202 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



[September i, 1883. 



and the desperate nature of the case is shown by 

 the cry of the writer in The Times : — " Anarchy, i ruin 

 and bloodshed are certain to accompany tho process 

 of slave eniaiiicipation, unless the English philanthrop- 

 ists who plead for freedom will provide a loan of 

 little short of eighty millions sterliug to compensate 

 the slaveholders for the losa of their property " : pro- 

 perty vvhich was never rightly theirs. The natural reply 

 is : " You have made your bed, and on it you must 

 lie." The, difficulties which have to be faced are 

 certainly most serious, and we confess that we 

 gee little prospect of a catastrophe being long averted. 

 " Am I my brother's keeper ? " was never a morally 

 rifht question, and it is now less defensible tliau 

 ever. Because Britain amonget other nations of the 

 world, has not insisted on the abolition of slavery iu 

 Brazil (we did much and were hated in proportion), 

 this colony has added to her other causes of depres- 

 sion low prices for cofl'ee produced by over-produc- 

 tion iu Brazil ; a result which would have been im- 

 possible but for the existence of over a million slaves, 

 one-half or more of whom are predial. If the coffie 

 enterprize in Ceylon, recovers from the depression which 

 has overtaken it, owing to natural or providential 

 causes, it will still have to contend with the slave- 

 grown coffee of Brazil, so long as slavery in that 

 country is allowed to exist. We, iu Ceylou, are, 

 therefore, deeply and specially interested in this ques- 

 tion of Brazilian slave emancipation which the writer 

 in Tlte Times clearly expects will be precipitated 

 by the action of abolitionists iu the Empire and 

 bejoud its bounds. The writer in The Times, 

 it will be eeen, values the coffee trees of Brazil 

 at £36,000,000, without counting land, buildings, 

 or machinery, all of which would be lost to 

 the world, by five years' neglect of the coffee est- 

 ates, which would be fatal to them. But the 

 value of the coffee property is far exceeded by 

 the money value of £120 a head put on the 

 500,000 slaves engaged in its cultivation, the total 

 being £96,000,000, without counting land, machinery, 

 etc. Taking into account the enormous tracts of land 

 appropriated by slaveholders for coffee cultivation, 

 the property at stake cannot be much less valu ine 

 than £200,000,000. No wonder, therefore, if the slave- 

 holders, educated as they have been, cling to slavery 

 and do their best to defeat or delay the operation of 

 the emancipation law. The worst and most danger- 

 ous element in the case of Brazil, however, lies in the 

 treatment of free immigrants. Not only is the pub- 

 lie sentiment of the slaveholding interest hostile to 

 them, unless they consent to work and be treated as 

 slaves, but the laws of the Empire (which do not 

 recognize religions liberty) seem as if they had been 

 framed to impede a process on which not only the 

 progress but the very existence of tho country de- 

 pends. It is very true that the Emperor, personally, 

 is a man of liberal views and a friend of freedom. 

 But he is largely iu the hands of his " constitutional 

 advisers," and but few of these have the courage to 

 fully admit the gravity of the position and to take 

 the only measures which can avert anarchy and ruin. 

