8 TRINIDAD. 



market, the available amount being either directed into new 

 channels, rendered unsteady, or permanently reduced. The 

 amount of labour diverted into new channels was not exactly 

 lost, but was, in many cases, such an exchange as tended to the 

 detriment of all classes, as shown by the disproportionate number 

 of carpenters, masons, and other tradesmen, tailors, petty shop- 

 keepers, as compared with the tillers of the soil, etc. The 

 permanent reduction for agricultural purposes was, on the 

 contrary, a real loss to the colonies, since the cultivation of 

 staples is the only foundation of their commerce and of their 

 prosperity. 



One of the greatest difficulties with which the colonists had 

 to contend was the unsettled state of the labour market. For 

 whenever, as in the case of cane cultivation, continuous labour is 

 required and cannot be obtained, the whole system of agricultural 

 economy suffers thereby ; in fact, when the available labour is 

 not proportionate to the demand, agricultural interests are 

 imperilled ; and such was the position of nearly all the emanci- 

 pated colonies, whether Danish, French, or British, excepting 

 Barbadoes and Antigua, where nearly the whole of the land was 

 under cultivation. Demerara and Trinidad, however, might be 

 pointed out as exceptions, since their exports have been steadily 

 increasing for the last fifteen or twenty years ; and yet their 

 example is highly confirmatory of what I have alleged. The 

 introduction of Asiatics and other labourers has alone prevented 

 a proportionate decrease or total abandonment of sugar manu- 

 facture in those two colonies ; and that, so far only as those 

 labourers were placed under indenture, and their labour thus 

 rendered regularly available. 



It is admitted, as an axiom, that free is cheaper than slave 

 labour, because, it is said, the freeman finds, in a strong desire 

 to improve his condition, a stimulus to exertion, which the slave 

 has not. As a general principle, the admission is correct ; but 

 this, as all other rules, has its exceptions. Undoubtedly, the 

 freeman ought to be more active and more industrious than the 

 slave. But indolence and prejudice may prove the deadliest 

 paralysers of energy in improving any one's condition. To 

 assert that hired is cheaper than slave labour becomes a paradox, 

 if taken in an absolute sense; and the best proof of this is the 

 extension of agriculture in Cuba and Brazil, as compared with 

 the similar interest in the emancipated colonies. Wherever free 

 labour is abundant, it is cheaper, as in Hindostan ; but wherever 

 population is scanty and labour not easily procurable, slave 

 labour then becomes decidedly the cheapest and more gainful, 

 for this simple reason — it can be concentrated within given 

 limits and arbitrarily directed, in all cases of emergency and at 



