September i, 1883. J 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



175 



or goods. This peculiar form of hypothec gives to 

 the AVesfc India, m^rchauts who enjoy it a practical 

 mouopoly of the produce of the islands, and has trans- 

 ferred to th;m the actual possess^ion of a large part 

 of the soil. Embarrassed planters are obliged to come 

 to them for advances, because of the impossibility 

 of offering adequate security to any other class of 

 capitalists. In this way the planter who, through 

 inherited embarrassments or want of capital to work 

 the property that has come into his possession, has 

 had recourse to the merchant capitalist, can scarcely 

 help sinking into the position of a mere resident 

 agent for his consignee. The latter has no other 

 interest in the property than as a source of pecuniary 

 profit. Ho works it in that way till the land is 

 exhausted, and then he either abandons it or asserts 

 his prior claim as a creditor, and becomes the actual — 

 though still the non-resident — owner. 



The evils arising from such a system are obvious. 

 But the actual reasons why during recent years the 

 prosperity of most of our West Indian colonies has 

 either been stationary or has absolutely receded, lie 

 still deeper. The working of the Encumbered Estates 

 Court has, no doubt, served to hasten and intensify 

 tlieir operation ; but that Court could not have doue 

 much mischief if the position of the proprietary 

 class m the Islands had not been radically unsound 

 at an earlier period. It was the fact that a great 

 many planters were hopelessly embarrassed which led 

 to the establishment of the Court ; and the question 

 naturally arises — what was the cause of all this em- 

 barrassment ? Tiie subject is discussed with much 

 ability and candour in a pamphlet just published 

 by Mr. C. 8. Salmon, under the title " CapilP and 

 Labour in the West Indies." jMr. Salmon maintains 

 — and he advances a formidable array of aroumeut 

 and evidence in support of his contention— that the 

 root if all the evil is the existence of false relatioua : 

 between the landowners and the labouring class, first 

 created at the time of the emaucipatiou, an I since 

 rather intensified than diminished. At the period 

 when the shives in the \\\st Indies were freed by 

 an Act of the British Parliament, which at the same 

 time compensated the planters for the loss of the 

 human property of which they were deprived, th« 

 only labour which was av.ailable for the cultivation 

 of the soil was tliat of the imported Africans ; the 

 aboriginal popnlaliou hud been completely extirpated. 

 Under these circumstances, it might have been sup- 

 posed that the owners of the land would have en- 

 deavoured to arrive at a friendly understanding 

 with the emancipated negroes; would have conceded 

 to them the rights and privileges of free men ; and 

 would have convinced them that it was their in- 

 terest, as well as their duty, to assert their place 

 as a section of the communrty. Unhappily, except 

 in a few instances, nothing of the kind nok place. 

 The barrier of dislike and su=ipicion which the long 

 contiuuance of the system of slavery had reared be- 

 tween the white nvn and the blacks was still kept 

 up. The negroes looked upm their former masters 

 as their natural foes, who had perpetrated cruel 

 wrongs upon them in the past, and were not at all 

 inclined to be friendly to them, now that the terrible 

 power of ownership had been taken out of their bauds. 

 The attitude of the planters gave too much justific- 

 ation to this feeling. They were, for the most part, 

 firmly convinced that it was impossible to get good 

 work out of the Africans except under the lash ; 

 this conviction regulated all their dealings with the 

 emancipated blacks, and has long been elevated into 

 an article of faith viith most V\'est Indian propriet- 

 ors. It is a belief which has no foundation m actual 

 experience. Badly paid, under-fed, looked upon by 

 then- enifiloyers with dislike and contempt, the West 

 Indian negroes have not proved eflScient as free la- 



bourers ; but it may be asked whether, under like 

 conditions, men of any other race would have done 

 better. They have no incentive to industry. They 

 know that tlie planters have no c-:re for or interest 

 in their welfare ; they are still aliens in a country 

 where they form the largest part of the population, 

 and where a pernicious fiscal system makes them, 

 notwithstanding their extreme poverty, bear the greatest 

 share of the burden 'if taxation. It would almost seem 

 that the gen-rous principles on which the emancipatiou 

 was carried out, though uft'ering a coble example of self- 

 saerilice and ubstract justice on the part of the mother 

 country, have had an injurious tffoet on the subsequent 

 development of the West Indies. The method by 

 which the curse of slavery was banished from the 

 United States, though far more rough at the time, and 

 inflicting great temporary suff-Tiug on the slave-hold- 

 ing class, has had happier results so far as the per- 

 minent progress and well-being of the country and the 

 population are concerned. The change was there ac- 

 companied at the sword's point. Tne slave-holders 

 receive no compensation. They were left to accommod- 

 ate themselves to the new order of things as they 

 best could, without aid from anybody, and they have 

 done so. The process of social reconstruction in the 

 Southern States is, of course, far from complete, and 

 it has been attended by some unsatisfactory features. 

 But the States have already, iu great measure, re- 

 covered from the shock which iheir prosperity sus- 

 tained during the war. The cotton and other crops 

 they produce are larger th;in iu the most prosperous 

 days of the slave system ; and the negroes show none 

 of that incapacity for work with which their fellows 

 in the West Indies are credited. 



The significance of these facts caunot be overlooked. 

 More than half a century has passed since emancipation 

 took efToct in the West India Colonies. They are 

 naturaUy one of the most frniiful and productive re- 

 gions on earth ; they have every advantage aft'orded by 

 facility of communication and vicinity to greac markets. 

 Yet few of them have made any progress during the 

 1 ist fifty years, and some arc positively worse oil' today 

 than they were iu 1830. In Antigua the po|julation 

 has declined ; the exports have increased since 1850 

 by about 22h per cent ; but the revenue, and the 

 consequent burden of taxation on the inhabitants, has 

 more than doubled, and a large jiart of it is raised 

 by duties levied on food imports, which, of course, tell 

 most heavily on the labouring classes. As regards St. 

 Kitts, the statistics are slightly more favourable ; for 

 Nevis, Dominica, and several other islands they are less 

 80. Barbadoes, where the African population has gen- 

 erally been well treated, and has consequently been 

 indistrioua, is prosperous and flourishing. In Jamaica, 

 on the other hand, the relations between the proprietary 

 class aud the negroes are well known to have been the 

 reverse of friendly, and there, though during the last 

 ten years there has been a large importation of coulie 

 labour, the increase in the value of exports has been 

 very small, while taxation is heivy and the expendit- 

 ure large. Speaking generally, the condition of the 

 Islands is not one of progress or prosperity. The 

 es'ates are falling more and more into the hands of 

 non-resident propiietori", who are abolutely inditi'erent 

 about the general v\elfaie of the inhabitants, and are 

 favourable to the coolie system because it enables them 

 to work the land cheaply. But this is not the only 

 result which should be aimed at by the Imperial 

 Government. The West India Islands form one of the 

 oldest p irtions of our Colonial Empire, audit is not 

 fi;r the national credit that they should sink into a 

 condition in which land-owners and labourers alike 

 are alien to the soil, and different to the permanent 

 well-being of ihe colonies. That, however, is the tend- 

 ency of the present system, and the ultiniaie outcome 

 of the substitution of imported East Indian labour for 