 It will be seen that the writer in 2'/ie Times talks 

 of "the shady groves " of the coffee estates, in which 

 men from temperate climes could easily work. About 

 this we are doubtful, and we suspect that, if the plant- 

 ations of Brazil are to be kept up, it must be through 

 the agency of Chinese or Indian coolies. But the Gov- 

 ernment of India would demand conditions which 

 the slaveholders of Braz 1 would never cousent to, or 

 at least never fulfil. If, on the other hand, the laws 

 of Brazil were altered, so as to give full civil and 

 religious liberty to all immigrants, it ^is quite true 

 that in the vast territory of the South American 

 Empire, — on its mountains as over its plains 

 and by the sideB of its great rivers,— there is every 



possible variety of soil and climate, for immigrants 

 to resort to and settle on. We cannot doubt that 

 there is a great future for Brazil, but it will only 

 come when the curse of slavery has been ousted 

 from the land. One of the natural consequences of 

 the system is just what the writer iu 2Vte Times pre- 

 dicts : if the slaves obtain their freedom, not more 

 than 100,000 out of the 500,000 employed on coffee 

 plantations will continue to labour on them. Slavery 

 not only makes labour hateful to the slaves but de- 

 grades honest toil in the eyes of freemen. It is not 

 probable that the desire of the writer will be grati- 

 fied by a sufficient contingent of freemen being ready 

 to take the place of slaves who will interpret freedom 

 to mean abstention from work. The Brazilian slave- 

 holders ought to learn the lesson which so-called 

 "confiscation" of their slave property has taught the 

 planters of the Southern States of America. By offer- 

 ing their former slaves proper inducements, in wages 

 and treatment, the planters have obtained labour better 

 and more profitable than in the days of the "pecul- 

 iar institution, " and j the Southern States are now 

 rapidly advancing. But we suspect the Brazil slave- 

 holders, generally of Portuguese descent, are too proud 

 to learn and jiractice such a lesson, and therefore, we 

 fear that " dark days of weeping, and sorrow, and 

 desolation," such as the slaveholders of the Southern 

 States had to pass through, before they learned the 

 needed lesson, are in store for Brazil, — the only great 

 nation of the world in which slavery is still rampant. 



CoFFBE IN Java. —The Java Bode states that the 

 yield of coffee this year iu the Padang Highlands 

 promises to be so uuusually abundant that unless 

 timely measures are taken to facilitate its conveyance 

 to the coast it will become impossible to find room for 

 the crop in the Government storehouses there. 



BoKTiLi Tea Compant (Limited.) — Capital, £1,20,000 

 in 12,000 shares of £10 each, of which 7,Sl7 shares have 

 been issued ; area under cultivation, SIC acres. The total 

 croj) of tea packed has been 490,930 lbs. — representing an 

 increase of 26,930 lbs. over the estimated out-tm-n, and 

 39 2.55 lbs. over that of the preceding season. Owing to 

 the heavy fall in the value of Indian teas, the average 

 price realised for the crop has been only Is I'lTd., against 

 Is. 4Jd. for that of 1881 ; hut the low cost at which it 

 has been produced — viz., 9-92 per lb. — to a great extent 

 counterbalances the fall in price, and admits of a pro- 

 fit which, if not quite equal to that of last year, may 

 be considered fairly satisfactory in the present condition 

 of the tea market. The accounts show a profit of 

 £5 782 14s. lid., which, added to the balance at credit 

 of revenue accoimt, admits of the payment of a second 

 di\T:dend of 4 per cent.— making 8 percent, for the year, 

 free of income tax — and leaves a balance of £3,925 7s. 3d. 

 to be canied forward. During the past cold season an 

 extension of about 44 acres has been made to the cult- 

 ivation, and as tliis has been planted out with seed of 

 the best desciiptiou it should jn-ove a valuable addition 

 to the Company's estates. Mi-. Lumsden, whose manage- 

 ment continues to give satisfaction to the Board, reports the 

 estates to be in thorough cultivation. He estimates ths 

 crop of the cuiTcut year at 430,000 lb, wliich he hopee 

 to lay down here at a cost not exceeding lOd. per lb., 

 including all home charges, and the cost of the above ex- 

 tensions. The out-tmn for the present season, as advised 

 to 31st May, viz., 15,737 lb. shows a decrease of 11,7191b, 

 from that of tho preceding year, but this being entii-ely 

 due to the protracted di-ought experienced in the early 

 part of the year, need cause no uneasiness to the share- 

 holders. A copious fall of rain has since taken place, and 

 the du-ectors have no doubt the decrease will soon be 

 made up. At the request of the superintendent, a large 

 size Kimnond's dryer has been sent out, which will prove 

 a valuable help iu the fm-ther reduction of expenditure. 

 We congratulate the shareholders on the results of the 

 year. In face of low prices n profit of 3jd. per lb. of 

 tea has been realised by careful attention to economy iu 

 working. — Home and Colonial Mail. 



