British West Indian colonial constitutions. The latter may be very shortly, but very sufficiently stated, as being the tendency which representative political institutions have to preserve the youthful energy of a nation, by engaging a large number of citizens, in various degrees, in the business of government, by the training in selfgovernment which that involves, and by the effective action for the common interest, into which it practically brings the common opinion of the whole. These institutions approach to, or recede from perfection, in proportion as their working brings more or fewer of the people into active and easy relations with the State. They are still imperfect, if there be any serf-class at the top or at the bottom. A nobility exempted from the duties of citizenship by privilege, or a peasantry excused from taxation on the ground of poverty, are alike inconsistent with perfect constitutional freedom. Neither the Home nor the West Indian constitutions touched the point of perfection; but the latter fell a long way behind the former, in the course towards that unattainable goal. From an early period in their history, and up to that of the emancipation, the majority of the population of the West Indian colonies consisted of slaves and mulatto serfs, the latter nominally free, but practically excluded from the enjoyment of every privilege, and from the performance of every duty of freemen. In addition to many civil disabilities, in relation to property and legal proceedings, they were (says Edwards)" denied the privilege of being eligible to serve in parochial vestries and general assemblies, or of acting in any office of public trust, even so low as that of a constable; neither were they permitted to hold commissions even in the black and mulatto companies of militia. They were precluded, also, from voting at elections of members to serve in the Assembly." And even when, after three free descents, they became legally entitled to all the privileges of white men, they were still held back in their condition of inferiority by the contempt of the master-race. Here was a primary defect, which showed its fatal nature when the decline in num

bers of the white population disclosed the fact, that no community fit for liberty existed in its stead. "A race has been freed," are the words of Lord Harris, "but a society has not been formed. Liberty has been given to a heterogeneous mass of individuals, who can only comprehend license a partition in the rights, and privileges and duties of civilised society has been granted to them they are only capable of enjoying its vices." Nor is the moral of this tale limited in its application to communities in which personal slavery exists, or has existed. It applies wherever education in the practical duties of citizenship has been neglected. neglected. The forty-shilling freeholders represent the mulatto class in Ireland it will be represented in New Zealand and Australia by the children of peasant-proprietors and diggers, if warning be not taken in time, and the schoolmaster set to do his work among them. But a shortcoming, obviously common to the whole system of our provincial polity, is very observable in its nature and effects in the West Indian colonies. We allude to the irresponsibility both of the executive and the legislature. The Governor has his staff of officials, his Vice-Chancellor, Attorney and Solicitor-General, Secretary, Treasurermost of these even in the smallest islands but he has no minister in the House of Assembly, and there is consequently no one responsible to the executive for the introduction and conduct of measures necessary to the carrying out of the public business. Nor is there any one responsible to the Assembly for information as to the intentions or explanations of the conduct or policy of the Government. On the other hand, the responsibility of the Assembly for its own acts of legislation is nullified by the power of a single minister in England, to disallow laws enacted by three colonial estates. We observe that an attempt to remedy the first of these defects has been very recently made by some of the new provincial legislatures of New Zealand, by the constitution of a non official and unpaid executive council, to be chosen by the superintendent (the provincial governor) from among the members of

the Representative Council, and to take charge, in it, of the government business. In the success of this plan we confess we have little confidence; but in the total absence of responsibility, in the several relations to which we have pointed, it is easy to perceive the danger that impends over popular legislative assemblies, of becoming mere nullities, or normal schools of agitation "if in motion, and acting at all, cummonly only jarring and making a noise, doing no good work, rather destructive than productive.

Tempted by the great interest of the subject, we might proceed to comment upon other defects of the West Indian constitutions; but it is time we should turn our eyes to other traits in the picture to which we have invited the attention of our readers. The freedom of internal government, obtained by the struggles of the colonists, was at first shared in by their commerce"In former times we accounted ourselves a part of England, and the trade and intercourse was open accordingly, so that commodities came hither as freely from the sugar plantations as from the Isles of Wight and Anglesey; but upon the King's restoration we were, in effect, made foreigners and aliens a custom being laid upon our sugars amongst other foreign commodities.

