CENTRAL MILL&, 



148 



facture of sugar as one that could only be contended for 

 by men having no practical knowledge of West Indian 

 habits. In his letter to Mr. Gladstone, he says 



" Again, we are told a great deal of the marvels to be 

 worked at some future period by the negro proprietors or 

 tenants, laboring on their own farms. I have heard it 

 seriously contended, though of course only by men having 

 no practical knowledge of West Indian habits, that this 

 class, having few, if any expenses, and little or nothing to 

 pay in the shape of rent, being moreover capable of endur- 

 ing all the year through, a degree of fatigue which would 

 kill an European in a week, ought to undersell both slave- 

 owners and white employers of free labor. Now on this 

 head I have only a few words to say in answer. First, 

 the business of a sugar estate is two fold : it is an union of 

 agriculture and manufacture. For the latter, at least, skill 

 and combination are required ; of which the negro pos- 

 sesses neither. Nor can this part ot the process be carried 

 on separately from the other ; for the canes, if not taken 

 at once to the mill, are sj>oilt. On this single ground, the 

 difficulty of carrying on cane cultivation, except on large 

 estates, is almost insuperable — small farming is out of the 

 question. In the next place, appeal to experience — how 

 much sugar has ever been grown for export by the negro 

 farmers ? I will undertake to say, not five tons in any 

 single year, taking the range of all the British islands. 

 And, lastly, the extracts which I have already quoted from 

 official reports and despatches, show sufficiently the estima- 

 tion in which this class is held by those best acquainted 



