EMIGRATION AND THE COLONIES 855 
would be stimulated to greater exertions by the sense of 40,175 
freedom ; but the West Indian negro, at all events, preferred ’ 
to be idle and poor’, rather than to exert himself even for 
comparatively high wages. The whole management of the 
estates was disorganised; and though the planters strove 
vigorously to manage their business on new lines, the effort 
was very severe and many of them were ruined in the 
attempt. When the hope of continued protection was with- The long 
drawn, and they were exposed to the competition® of the Sugar i 
slave-grown sugar on neighbouring islands, their condition dustry ho 
became desperate. Slave labour was less expensive than free els 
labour in this particular case, and the sugar growing in Cuba 
and Brazil received an immense stimulus; as & consequence 
the traffic from Africa, which we had done so much to put 
down, revived anew and eluded the efforts we made to check it. 
In more recent times the islands have also suffered from the 
State-aided production of beet-root sugar on the Continent; 
so that the emancipation of the slaves may be regarded as 
marking the beginning of the decline of that great sugar 
industry which was so highly prized in the eighteenth 
century. 
The question of the treatment of coloured races did 
not come into prominence in connection with Canada, 
partly because the Hudson’s Bay Company appears to have 
1 On a corresponding condition in Ireland compare Ricardo, Letters to Malthus, 
138, 139. The pleasure of pure idleness is seldom sufficiently recognised by 
modern economists in working out the calculus of measurable motives. It was 
perhaps overrated in the eighteenth century. « Mankind in general are naturally 
inclined to ease and indolence; and nothing but absolute necessity will enforce 
labour and industry. * * * Those who have closely attended to the disposition and 
conduct of a manufacturing populace have always found that to labour less, and 
not cheaper, has been the consequence of a low price of provisions.” Essay on 
Trade, pp. 15, 14. In spite of the operation of this principle the standard of 
comfort throughout the country generally seems to have risen during the 
eighteenth century. Arthur Young frequently calls attention to the increase of 
tea-drinking, and wheat-flour was again replacing rye (Farmer's Letters, 197 and 
983; C. Smith, Three Tracts, 79). Another writer in 1777 treats butter as a new 
luxury among cottagers, Essay on Tea, Sugar, White Bread and Butter (Brit. 
Mus. 8275. aaa. 10). There is much interesting evidence as to the actual 
standard of living of the labourers in different counties in Davies, Case of 
Labourers (1795). See also J. W., Considerations (1767), for the estimated 
budget of a clerk on £50 a year. 
2 8 and 9 Vict. c, 63. The preferential sugar duties were finally withdrawn in 
1874.