The Sun.
London, England, 1838-04-21 00:00:00

individuals would not serve their glorious cause.—( Hear,
hear,. and cheering.) He would say that he yielded
to no man in England in a cordial determination
to go tle•ough thi. cause, but for the sake of the cause itself,
he would confine himself to the public acts and public speeches
of individuals, and not follow them into their private motives.
—( Considerable confusion.) Neither would he ascribe to
them hypocrisy in their religion nor mercenary motives
in their conduct.—( Loud cheering, and great uproar.)
Mr. SconLE resumed.—lle: should not stand acquitted before
his conscience, if he did not say that he bad as much faith in the
piety of a thief as in the piety of a slave-owner. Having made
this statement in all good feeling to the Rev. Gentleman,
he would now address himself to the subject before the meeting.
The speech he had made in Exeter hall, the other day,
was before the public, it had appeared in the papers, and all
who felt that these statements could be contradicted, let them
do so if they pleased, but let them give him an opportunity of
meeting them upon the points at issue between them._
( Hear, hear.) There were, however, some points of
considerable importance which he could not introduce in that
speech, and he thought it fit on the present occasion to dilate
upon several topics which he had then left partially un-
touched. He threw that speech before them, and it was a
reply to a speech purporting to have been delivered in the
House of Commons by Mr. Gladstone. That gentleman had
referred to Guaiana, which had been held up to the world as
being pure as unsunned snow. He ( Mr. Scoble) bad
spent several months in that colony, and the whole of that
time he had devoted diligently to try the working of the
system, and the actual condition of the negrois under it--
( Hear)--and he had endeavoured since his return from
thence to fight with the system rather than its supporters.—
( Cheers.) On that account, in his public address he had
scarcely mentioned the name of a single plantation, much less
that of a planter ; but when he found men of the highest
integrity—men who had risked their lives in the cause of
benevolence and humanity—when he found men like Joseph
Sturge, and others, covertly traduced in the House of Commons
—when he found their statements instead of being manfully
grappled with, and overturned by fair argument or contradicted
by the proposition of new facts ; when instead of that, the terms
" anonymous slanderers" were applied by an lion. Gentleman,
he must say that he felt somewhat of indignation when terms
of that sort were bandied through the House of Commons,
and not a single person got up in the cause of the oppressed
and the absent, and request that common justice might be
done to those who had gone forth with their lives in their hands
in order to inquire into the sufferings of a long degraded and
injured race of people.—( Loud and continued cheering.)
They were told on that occasion that the law of British
Guaiana, for carrying the Slavery Abolition Act into
effect, was almost perfect. But he would beseech
that meeting to look into the question, and they would
find the law so full of omissions and defects, that

it should at once have been set aside by his late
Majesty's Ministers. Instead of that, however, the Act, with
all its defects, its repugnancies, and omissions, was allowed to
be carried into effect, and by that declaration of the Govern-
ment the planters of Guaiana became possessed of upwards of
four millions of British money. He would not now dwell
upon these points, for he had done so already, but he might be
permitted to say something as to the subsequent legislation
that had taken place in that colony.—( Hear, hear, hear.)
As soon as the Act had received the sanction of the Home
Government, it bad been found anything but satisfactory pre-
vious to its being carried into effect. The Governor of the
Colony obtained much valuable information from those who
were appointed to carry its provisions into effect. At that
time Mr. Arundel, a planter of Demerara, and who was also
a barrister, filled the office of Attorney- General.—( Hear and
cheers.) Its defects were brought under his consideration
"or the purpose of remedying them, but true to his
character as a planter be refused to do so, and rather than
amend an act which was admitted to be, and was manifestly
defective, lie retired from the Attorney- Generalship.—( Hear. )
Aliother person was appointed to his place; but was the act
cured ? No ; it was allowed to continue in force till the
present moment, although it had been utterly condemned by a
Parliamentary Committee. Thus much with respect to the
act, its omissions, defects, and reougnances. There was one
point connected with its operation to which ha felt it necessary
to refer. On going through its various clauses, he found that
the planter had taken care to secure to himself every possible
privilege in the shape of acquiescence in his will. He
reigned lord paramount in every portion of the Act, and
the penal clauses were so constructed that the unfortunate
apprentice could not possibly escape them. And when
they came to look for penalties upon the planters
although a 201. penalty was adjudged against the man who
cruelly maltreated his apprentice, yet that penalty could not
he en-brced ; and it was admitted, and stood upon record,
that it was a mere nullity.---( Hear, hear.) There was, then,
no penalty—no restriction, which might secure the privileges
and immunities which had been purchased for the negro at so
dear a rate by the people of Great Britain. This was the law
of British Guaiana, and he would now look to the practice
under that law.—( Hear.) And first, with respect to labour,
The Imperial Statute says that all the planters shall feed their
negroes from their stores on receiving from them forty-five
hours labour. It was the design of the Legislature that that
labour should be taken in five days of nine hours each. Sa-
turday was to have been sacred to the negro, either for sale or
marketing, or for any other useful purpose, but they would find
that the Act for British Guaianaspread the forty-five hours over
the whole of the six working days, and thus the negro was
robbed of every Saturday. The consequence was, that they
had still the Sunday market, with all the vice and immorality it
entailed; but with respect to the amount of labour that could
be drawn from the negro under the celebrated Guaiana Ordi-
nance, he had already stated that it was forty-five hours per
week. But the planters, previously to the Ist of August, drew
up a tariff of laeour, and in that they found the
amount of a day's labour to be full seven and a
half hours—but after a very minute, most strict, and
extensive inquiry in that colony, he (Mr. Scoble) found that
they exacted as much work in these seven and a-half hours as
e,er the planter had been able to exact from the unwilling
slave under the old system.—( Hear, hear.) He was aware
that there were many planters in Demerara who would refer
him to the tariff, and point out the amount of labour that
would be required of a negro in nine hours, and then ;point
out that a deduction had been made to meet the reduced
amount of time. But all that argument about the tariff was a
mere subterfuge, to delude the Government and people at home.
