Part 33

We have thus disposed of the first hypothesis, namely, that the Haytians are coerced. We will proceed to the second. Let it be supposed, that the Haytians are not coerced. In that case we say, that if they do not export as much as formerly, it will not necessarily follow that they do not work as much as formerly; and that, if they do not work as much as formerly, it still will not follow that their idleness proceeds from physical causes, or forms any exception to the general principles which regulate labour.

The first great cause which depresses the industry of the Haytians, is the necessity of keeping up large and costly establishments. All who, since the expulsion of the French, have governed that country, have wisely and honourably sacrificed every other consideration to the preservation of independence. Large armies have been kept up. A considerable part of the population has consequently been supported in an unproductive employment; and a heavy burden has been laid on the industry of the rest. Major Moody quotes the following passage from the narrative of a most respectable and benevolent American, Mr. Dewey:--

“Throughout the island the women perform the principal part of the labour in the field and in the house.... I was often moved with pity for their lot, though I rejoiced that the burden was now voluntary, and admired the spirit of women who could so readily perform the work of the men, that the men may be employed in the defence and preservation of their liberties.”

The Major pounces on the fact stated by Mr. Dewey; but, with the amiable condescension of a superior nature, gently corrects his inferences.

“That Mr. Dewey, and pious persons like him, do state the facts which he observed correctly, I am quite convinced: but when he, and those who reason in his manner, assign causes as solely producing the effect, it is then that error glides into their statements.”

We are not so completely convinced as the Major seems to {394}be, that all pious persons state correctly such facts as Mr. Dewey has observed: but we are sure, that Mr. Dewey must be the most ungrateful of men, if he is not grateful for such compliments. Indeed, the style which the Major always adopts towards philanthropists reminds us of Dogberry patting Verges on the back:--“A good old man. Sir! he will be talking. Well said, i’faith, neighbour. An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest soid, i’faith, as ever broke bread. But God is to be worshipped. All men are not alike.” But we must go on with the argument of our philosophical commissioner.

“Any person who has travelled among people in a backward state of knowledge and social civilization, people who never experienced what slavery was, must have observed, as I have done, that the burden of agricultural labour is generally imposed on the females, by the arbitrary power exercised over them by the males....”

“Whilst an examination into the actual population of Hayti, and the real number of the males actually withdrawn from agricultural pursuits for those of military service, at the time Mr. Dewey made his observations, would show, that, though the cause assigned by him might have some effect, that, in point of fact, a more powerful influence would probably be found in the action of causes springing from a different source than that assigned by him as the true cause; and whilst these other powerful causes are left in action, little practical good is effected by the removal of a minor influence.” (1)

We have not time to notice the innumerable beauties of this headless and endless sentence, in which a double allowance of thats compensates for the absence of a nominative case and a verb:--those who study the works of the Major must take such grammar as they can get, and be thankful. But, does be advance any reason, or the shadow of tiny reason, for dissenting from the opinion formed by a man whose honesty he acknowledges, on a point on which it is scarcely possible to be mistaken? No man of common sense can live three days in a country without finding out, whether it is by idleness, or by military duties, that the males are prevented from working. But Major Moody reasons thus--Savages, from their propensity to indolence, make their women work for them. The Haytians make their women work for them; therefore the Haytians are indolent savages;--an exquisite specimen of syllogistic reasoning! Horses are quadrupeds: but a pig is a quadruped; therefore a pig is a horse. The

(1) Ibid. p. 39.

dullest {395}of the gravediggers in Hamlet would have been ashamed of such an argal.

The Major surely does not mean to deny, that, in civilized and industrious nations, circumstances similar to those which exist in Hayti, have compelled the women to engage in agricultural labour. History abounds with such instances. When, fourteen years ago, the Prussians rose against the French, almost the whole harvest of Silesia and Upper Saxony was gathered in by females. The conscriptions of Buonaparte frequently produced the same effect. The Major says, indeed, or rather we, endowing his purposes with Syntax, say for him, that if the numbers of the Haytian people and of the Haytian army were ascertained, the causes assigned by Mr. Dewey would be found to have produced only part of the effect. But what evidence does he offer? Where are his facts, and his reasonings on these facts? Does he know what the population of Hayti may be? Does he know how large its army may be? If he knows, why does he not tell us? If he does not know, how can he tell what might be the result of an examination into those particulars? It is something too much that a writer, who, when he tries to demonstrate, never demonstrates any thing but his own ignorance of the art of reasoning, should expect to be implicitly believed, when he merely dogmatizes.

