hat with one trouble and another the few who survived
the wreck hardly knew how to act. They must not do anything to drive
their people away, for there were many inducements offered by others in
the same predicament. The negro was master, and he knew it. So much
depended on him that he was enticed to labour, by high wages and greater
privileges, until this bidding of one against another produced the very
result which it was intended to avoid.

[Illustration: EAST INDIAN COOLIE GIRL.]

[Illustration: COOLIE WOMEN, BRITISH GUIANA.]

Something had to be done. First, the allowances of those who would not
work were stopped; then their houses and provision grounds were taken
away. Thousands of fruit-trees were destroyed to prevent their living on
mangoes and bananas during the season. Then the planters attempted to
combine to bring wages to a paying level, and this led to strikes of
the negroes. Everything tended to further estrangement until employer
and labourer drifted far apart. In British Guiana the negroes bought
some of the abandoned plantations and established villages; in some
cases they even attempted to carry them on as sugar estates, but as all
wanted to be masters they in every case failed.

[Illustration: COOLIE VEGETABLE SELLERS, BRITISH GUIANA.]

[Illustration: EAST INDIAN COOLIES, TRINIDAD.]

As if this were not enough, the British Government went in for free
trade, and allowed foreign slave-grown sugar to compete with that of the
colonies. It seemed as if the French revolutionary cry of "Perish the
colonies!" had now been introduced into the British Parliament. From one
point of view the planters had been amply paid with the compensation
money. Some went so far as to say that twenty millions could have bought
all the estates in the West Indies, implying that the colonists had no
further claim upon them. Even the anti-slavery party would not see that
they were encouraging the slave system in other countries by opening
their markets. This completed the ruin begun by emancipation, but as
long as the principles were adhered to it did not matter.

[Illustration: EAST INDIAN COOLIE, TRINIDAD.]

Most of the remaining plantations now fell into the hands of those who
had liens upon them, and they, not liking to lose their money
altogether, commenced the uphill work of again bringing them into
cultivation. Even a few colonists continued the struggle in hopes of
better times. In Demerara there were two cases wh