other hand, believe that, by the substitution of more
artificial methods for those hitherto employed, he may materially abridge
the expense of raising his produce, and he cannot fail to perceive that an
intelligent, well-educated labourer, with something of a character to
lose, and a reasonable ambition to stimulate him to exertion, is likely to
prove an instrument more apt for his purposes than the ignorant drudge who
differs from the slave only in being no longer amenable to personal
restraint.[1]

One of the measures in which Lord Elgin took the most active interest was
the establishment of a 'General Agricultural Society for the Island of
Jamaica,' and he was much gratified by receiving Her Majesty's permission
to give to it the sanction of her name as Patroness.

I am confident (he writes to Lord Stanley) that the notice which Her
Majesty is pleased to take of the institution will be duly
appreciated, and will be productive of much good.

You must allow me to remark (he adds) that moral results of much
moment are involved in the issue of the efforts which we are now
making for the improvement of agriculture in this colony. Not only has
the impulse which has been imparted to the public mind in Jamaica been
beneficial in itself and in its direct effects, but it has, I am
firmly persuaded, checked opposing tendencies, which threatened very
injurious consequences to Negro civilisation. To reconcile the planter
to the heavy burdens which he was called to bear for the improvement
of our establishments and the benefit of the mass of the population,
it was necessary to persuade him that he had an interest in raising
the standard of education and morals among the peasantry; and this
belief could be imparted only by inspiring a taste for a more
artificial system of husbandry. By the silent operation of such
salutary convictions, prejudices of old standing are removed; the
friends of the Negro and of the proprietary classes find themselves
almost unconsciously acting in concert, and conspiring to complete
that great and holy work of which the emancipation of the slave was
but the commencement.

[Sidenote: The labouring classes.]

On a general survey of the state of the labouring classes, taken after
he had been a little more than a year in the island, he was able to give
a most favourable report of their condition, in all that concerns mat