XXXI. 1833. occurrence in the later history of England, when it runs. CHAP. wild on a particular subject, when reason, experience, and consequences are alike disregarded, and, right or wrong, ruinous or beneficial, the thing demanded must be conceded. 91. ley's argu vour of negro emanci pation. Mr Stanley, who had been transferred from the secretaryship of Ireland to the office of Colonial Secretary in Mr Stanorder to conduct this arduous and delicate question, thus ment in faexplained the ministerial project on the subject: "The present question involves interests greater, consequences May 14, more momentous, results more portentous, than any which 1833. ever was submitted to a British or any other legislature. A commerce giving employment now to 250,000 tons of shipping, a revenue of £5,000,000, and an export of equal amount, is here to be dealt with. But what are these pecuniary interests, great as they are, to the moral and social consequences at stake; the freedom of 800,000 of our own, and many millions of foreign slaves; the emancipation and happiness of generations yet unborn; the ultimate destiny of almost a moiety of the human race, which is wound up with this question? Vast, almost awful, as are the interests involved in this question, and the difficulties with which it is beset, its settlement can no longer be delayed. We have arrived at a point when delay is more perilous than decision. We have only the choice left of doing some good at the least risk of effecting evil. We are called upon to legislate between conflicting parties, one deeply involved by pecuniary interests and by difficulties now present, and every hour increasing; the other, still more deeply interested by their feelings and their opinions, and representing a growing determination on the part of the people of this country, at once to put an end to slavery-a determination the more absolute and the less resistible that it is founded in sincere religious feelings, and in a solemn conviction that things. wrong in principle cannot be expedient in practice. The time is gone by when the question can for a moment XXXI. CHAP. be entertained, whether or not the system of slavery can be made perpetual: the only point left for discussion is, the safest, happiest way of effecting its entire abolition. 1833. 92. "Parliament, and the King in Council, have at various Continued. times recommended to the colonial legislatures what in their opinion ought to be, and enforced it on such as were under their direct authority; but, with very few exceptions, these recommendations were nugatory. If ever there was a case which justified the exercise of the paramount authority of Parliament, it is this, when every means of remonstrance and warning has been used in vain. Government therefore have resolved to propose a plan which should insure the ultimate extinction of slavery, and manumit not only the future, but even the present generation; while, at the same time, it should prevent the dangers of a too sudden transition. It has not been deemed advisable to fix the expiry of slavery after the lapse of a given number of years, because it was certain that the intermediate period would be one of great excitement and irritation, possibly of insurrection and bloodshed. It was thought safer to place the slave for a limited time in an intermediate state of apprenticeship. He will be bound to enter into a contract with his master, in virtue of which, his master, during a limited period, would be bound to furnish him with food and clothing, and such allowances as are now authorised by law, or to give him in lieu thereof a pecuniary compensation. For this consideration he will be required to work for his master three-fourths of his time; leaving it to be settled between them, whether that should be for threefourths of the week, or three-fourths of each day. The remaining fourth of his time is to be at his own disposal, when he might work for wages to whom he pleased. The power of inflicting corporal punishment is to remain; but it is to be awarded only by the sentence and under the direction of a magistrate. The duration of the apprenticeship is to be for seven years. XXXI. 1833. 93. "One of the greatest difficulties connected with this CHAP. subject, was the fixing the rate of wages when the negro worked on his own account. Under ordinary circumstances this was settled by, and might be safely left to, com- Continued. petition; but could this be applied to slaves just emerging from a state of servitude? Absolute freedom in that respect would extinguish voluntary labour, extinguish its consequent civilisation, and fling back the negro population, with an insurmountable desire to revert to the indolence of savage life. A scale must be fixed; and the difficulty is, to determine how that scale is to be adjusted. The most expedient plan appears to be, to compel the planter to fix a price on the labourer at the time of enacting his apprenticeship and enacting that the wages to be paid by the master should bear such a proportion to the price fixed by him, if given by the master, that the negro should receive annually one-twelfth of his price. In this way the master and slave will act in reference to each other; and the interest of each will serve as a check upon undue exaction of either. 