slavery in our own Colonies, it en deavoured to do all that was incumbent upon a great and Christian nation to put it down in other countries; and he hoped the time would never arrive when that great principle would be abandoned. He then recapitulated and obviated some of the objections to his motion. Cotton, it was said, was likewise raised by slave labour, but our manufacturers were dependent upon that raw material. If slave-grown sugar were excluded here, it was argued that the same quantity would be sent to other countries. But, in fact, the Cuba sugar-growers looked upon this country as their chief market. Reminding the House of the misery and destruction of life attending the slave trade, he urged that, if the slave-grown sugar of Cuba and Brazil were admitted to free competition with our own sugar, we must make up our minds that we were promoting a system which produced as much misery and degradation as could exist in any human condition, and which was the worst enemy of civilization and of the diffusion of the Gospel in Africa.

Mr. W. Evans seconded the motion, deprecating the reduction of the differential duties to a lower scale than at present.

Mr. Hume agreed that it was unjust and impolitic to expose our free-grown sugar to competition with the sugar of slave-trading countries, since the policy of Parliament had been to compel our colonists to enter upon that competition, whilst it refused them the necessary means. If free labour were allowed fairly to compete with that of slaves, it would be cheaper. The efforts made for many years past, at great sacrifices, to put down the slave trade,

having proved abortive, it was time to consider whether we had not been proceeding upon a principle radically erroneous. The West India Colonies were hastening to decay; 100,000,000l. of property was almost wasted; the black population was relapsing into barbarism; the only means of relief consisted in the introduction of African labourers-the only class suited to the cultivation-emancipated from a state of bondage in their own country. He would, therefore, agree to the motion, with this amendment-"That at the same time the British Government interposes difficulties that prevent the Colonies from procuring a sufficient supply of free labourers from Africa and other places."

Mr. Mangles agreed almost entirely with Mr. Hume. He believed the West Indians, in respect to labour, had never had fair play. When the slaves were emancipated, the Government should have not only permitted, but taken measures to promote, the admission of free labour into the Colonies, which was cheaper than slave labour with an open market; but the West Indies were precluded from the means of verifying this doctrine.

Colonel Thompson considered that the principle of free trade was never intended to be applied to a traffic repugnant to morals, and he saw no reason against voting for a differential duty against slavegrown sugar. He therefore supported the motion, but not the amendment, which he was convinced, from his personal knowledge of Africa, would tend to encourage the slave trade.

Mr. Grantley Berkeley supported both the motion and the amend

ment. He asked for free emigra

tion to the Colonies; but the Government must lend its aid, or British Guiana could not profit by it. The planter was entitled to protection against the slaver until he had a sufficient supply of free labour to compete with him. The Government had been guilty of inconsistency in denouncing and abolishing slavery, and afterwards giving encouragement to slave produce, which had increased in Brazil in the exact ratio of the decrease of the sugar cultivation in the British Colonies, and Brazil was still complaining of want of labour. The motion called upon the Government to set their face against that which they once declared to be religiously and morally wrong, and was moreover an injustice to the Colonies, which, if their career of decay was not arrested, would be lost.

Mr. J. Wilson said, it was impossible to approach this question as a West India question only, and to exclude the Mauritius, producing 60,000 tons of sugar a year; and our East India possessions, exporting 75,000 tons of sugar a year, and capable of producing much more; besides our new territories to the eastward, where free labour alone was used in the cultivation of sugar. The evidence taken before the Committee of 1848 abounded with the most gloomy predictions as to the consequences of the policy of the Government in these parts of our possessions, and Mr.Wilson showed that these predictions had been signally falsified. Mauritius, for example, instead of being a desolate wilderness, had doubled its produce of sugar. In the West

Indies distress and difficulties undoubtedly existed; but it was a different thing to admit this dis

nly now ap

tress, and to prescribed justly

fur

duties as its cure; it was the consequence of the vicious Sy tem of times gone by. He admitted that there had been a large increase in the produce of slave-holding countries; but great part of this increase had preceded the admission of their sugar into this country; it had been going on from 1828 to 1840. He denied, however, that the increase had been greater than in our own Colonies, and he gave details which showed that the increase in the three years after the Act of 1846, compared with the three preceding years, had been 20 per cent. in Cuba and Porto Rico, 11 per cent. in the Brazils, and 20 per cent. in the British possessions. He went into other statistical details, proving that, whereas before 1844 the consumption of British sugar had been almost stationary, in the subsequent five years it had increased 50 per cent. Similar results appeared in respect to and rum. A great change had taken place in the production of sugar all over the world, which placed this question in a new position. Of the 1,227,000 tons of sugar produced annually throughout the world, 697,000 tons were the product of free labour, and only 530,000 tons that of slave labour. How, then, could a distinction be maintained between the two in this limited market? How could we distinguish between refined sugar made from raw sugar produced by slave and by free labour? and how could differential duties on sugar be reconciled with our new navigation system? Recapitulating the several heads of his argument, and urging the injurious influence which a reversal of our policy would exert upon other

