The date should not escape notice.  By this plan, for a few petty indulgences, all of which were professedly granted in the time of slavery itself, the master could get the entire labor of the negro, and seven or eight pounds per annum besides!  Some may be disposed to regard this as a mere joke, but we can assure them it was a serious proposal, and not more monstrous than many things that the planters are now attempting to put in practice.  The idea of actually paying money wages was horrifying and intolerable to many of the planters; they seem to have exercised their utmost ingenuity to provide against so dreadful a result.  One who signed himself an “Old Planter” in the Despatch, before the abolition of the apprenticeship, in view of the emancipation of the non-praedials which was to take place on the first of August, gravely wrote as follows:—­

“It is my intention, therefore, when the period arrives for any arrangement with them, to offer them in return for such services, the same time as the praedials now have, with of course the same allowances generally, putting out of the question, however, any relaxation from labor during the day, usually allowed field laborers, and understood as shell-blow—­house people being considered at all times capable of enjoying that indulgence at their pleasure, besides the impossibility of their master submitting to such an inconvenience.—­This appears to me to be the only mode of arrangement that would be feasible, unless we resort to money wages, and I should regret to find that such a precedent was established in this instance, for it would only be a forerunner to similar demands at the coming period, when the praedials became free.”

There were more reasons than one why “money wages” were feared by the Jamaica planters.  A great many estates are managed by attorneys for absentee proprietors.  These gentlemen pocket certain commissions, for which reason they keep in cultivation estates which cannot possibly yield a profit under a system of paid labor.  They deem it for their interest to retain their occupation even at the expense of their employers.  Not a few conceive it for their interest to depreciate the value of property that they may purchase low, hence they deem it good policy to refuse wages, let the crops perish, and get up a panic.  The documents we shall furnish will be clear on these points.  The great diversity of practice in the planters in regard to wages, as well as the reasonable disposition of the laborers, is shown by the following paragraphs culled from the Morning Journal of August 10:—­

“ST. DAVIDS.—­A gentleman in the management of a property in this parish, writes in the following strain to his employer—­“I have an accession of strength this morning.  The people are civil and industrious.  I have received letters assuring me that the example of the Cocoa Walt estate people, has been the means of inducing those on other estates to enter into the terms proposed”—­that is 5s. per week, with houses, grounds, medicines, &c, &c.”