18 TRINIDAD. 



What assistance we; have received, all know. It is, indeed, 

 surprising that " sugar cultivation was continued at all after 

 emancipation," and this fact speaks volumes in favour of the 

 much-abused and ill-treated " ci-devant slave proprietors" The 

 passage before quoted contains, however, an accusation and a 

 well-deserved one against the emancipated class, as proved by 

 the following observation : " For at least nine or ten months of the 

 year, food and other requisites were obtained from America and 

 England." As to requisites, other than food, it is evident that 

 they will, probably for ever, continue to be obtained from England 

 and other manufacturing countries ; since the isles of the West, 

 as all other intertropical regions, seem ordained by nature as the 

 storehouses of the raw materials, whilst temperate and cold coun- 

 tries are the laboratories wherein art utilises the same by manu- 

 facture. But the emancipated colonies ought to produce the 

 greater, if not the entire, quantity of the food they consume ; and 

 it is again evident, that the agents of that production naturally 

 are the cotters, or small proprietors, and especially those who can 

 themselves " till their land, surrounded and assisted by their 

 families." And yet it may be safely asserted, that in nearly all the 

 colonies the production of alimentary articles has greatly diminished 

 since emancipation ; and, what may seem paradoxical, it has ap- 

 parently decreased in proportion as there were greater facilities 

 for their production. How to account for this rather extraordinary 

 fact it is difficult to conceive, except by the admission that where 

 the emancipated class were necessitated to employ themselves as 

 labourers, as in Barbadoes, Antigua, St. Christopher, &c., they 

 have preserved or acquired habits of industry, which they do not 

 possess where they are at liberty to live in indolence and ig- 

 norance ; avoiding labour as much as possible, and vegetating on 

 the strips of land which surround their cottages. However, what- 

 ever be the cause, this is an undeniable fact, which, together with 

 the admission of Mr. Martin himself, affords very strong and con- 

 clusive evidence in favour of the repeated prayers and efforts of 

 the planters for the organisation of some system by which to regu- 

 late the labour movements of the emancipated colonies. Every one 

 plainly foresaw that the immediate result of emancipation would 

 be a complete disturbance of the labour market, and, consequently, 

 a paralysis at least momentary of the productive powers of these 

 islands. That a fair remuneration would operate as an induce- 

 ment to exertion, was true ; but superficial was the mind that 

 would have trusted to that agency alone for continuing the active 

 industry of the emancipated. The much misunderstood because 

 distrusted planter coveted not, sought not, the renewal of any 

 law unjust or unfair to the labourer : he called for the interposition 

 of legislative authority to complete the work of emancipation ; to 

 exercise a parental interest in the welfare of those who had been 