We grant, that the Haytians do not rear any great quantity of sugar. But can this circumstance be explained only by supposing that they are averse to the labour necessary for that purpose? When capital is withdrawn from a particular trade, a political economist is commonly inclined to suspect that the profits are smaller than those which may be obtained in other lines of business. Now, it is a notorious fact, that the profits which the cultivation of sugar yields are, in all our West Indian islands, extremely low; that the business is carried on only because a large quantity of capital has already been fixed in forms useless for every other purpose; and that, if this fixed capital were to be suddenly destroyed, no fresh investment would take place. A man who has purchased a costly apparatus for the purpose of carrying on a particular manufacture, will not necessarily change his business because he finds that his gains are smaller than those which he might obtain elsewhere, he will generally prefer a small profit to a dead loss, and rather take two per cent upon {396}his first investment than let that investment perish altogether, suffer his machinery to be idle, and turn the remains of his fortune to a pursuit in which he might make five per cent. This, we believe, is the only cause which keeps up the cultivation of sugar in Jamaica and Antigua.

In Hayti this cause has ceased to operate. Most of the fixed capital necessary for the sugar-trade was destroyed by the war which followed the liberation of the negroes. The machinery which remained was employed as formerly. But it was not replaced as it fell to decay. This at once explains the gradual decrease of production. A similar decrease, from similar causes, is taking place in our oldest colonies. But let us even suppose that the cultivation of sugar was likely, under ordinary circumstances, to flourish in Hayti, it still remains to be considered what security capital invested in that business would have enjoyed. A short time back it seemed by no means improbable that France would assert her rights to the sovereignty of the island by arms. In the year 1814, the strongest apprehensions were entertained. A murderous and devastating war, a war in which quarter would neither have been given or taken, was to be expected. The plan of defence which the rulers of ti contemplated was suited to so terrible a crisis. It was intended to turn the coast into a desert, to set fire to the buildings, to tall back on the interior fastnesses of the country, and by constant skirmishes, by hunger, and by the effects of a climate so fatal to Europeans, to wear out the invading army. This design was avowed by the Government in publications which have found their way to England. It was justified by circumstances, and it could scarcely have failed of success. But it is evident that the remotest prospect of such an emergency would alone have deterred any capitalist from sinking his property in the extensive and valuable machinery necessary to a sugar-planter.

It is true that there is a diminution in the quantity of coffee exported from Hayti. But the cause of the diminution is obvious. The taxes on that article are exorbitantly high. The territorial impost raised on the plantation, and the customs which must be paid previous to exportation, make up a duty of sixty per cent, on the prime cost. If the Haytians are to be free, they must have an army. If they are to have an army, they must raise money; and this may possibly {397}be the best way of raising it. But it is evidently impossible that a commodity thus burdened can maintain a competition with the produce of countries where no taxes exist.

We therefore think it by no means improbable that the Haytians may have abandoned the cultivation of sugar and coffee, not from idleness, but from prudence; that they may have been as industriously employed as their enslaved ancestors, though in a different manner. All the testimony which we have ever been able to procure tends to prove that they are at least industrious enough to live comfortably, and multiply rapidly under the weight of a very heavy taxation.

We have shown that the decrease in the exports of Hayti does not necessarily prove a decrease in the industry of the people. But we also maintain, that, even if we were to admit that the Haytians work less steadily than formerly, Major Moody has no right to attribute that circumstance to the influence of climate. His error in this and in many other parts of his work proceeds from an utter ignorance of the habits of labourers in the temperate zone. What those habits are, we have already stated. If an English labourer, who lias hitherto been unable to obtain the enjoyments to which he is accustomed without working three hundred days a year, should find himself able to obtain those enjoyments by working a hundred days a year, he will not continue to work three hundred days a year. He will make some addition to his pleasures, but he will abate largely of his exertions. He will probably work only on the alternate days. The ease of the Haytian is the same. As a slave he worked twelve months in the year, and received perhaps as much as he would have been able to raise in one month, if he had worked on his own account. He was liberated--he found that, by working for two months, he could procure luxuries of which he had never dreamed. If he worked unsteadily, he did only what an Englishman, in the same circumstances, would have done. In order to prove that labour in Hayti follows a law different from that which is in operation among ourselves, it is necessary to prove, not merely that the Haytian works unsteadily, but that he will forego comforts to which he is accustomed, rather than work steadily.

