454 PROPOSED ALLOCATION OF £20,000,000. COMPENSATION. £20,000,000 allocated by the Legislature for the reimbursement of loss owing to the emancipation of slaves, may I believe, be considered settled as regards the questions of ad valorem or per capita; it seems to be now acknowledged that the sworn or arbitrated value of a slave, according to his current market price, is the fairest principle for awarding compensation. In order to determine the amount of compensation, accurate and complete returns from every plantation in the slave colonies are to be sent in by the 1st August, or within three months from that date. These returns are to be transmitted to England, and as soon as they have all arrived, the process of awarding the compensation-monies will commence, unless where counter claims may be sent in from mortgagees, &c. Although the mortgagees have an undoubted claim on the property, I think measures should be taken to secure a portion of the compensation-money to the planter, and not allow the creditor to grasp all, thus leaving the former in no condition to proceed with the culture of the estate; if the mortgagee were secured the interest of his money for five or seven years, binding him down at the same time not to foreclose the deed, the planter would have time to raise his head above water, and struggle through past difficulties; or if this be not acceeded to, the mortgagee should have the option of entering into a fair compromise for his claims, say, one half or two-thirds of his dues being paid down in order to give up any farther lien on the planter. If some step of this kind be not taken, the half of the planters will be utterly ruined, and land, which under the present system has little value according to its geographical extent, will lose the chance it now has of possessing intrinsic worth per se. By the planter having his land unincumbered, and some ready money in his pocket, he will be enabled to commence the Metayer System*, as now * The introduction of the Metayer System of the East Indies (see First Volume), into the British West India colonies ought to be adopted as soon as possible; by this means industrious, well-disposed, and intelligent coloured people will stimulate their less active bretheren, and set a good example. NECESSITY OF ABOLISHING COLONIAL MONOPOLIES. 455 practised in British India, and in Italy, with advantage to himself, to the numerous small farmers or planters which will be created, and with benefit to the parent state. I urge these points strenuously, because the British nation having munificently granted £20,000,000 compensation, have a right to see it beneficially distributed, and not squandered for the sole use of Jews and money brokers. The planters have already made great pecuniary sacrifices for the moral and religious instruction of their dark brethren, to enable them to continue their praiseworthy efforts, the measures I have pointed out should be adopted without delay; it is no longer consistent with justice or sound policy to continue to the West Indies a monopoly of the supply of the home market; other tropical colonies demand our attention, and have a right to insist on equitable treatment from the mother country; besides, we cripple our own power-and resources and commerce by the present exclusive protection to West India sugar, coffee, and rum, --we impoverish a dense population at home, and (as the experience of the past proves) confer no benefit on the colonial agriculturists. Let me implore all who value the happiness of their fellow subjects in every clime to aid in abolishing the wretched policy of pitting one interest against another-the West Indian against the East Indian; the Canadian against the Australian; the European against the African; it is indeed imperatively necessary that such miserable legislation should cease;-England derives no advantage from it, on the contrary, she materially suffers in her revenue—in her internal and maritime commerce--as well as by depriving herself of free outlets to every part of the globe for her unemployed population and surplus manufactures. I advocate nothing Utopian; in the preparation of this Work I have been necessitated to look into the early history of the colonies and the mother country-and I invariably found that it was owing to commercial freedom that the British West India Islands became peopled, cultivated, and enriched ;* whenever restrictions were * See Appendix for a view of the advantages resulting to the Danish 456 RESULT OF DENYING COMMERCIAL FREEDOM TO THE W. I. placed on their trade with America, Holland, France, &c. they immediately began to decline in prosperity, and by a singular coincidence the mischiefs inflicted by the cupidity of man were frequently followed by the terrific visitations of the elements. What with the curse of slavery, the blighting effects of hurricanes, and the far more destructive influence of commercial jealousy the wonder is how the West India colonies have maintained themselves during the last thirty years; nothing but the unconquerable energy of Britons could have surmounted the ruinous prospects and destruction of property which has been annually going on, and which will progress in an accelerated ratio unless the islands be permitted to renew their commercial intercourse with Europe and America, totally unfettered by any legal restrictions from the mother country. Give, I repeat, the British West Indies that unlimited mercantile freedom, for which their geographical position, fertile soil, and fine harbours so eminently qualify them, and neither the mother country, nor the colonies, have any thing to fear for the future ;-Deny it them much longer and it were far better that the surrounding ocean overwhelmed and sunk them in its fathomless abyss, rather than that they should continue to drag on an anxious and paralyzed existence fraught with misery and ruin to all engaged in those once prosperous but still highly important and beautiful Isles of the West. island of St. Thomas, by making it a Free Port, and the necessity of making Tortola and Dominica (at least) also free ports; not with the present mockery of privileges, clogged and rendered in fact inutile by all the forms and ceremonies of Official Authorities, Custom Houses, &c. our, so called West India free ports, have been a subject of merriment for the Americans, of ridicule for the French, satisfaction for the Danes, and of wonder to all the European powers. Let our free ports in the West Indies be in reality as free as the air that blows around them, and white settlers, with small capitals, will be attracted, who will soon find the channels of a beneficial intercourse with continental Europe and America, and with the valuable islands of Porto Rico, St. Domingo, and Cuba. APPENDIX TO THE SECOND VOLUME OF THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH COLONIES. [OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS.] A. Total Amount of the TRADE between the UNITED KINGDOM and the BRITISH WEST INDIA COLONIES since 1814. OFFICIAL VALUE. Declared Value of Bri YEARS. EXPORTS TO THE BRITISH W. INDIES. tish and Irish 1814 9,022,309 6,282,226 453,630 7,196,081 7,218,057 1818 8,608,790 5,717,216 1815 8,903,260 6,742,451 1816 7,847,895 4,584,509 268,719 4,853,228 4,537,056 1817 8,326,926 6,632,708 382,883 7,015,591 5,890,199 272,491 5,989,707 6,021,627 297,199 4,692,414 4,841,253 1828 9,496,950 4,134,744 326,298 1826 8,420,454 3,792,453 255,241 4,047,694 3,199,265 1827 8,380,833 4,685,789 331,586 5,017,375 3,683,222 4,461,042 3,289,704 359,059 5,521,256 3,612,085 290,878 4,040,677 2,838,448 1832 1833 * I leave several blank years to be filled in according as returns are made up by government, for future reference to a standard work like the "History of the British Colonies,' there will be thus more facility in noting down from year to year the data as they appear before Parliament. |