"IMMIGRATION OF FREE LABOURERS"

Extracted from the full article

........ A free and constant stream of immigration is required for the Antilles. It ought to be as full and as unintermitting, and as unchecked, as that which sets in upon the United States from Europe. But from Europe, it will not flow in such quantity, for the bulk of Europeans affect climates like their own. In the West Indies the stream of immigration must be derived from congenial climates. We are fond of Coolies as people; we believe Madeirans (and even Maltese, though in the Levant they are looked upon as inferior even to the Greeks) may be made to answer; but it is on the western coast of Africa that our attention is riveted as the natural and sufficient source of West Indian immigration. Who ever thought of Coolies or Madeirans until we were arbitrarily denied access to the coast of Africa? We can get laborers there more plentiful than in Madeira, at a less cost for passage than in India, and every way as effective as those brought from either of the other quarters. In these days of free-trade we are entitled to demand free-trade in labour. Let us hire our laborers in India, Africa, or the Azores, as experience shall teach us is the most profitable.