142 The British West India Colonies, [FEB. 



Eighty-two per cent., or five-sixths of the price of a considerable part 

 of his marketable produce (but varying in a certain ratio according to 

 the price of sugar) is thus taken from him ; and, before he can apply a 

 penny of the remainder towards providing for himself and his Euro- 

 pean overseers and mechanics, he is bound, by the laws of the Colonies, 

 to find food, clothing, and medicines, for his negroes, whom he cannot 

 even enfranchise, without first giving security that they shall not become 

 burdensome to the community. 



If this state of things arose from over-production in our Colonies, or 

 if it were possible to substitute there the cultivation of any other remu- 

 nerating commodity in the place of sugar, a specific might be found ; 

 but, unfortunately, these effects arise from a different cause, and do not 

 admit of so easy a remedy. This we shall endeavour to explain. 



Previous to the commencement of the late war, the West Indians com- 

 plained that the high duty prevented the consumption of sugar from 

 keeping a steady pace with the increasing population and growing wealth 

 of the country. But the destruction of the French Colonies in St. Do- 

 mingo, the check which our naval superiority put it in our power to give 

 to the foreign slave trade, and various other occurrences during the war, 

 enabled the planter to maintain his ground, notwithstanding the increased 

 duties then imposed. Since the return of peace, and although the con- 

 sumption has not kept pace with the increased quantity now brought to 

 this market, the same heavy duties continue to operate against the 

 planter. He has had, in addition, to encounter a ,new, and very unfair, 

 species of competition with foreigners, which is thus explained in the 

 paper to which we have already referred : 



" Although the British West India Colonies had long furnished a suf- 

 ficient supply for home consumption, and a large surplus for exportation, 

 new competitors have been admitted into the markets of this country. 



" When the admission of Mauritius sugars was about to take place, 

 his Majesty's Ministers, in 1825, stated that the West India interest 'in 

 opposing the measure were wrong/ as some 10 or 12,000 hhds. only 

 could find their way into the English market. By the parliamen- 

 tary returns, it appears, however, that the importation of Mauritius 

 sugars, which, in 1825, was only 93,723 cwt., equal to 6,464 hhds. of 

 141 cwt. each, has been regularly increased to four times that quantity, 

 being, in 1828, no less than 361,052 cwts., 24,900 hhds. of 14^ cwt. ; 

 and there is reason to believe that this island will permanently add about 

 one-eighth to the quantity of sugars which are admissible for home con- 

 sumption on the terms of the old Colonies. 



" From the great markets of Russia, Austria, France, and the Nether- 

 lands, the British planter is virtually excluded by the fiscal regulations 

 of those countries ; and in the continental markets that remain open to 

 him, he is met by competitors from foreign Colonies, who are constantly, 

 and at a comparatively small expense, acquiring new labourers by means 

 of the slave trade, and who are thus immediately enabled to extend the 

 culture of the sugar-cane at a low cost. To these causes may be attri- 

 buted the overwhelming quantities sent to the continent since the 

 peace. 



" It is to be observed, that the humane regulations pursued by the 

 British planter for the civilization of the negro population, gives 

 foreigners, in the circumstances under which they are placed, many 

 advantages in the competition with him. If in this competition our 

 Colonist is allowed to sink, it cannot be doubted that less national evil 



