

 to the planter and the negro incendiary fires will no longer devas- 

 tate whole parishes and districts a monopoly of the home market 

 will no longer be required to sustain the fortunes of the planter and 



