s impossible
for them to supply themselves. Hence constant complaints and
irregularities. Fourth, that mothers of six children and upwards,
pregnant women, and the aged of both sexes, would be greatly
benefited by a law enforcing the kind treatment which they received
in slavery, but which is now considered optional, or is altogether
avoided on many properties. Fifth, nothing would tend more to effect
general contentment and repress the evils of comparative treatment,
than the issue of fish as a right by law. It was an indulgence in
slavery seldom denied, but on many properties is now withheld, or
given for extra labor instead of wages. Sixth, his Excellency during
the last sessions had the honor to address a message to the house
for a stronger definition of working time. The clause of the act in
aid expressed that it was the intention of the legislature to
regulate 'uniformity' of labor, but in practice there is still a
great diversity of system. The legal adviser of the crown considers
the clause active and binding; the special magistrate cannot,
therefore, adjudicate on disputes of labor under the eight hour
system, and the consequences have been continual complaints and
bickerings between the magistrates and managers, and discontent
among the apprentices by comparison of the advantages which one
system presents over the other. Seventh, if your honorable house
would adopt some equitable fixed principle for the value of
apprentices desirous of purchasing their discharge, either by
ascertained rates of weekly labor, or by fixed sums according to
their trade or occupation, which should not be exceeded, and
allowing the deduction of one third from the extreme value for the
contingencies of maintenance, clothing, medical aid, risk of life,
and health, it would greatly tend to set at rest one cause of
constant disappointment. In proportion as the term of apprenticeship
draws to a close, THE DEMANDS FOR THE SALE OF SERVICES HAVE GREATLY
INCREASED. It is in the hope that the honorable house will be
disposed to enforce a more general system of equal treatment, that
his Excellency now circumstantially represents what have been the
most common causes of complaint among the apprentices, and why the
island is subject to the reproach that the negroes, in some
respects, are now in a worse co