COTTON IN JAMAICA.
Surrey, August 26, 1869. Sm-Amongst the many great landowners in Jamaica who have large tracts of land admirably suited for the growth of cotton, are Lord Howard de Walden, Colonel Wildman, and the Marquis of Chandos. I well remember when the then owner of the Hope and Middleton Estates sent out fifty hardy .Buckinghamshire agricultural labourers, to be employed in the cultivation of her Jamaica estates. The attorney in the island was the late honourable Mr. Barrett, then the Speaker of the House of Assembly. Had these people been sent at once to the Middleton coffee mountain, and employed there in extending coffee cultivation, or planting cotton, they would by this time have given a high value to those lands ; but instead of that, they were all crowded together in an old building on the sugar estate at Hope, set to work at once in cultivation of the hardest kind, left to get lodgings for themselves in the negro huts, allowed to drink as much as they pleased of new rum, had to complain to the Stipendiary Justice of the non-payment of wages, and the violation of the contracts made with them by the noble owner of the estate, which was to erect houses in healthy locations, and allow every one as much land as was needful to enable them to grow pro- visions for themselves and families. Of course the men were dissatisfied, many sickened and died, and others insisted on returning to their homes in England. All this while there were locations on the Marchioness's estates, on which they might have been fixed and employed, as healthy as any parts of England ; and if the men had been settled on them, at least in the first instance, a race of agricultural tenants would now have been employed in the cultivation of coffee and cotton, and the preparation for exportation of the aloe, pinguin, and plantain fibres, with which those mountain lands abound, so as to have given most ample returns for capital, skill, and energy. I believe that at this moment persons might he found who would cultivate those lands on terms most advantageous to the noble landowner, if liberal and mutually beneficial terms were offered to them. At present, only a comparatively small portion of the estate is under cultivation, whilst the bulk of it is left in a state of abandonment.
This is not in any respect ascribable to the attorney or manager of the property at present, who manages that part of it which is in cultivation ad- mirably. I never saw Middleton in better condition. A similar observa- tion may be made as to large tracts of land belonging to Lord Howard de Walden, Colonel Wildman, and many others. If there were not hundreds of women and children capable of working on cotton and coffee estates on the spot, there are, as I am assured, at this time, thousands of fine black la- bourers in the United States, willing to settle themselves in Jamaica if suitable arrangements were made with them by the owners of the estates. To leave it to the agents in Jamaica, who are powerless, or the Legislatures of that island, is the worst ;possible policy. The landowners must either take the matter in hand themselves, send out enterprising agents, with ample capital and machinery, or meet capitalists in England with advan- tageous and equitable proposals. To abandon the estates and the labourers because slavery has been abolished is to forget Mr. Drummond's maxim, that "If landowners have rights, theyhave also duties." The landowners of Jamaica might speedily restore prosperity to the country if, instead of complaining of others, or calling on Jupiter for help, they were to put their own shoulders to the wheel, and try to assist and secure those who were formerly their slaves. Cotton, grown on stray trees, has been sent from Jamaica very recently, which has been shown to eminent Manchester manu- facturers, and pronounced by them to be of far higher value than ordinary American cotton, and worth at least 8d. a pound, in unlimited quantity.
O. S. M.
P.S.-Could any of your Jamaica readers say what has become of a plantation of indiarubber-trees, made by direction of the late Lord Holland on his estate of Sweet Diver, or Friendship, in Westmoreland ?
Previous page
