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been said for the last three or four years of the West Indies. Has it not often been observed amongst British farmers, both north and south of the Tweed, that when they are able to pay their rent, and lay by something annually, they exhibit a silent satisfaction, but when the farm does not pay, how loudly they complain? Precisely so is it with respect to the West Indies. Those once noisy planters have ceased to be heard. Is their voice hushed in death, or are they as busy as a bee laying up stores of honey, with a low murmur of satisfaction, positively musical? The latter is the case. The colonies are now rising with great speed to a height of wealth, happiness, and comfort unknown to them before.' Say the number of our West Indian colonies is eighteen, then seventeen of these are prospering more or less-are, indeed, in a healthier social, moral, and productive state than ever they were before at any period of their history: the only exception is our largest island, Jamaica; and even it begins to show some signs of improvement, though as yet faint. Statistics from Government returns demonstrate this recent and delightful improvement. For this selection from reports, as also some of the previous statistics to our hand, we cheerfully acknowledge our obligation to an able and well-digested article in the Edinburgh Review' of last year.

In Antigua there is increase of trade, and a revival of agricultural prosperity.' The Bahamas exports and imports have risen 102,9247. in one year. Barbadoes reports a vast increase of trade.' Dominica is full of promise.' In Grenada 'contentment prevails,' while a proprietary body of considerable magnitude and importance has already risen from the labouring class.' In Guiana the revenue is flourishing, population augmenting, education spreading, crime diminishing, and trade increasing. Montserrat is improved and improving.' Nevis a short time since 'abolished import duties, and taxed rentals 20 per cent. The new system increased the imports from 19,7287. to 34,4497.' It is not improbable that this new state of things, which has answered so admirably, may in time be very generally adopted. St. Kitts reports that its prospects are most encouraging.' St. Lucia the same. In St. Vincent's 'there is a really sound and healthy state of the colony at present, and a cheering and promising prospect for the future.' Imports and exports have increased 156,6637. in one year. In Tobago 'a marked improvement is visible in the revenue returns.' In Tortola sugar has ceased to be cultivated, but the change is wholly an advantage, almost all the people are owners of cattle,' for rearing which the island is peculiarly adapted. Trinidad is highly flourishing; indeed, trade has increased enormously, upwards of 400,000l. in one year. The same returns inform us that British total exports to the West Indies in 1857, were half a million more than the average of the previous ten years; and that Vol. 3.-No. 10.

I

"they

'they equalled our exports to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Azores, Madeira, and Morocco all combined. Indeed they have lately been increasing at the rate of a million a year. In 1857 the sugar imported from the West Indies to Great Britain was valued at 5,618,000l. Altogether, then, the West Indies, as a whole, are highly prosperous, while England participates in the golden themes. The rainbow of hope spans the sky, and the Columbian cyclades have risen to a pitch of financial prosperity with which former days cannot be compared.

In that British archipelago new negro villages have risen as at the waving of a fairy's wand. Thousands upon thousands of negroes have become owners of freeholds, many of whom possess live stock; while not unfrequently, especially in British Guiana, they unite to purchase an estate, and employ a white planter, who calls them master-the very man, it may be, who once uttered the cry of terror, Put him down!' while the beseeching eye feelingly said, Tink me no man! What a change! There are now of coloured men, barristers, legislators, doctors, ministers, editors, planters, proprietors, and merchants. We may here remark that the islands in general are governed by a representative assembly, council, and governor, except in the three crown colonies, Guiana, Trinidad, and St. Lucia, in which there are only a governor and legislative council. To entitle a man to be a member of the House of Assembly, he must possess a freehold of 300l. a year, or a personal estate of 3,0007. An elector must have a freehold of 10. per annum in the parish for which he votes.

Jamaica, we have stated, is the only exception to this returning prosperity, the cause of which continued depression Sir H. Barkly ascribes to be as the root, the want of mutual confidence, the insecurity of property, arising from the inadequacy of existing arrangements for enforcing the law.' The Times' says, in October, 1859: The Government had in no way relaxed the stringency of its financial enactments, and the country was suffering greatly under the pressure of excessive taxation.' There is no doubt that when matters get properly adjusted, Jamaica, too, will shake herself from the dust, and rise into strength and prosperity. Indeed, in the Times' of last November, we read of Jamaica: Notwithstanding complaints from one or two districts, the season has been generally prosperous, and the canes are in a more promising condition than they have been for years past.'

The lessons emancipation teaches are, that Right is might,' and Honesty is the best policy.' It tells Russia to emancipate her serfs, as the right way to prosperity, and no longer to dream about the road to Constantinople. It tells France and Spain that wrong never comes right. It tells the sixteen slave states of South America that natural laws cannot be set aside with impunity;

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while the stunted, poverty-stricken aspect of these slave states, and their five millions of whites in degrading ignorance and destitution, echo 'They cannot.' It tells the boasting Americans of the North, that their fundamental law, 'All men are equal,' is true; and that their free coloured people cannot be deprived of all political and social rights with impunity. That in the grand essentialities of being, All men are equal,' is a living and divine truth, to set aside which is suicidal and ruin in the end to those who do so. In a word, the flood-tide of prosperity that now fertilizes the WestIndian islands will do more to promote the cause of universal emancipation, than sanguinary insurrections, a hundred Uncle Toms,' and a thousand homilies.

ART. III.-1. An Essay on Labour-its union-its proper objects -its natural laws-its just rights-its duties and prospects. By John Scott, author of Politics for the People,' &c. 2. The Importance of the Study of Economic Science as a branch of Education for all classes. By W. B. Hodgson, LL.D. 3. The Rate of Wages in Manchester and Salford and the Manufacturing Districts of Lancashire from 1839 to 1859. An Essay by D. Chadwick, read at the Statistical Society, Dec. 1859.

