Report of the Acting Committee to the Standing Committee of West India Planters and Merchants

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Maurice & Company, 1843 - 85 pages

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Page 66 - THAT the principal causes of this diminished production and consequent distress are, the great difficulty which has been experienced by the Planters in obtaining steady and continuous labour, and the high rate of remuneration which they give for the broken and indifferent work which they are able to procure.
Page 67 - ... partly by the fact that some of the former Slaves have betaken themselves to other occupations more profitable than field labour; but the more general cause is, that the labourers are enabled to live in comfort and to acquire wealth without, for the most part, labouring on the estates of the planters for more than three or four days in a week, and from five to seven hours in a day; so that they have no sufficient stimulus to perform an adequate amount of work.
Page 67 - THAT one obvious and most desirable mode of endeavouring to compensate for this diminished supply of labour, is to promote the immigration of a fresh labouring population, to such an extent as to create competition for employment.
Page 64 - Orders of The House, examined the matters to them referred; and have agreed to the following REPORT...
Page 70 - .' With respect to the labouring population, formerly slaves, but now perfectly free, and more independent than the same class in other free countries, I venture to say, that in no country in the world can the labouring population be more abundantly provided with the necessaries and comforts of life, more at their ease, or more secure from oppression, than in Jamaica...
Page 74 - We need hardly add more to prove that it would be well for the African, in every point of view, to find himself a free labourer in the free British West India Colonies, enjoying there, as he would, higher advantages of every kind, than have fallen to the lot of the negro race in any other portion of the globe.
Page 64 - HAVE examined the Matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following REPORT:— YOUR Committee...
Page 67 - Planters to pay; but is principally to be attributed to the easy terms upon which the use of land has been obtainable by Negroes. 8. THAT many of the former Slaves have been enabled to purchase land, and the labourers generally are allowed to occupy provision grounds subject to no rent, or to a very low one : and in these fertile countries, the land they thus hold as owners or occupiers not only yields them an ample supply of...
Page 66 - That, unhappily, there has occurred, simultaneously with the amendment in the condition of the negroes, a very great diminution in the staple productions of the West Indies, to such an extent as to have caused serious, and, in some cases, ruinous injury to the proprietors of estates in those colonies.
Page 72 - England, exceeds 46,0001. sterling money. But this Establishment is still further extended by occasional Grants by the Assembly of Jamaica, by Parliamentary Grants, and by certain Religious Societies in England, and by individuals there and in Jamaica. In addition to this Establishment, very extensive means of Religious Instruction are afforded by the Presbyterian, Moravian, Wesleyan, and Baptist Missions, established in Jamaica, and those schools and places of worship are thickly spread over the...

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