This Major Moody has not even asserted of the Haytians, or {398}of any other class of tropical labourers. He has, therefore, altogether failed to show, that the natives of the torrid zone cannot be safely left to the influence of those principles which have most effectually promoted civilization in Europe. If the law of labour be everywhere the same, and he has said nothing which induces us to doubt that it is so, that unsteadiness of which he speaks will, at least in its extreme degree, last only for a time, which, compared with the life of a nation, is but as a day in the life of man. The luxuries of one generation will become the necessaries of the next. As new desires are awakened, greater exertions will be necessary. This cause, cooperating with that increase of population of which the Major himself admits the effect, will, in less than a century, make the llayti an labourer what the English labourer now is.

The last case which we shall consider is, that of the free negroes who emigrated from North America to llayti. They were in number about six thousand. President Boyer undertook to defray the whole expense of their passage, and to support them for four months after their arrival--a clear proof that the people of Hayti are industrious enough to place at the disposal of the Government funds more than sufficient to defray its ordinary charges. We give the sixth and seventh articles of Boyer’s instruction to the agent employed by him on this occasion, as Major Moody states them. It is on these that his whole argument turns.

“Article VI.--To regulate better the interests of the emigrants, it will be proper to let them know in detail, what the government of the republic is disposed to do, to assure their future well-being and that of their children, on the sole condition of their being good and industrious citizens. You are authorized, in concert with the agents of the different societies, and before civil authority, to make arrangements with heads of families, or other emigrants who can unite twelve people able to work, and also to stipulate that the government will give them a portion of land sufficient to employ twelve persons, and on which may be raised coffee, cotton, maize, peas and other vegetables and provisions; and after they have well improved the said quantity of land which will not be less than thirty-six acres in extent, government will give a perpetual title to the said land to these twelve people, their heirs, and assigns.

“Article VII.--Those of the emigrants who prefer applying themselves individually to the culture of the earth, either by renting lands already improved, which they will till, or by working in the field to share the produce with the proprietor, must also engage themselves by a legal act that, on arriving in llayti, they will make the above mentioned {399}arrangements; and this they must do before judges of the peace; so that, on their arrival here, they will be obliged to apply themselves to agriculture, and not be liable to become vagrants.” (1)

On these passages the Major reasons thus--

“In Hayti, even at present, tinder the judicious government of President Boyer, we find the free and intelligent American Blacks receiving land for nothing, having their expenses paid, and the produce of the land to be for their own advantage, obliged, by a legal act, to apply themselves to a kind of labour which is manifestly and clearly intended to better their condition.

“Why should a free man be thus obliged to act in a manner which the most ignorant person might discover was a duty incumbent on him, and that the result would be for his advantage? The legal act and its penalties, after such a grant of land, would appear pre-eminently absurd in England.” (2)

We, for our own parts, can conceive nothing more preeminently absurd, than for a man to quote and comment on what he has never read. This is clearly the case with the Major. The emigrants who were to be obliged by a legal act to apply themselves to labour, were not those who were to receive land for nothing, but those who were to rent it, or to hire themselves out as labourers under others.. The Major has applied the provisions of the Seventh Article to the class mentioned in the Sixth. So disgraceful an instance of carelessness we never saw in any official document.

Whether the President acted well or ill, is not the question. The principle on which he proceeded cannot be mistaken. He was about to advance a considerable sum for the purpose of transporting these people to Hayti. He appears, as far as we can judge from these instructions, to have exacted no security from the higher and most respectable class. But he thought it probable, we suppose, that many of those idle and profligate persons who abound in all great cities, and who are peculiarly likely to abound in a degraded caste, beggars and thieves, the refuse of the North American bridewells, might accept his proposals, merely that they might live for some months at free costs, and then return to their old habits. He therefore naturally required some assurance that the poorer emigrants intended to support themselves by their industry before he would agree to advance their subsistence.

1 Second Tart of Major Moody’s Report, p. 30.

2 Ibid, p 32.

The {400}Major proceeds thus:--

“Your Lordship may observe, in the instructions of the President, that onlv certain modes of rewarding the labour of the free American Black are mentioned, viz. rentin’; land already improved, working in the field to share the produce with the labourer, or, by being proprietors of land, to cultivate on their own account without either rent or purchase, having land from the free gift of the Government.

