10 TRINIDAD. 



labour market. For whenever, as in the case of a sugar estate, 

 continuous labour is required and cannot be obtained, the whole 

 system of agricultural economy thereby suffers ; in fact, whenever 

 the available labour is not proportionate to the demand, agricul- 

 tural interests are imperilled; and such was the position of 

 nearly all the emancipated colonies whether Danish, French, or 

 British excepting Barbadoes and Antigua, where nearly the 

 whole of the land was under cultivation. In Jamaica, Dominica, 

 St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, and Tobago, the cultivation of 

 the sugar cane has been greatly reduced. Demerara and Trinidad, 

 however, may be pointed out as exceptions, since their exports 

 have lately increased to the former averages ; and yet their ex- 

 perience is highly confirmatory of what I have alleged. The im- 

 portation of Asiatics and other labourers has alone prevented a 

 proportionate decrease or total abandonment of sugar manu- 

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

 labourers were brought under indentures, and their labour ren- 

 dered 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 well 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 condition. Well, then, 

 without adverting to the fact that in Trinidad, at least, the labour- 

 ing population have never since emancipation reared or produced 

 the same amount of animal or vegetable food which they did 

 during the period of slavery ; the history of the emancipated class 

 since 1838 affords a striking proof that strong counter-impulses 

 have been in operation to check the impetus of freedom. 



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 and the increase of trade in Cuba 

 and Brazil, as compared with similar interests in the emancipated 

 British colonies. Whenever free labour is abundant, it is cer- 

 tainly cheaper as in Hindostan but, wherever the population is 

 scanty, and labour not easily procurable, slave labour then be- 

 comes decidedly the cheaper and more gainful, for this simple 

 reason, it can be concentrated within given limits, and arbitrarily 

 directed, in all cases of emergency, and at the most suitable junc- 

 tures, to the production of the contemplated results. 



I only contend here that, as certain effects flow from certain 

 causes, so certain results ought naturally to have succeeded the 

 abolition of slavery ; and that these results had necessarily a great 

 influence on the conditions under which the social economy of the 