"Heretofore we could ship off our goods at any port, or bay, or creek; and at any time, either by day or night; but now, since the King's restoration, we must do it at those times and places only at which collectors of the customs please to attend.

"Heretofore we might send our commodities to any part of the world, but now we must send them to England, and to no place else.

"Heretofore things we wanted were brought to us from the places where they might best be had; but now we have them from England, and from no other place."†

The islands proved to be a good draw-farm for successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, and they were well drawn upon. Duties were extracted from the staple until it would yield no more, and then its productive powers were stimulated by differential imposts

upon foreign produce. The Navigation Act-invented, it is said, by Čromwell, to punish the Barbadians for their obstinate royalism-was confirmed after the Restoration, as a means of draining the colonial pocket into the treasury of England. Still later, after the termination of the American war, a famine, which is stated in an address from the Assembly of Jamaica to have occasioned the death of fifteen thousand negroes in that island alone, was produced by the obstinate determination of the mother-should we not rather say step-mother?-country, to bate not a farthing of her toll on the grain and stock-fish which formed the daily support of those wretched beings. Nay, the small craft of sugar-bakers of England were influential enough to be able to procure the imposition of a prohibitory tax upon the manufacture of su gar by the colonists, as a special aid to their own exchequer. This injustice was probably the more easily effected, as it involved a boon to British shipowners in the excessive freight chargeable upon the bulky unmanufactured commodity, the muscavado necessarily exported instead of refined sugar. Yet, notwithstanding all these heavy blows and great discouragements, and amid the havoc of floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes, the great fertility and bounteous climate of those islands rendered them mines of wealth to the planters, and it was, in truth, by plethora, rather than by exhaustion, that the fatal disease was at last induced. The profuse hospitality of the planters at home, and their splendour and extravagance abroad, became famous in story. A rich West-Indian uncle was the stock Deus ex machina of playwrights and novelists; western nabobs represented pocket-boroughs in parlia ment, and were seen in the flesh, yellow, indeed, and bilious, but full of money, in the pump-rooms of Bath and Tunbridge-Wells. It is not necessary, in this rapid sketch, to go into any details of figures in order to prove that this appearance of wealth was based upon a real foundation, but throughout Dr. Davy's book there is, unhappily, very sufficient, and very melancholy evidence of former greatness furnished in his description of the

Davy, p. 362.

ruins it has left. A friend writes to him from British Guiana, and concludes a lamentable tale of losses thus:"The capital sum for which I dispose of this magnificent estate, on such long credit, would not dig the canals and trenches on it. My father-in-law, before the Emancipation, derived a revenue of from ten to twelve thousand pounds sterling a-year from it; and the free inheritance by his sons has encumbered them, and been their ruin. How are the mighty fallen! Plantation Seagerly sold for 20,000 dollars."* In short, Dr. Davy's own observations induce him to give credit to a statement given in Lord Stanley's letters to Mr. Gladstone, that property now valued at £660,000, was, previous to Emancipation, worth twenty millions sterling. We are not just yet dealing with the immediate cause of this fall; but that there was a height to fall from is manifest enough, and it produced a common effect upon the heads of those who stood upon it-it rendered them giddy. The circle of their colonial duties and pursuits became too narrow for the colonists, just in proportion as they throve. The excitement of the island Assembly palled upon the fancy of men who felt the guineas that could buy a seat in St. Stephens' Chapel jingling in their pockets. Plantation society ceased to please planters, who hoped to be able to make a figure in the great world of fashion. The result was an immense absenteeism. The moment an income was established, industry was abandoned, and a career of pleasure or ambition entered upon in Europe. In Antigua, "three-fourths of the properties, it is said, are abandoned to what has been called a vicious cultivation that is, entrusted to the care of attorneys and managers." In Montserrat, "of the thirty-nine estates belonging to the island, four only are conducted by resident pro prietors, eight by lessees, and the remaining twenty-three by attorneys acting for the absentees; and what is more remarkable, as many as twentythree are, or were in 1847, under the charge of one individual, in his different capacities of owner, executor, attorney, and receiver." In Dominica, "most of the English are absentees, trusting the management of their pro