PROMI

ROMINENT amongst the recollections of our early life are trade riots, machinery smashings, and the wilful firing and destruction of premises in which improved machinery was, or was to be erected. About thirty-four or thirty-five years ago, trade in the ribbon manufacturing districts was very bad, as, with the exception of a few fitful intervals, it has too generally been, so far as our knowledge extends; and the genius of invention had fixed upon this period to effect a revolution in the motive power. Already the single hand loom,' making only one ribbon at a time, was fast dying out, being superseded by the engine loom,' making from five to thirty ribbons at once, according to their width; and now it was proposed to double the length of these engine looms, and to move them by steam power instead of by human hands and feet. We have said that trade was very bad: indeed a large proportion of the weavers were out of employ. The employers, whose drawers were full of ribbons waiting for customers, and whose capital was all wrought up, and could not therefore buy more silk or find further wages, and who, to meet their coming bills, must soon sell at some price, even at the risk of bankruptcy, were not without their share of suffering.

And as employers will do, when ruin stares them in the face, and, as we regret to say, some employers will do when they are simply greedy of extra profit, knowing that lower prices would

extend their sales, they attempted to reduce the list prices of the few who remained at work. Now a decent living in exchange for hard work has always been a difficulty with the ribbon weavers, and a knowledge of political economy is even yet a consummation devoutly to be wished amongst them; and as the more you press upon a ball of india-rubber the less elasticity will remain, so the nearer the human subject approaches the starvation point, the greater will be the resistance to any further reduction, necessary or not. So in this case, the workmen saw only that 'the masters' were bent upon a reduction of prices, and they turned out to resist the tyranny.' A turn-out or strike in those days was a very different thing to what we now observe under the same name; a strike was not then confined to a peaceful parade through the streets, and a collection of subscriptions from shop to shop, with a calm appeal to the public by placard or newspaper advertisement. True, there were deputations sent to wait upon and reason with the masters, but they were backed up by numbers enough to inspire a wholesome terror; true, that even then most of the speakers in the green hollow, called from time immemorial the weavers' temple,' counselled peaceful conduct; but if an obstinate employer was caught in the street, there was always a donkey near at hand, and a hundred willing helpers to set him astride thereon; and thus with his face towards the donkey's tail, he was forced to ride through the principal streets, and if unrepentant, was conducted to, and dragged through the nearest horsepond. And woe to the man who gave a promise under terror which he afterwards revoked; his garden gates and palisades, his greenhouses and windows, would be certain to need renewal before many days

were over.

On the occasion under consideration mob law abated no jot of its vested rights; the usual meetings were held, the usual speeches made, the usual processions passed daily through the streets, penetrating through all the courts and alleys to turn out the knobsticks' and punish the obstinate masters. But this was no case of two or three greedy employers trying to get a few weeks' advantage over their fellow manufacturers, and a few weeks' extra profit out of their workpeople-no case of a few men who always forget the connection between the amount of wages paid and the possibility of a family keeping soul and body together thereon; but a real cessation of demand, which left only the unpleasant choice of hard work for half a loaf, or idleness and no bread. The necessaries of life were scarce and dear, even middleclass people could not get their usual amount of luxuries; the wives and daughters of the well-to-do tradesman wore only half their usual quantity of ribbons, and those of lower quality than ordinary; and the wives and daughters of working men were

obliged

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obliged to resort to the dyers and dressers instead of the drapers, and to make old things look almost as well as new, in order to keep up their scanty supply of daily bread. The English harvest was bad, and a portion of the wealth which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been spent on ribbons, had to be given to the Russian farmer for corn to keep us in existence till the next season's crop should be at hand. It was difficult for the neglected, ignorant workman of those days to see why a bad harvest should make corn dear; since, as we have often heard it asserted in later days, the harvest is never so bad but plenty of corn is to be had at some price; and it was more difficult for them to see, that this very high price, instead of being a reason for raising their wages to enable them to get corn enough, might even be a proper reason for reducing them. The consequences of ignorance are the penalties imposed upon us by nature for allowing the barbarism of an uneducated working class to exist in the midst of civilization. If each working man raised his own corn and his own potatoes, and had a bad crop, he would have no difficulty in recognizing the duty of working as hard as ever for the future, whilst he ate only half as much for dinner or supper; and so, if educated properly for his position in a civilized community, he would equally see that when harvests are bad, he must be satisfied to take in exchange for his work a less amount of money wage, which is, in fact, only an order or series of orders for a lessened quantity of corn, potatoes, &c.

But this simple logic was far beyond the reasoning of the working men of forty years ago, as, we fear, it is beyond some of them to-day. What they could, and did see, was, that the single hand looms which constituted the wealth of their fathers, and which were, in fact, 'heir looms,' in their families, were now only good for firewood; and that the engine looms, upon the possession of which the most respectable weavers of that time prided themselves, were now threatened with the self-same ruin. What a ruthless destroyer is this same creative power of invention! it travels like a railway train, and smashes all things which go at less speed in its track. We heard a few days ago of a cottonspinner occupying the same mill, with the same machinery, in which his father some thirty years ago made a large fortune, whilst the son, in the best state of trade the cotton spinners ever saw, is not earning salt; the only reason being, that whilst his neighbours have spent ten per cent. per annum of the original cost of their machinery in improvements, he has not; and so, by saving his ten per cent. of outlay, he is ruined. But it is not every man, even in these days, who can see his way to prosperity through apparent extravagance; and the ribbon-weavers, with the annihilation of value in their own little properties staring them

full