If imports are the true expression of a nation's economic well-being,--as all sound political economists affirm,--then can Barbadoes show most conclusively how much more profitable to a people is freedom than chatteldom. Average imports, 1822-32, £600,000 Imports, 1845, 682,358 " 1856, 840,000 The imports from America are increasing in rapid measure. Thus they were in 1854, 36,416 bbls. flour. " 1,500 " beef. " 9,438 " pork. " 49,106 " meal. 1858, 79,766 " flour. " 2,646 " beef. " 12,196 " pork. " 67,053 " meal. Under slavery, the value of American imports was not more than £60,000 per annum. Under freedom, it is from £300,000 to £400,000. The shipping before emancipation (in 1832) numbered 689 vessels of 79,000 tons. In 1856, 966 vessels of 114,800 tons. The population of Barbadoes is supposed to be now about 140,000, of whom 124,000 are blacks. Of these, only 22,000 are believed to be field laborers, against 81,000, just before emancipation, of men, women, and children, who labored in the field,--a fact which shows the aversion slavery had implanted to laboring on the soil, as well as the indiscreet policy of the planters. Yet, despite this decrease of the most profitable kind of labor, so great is the advantage of freedom over slavery, that the island has been enabled to make this prodigious increase in production and wealth since emancipation,--more than doubling its export of sugar, increasing its imports by $1,200,000, quintupling its imports from America, and doubling the value of land. The progress in education and morality has not been at all so rapid as in wealth. The freed slave could not at once escape from the debasing influences of years of bondage, and the planters have deliberately set themselves against any system of popular education. Crimes against property, Sewell says, are rife, especially thieving; petty acts of anger and cruelty are also common, as well as offences against chastity; while, on the other hand, crimes of violence are almost unknown. From the last census it appears that more than half of the children born in the island are illegitimate. This sad condition of morals Mr. Sewell attributes principally to the imperfect education of the lowest classes,--the schools being mostly church-schools, and somewhat expensive. These schools, however, have increased from 27 in 1834, with 1,574 children, to 70 with 6,180 in 1857, and an infant school with 1,140; the children in Sunday-schools have increased in the same time from 1,679 to 2,071.[D] [Footnote D: _Letter from the Bishop of Barbadoes_, February 23, 1858. It appears in the same letter that the church-attendants have increased from 5,000 in 1825 to 28,000 in 1853.]