March i, 1882.] 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
747 
subject, there was a general and a sincere desire, 
accompanied by efforts correspondingly general and 
sincere, amongst the community, to rid the empire 
of the blot, the reproach and the curse of human 
bondage. We were mistaken, and we shall no longer 
rate the ruling races of Brazil as so much higher 
in righteousness of motive and justness of action 
than the anarchical peoples of mixed Latin and 
Indian race around them : peoples who have made 
the terms republic and liberty stink in the nos- 
trils of the nations. 
Mainly by the conservation of their slave force 
and its concentration on the growth of cof- 
fee, the average exports (in excess of a 
home consumption equal to 1,200,000 cwt.) have risen 
from 3,500,000 cwt. in the ten years ended 1S60 to 
5,000,000 cwt. in the five years ending 1881 : an in- 
crease of 45 per cent in fifteen years, the figures being 
for 'JRio and Santos only. Nor does our well-informed 
correspondent, Mr. Blacklaw, anticipate any early 
decrease in this rate of production. The probability 
indeed, in view of the increased breadth brought into 
cultivation, is, that the export will go on increasing 
for some years to come, until arrested by disastrous 
proof that the slaveholders of Brazil have not only 
competed uufairly with those who have had to pay 
the fair price of free labour but have also competed 
with each other to the verge of mutual ruin. If we 
were asked why middling plantation Ceylon coffee is 
down to 72s, our answer would unhesitatingly be : 
" Bi-aail." But Mr. Tytler, professing to reflect inform- 
ation obtained from Mr. Blacklaw, anticipates for 
Brazil a catastrophe more terrible than could arise 
from merely material losses and a commercial crash, 
the result of inordinate diversion of labour and capital 
to one pursuit. Mr. .Tytler predicts at no distant 
vate a political revolution with social trouble and 
commercial disaster in proportion to the extent and 
diolence of the change from imperial to republican 
government, amongst such races as constitute the 
population nf Brazil, We cannot but admit the poss- 
ibility of .such a revolution, followed by such anarchy 
is arc predicted ; and, but for the high pereonal 
Ukaracter, wisdom, prudeuco and forbearance of the 
present Emperor, it seems probable that revolution 
and retribution which is sure to follow the crime of 
enslaving human beings would have been precipitated. 
But our previous vaticinations and their rcsulis ought 
to tench us modesty in drawing conclusions from 
facts which may seem to us unimpeachable. We 
should be glad to have Mr. Scott Blacklaw's own 
utterances before us, ere we venture to pronounce on 
the possiblo futuro of a country, interesting to the 
whole world from the vast extent of its territory and 
its natural resources, and for the so-far successful ex- 
periment (unique on the American continent) of rule 
on the model of constitutional monarchy ; as well as 
painfully interesting to Ceylon, in consequence of her 
position, mainly by means of slave labour, as by far our 
most formidable competitor in the production of o dee. 
To eoffoo planters in India, in Java, and in the free 
South and Central American States,— to all indeed 
■ho grow COffM or aro connected with the Important 
trade in this article, — the questions discussed by our 
correspondents are of great interest : and we think 
we shall not be accused of being actuated by merely 
selfish motives, if we express the hope that, even if 
the Brazilians condescend to waive the question of 
colour and express their willingness to relieve the 
British Possessions in Hindustan of a portion of the 
surplus population, the Government of India will not 
consent to permit emigration to the South American 
Empire, until slavery has been there abolished. Those 
who know what human nature is will hold most 
strongly that it is next to impossible to those accust- 
omed to command the labour of slaves to mete out 
proper treatment to free labourers. The inevitable 
tendency of slavery, besides brutalizing master as well 
as slave, is to create a public opioion which consider 
labour disgraceful. The two systems, slavery and free 
labour, cannot be worked well and harmoniously 
together ; and to a country where slave labour exists 
with the public opinion always engeudered by that 
inhuman and degrading institution, the Government 
of India (acting in loco parentis to those who though 
free are very much children) should not sanction sys- 
tematic emigration. Even to Ceylon, which geogr ph- 
ically and socially is so closely allied to India, free 
emigration was not allowed until our Government 
passed a law forbidding the engagement of Indian 
coolies in this island for labour in places beyond its 
bounds. We are in favour of free trade, even in the 
case of slave -grown produce, simply because of the 
impossibility of carrying out discriminating laws- 
But moral principles ought to be applied where poss- 
ible, and on every possible principle of morality and 
expediency, the benefit of Indian free labour should be 
refused to Brazil until she has, at whatever cost to 
herself, righted the great wrong of treating human 
beings as soulless brutes or inanimate chatties. Having 
ourselves suffered the retributiou and paid the price 
of this species of wrong, we can with a good grace 
refuse to aitl the continuance of the same wrong by 
others ; even if we do not protest so emphatically as 
we ought against its existence. 
BRAZIL AND ITS COF'^EE-GKOWIXC 
ENTERPRISE. 
{From Mr. A. Scott Blacklaw.) 
Scotland, 15th Dec. 1SS1. 
Sinco I wrote you last, one of the coffee 
fathers and a benefactor of Ceylon, ha* been paying 
me a visit— R. B. T. I was surprized to see h in loA- 
ing so hale and heatty. Your climate bus no on the 
whole treated him ladly. The conversation fir 
the greater part of two days and a night was all on 
cofL-e :— Ceylon, as it ]b\ OojLn as it wou'd have 
been, bad not the leaf-disease found hdgemei in it; 
and Brazil and its enormous crops formed the chief 
topics. This latter subjoct is ouo which engages t io 
attention of all coffee growers at present. U . \ n 
quantity of coffco throwu into tno market hav, by 
keeping large stocks continually in dealer's lands*', 
br >iigbt down the price not only of 1 r.uili.wi, i ut of 
other coffees. How wrong all our calculations eight 
years ago ! Wo thought tii.it, ns Brazil's largo crops 
were produced by slave), thai, that shipim nts would 
gradually diminish. Wu reasoned thus: — ''The wholo 
civilized world is against slavery an>l Bruil d. n • 
cannot continue to hold iu boudngu 1,600,000 human 
