who constitute about one fifth of the population,
although sharing the wealth and intelligence of the whites, are regarded
with strong dislike by the blacks. Hayti shows how dangerous it is to
leave these two elements in a society without a moderating force. I
cannot share the pleasure with which some anticipate the complete
Africanization of the West Indies. European intelligence, European
conscience, and European firmness of will are necessary to insure to the
blacks the permanence of those rich blessings which emancipation has
bestowed. The black man has the industry and is daily improving in the
skill necessary to secure his material well-being; but for very many
years to come, it would be a most disastrous thing for him, hazarding
the loss of all that he has gained, to be deprived of either the
religious or the political oversight of the white race. The planters of
Jamaica are not distinguished by a very rigid morality or a very severe
integrity, but their withdrawal would inflict incurable harm on
intelligence, order, industry, and civilization. They may be
contemptuously indifferent to the moral and intellectual improvement of
the blacks, but they have no longer a lively interest in opposing it. By
this time they are gradually becoming convinced that the spirit of
slavery cannot be maintained when its power is gone, and are growing
disposed, so far as they have dealings with the blacks, to deal with
them on more equal terms. Bare justice may be the most they are willing
to accord, but even that is a great gain. The journals in their interest
no longer lavish on the freeholding blacks the abuse with which they
once teemed, even after the writer went to the island. The planters are
willing to admit, like those of Westmoreland in an appeal to the
Assembly in behalf of immigration, 'that they do not find fault with
the difficulty of getting labor, which is a necessary result of the
easy acquisition of land,' The more candid are willing to say, as I
heard a gentleman of their class observe: 'We do not complain of the
negroes; they have done as well for themselves perhaps as any people
would. But just because they are doing so well for themselves, they
cannot be depended on to do well for us.' Hence the call for immigrant
laborers; a just and reasonable call, if only the immigration is
conducted with that rigid and conscientious care for the comfort of the
immigrants for which Mr. Sewell gives the government of Trinidad