“The fuel is easily had; and a ton of coal will serve for eight tons of bricks. We are better supplied with straw than if we raised sugars only; and the apparatus is not expensive. Only consider, father: the labour of your slaves, at present, does not average more than fifteen-pence a day; and brickmakers, in England, make from five to seven shillings a day. Do let me try whether, by working by count, we cannot raise the value of our slave-labour, and save the expense of importation.”
“But, my dear son, we do not want bricks enough to make it worth while.”
“Our neighbours want them as well as ourselves; and it may answer well to withdraw a permanent portion of labour from our coffee-walks and transfer it to our brick-field. The art is not difficult, and the climate is most favourable, so confidently as we may reckon on the absence of heavy rains for weeks together.”
“Well; we will see about it, son.”
“I give you warning, father,” said Alfred, laughing, “that I shall not be content with one experiment. If we save by brickmaking, I shall propose our making the bagging and packages for our coffee at home, instead of paying so high as we do for them.”
“Nay, Alfred; what becomes of your boasted principle of the division of labour?”
“I think as highly as ever of it where labour is as productive as it ought to be. But where eight free labourers do as much work as twelve slaves, it follows that if those twelve slaves were set free, four of them would be at leisure for more work. If as much sugar was raised already as was wanted, those four labourers might make a great saving by refining and claying the sugars at home; which business is now done elsewhere.”
“In the Spanish colonies, where there is a large proportion of free labourers, I know they do many things among themselves which British planters do not, and thus reduce the cost of cultivation in a way that we should be very glad to imitate.”
“Such imitation is easy enough, surely. We have only to introduce as large a proportion of free labour.”
“The wages of free labour are so dreadfully high,” objected Mr. Bruce.