LABOR NOT CAPITAL, 



107 



whether from necessity or choice, he insists upon selling the 

 whole of it, and the purchaser generally insists upon buy- 

 ing the whole. The residents of the island are, for the 

 most part, too poor to buy, and hence non-residents have 

 usually been the purchasers, when any sales were made. 

 In this way, all the evils of absenteeism have been per- 

 petuated, and the few sales which have occurred, have 

 contributed nothing, apparently, to the restoration of the 

 equilibrium between labor and capital, which must precede 

 any permanent prosperity in Jamaica. 



Another consequence of this delusion about the neces- 

 sity of preserving the present monstrous proportions of the 

 estates is, that most of the capital invested here is ap- 

 propriated to the two or three favorite staples which I have 

 mentioned, and the island is compelled to import nearly 

 everything it consumes. It will hardly seem credible, that 

 a country which can grow any kind of grain, almost with- 

 out culture, should import all its flour, its meal, its rice, 

 and immense quantities of peas and beans for the consump- 

 tion of its own population ; that a country which supports 

 a larger variety of valuable forest trees than any other tract 

 of its size in the world, should import all its lumber, its 

 shingles, its staves, its heading and its hoop poles ; that an 

 island which, if left to run wild, would afford better graz- 

 ing to cattle all the year round, than can be procured at 

 any season in any one of the United States, unless it be 