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t he relied wledge of the n, he observed, had me plaint of distress in the West ies by an appeal to the prosperity of the East Indies. The House must adopt one of two alternatives-either declare that free labour can compete with slave labour, or that emancipation had failed, and 100,000,000l. had been wasted. It was difficult to argue the question as to the comparative value of free and slave labour, but, for reasons he assigned, Mr. Stanley expressed a doubt whether the labour of emigrants from Africa would prove as cheap as that of slaves. In conclusion, he delivered a solemn warning to the House not to trifle with the present feelings of the colonists.

the present protection, by arresting the descending scale of duties for a given number of years. Sir John disputed the accuracy of some of the details given by Mr. Wilson, who, he observed, had descanted much upon quantities, but had said nothing of the prices of sugar, which had fallen so low as to destroy all the benefit derivable from increase of quantity. After reading descriptions of the deplorable condition of British Guiana, and of the retrogression of the Negro and Creole populations in the West Indies, and appealing to the opinions of Dr. Lushington and other high authorities, as to the disastrous effects of the Act of 1846, he declared that, in his opinion, Lord John Russell, by that Act, had done more than any living man to stimulate the slave trade.

Mr. Hutt opposed the motion. Its principle, he contended, should not be limited to sugar; it should be extended to all the productions of all the slave-holding countries in the world; and who would advocate a policy like this? The West Indians were entitled to some compensation, but he was not prepared to give up a policy which had been most beneficial to the empire.

Sir J. Pakington gave his cordial support to the motion, which nevertheless was incomplete, being only an abstract resolution, without stating in what manner the injustice it recognised should be remedied. This, he thought, could only be done by legislating again for an alteration of the sugar duties, and at all events retaining

The Chancellor of the Exchequer observed that the doctrine enunciated by Sir E. Buxton, that the man who bought slave-grown sugar was as guilty as the man who bought the slave, must be equally applicable to slave-grown coffee and slave-grown cotton; and he pointed out the incongruities between the views and arguments of the hon. Baronet and those of Sir J. Pakington, Mr. Stanley, and Mr. Berkeley. The object of Sir J. Pakington was avowedly for protection, to raise the price of sugar to consumers in this country

This must check consumption, which had increased from 15 lbs. per head in 1840 to 24 lbs. a head in 1849; so that nothing could be more injurious to the colonists than to adopt this motion. Sir Charles corroborated Mr. Wilson's statements as to the increase of the exports of sugar from the British West Indies. Even in British Guiana, which had been

represented as presenting a spectacle of desolation, the exports in the first three months of 1850 had exceeded those in the first three months of 1849 by 1400 hogsheads. With reference to the question whether free labour could compete with that of slaves, he should observe that in several islands the annual average produce of the last six years exceeded that of the six years previous to the abolition of slavery. He showed, likewise, that, even including the year 1846, the imports of colonial sugar had increased, whilst those of foreign sugar had diminished. The project of buying slaves in Africa and sending them free to the West Indies the Government would not adopt, though, they were prepared to facilitate the introduction of other free labourers. He was happy to say that from many of the Colonies accounts not unsatisfactory had been received; and, looking at what was going on in the West Indies, and the exertions made to increase production by a better cultivation of the land, he trusted the House would not check this growing spirit of energy, and inspire the delusive hope of a revival of protection.

Mr. Gladstone said, the case really before the House was that of the West Indies, and one of the great difficulties of this question was, that when the principle of protection was extended to the West Indies with reference to their peculiar circumstances, it reached other portions of the empire which had no special claims. It was not emancipation which had ruined the West Indies, but the false policy that succeeded it; for the artificial scarcity of labour there Parliament was responsible. Then came the Act of 1846, the

fruits of which were only now appearing. Sir R. Peel had justly regarded the West Indies as furnishing an exception from the general catagory of free trade; and if he (Mr Gladstone) believed that the restoration of protection would be an effective cure for the evils of the sugar-growing colonies, he would be prepared to vote for it; but not believing it would be a permanent cure, he was still of opinion that the scale of duties ought to be arrested in its descent. This was not merely a planters' question; it affected the best interests of the negro population, who by our legislation had gained an artificial command of the labour market, and had at the same time fallen back in their social condition far below the point at which they stood in the years of slavery. On their behalf, as well as that of the ill-used West India proprietors, he claimed for the latter such a reasonable term of fixed protection as would enable them, with aid, to surmount the difficulties by which they were oppressed.

Lord Palmerston expressed his surprise at the inconsistencies which had been exhibited during the debate, and which had been crowned by Mr. Gladstone, who was about to vote for a resolution to perpetuate protection, which he condemned. It was a mistake to suppose that it was slave-grown sugar which pressed our colonial sugar in the market. To effect the object of Mr. Gladstone, the differential duty must not be confined to slave-grown sugar, but must extend to foreign free-labour sugar. It was not, however, by these means that the great evil of the slave trade could be put down. By the measures now in progress,

by rendering the maritime police more effectual, by treaties with native chiefs, and other expedients, he hoped that next year it would be seen that the measures taken for the diminution of the slave trade had not been so unsuccessful as some had imagined. On every ground, both of expediency and principle, he objected to the mo

tion as injurious on of humanity, and as leading to a restoration of the principle of protection, which would be injurious to our commercial relations and fatal to the industry of this country.

Sir E. Buxton replied, and the House divided, when the motion was negatived by 275 against 234.