You misinterpret facts, says Britain: our islands are not ruined; no, by no means. Under slavery they would have been totally ruined; but emancipation has placed them in a position favorable to a full development of all their resources. "It is to be borne in mind that the influx of free labor is exactly one of those advantages of which a land is debarred by slavery. It is a part of the curse of slavery that it repels the freeman. When we are told that to judge of the effect of emancipation we must exclude those colonies that imported coolies, we reply at once that this useful importation has been one of the many blessings that freedom has brought in her train."[43]
I understand your views now, says the planter: but for emancipation, your colonies would have sunk to irretrievable destruction. That measure has prepared the way for the coolie system; and under its operations the prosperity of your islands is on the increase. But what is the character of this coolie system, that is working such wonders? In what does it differ from the slave trade, of which you desire to deprive us? And what must be its effects upon the colored population, which have received their freedom at your hands, and whose moral elevation your Christian missionaries are laboring to promote? On this point I would not multiply testimony. The character of the coolie traffic is but too well understood, and is now believed by all intelligent men to be the slave trade in disguise. A writer, representing the anti-slavery society of Great Britain, makes these statements.[44]
"I am prepared to show, that fraud, misrepresentation, and actual violence are the constituent elements of the immigration system, even as it is now conducted, and that no vigilance on the part of the government which superintends its prosecution can prevent the abuses incidental to it. . . . . In China, especially, this is notoriously the case, and I refer you to Sir John Bowring's despatches on Immigration from China, for the fullest revelations. I need only add, that he designates the Chinese coolie traffic as being in every essential particular 'as bad as the African slave trade,' and that he recommends its entire prohibition. . . . . The mortality during the sea-voyage is so great, that the Emigration Commissioners declare 'these results to be shocking to humanity, and disgraceful to the manner in which the traffic is carried on.' I beg to call your special attention to the term 'traffic,' and to refer you for particulars of the mortality, to the Emigration Commissioners' Report for 1858. They may be briefly summarised. During the season 1856-57 the deaths at sea amounted to 17.26/100 per cent. on 4,094 coolies shipped from Calcutta--a rate which, if computed for the whole year, instead of 90 days, the term of the voyage, would average upwards of 70 per cent. The rate of mortality on shipments of Chinese bound to British Guiana, varied from 14 per cent. to 50. . . . . On shipments of Chinese bound to Havanna, on board British vessels, the death-rate fluctuated between 20 per cent. and 60. Yet, sir, immigration is said, by its advocates, to be now conducted on an improved system. . . . . We come now to the treatment of the coolie, as soon as he is discharged from the ship. There is no official evidence, that I am yet aware of, to show what abuses of authority he is subjected to, but the Jamaica Immigration Bill, now awaiting the sanction of Her Majesty's Government, proves that the imported laborer is, during his term of service, subject to conditions quite incompatible with a system of free labor, and the same remark applies to other colonies. That the immigrants are liable to ill usage and neglect, may be gathered from the reports of travelers who have seen them in every stage of destitution and misery; and that they are peculiarly affected by the kind of service they contract to render, and by climate, is sufficiently proved by the awful mortality during industrial residence, which we are assured the Immigration Agent General's returns for Jamaica show to be equal to 50 per cent. Sir E. B. Lytton admits it to be 33 per cent. But if we accept his correction--which I confess I am not prepared to do without knowing upon what evidence he makes it--I maintain that even this death-rate establishes the startling fact, that coolie labor in Jamaica is proportionately more destructive to human life than slave labor in Cuba."