BLACK VIEW OF THE SUGAR QUESTION.
THE opposition to the alteration of the Sugar-duties, as unpre- ceded by efficient measures for securing a supply of labour to the West Indies, is usually regarded as emanating solely from "the Planter interest " ; but we see by some Jamaica papers lately re- ceived, that the Negroes are fully aware of their own share in the ,danger, and do not scruple to avow it. In all parts of the British West Indies, meetings to petition against the Government measure have been held continually ; at several of those meetings Blacks have spoken ; and they have entered heartily into the views of the White colonists, and have at the same time exhibited a full power of comprehending complicated questions of fiscal economy and the bearing on their own welfare. Take, for example, this extract from a report in the Jamaica Times of a meeting at Annotto Bay. • ' Mr. John Murray, a respectable Black man, addressed the meeting in a fluent and feeling manner, by stating that he was lately a slave, and was now a
free man, and expected by his industry to raise himself in the world ; had bought ten acres of land, and planted it with coffee now bearing ; many of his lately-freed friends around him had done the same. He hired people to clean his coffee, but the expense was so great that it took away all he got for his coffee; but seeing Dr. Maxwell and other gentlemen that they always looked up to planting, he thought he was safe. His heart feels for these gentlemen to think they will be obliged to throw up ; and freedom will be of no use to the Black people, because they cannot sell their coffee, having to pay such wages. He had hired labourers : how was he to get back his money ? Two months ago, was offered a good price when in Kingston for his two thousand weight of coffee : the bad news sets everybody against it, and now no one will look at it. These gentlemen (pointing to proprietors) feel deep on this measure. if they leave the country, they must fall back. It will be a shame if that place (pointing to Cuba) is allowed with her slaves to spoil this country and keep us poor free fellows down : no, gentlemen, we cannot as free men make cheap coffee like slaves ; we old-time slaves know that ; and it will be a shame for the great people of England to mash us poor free beginners. Jackass with loaded ham- pers cannot run with a race-horse. " Mr. Hardie, another respectable Black man, spoke at considerable length, something to the same purport as Mr. Murray ; acknowledging the great boon of freedom, which bad made them men and raised them up, and that they were now all equal. Their children require education : if the country was to be ruined, how could that be done ; how were they to pay their ministers. Let us petition the Queen, who gave us free, to protect our free.
" Several other Black freeholders expressed their sentiments, and showed that they were feelingly alive to the distresa likely to overtake them."
Again, on a later day, there was a meeting " of the Emancipated class," convened on a requisition by persons of that class, and pre- sided over, at their request, by the Custos of the " parish," as the districts of Jamaica are called. This meeting, therefore, may pre- eminently be taken to speak the sentiments of the freed Blacks.
" Most of the speakers were from the recently-freed small settlers, many of whom have entirely withdrawn themselves from estates-labour, and are culti- vating coffee for themselves. They all lamented that any measure should be adopted which would cramp their new-born energies as coffee-planters ; showed that they were fully alive to the high wages extracted from the planter ; and declared if that the coffee fell in price, they one and all as settlers must strike. One man went so far as to say, that if Government was to throw them away so soon after freedom, it would have been better to have kept them in slavery. [ Some gentlemen here shook their heads.1 He said yes: slavery would be preferable to being mashed down and made poor things ; for in slavery-time their masters took good care of them, gave them clothing and a barrel of salt things, and took care of them when sick. Who was to take care of them if the country fell? One of the speakers, after descanting upon the necessary aban- donment of properties if the present measures were carried, asked, in a moat feeling manner, where were wages to come from if plantations were thrown up ? where would be get money to buy such a fine coat, (holding up the tail of his dress,) and such a good horse as he had in the yard below ? He never could buy more if the country was spoiled. He was a head-man; he knew his master would be ruined, because he told him all his affairs : but he would not take two shillings a day from him, besides many presents, because others were giving good wages. Many others spoke at length, and appeared to be fully alive to the impending change. Indeed, many of them have established from one to six or eight acres of coffee; and having been offered as high as eighteen dollars for it before the arrival of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech, they are already practically convinced that a heavy blow is about to be struck, as no one will look at their produce; and some of them have been mocked by an offer of five dollars a hundredweight for coffee, which a short time ago would have brought four times as much." Yes, these Black debaters see into the question as distinctly as if their skins were white and their forefathers had lived in England. since the Heptarchy. Mr. Joins MURRAY has it all at his finger- ends : he expounds, with all the force belonging to a perfectly familiar subject, the influence of example—the effect of the change on wages, on the value of land—the question of profit and loss, of international competition—and the chance of frustrating Emanci- pation in its best results. Now, we not only have the evidence of these intelligent " old-time slaves," that they too will suffer, but we see what an advance they have made : the lesson is, not only how much the West Indies will be injured, but how much may be done for the Negro race within the West Indies, and nowhere else. In no other part of the world could we see this spectacle of culti- vated understanding and independence in the Negro—of Blacks taking their place on a footing of friendly equality and intelligent concurrence with Europeans. There is here, in fact, except in the colour of the skin, and in some peculiarities of speech not more marked than many mere provincial dialects of the United Kingdom, no perceptible distinction between the Negro and a well-informed English land-occupier of a similar grade. Africans, then—that mi- serable race, the sport of slave-dealers—are capable of being made, even in the same generation, thorough British citizens. The be- nighted millions of Africa might be converted into so many English- men, could they but be transferred to the West Indies : we have it on the evidence of their own words and deeds in actual experi- ment. How utterly mistaken, therefore, the policy which, in pro- fessed humanity to the Blacks, obstructs that beneficial transit !
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