instance, that while the exportation of sugar for three years before emancipation had averaged from all the islands 3,600,000 cwts., in 1858 it amounted to 3,500,000 cwts., being only a diminution of 100,000 cwts., or about 2,000 hogsheads. It was obvious, therefore, that there was some other cause for the decay of Jamaica. Then, with regard to coffee, it must be remembered that Ceylon had thrown an immense quantity of that commodity into the English market. For example, in 1839 Ceylon exported 4,500,000 lbs. of coffee, whereas sixteen years afterwards it actually exported 56,000,000 lbs. (Hear, hear.) That would partly account for the decline of the production of that commodity in Jamaica. With regard to Kingston, also, he learnt that instead of being, as it once was, a kind of central market for the Spanish Main, the merchants of the different ports in South America either stopped at St. Thomas's island, or preferred to trade direct with Europe, which would account largely for the appearance of Kingston. It must also be remembered that the trade in Kingston had changed from being principally wholesale to a retail character, so that while, on the one hand, it had suffered by the diminution of the former, it had gained by the increase of the latter. He would proceed to show what was the condition of the general population in Jamaica. There were 380,000 people in the island, and dependant to a great extent on the cultivation of the land. These people were the slaves of former days, but were now the enfranchised peasantry, and it was only right to consider how emancipation had affected their interests. On this point he could at once say that their position had in every respect immensely improved. It had been said that the negroes were an idle lot of people, who squatted upon the land, and were quite content if they got a pumpkin to eat. But this was quite false. The first thing the negroes did was to leave the estates in great numbers. There were now but few estates on which they resided, and in those cases the planters had treated them as free men, and consequently secured their affections and services. A contrary line of treatment was pursued in the majority of instances, and that, together with want of capital wherewith to pay the wages weekly, had the effect of driving them away. The slaves who thus left the estates were compelled to seek other means of subsistence, but they did not "squat upon the land," as had been alleged--that is, settle upon it without paying rent. The circumstance that nearly every inch of land in Jamaica was owned by some one made such a thing impossible.