By a general understanding among the
planters_, the rate is at present fixed at a _shilling_ per day, or a
little more than fifty cents per week, counting five working days." This
Antigua scale, and not the one they themselves had sold labor by during
the apprenticeship, became at once the favorite with a great part of the
Jamaica and Barbados planters. If they in any cases offered higher
wages, they made it up by charging higher rent for the houses and
grounds, which the negroes had built and brought under culture on their
properties. It was before the first of August that this procedure was
resolved upon by the planters, as we gather from numerous communications
in the papers recommending a variety of modes of getting labor for less
than its natural market value. We select a single one of these as a
specimen, by the application to which of a little arithmetic, it will be
perceived that the employer would _bring the laborer in debt_ to him at
the end of the year, though not a moment should be lost by sickness or
other casualty. The humanity of the document is perfectly of a piece
with that of the system which would civilize mankind by making
merchandize of them.

To the Editor of the Morning journal.

SIR,--Let meetings be held, not only in every parish, but in every
district of a parish, and let all land-owners, &c., agree not to rent
land under L8[A] per acre, and not to sell it for less than double that
sum. Should a few be found regardless of the _general weal_, let the
proprietary, &c. join and purchase such lands, and if otherwise, it is
presumed the dissentients to the measure would be so small as not to
affect in any material degree the _general_ interest, inasmuch as those
who dissented, from the consequent scarcity of land arising from the
measure, would demand a high rental for their land. The _maximum_ system
appears to be preferable to the _minimum_. I have therefore made choice
of it as a stimulus to the laborers to work _at least_ four days or
thirty-six hours in the week to pay for their rent, &c. &c., _or pay 2s.
1d. for every day's absence_; or, if sick, pay up the labor by working
on the Friday, &c., _and Saturday, if needful_. Weekly settlements with
both parties, or _immediate summary ejectment_, if deemed necessary.

[Footnote A: The sums are in the currency of the islands when not
otherwise specified, that is 7s 6d to the dollar.]

L s. d.
Re