The Express.
London, England, 1847-11-12 00:00:00

meet others, inasmsch as it has, in a great measure,
been superinclace,d by metropolitan legislation, con-
ceived is Per:tonste ignorance.
The Frlit origin of Wert Indian embarrassments is
to he Sought in the determination of the mother
country to effect a change in their social institutions,
*which in Europe was the result of the arduous
struggles of many centuries, in the brief space of a
few years. The transformation of the eilkins of the
11th and 12th centuries into the free and intelligent
labourers of the 18th and 19th, was the work of the
emancipated classes themselves. A succession of
generations by their continuous efforts made them-
selves freemen. One act of the British parliament
made the negroes of our West India colonies no
longer slaves, bat more is required to impart to
them the character of the free peasantry of Europe.
Nay more : even if the self-educavon our European
labourers have given themselves in the coarse of cen-
turies had not made them the intelligent self-
relying men they are, the density of our population
would have ensured the economical continuous labour
we derive from them. In our tropical colonies the
population does not press so close on the means of
subsistence : there is not the same motive to continu-
ous regulated labour as in Europe. Yet more : the
position of our free-labour tropical settlements is an
exceptional one—they are surrounded by competitors
still possessed of the compulsory labour of which they
have been deprived. Of all these things our headlong
emancipators have taken no heed. They have in-
dulged in the cheap virtue of emancipating the
negroes at the coat of others; and they have taken
no care to prepare the negro for freedom, colonial
society for those circumstances in which free labour
is cheapest, or our free labour colonies for gradual
exposure to competition on equal terms with countries
still possessed of slave labour.
We shall be reminded of the twenty millions.
What are they to the wealth of this nation ? or to
the millions which have been squandered for less
worthy purposes ? And, on the other hand, what are
they to the pecuniary loss of the West Indians? Tbey
barely paid for the labour of the slaves ; but deprived
of that labour what is the comparative worth
of the lands these slaves once tilled ? The last census
in Jamaica shows that the number of free
labourers is as nearly as possible one half
of the number of slaves at the period of eman-
cipation. And these labourers cannot be relied
upon to work • day of the same length as the
English labourer, or to work so many days in the
week. Land without labour is valueless. No com-
pensation has been made to the West Indians for the
breadth of land which, by having available labour
withdrawn from it, has for the time been deprived
of all value. It would not—were there the slightest
chance of its being granted—be easy to estimate the
amount of such a compensation. Our calculations
would require to begin with the first legislative in-
terference to check the supply of labourers, and restrict
their hours of labour. It is not from the era of
emancipation, but from the first legislative interference
with slavery end the slave trade, that the diminution
in the value of West Indian lands by the regulations
of the imperial legislature must be dated.
We have stated the case of the West Indians un-
compromisingly. It is our duty to disregard popular
clamour in urging their claim to the considerate at-
tention of government, and that legislative body
which is the creature of the mother country's public
opinion. We should, however, be deceiving the West
Indians did we encourage the slightest expectation on
their part that the course of the free-trade policy
which this country has adopted can be arrested out
of consideration to them, or that they have any further
money groats to look to. The present embar-
rassment is so equally diffused over all the
great interests of the country, that government
can afford money advances to none. If such were
granted to one, they must be granted to all, and that
is impossible. And as for the continuance of fiscal
protection to free-labour against slave-labour tropical
produce, that the complexity of our commercial and
diplomatic relations equally forbids. Nay, it is im-
possible to look our critical position in respect of more
than one important state fairly in the face, without
seeing that a speedy modification of our anti-slave-
trade policy is probably impending. Much ought to
be done to remedy the evils which zeal without know-
ledge has inflicted on our tropical dependencies, but
we cannot afford for their sake to be at enmity, or
even in uneasy relations, with the leading nations
of the world.

But what it is possible to do for the tropical colo-
nies ought to be done without delay. An adequate
supply of labour is the first great want. The defi-
ciency of capital which some complain of must be
preceded by this. Capital will flow naturally to these
colonies as soon as the mesas of rendering it avail-
able by labour are there, bat not till then. It is in
vain to speak of further improvements in machinery
or modes of culture, until there are hands enough to
set them in motion and carry them into effect. It
is a hallucination to think of rent-paying tenants
until the colonies are in a condition to attract or
create capital. On these abstract principles, Earl
GREY'S despatch is sound : its osly defect is an
apparent unconsciousness of the real extent and
urgency of the demand for labour. He writes
as if the limited experiments hitherto made
were commensurate to the actual necessity. The
wants of the West Indies can only be supplied by
throwing emigration free from all our West African
settlements, made or to be made, and by declaring
that in Africa, as in Canada, all are freemen who seek
refuge on the soil over which the British flag waves.
The vexatious and useless restrictions on the tropical
immigrant transport service must be abolished.
Surely the precautions which are sufficient for the
safeguard of Irishmen and Englishmen are enough for
Africans. This great desideratum supplied, much
may be done by reductions in the expense of colonial
government, and by simplifying and imparting greater
certainty to the transfer of landed property and the
enforcement of creditors' claims, in order to attract
capital to the islands. In these matters government
can take the initiative in the crown colonies, and
stimulate in the chartered colonies.

We would impress upon government that this is no
common crisis, and that in adopting a sound policy
for our West Indian colonies, timidity and procrastina-
tion are the chief, almost the only, dangers. On the
other hand, we would impress upon the West Indians
the necessity of sacrifice and exertion on their part.
They have been cruelly treated, but reparation for
the past is not to be hoped for. They must make the
most of their actual resources. " Men do their broken
weapons rather use than their bare hands."

THE entire arguments of the Times on the mone-
tary and commercial question, amount to this—abo-
lish credit. If you trade, do so on ready money. If
you have made an unfortunate speculation, do not
seek to redeem it by another calculated with more
surety and foresight, but succumb at once. If a ma-
nufactarer or agriculturist, a bad season or a blight,
have destroyed a portion of your produce, don't at-
tempt to render it the less sensible by spreading it
over several years, and making use of credit to do so,
but recover your loss by ceasing to spend. Care not for
throwing hundreds out of work; care not for diminishing
your produce, and crippling your means of restoring
what accident and nature have blighted. Think
only of your money-box ; and take it for a maxim,
that it is better to be idle and parsimonious, than to
be industrious and to make use of credit.
. .

Had such been the prevailing maxim with the
Englishman, this woald never have been the England
of our times. Adventure has been the soul of English
trade, as of English empire and conquest—adventure
disproportioned to our means, but never to our spirit
or its results. What the Times recommends is simply
that the nation and the government should cease to
be English, should forget English habits and maxims,
and should take in their stead those slow and super-
annuated virtues which still exist in foreign nations,
and which have kept them poor, and weak, and igno-
rant, without being a jot more moral. There cannot
be found a better example than in Spain and the
Spaniards—a people as ignorant of the use of credit,
except in the government misuse of it, as the Indians
they conquered. The Spaniard was once industrious,
inlaid, wealthy, free, manufacturing, and trading.
Nis colonial empire came unfortunately to give him
gold in lieu of all these things. With gold, which
the government dispensed, be supplied all his foreign
wants, and he consequently ceased producing any
home commodity to exchange. lie wanted, no credit,
focnd industry useless, frugality became his sole com-
mercial virtue. No man lives so rigidly within his
income as the Spaniard : no man has such a horror of
credit. He trades with dollars, and believes in no'
other wealth. In troublous times, he buries his hoard,
and in the most tranquil and prosperous ones he has
as mach des rust of paper as a Scotcbman has dislike