The Press.
London, England, 1853-08-13 00:00:00

usual resembling the English which plain
men are accustomed to speak and write—such
are the characteristics of Mr. Carlyle's "Ocea-
sional Discourse." which is substantially a
reprint, with additions, of au article dating as
far back as 1549. Method and order in the
work there is none ; but its leading arguments
are these.

The West Indian negroes, says Mr. Carlyle,
are worse oft than in the time of slavery,
worse otr—inanonneh as it is better for a man
to be overworked than idle—better to sutler
oppression than to live in sensual indolence,
doing nothing, and cumboing the earth.
Fruitful lands lie uncultivated, lands not ori-
ginally belonging to the African immigrants,
but conquered with the blood, and improved
by the skill, of Englishmen. Money raised
from English working-men has been lavished
in order that a semi-savage race might gratify
their natural taste for inaction, undeterred
either by fear of punishment or fear of want.
Nothing is done to train this nice and
raise it in the social scale. On the contrary,
it retrogrades visibly ; yet England looks on
applauding, and the sueeess of emancipation
is held as a fact undoubted. Here is the state
of things in this year 's3—where shall we turn
for a remedy ? "To immigration," answers
the practical man ; and planters impatient for
labour take up the cry. But such common-
place remedies do nut suit Mr. Carlyle's
genius. He assumes that immigration must
mean immigration from Africa, and forthwith
propounds the query, " What will you do if
" your immigrants turn out as idle as the
" settled population? You will oily be estab-
" lishing a . Nark Ireland—strengthening the
" elements of barbarism which you want to
" destroy." But this objection—perfectly just,
though by no means novel, when applied to
the importation of Bozal negroes from the
west coast—is nugatory as regards Coolies and
Chinese, on whom, but especially the latter,
we believe our planters must hencefialli in
great measure rely. Labour can be had,
though by paying dear for it : and until of late
the chief obstacle to its being obtained has
lain in the Colonial-office. Mr. Carlyle, how-
ever, is too full of his own project to discuss
this contingency. In filet, his ostensible sub-
ject, the negro question, is merely a peg
whereon to hang a new social theory. "No
" man," he lays it down, " has a right to eat
" who does nut work "—which is very much
the doctrine of the French Communists. All
men, therefore, should be induced, encouraged,
and, if need be, compelled, to work. How
compelled, we are not very clearly told ; but
the principle is of universal application, for
we learn that "Europe is taking extensive
" measures, as at Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere,
" to get its rich white men set to work." "The
" thing must be done everywhere : must is
" the word. Only it is so terribly diffieult to
"do !" Difficult certainly; and, if practicable,
destructive of that principle of individual free
(loin which Mr. Carlyle systematically under-
values, but which we hold to have been the
great instrument of modern civilisation. How
are men to be compelled to work, except in a
model prison or a French phalanstere! The
approximation to such a scheme of universal
compulsory labour, in the case of the. West
Indies, is to reduce the negro population to at
state of serfdom—bind them as " adscripti
glebte," and exact from them a certain amount
of yearly labour-tribute for the benefit of the
State. What this means we do not exactly
understand : if a mere road tax, or other local
impost, such as that which Sir E. Tennent in-
troduced into Ceylon, the idea is feasible
enough ; if, as the words would rather imply,
a kind of vassalage, accompanied with prohi-
bition to change their residence, WO suspect
that neither Sir C. Grey nor any of his succes-
sors would find it easy to carry out such a
measure. And this is the sole remedy which
Mr. Carlyle has to suggest for the social and
financial evils of the British sugar-islands !
In some of our author's remarks we cor-
dially agree, as where he tells us that American
emancipation, to succeed, must be gradual,
the slave not being set wholly free at once,
but caused to pass through an intermediate
stage of modified servitude or dependence.
On the slave trade, too, Dir. Caslyle's views,