“The ordinary mode of rewarding the labourer by the payment of wages. as in England or the Last Indies, where the country is fully peopled, is never once mentioned or alluded to by President Boyer, who may be fairly supposed to understand the situation of the country which he governs.” (1)

For the sake of the Tytians, we hope that Boyer understands the country which he governs better than the Major understands the subject on which he writes. Who before, ever thought of mentioning the renting of land as a mode of rewarding the labourer? The renting of land is a transaction between the proprietor of the soil and the capitalist. Can Major Moody possibly imagine, that, in any part of the world, the labourer, as a labourer, pays rent, or receives it? He surely must know, that those emigrants who rented land, must have rented it in the capacity, not of labourers, but of capitalists; that they must have paid the rent out of the profits of their stock, not out of the gains of their labour; that even when a man works on his own account, the gains of his labour, though not generally called wages, are wages to all intents and purposes, and though popularly confounded with his profits, follow a law altogether different. But Boyer, says Major Moody, never mentions wages. How can wages be better defined, than as the share of the produce allowed to the labourer? Does Major Moody conceive that wages can be paid only in money, or that money wages represent any thing but that share of the produce of which the President speaks? he goes on, however, floundering deeper and deeper in absurdity at every step.

“In the present constitution of Hayti, as administered by President Boyer, in “Titre sur l’Lrat Politique des Citoyens,” I find, under the act, that the rights of citizenship are suspended, as regards domestics working for wages (par l’etât de domestique à gages), in that very republican country, where a person, ignorant of the effect of physical causes, would naturally conclude that it would be most unjust to deprive a man of his right of citizenship, because he preferred one mode of subsisting himself to another, which the Government wished to encourage.”

(1) Second Part of Major Moody’s Report, p. 32.

Physical {401}causes again! We should like to know whether these physical causes operate in France. In the French Constitution of the year 1791, we find the following Article.

“To be an active citizen, it is necessary not to be in a menial situation, namely, that of a servant receiving wages.”

It seems, therefore, that this law which, in the opinion of Major Moody, nothing but the heat of the torrid zone will explain--this law, which any person, ignorant of physical causes, would consider as grossly unjust, is copied from the Institutions of a great and enlightened European nation. AYe can assure him, that a little knowledge of history is now and then very useful to a person who undertakes to speculate on politics.

We must return for a moment to the North American emigrants. Much mismanagement seems to have taken place with respect to them. They were received with cordiality, and pampered with the utmost profusion, by the liberal inhabitants of Port-au-Prince. They had left a country where they had always been treated as the lowest of mankind; they had landed in a country where they were overwhelmed with caresses and presents. The heads of many were turned by the change. Many came from cities, and, totally unaccustomed to agricultural labour, found themselves transported into the midst of an agricultural community. The Government, with more generosity than wisdom, suffered them to eat their rations in idleness. This is a short summary of the narrative of Dr. Dewey, who was himself on the spot. He continues thus.

“Although these and other circumstances damped the ardour of some of the emigrants, and rendered the in dissatisfied with their situation, yet I have uniformly found the industrious and the most respectable, and such as were fitted to be cultivators of the soil, contented with their condition and prospects, and convinced that great advantages were put within their reach. By far the greater part of the emigrants I saw were satisfied with their change of country, and many were so much pleased that they would not return on any consideration, and said, that they never felt at home before, that they have never felt what it was to be in a country where their colour was not despised. But these were such as went out expecting to meet difficulties and not to live in the city; and they are so numerous, and pursuing their course with so much enterprise, that I feel there is no more reason for surprise at the industry and contentment which they exhibit, than at the dissatisfaction which has brought back 200, and will perhaps bring back a few more.” (1)

(1) Second Part of Major Moody’s Report, p. 35. 26

All {402}this statement the Major quotes as triumphantly as if it were favourable to his hypothesis, or as if it were not of itself sufficient to refute every syllable that he has written. Those who came from towns shrunk from agricultural labour. Is this a circumstance peculiar to any climate? Lei Major Moody try the same experiment in this country with the footmen and shopmen of London, and see what success he will have. But those who were accustomed to tillage, applied themselves to it with vigour; and this though they came from a cold country, and must therefore be supposed to have been peculiarly sensible of the influence of tropical heat. It is clear, therefore, that their desire to better their Condition surmounted that love of repose which, according to the new philosophy of labour, can, in warm, fertile, and thinly peopled countries, be surmounted only by the fear of punishment.