12 TRINIDAD. 



have expected that the one party would neither commit disorders 

 in practice, nor the other be guilty of errors in judgment? 



During the time of slavery, free labour, when procurable, was 

 paid at" a very high rate ; immediately after emancipation, the 

 labouring population considered themselves as entitled to, and 

 actually received, the same high wages ; and through fear that 

 the labourers would altogether retire from the cane-fields, the 

 planter willingly paid the amount demanded, in order to keep 

 his property under cultivation till better days should arrive. The 

 scarcity of labour in the colonies, and the high price of sugar in 

 the home market, seemed to concur in justifying, both the un- 

 reasonable demands of the labourer and the imprudent offers of 

 the planter. Things were carried further still ; the planter, in- 

 stead of showing himself provident and calculating, began to create 

 a competition in the labour market, by offering enhanced wages 

 to the labourer. Led on by reckless improvidence, and deceived 

 by fallacious appearances, he at once sought to extend his culti- 

 vation, at a moment when the labour market was already under a 

 severe strain, and offered the most exorbitant wages for daily 

 task work. The labourer, seeing his employer yielding at discre- 

 tion, wantonly indulged in idleness and revelry, or squandered 

 his time in wandering over the country, from place to place, being 

 always certain of procuring shelter and work wherever he pre- 

 ferred remaining, even for a few days. 



Meanwhile an outcry was raised in Europe against the colonists; 

 the high price of sugar, and the exorbitant wages paid to the field 

 labourers, furnished the free-traders with an inexhaustible theme 

 for declamation. The distrust imbibed and fostered against the 

 planters, rendered all suggestions coming from, and all measures 

 prepared by them, either suspicious or unacceptable to the Anti- 

 slavery Society ; so that, at the very moment the former required 

 encouragement and support, they beheld clouds gathering in the 

 eastern horizon, and could perceive the elemental array of im- 

 pending storms. The bond-fide abolitionists did clearly foresee the 

 evils which the new policy foreboded to the emancipated colonies, 

 and yet, they were altogether as tardy and vacillating in their 

 opposition, as if they were not aware that the interests of the 

 planters and those of the emancipated had become so intimately 

 blended, that one could not prosper without the aid of the 

 other. 



The Act of Emancipation is of comparatively so recent a date, 

 and the great mass of the coloured class has hitherto had so 

 little opportunity of acquiring either wealth or instruction, that, 

 in these colonies, wealth and instruction may still be said to form, 

 as it were, a privilege of the Europeans or whites. If these be 

 compelled to retire from the field, capital and industry must 

 retire with them ; misery must follow, and barbarism take the 



