CHAPTER XIII. 



Labor and Wages. 



The complaint made by Mr. Carlyle, is the first thing 

 which a stranger hears out of the mouths of white residents 

 on landing at J amaica. " The wages are so high that nothing 

 can be made off our estates without protection." They 

 clamor from the house tops that there is a scarcity of labor, 

 which causes the high wages ; and the island is constantly 

 agitated with schemes for the importation of laborers from 

 abroad. Coolies were brought here many years ago from 

 the East ; the Apprenticeship system was established ; im- 

 migration from Germany and Africa was encouraged at 

 some expense, but still the complaint is, that wages are 

 ruinously high. I did not meet a single planter, who did 

 not insist that it was the unnatural price of labor that was 

 sinking them. Mr. Stanley carried off the same impres- 

 sion, and makes it the staple of his argument for a resto- 

 ration of the old protective duties on colonial produce. 



Now it never seems to have occurred either to Mr. Stan- 



