16 TRINIDAD. 



its management resembles more that of a manufactory than of a 

 farm, and field operations are suspended more or less for four or 

 five months, in order to manufacture the juice of the cane into 

 sugar. Thus the sugar-planter is subject, at the same time, to 

 all the casualties attendant on the pursuits, both of the manufac- 

 turer and the agriculturist. These may be said to be natural 

 conditions which cannot be changed ; but there were others of 

 an # artificial kind against which the planter had incessantly to 

 struggle. 



Under the system of slavery man was regarded and employed 

 as a mere mechanical agent ; and the planter who, immediately 

 after emancipation, required skill in the tillage of the soil, and 

 intelligent labourers who could understand and profitably adopt 

 improved and efficient methods, was compelled to rest satisfied 

 with the mechanical aid of the very class he had kept in a state 

 of ignorance and serfdom ; and where initiated, active, and 

 willing agents were necessary, he found obtuse, indolent, and, 

 above all, capricious instruments. Of course, this was perhaps 

 the greatest difficulty with which the West Indian planter had 

 to contend, the undesirable bequest of slavery. 



Again, on what terms were proprietors compelled to employ 

 those agents ? It may be said that during the existence of slavery 

 there were but two distinct classes in the colonies, the slaveholders 

 and the slaves; for many who were not owners of land were 

 nevertheless owners of slaves. Many of the labourers, soon after 

 obtaining their liberty, left their masters' property and began to 

 erect small cottages on unoccupied lands or on small lots pur- 

 chased by themselves ; the majority, however, continued to live 

 on the estates, actually occupying houses and lands free from 

 all rent, and yet exacting from their masters whatever wages 

 they thought proper, the greatest number of them receiving 

 from forty to fifty cents (Is. 8d. to 2s. Id.) per measured task 

 of field-work. 



The task system which had been adopted in Trinidad on 

 nearly all cacao, and on several sugar plantations, during the 

 period of slavery, was almost immediately afterwards enforced 

 on all other estates ; and in few cases only did an able labourer 

 take more than four hours to perform the allotment, some of 

 them perfecting two to two tasks and a half per day. In nearly 

 all the colonies, the planters were necessitated to submit to the 

 terms of the labourers. The consequence was that the greater 

 number of planters who had been extricated from their liabilities 

 by the compensation grant became soon involved to very large 

 amounts, especially those who had attempted the introduction of 

 improvements. On several estates the labourers lost their 

 wages, their employers having been utterly ruined ; and let me 



