The character of society in the West India Islands in the eighteenth century was, in some respects, very similar to that of Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Their trade was not competitive with that of the mother country; they had a staple product, sugar; their cultivation was carried on by slave labour. But between the society of the West India Islands and that of the southern colonies of North America there were two principal differences: in the West India Islands there was greater disproportion between the negro and the white populations, and amongst the proprietors of the plantations absenteeism was far more rife. These differences made the protection given by the mother country essential to the islands, as preventing not only foreign aggression, but also rebellion at home. The prevalence of absenteeism had also another result. The absentees formed at home a wealthy and influential body of men. In the London West India organizations of the eighteenth century they were an element which can have existed only to a very small degree in the societies connected with the North American colonies. The amalgamation of the West India planters in England with the London merchants trading to the West Indies gave to the society which they formed a strength that enabled it to exert an influence over British politics far greater than that of its contemporaries. And that society has had a continuous life to the present day, through all the economic and political changes through which the West India colonies have passed.