The negroes have imbibed ideas of freedom which at no distant time will produce, by fair means or foul, a change in their condition. The planter already begins to perceive, that it is far better to be the employer of faithful and contented labourers, than the lord of men who feel their wrongs, and who wait but the first moment of revenge. Capital, the life-blood of industry, will never flow into a country till the capitalist has a pledge—a pledge no land of slaves can ever give—that the life he hazards, and the money he invests, are alike secure. Were the duty on sugar so reduced to-morrow as to put it in the power of the working man to consume as much as he required, an impulse would be given to the production of sugar which would create a demand for capital—which capital would alone be safely invested where labour is free. With a plentiful supply of labourers, no one can deny that Jamaica would be a far more eligible country for the capitalist than Cuba or Brazil; and hence the slave-trade dealers would be thrown for ever out of the markets of the world. To put down slavery, then, we must under-sell the slave dealer. Emigration from the coast of Africa to the West Indies must be encouraged. At present wages in these islands are unnaturally high. They cannot, however, long remain so. We are glad to learn that the negroes are well off; but it cannot be expected that the West India monopoly should be continued merely that the emancipated slave may drink at his ease his Madeira or Champagne. It will be well for him if he prepares himself for the change that must shortly come. It is not to be expected that the proprietor who cultivates his estate at a loss, should continue to employ his capital without return. Unless there is a change, that capital must be withdrawn; and, thrown upon his own resources, the negro labourer will sink into a state of degradation hopeless and complete. {26a} Should it be found that the emigration scheme will not work well, it by no means follows that our only alternative is to continue the monopoly. A late writer, {26b} on the state of Jamaica, expresses it as his opinion _that the resources of the island are not above half developed_; he declares that the implements used in the cultivation of the cane are in the most primitive state imaginable; and that were but the improvements in machines introduced there, which have obtained elsewhere, there would be no need whatever for additional labourers.