"If I were asked to point out the chief obstruction to a satisfactory solution of the West India labor question, I should answer, without hesitation, want of confidence between employer and employed. The planters cling unwittingly to the shreds of the system of coercion in which they were once taught to believe. They do not yet recognize the overwhelming advantages of perfectly free labor; for they have checked its development, by imposing upon it some of the heaviest burdens of feudalism and of serfdom. They do not seem to reflect for a moment that the interest of a proprietor is to elevate, not to degrade, his laborer. They have misjudged the negro throughout, and have put too much faith in his supposed inferiority. After the important step of emancipation was taken, they did little to turn it to the best account." "I came to the West Indies imbued with the American idea, that African freedom had been a curse to every branch of agricultural and commercial industry. I shall leave these islands overwhelmed with a very opposite conviction. I deny that the negroes lack industry, when by industry they can add to their means, or advance their prosperity. The more I saw, the more I became convinced that _debt and want of capital_, much more than want of _labor_, had led to the abandonment of so many estates; and be it always remembered, that _the burden of debt was incurred before freedom was tested_. Freedom, when allowed fair play, has injured none of these colonies. It saved them from a far deeper and more lasting depression than any they have yet known. It was a boon conferred upon all classes of society; upon planter and laborer; upon commerce and agriculture; upon industry and education; upon morality and religion. If a perfect measure of success remains to be achieved, let not freedom be condemned; for the obstacles to overcome were great, and the workers were few and unwilling. If I can stimulate inquiry on a subject so important, and so widely misunderstood as the West India labor question, I shall have achieved all the success at which I have aimed." EMANCIPATION IN THE WEST INDIES. A public meeting was held at Willis's Rooms, London, on Wednesday, Feb. 20th, 1861, to receive a report from E. B. Underhill, Esq., and the Rev. J. T. Brown, the deputation of the Baptist Missionary Society, of their recent visit to the West Indies. Charles Buxton, Esq., M. P., took the chair at twelve o'clock.