He ( Mr. Scoble) would assert, and he challenged contra-
diction that the planters extorted from the Negro an amount
of labour as great as that he could have exacted from him
under the old system when he was a slave. He had given
proofs in support of that statement before the meeting at
Exeter Hall, and he had given as one argument aa increase
in the amount of the produce. The same argument was
repeated by an Honourable Gentleman in the House of
Commons—it was not contradicted by Mr. Gladstone, but it
was referred to by him, and to what did he attribute it?—To
the influence of genial seasons, not to the tariff of labour
which he (Mr. Scoble) had been describing. The next point
everya
d be
en adult
re
reduced
aboveo
ce d tento Iyoe years old,rere
reference
olOtio
to which lie would refer was food; and any one who would re-
fer to the Orders in Council of the years 1831 and 1832
would find that every slave was entitled to receive 21 pints of
pints (half the amount), for every negro under that age.
Cries of s axle.") Ten thousnafioiwdodhfircehteo
thtielyeßut if they referredfor
every tto theers? Guaiana uuani adrei ar
l 2 ordinance,year
s otfhe
age,y w would find,half
while the little modicum of food given to chile
uponwers their withdrawn
pa
renftrs"vlvititihedmi-
farinaceous
yseartis:,row(hAnd
fopoidntsforb
chil-
dren had been tiers thatata:ldlriticauontilgiisteial,ltittnehieadoenodruje:Lt
(s x
to introduce a class of individuals
11-esources, and diminished supply of food,
a
He would
could supply their wants. here observe, that an at-
tempt Demerara, in e. a, in order to bring down the
and except. u_p_goeithaenSaabbreadtluicteheythheadsunpopldyayoof
called Hill Coolies into
price of wages
The planter, it appeared, had coolly had a cal-
negro.
that twonence-worth of rice '
culation made
day, will supply a
Hill Cooley and per then, when his labour
into the market in competition with the negro, it
was brought
would be argued that the
.same quantity
was now making
must supply the ne-
Vas it possible. he would ask, that a man pos-
sessinggroes' wants.
\ wealth and great influence should use that wealth
vast
d that influence for the purpose of oppressing his fellfellow-
creaturesturfellow-
creaturesLoud cheers)—and especially against that
class of
his fellow-creatures, from whom for years past
wrung a considerable portion of their splen-
they have
did revenues, without giving them just wages in re-
turn for their labour.—(Renewed cheering.) A slave
family of five persons was entitled to receive seventy-two pints
of farinaceous food weekly. An apprentice family was en-
titled to receive the same number, but only thirty-five pints
if they had one free child, and only thirty if they had two
free children, and that was the modicum to be given to the
apprentices, and such was the change from slavery to free-
dom. But was that the freedom they had purchased
with their gold ?—( Loud and general cries of " No, no.")
was that the freedein they had purchased with two tons of
solid gold ?—( A voice in the crowd, " Mr. 111`Neil wanted to
repress all that.") He ( Mr. Scoble) felt perfectly satisfied
that the individual who had made the observation did not
know Mr. M`Neil—( Cheers)—and it would be found that
Mr. M•Neil would support him, for lie was attacking the
system and not individuals.—( Cheers.) Well, there was
another great and good criterion by which they might
ascertain the true character of the apprenticeship system,
He had adverted to the sublect of labour, and also to the sub-
ject of provisions, and he would now glance at the subject of
punishments. All persona must be aware that the statements
of Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons bad a considerable
effect upon the minds of Hon. Members. Did not Mr. Glad-
stone make it appear that punishments had dwindled down to
nothing ?—was he not cheered to the very echo?—and was
not there at the conclusion a cry of "Divide, divide
( these, hear, hear.) But if Honourable Members had
consulted the blue books on their table, or a little pamphlet
that had been compiled for the purpose of reference, they
would find that the punishments in British Guaiana exceeded
those in Jamaica nearly 11 per cent. Here was a fact, then,
which could not be' contradicted —( Cheers.) It would bo
remembered that Mr. Gladstone had referred to the testimony of
speci ,1 justices. He said, I will turn from anonymous slan-
derers to the testimony of special justises." Ile'( Mr Scoble) had
done the same thing, and he had brought out the fact, that
undrr the mild sway of the mildest Governor in British
Guaiana, the amount of punishments inflicted upon the unfor-
tunate negro, taking into account the relative amount of
population, exceeded those of Jameica by nearly 11 per
cent. Great efforts bed been made while Dr. Lloyd and
himself were there to reduce thp assount of punishments.
an I they were col siderably reduced.—( Hear, hear, hear.)
A circular had been sent round six weeks after his arrival,
dire..ting that the lash should not be applied, except in cases
svldch were to be submitted to the Governor for his approval.
The consequence was that corporal punishments were reduced