perty and its cultivation to attorneys, and parties acting under them;"§ and so on with the rest. It was the same case in all the colonies, and everywhere the rule was to burn the candle at both ends. The profits of the estates were lavishly spent in distant countries, and those profits were diverted away at their source, by the system of mismanagement by attorney. Abundant evidence of the truth of both these positions is adduced by Dr. Davy. In British Guiana "the system is much the same as that followed in Trinidad. as there, and in most of the other islands, a large number of the proprietors are absentees. No properties are let for rent. There is little or no community of interest, too often an opposing one, between the persons in charge, the resident managers, and the attorneys non-resident, and those employing them." In Trinidad, "in 1847, there was pointed out to me a property belonging to a planter who had started in life as a manager, and who was then said to be in receipt of a large income (£7,000 or £8,000 ayear was mentioned), the profits of the estates under his own skilled and prudent management." In Montserrat "the properties in which the owners are resident have not suffered so much as those entrusted to the management of attorneys, but are almost invariably in a comparatively flourishing condi tion." In St. Christopher's, since 1846, profits have been "nil, excepting in the instance of resident proprietors taking into their own hands the management of their estates, and conducting the business of them with some skill and attention to economy." It is worth noting that, among the evils attendant upon the absentee system, Dr. Davy mentions two, diametrically opposite in their character, and yet, we have not the slightest doubt, both equally real. In St. Vincent, "in consequence of there being many nonresident proprietors with large means, there is a disposition, I may remark, to attempt here new manufacturing processes, attainable by means merely of an outlay of capital, which, for their success, require knowledge and skill, not so easily attainable, and, these failing, disappointment and loss fol

low." In Grenada "a majority of the proprietors are absentees; in 1848, out of 120, the then total number of proprietors of large estates, seventy-three were such. Moreover, most of their properties are mortgaged at a high rate of interest, from five to six or eight per cent., and in the hands of restricted agents. It is unnecessary to dwell on other minor circumstances regarding this body, tending in their influence to the same injurious effects, such as want of science, of intelligent enterprise, &c., the common accompaniments of the two graver conditions - absenteeism, and encumbering, paralysing debt."† In the one case industry was choked by high feeding, in the other starved. Parallels for both, we suspect, might be found, were we carefully to examine the accounts of bene. volent absentees from other lands; or to inspect the lands of non-resident suitors in the Court for the Sale of Encumbered Estates. Indeed the analogies suggested by the whole history of West Indian absenteeism, its causes and consequences, are well calculated to startle the Irish reader; and did we not know that mankind never learns from recorded experience, we might indulge a hope that they would convey a useful warning to the yet unharmed and untaught English aristocracy. We are not unwilling to admit that the planters might offer some palliation for their folly, in turning their backs upon their adopted country, and, as the event proved, upon themselves, in the physical unfitness of the settlements for the continued abode of white men ; and we regret it is not in our power to quote the many interesting observations of Dr. Davy upon this subject. Ilis conclusion does not support the plea in the case of the class which alone would be benefited by it. poor whites," he says, "I have compared to exotic plants, withering under, or barely existing in, an uncongenial soil and climate. The superior class bear comparison with the same plants carefully cultivated and protected in their conservatory life, flourishing tolerably, and not unproductive. To drop the metaphor, experience seems to show, that with the comforts required, and using the precautions necessary, the white race can enjoy a

"The

Davy, p. 186. † Ib. p. 220.

fair proportion of health in this island (Barbadoes), and in the West Indies generally, and be equal to all the exertions necessary both for the business of superintending their own estates, and for all ordinary business in which the brain, the intellectual organ, is more concerned than the muscles and sinews." At all events, the planters did habitually desert their posts in very considerable numbers, and in the West Indies, as in Ireland, the results were delegation, and ultimately nonperformance, of the duties belonging to property; increase of expenditure, with diminution of receipts; an accumulating load of debt, and at length the stern necessity of an agrarian revolution. The analogies between the incidents of this career in both countries are no less striking than those that mark its great stages. Simultaneously with the decline of the influence of the proprietors, there was a rapid growth of a paid official class. The central Government was forced, by the absence of those who should have performed the public duties, to have its attorneys and agents; and so stipendiary magistrates and commissioners were appointed, and a vast machinery of public corruption was thus instituted. "Till so late as 1780," says Dr. Davy, "no permanent military force was sent from home. In that year the 89th regiment was stationed in Barbadoes, the House of Assembly protesting as contrary to usage."§ In former periods the great duty of freemen-self-defence was performed by the colonists, and while the ancient spirit lasted, many gallant deeds were done, and many noble lessons were learned by the island militia in actual service in the field. The system has been for some years altogether in abeyance, and a large garrisoning with regular troops has been substituted in its stead. Again, such a union of classes as could exist in the presence of scrfs was broken up by the withdrawal of the leaders of society, which then dissolved into jarring elements, ready, we trust, for re-organisation under happier affinities. As yet we believe there is no poor-law in the West Indies to give an internecine character to the war between property and poverty, but whatever relations

