owners of property had long been
considered the test of a sincere regard for the welfare of Jamaica. He who
had been most successful in proclaiming the depression under which the
landed and trading interests laboured, had been held to be in the popular
acceptation of the term the truest friend to the colony.

Nothing could be more alien to the spirit of inquiry and enterprise which
leads to practical improvement. In an enervating climate, with a
proprietary for the most part non-resident, and a peasantry generally
independent of their employers, much encouragement is requisite to induce
managers to encounter the labour and responsibility which attends the
introduction of new systems; but, by reason of the unfortunate
prepossession above described, the announcement of a belief that the
planters had not exhausted the resources within their reach, had been
considered a declaration of hostility towards that class.

And truly (wrote Lord Elgin himself) the _onus probandi_ lay, and
pretty heavily too, upon the propounder of the obnoxious doctrine of
hope. Was it not shown on the face of unquestioned official returns,
that the exports of the island had dwindled to one-third of their
former amount? Was it not attested even in Parliament, that estates,
which used to produce thousands annually, were sinking money year
after year? Was it not apparent that the labourers stood in a relation
of independence towards the owners of capital and land, totally
unknown to a similar class in any fully peopled country? All these
were facts and indisputable. And again, was it not equally certain
that undeserved aspersions were cast upon the planters? Were they not
held responsible for results over which they could exercise no manner
of control? and was it not natural that, having been thus calumniated,
they should be somewhat impatient of advice?

From the day of Lord Elgin's arrival in the colony, he was convinced that
the endeavour to work a change on public opinion in this respect, would
constitute one of his first and most important duties; but he was not
insensible to the difficulties with which the experiment was surrounded.
He felt that a new Governor, rash enough to assert that all was not yet
accomplished which ingenuity and perseverance could achieve, might have
perilled his chance of benefiting the colony. Men would have said, and
with some truth, 'he knows nothing of the matt