30 Timehri. 



discharge. We may say that the ideal of the optimist was obtained when 

 every man got a regular share of food, a house and a mate. Of course he 

 had to pay for it by working as the labourer does in other countries but 

 he did not run the risk of being discharged at a week's notice. 



From the one standpoint, we have the master using his own or other 

 people's capital to carry on what he hoped would give him a fortune and 

 on the other coerced labour. The result was good to the people first 

 who ran no risks and had no responsibility ; there was hardly any crime 

 and probably less trouble than we have to-day. The planter sometimes 

 succeeded in gaining a competency the merchant got pickings and the 

 officials their fees. Plenty of faults could be found and yet on the 

 whole the system was a success. 



After the abolition of slavery many changes were made with the 

 general result that poverty and crime were more conspicuous. However, 

 the immigration laws came in to regulate labour and the result has been 

 better for the labourer than for the planter. Immigrants must be kept ; 

 in no case can they be allowed to starve and they mu^t have work. No 

 planter can refuse to let his immigrants work, or say that he cannot 

 employ them if his funds are low. When extra work has to be done he 

 has the advantage of employing more hands if the inducements offered to 

 villagers are sufficient. It is evident, however, that he is somewhat ham- 

 pered by indentured labour. 



We must presume that in the future there will be no indentured 

 labour ; what will then be the position ? The planter may employ 

 as few or as many as he requires if he can find them. But the 

 question is will he get them ? The labourers may refuse to work un- 

 less their demands are conceded and these demands may mean loss 

 on the working. There is a feeling among the labourers that they 

 are underpaid when a little knowledge of the position of the sugar 

 estates should prove that they are wrong. As a matter of fact the 

 price of sugar during the last twenty years has hardly justified the 

 current prices of labour. This can be easily seen when we note 

 that several estates have been abandoned, and no new ones empol- 

 dered. Had sugar been paying there would be no backward teudency ; 

 during the last forty years the annual output of sugar has been about the 

 same, one hundred thousand tons. It can be safely predicted that if 

 sugar estates pay well in the future more will be empoldered and none 

 abandoned. If, however, the demands of free labour are conceded 

 few estates will remain under cultivation aud the labourer will 

 have destroyed them, this is the real cause of trouble and has bi fen 

 so ever since the emancipation. The cost of labour has increased 

 and the price of sugar gone down. The planters have economized by 

 reducing expenses in every direction until the actual manufacture and 

 superintendence is now half what it was thirty years ago. But labour, 

 in which we must include all expenses of immigration, has increased and 

 can hardly ever be reduced. 