once bound them to each other have been there, as well as here, long since severed.

Thus was all made ready for the end in the West Indies as in Ireland, years before the fatal blow was struck-in the latter country, directly by the hand of God; in the former, by human agency. What the potato disease accomplished in the one case, was effected by the emancipation of the slaves in the other. In both, we believe, the original malady had gone into the incurable stage. The patient was sure to die; the difference at the last was no more than lies between a lingering and a violent death. It is the last feather that breaks the back of the camel; and to the debt-burthened and disheartened landowners of the West Indies, the sudden revulsion produced by the Emancipation in 1833 brought ruin. This part of the story we cannot tell more tersely and lucidly than in Dr. Davy's words : - "When the great event of Emancipation took place, it was supposed by the Home Government that the sum voted in compensation, coupled with the transition measure of four and six years' apprenticeship (of four for house servants and artificers, of six for field labourers), might satisfy the planters, and enable them, with advantage, to enter on the system of free labour, protected as colonial produce then was by differential duties so heavy as to be prohibitory of foreign competition in the home market. What occurred was not in accordance with their expectations, except in the excluding effect of the differential duties. The apprenticeship plan was not found to answer; it was considered a sham by the negroes. With the name of freemen, they found they were without freedom; and now the want was more intensely felt, when they supposed it belonged to them as a right: irritation and general discontent were the consequence. In Antigua, a wise foresight and a well-founded confidence induced the local Government to dispense with the apprenticeship.

In

all the other colonies the term was abridged, viz., by two years in the instance of predial labourers, bringing it to the same as that of domestic servants and artificers. Nor was there cause for regret; the emancipated, in their peaceable behaviour at least,

showed themselves worthy of the boon, affording an example ever to be remembered, of the influence of justice and humanity in allaying the angry passions, and in promoting good-will and order, those best bonds of society. Not a single outrage was committed in the excitement of the moment; not a single act of revenge was perpetrated, then or after, that is recorded. There appeared to be a complete oblivion or forgiveness of all past wrongs and hard usage; all bad feelings seemed to be overpowered by one of gratitude for the benefit conferred.

"Free labour, however, was not found to answer, at least in the degree expected. Various difficulties arose in connexion with it. One was the fixing of the rate of wages, the labourers being often high in their demands, the planters low in their offers; another, the paying money-wages, and the substitution in part of an allowance of land and the occupancy of a dwelling; another, the neglect of, or feeble legislation relative to, vagrancy and the engagements of masters and servants. The consequences were, in many instances, the desertion of the estates by the labourers, or a scarcity of labour, or insecurity of obtaining it when wanted.

Other circumstances of a prejudicial kind, of a different order, co-operated. At the time of Emancipation, few West Indian properties were unencumbered with debt; a large proportion of the compensation money was absorbed in liquidating these debts, leaving the planters without the capital necessary to secure labour and carry on the cultivation of their estates successfully; unless, indeed, they raised money for the purpose from the merchant at a high rate of interest, and in a manner became his dependants."

Under these circumstances many of the proprietors succumbed at once, and abandoned their estates; others prolonged the death-struggle until the passing of the acts of 1846 and 1848, providing for the extinction of the differential duties between foreign sugar the produce of free labour, and foreign sugar the produce of slave labour. When that blow was struck hope seems to have given way to despair, and land, having become burthensome to its owners and unsaleable in