90 217,200,256 469,812,784
British Guiana 24,946 173,626,208 250,715,584
Trinidad 11,981 91,110,768 150,579,072
"With these are contrasted the results in Jamaica and Antigua, where
there has been very little immigration:--
_Sugar, pounds. _Sugar, pounds. The last
The three years after three years._
apprenticeship._[69]
Jamaica 202,973,568 139,369,776
Antigua 63,824,656 70,302,736
Here, now, is presented the key to the mystery overhanging the British
West Indies. Men, high in station, have asserted that West India
emancipation has been an economic success; while others, equally
honorable, have maintained the opposite view. Both have presented
figures, averred to be true, that seemed to sustain their declarations.
This apparent contradiction is thus explained. The first take the
aggregate production in the whole of the islands, which, they say,
exceeds that during the existence of slavery;[70] the second take the
production in Jamaica alone, as representing the whole; and, thus, the
startling fact appears, that the sugar crop of the last three years in
Jamaica, has fallen 63,603,000 lbs., below what it was during the first
three years of freedom. This argues badly for the free negroes; but it
must be the legitimate fruits of emancipation, as no exterior force has
been brought into that island to interfere, materially, with its
workings. In Mauritius, Trinidad, and British Guiana, it will be seen
that the production has greatly increased; but from a very different
cause than any improvement in the industry of the blacks who had
received their freedom--the increase in Mauritius having been more than
double what it had been when the production depended upon them. The
sugar crop, in this island, for the three years preceding the
introduction of immigrant labor, was but 217,200,000 lbs.; while, during
the last three years, by the aid of 210,000 immigrants, it has been run
up to 469,812,000 lbs.
Taking all these facts into consideration, it is apparent that West
India emancipation has been a failure, economically considered. The
production in Jamaica, when it has depended upon the labor of the free
blacks alone, has materially declined in some of the islands, since the
abandonment of slavery, and is not so great now as it was during the
firs
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