94. "This measure, whatever its benefits may be in other respects, must necessarily occasion a certain amount of Continued. loss to the West India proprietors, and it is not fitting that upon them should be laid exclusively the losses arising from the destruction of a species of property, into the legality of which it is needless to enter, but which has repeatedly been recognised by act of Parliament. From the returns of West India property made to the Board of Trade, it appears that the net profit arising from the cultivation of sugar is at present £1,200,000 a-year; and making a reasonable addition for the profit arising from the cultivation of rum and coffee, £1,500,000 a-year might be taken as the annual amount of West India property. It is proposed to give ten years' purchase of this sum, or £15,000,000, as a loan, to be repaid to the country when the immediate difficulties of emancipation have been in some degree sur CHAP. mounted. In addition to this, it is proposed to establish XXXI. 1833. 95. stipendiary magistrates, appointed by the Crown, for the administration of justice, and to make provision for the moral and religious instruction of the inhabitants. All children born after the passing of the act, or who shall be under six years of age when it becomes law, to be declared free. "One very important fact seems to be completely Continued. established by the returns which have been laid before Parliament, and that is, that in all the islands, with the exception of Barbadoes and Trinidad, while the production of sugar has increased of late years, the population has declined. In Jamaica, on an average of three years, from 1823 to 1826, the annual production of sugar was 1,354,000 cwt.; on an average from 1829 to 1832, 1,389,000. In the first period, the mean population was 334,000; in the last 327,000. In Demerara, the sugar produced in the first period was 659,000 cwt.; in the last, 806,000 the slaves in the first period were 72,722; in the last, 67,000. Here, then, is a broad fact, which proves that under the existing system the severity of their labour, or the other disadvantages of their situation, are pressing even upon the principle of increase, the strongest impulse which can actuate savage as well as civilised man. The amount of punishment inflicted also in some colonies is so excessive as loudly calls for a change of system. Thus in Demerara, in 1829, when the slaves were 61,627, the number of punishments returned to the protectors was 17,359; and in 1831, the population being then 58,000, the punishments were 21,656, and the lashes inflicted 199,500! It is much to be feared that in this immense number and severity of punishments, and the excessive labour to which the slaves have been subjected, is to be found the real cause both of the general increase of production and the diminution in the negro population. "The objections usually urged and most relied on XXXI. 1833. 96. against immediate emancipation are, that the negroes are CHAP. averse to continuous labour, and that it is unsafe to manumit them till they are willing voluntarily to submit to it. If this argument proves anything, it proves too Concluded. much; for when do men ever show a disposition to labour till population presses upon food? and that will never take place as long as the depopulating influence of slavery continues. We are told that the negroes own no domestic ties, nor will they so long as you retain them in that state of slavery which debases their principles, deprives them of foresight, and takes away from them the motives to industry. The slaves have no education, and you deny them any, for as slaves they can have none. But, in truth, the reproach so often made to negroes that they are averse to labour, is unfounded in fact. An experiment decisive of this point was lately made in Antigua, where 371 captured negroes were landed and set free. Their industry was remarkable, as well as their avidity to acquire property, and imitate the dress, manners, and speech of the Creoles. Many of the most laborious works in St John's have been performed by them, and several of them have already amassed so much money as to be able to purchase their houses. In Bahama, the slaves are already more than half manumitted; and in the island of Cuba, which is very highly cultivated, a large quantity of sugar is raised by free labour. The example of St Domingo, and the cessation of the export of sugar from that island, proves nothing. Such were the horrors it underwent, and the destruction of property which ensued, that it could not be otherwise. Yet sugar is raised and assiduously cultivated in St Domingo; not, indeed, for exportation, but for their own consumption, by the hands of freemen. In Venezuela, a measure of progressive 1 Parl. Deb. emancipation has been adopted since the government of (3d Series), Spain was overthrown ; and so far from the emancipated 1222; Ann. slaves being averse to labour, the only difference is, that 188, 191. the free labourer works with more energy than the slave.”1 xvii. 1194, Reg. 1833, |