The Sun.
London, England, 1831-10-29 00:00:00

become indifferent to Reform ! Let the Ultras
invent some fresher falsehood—one that will
wear well, and be warranted to keep its colour;
the present is grown threadbare, and is alto-
gether unfit for service.

The report of the Committee on the West
India Trade will be looked for with interest, as
some indication of the course about to be fol.
lowed by Government in regard thereto, though
it is not likely to contain any new information
as to the state of affairs in the islands. At a
moment when we see in the resolutions for-
warded home from almost every island a de-
termined spirit to defend the rights of property,
even at the hazard of separation from the mother
country, it is fitting that the West India ques-
tion should receive both from Government, and
in Parliament, a careful and mature considera-
tion. It is arrived at a crisis of agitation, if
not of violence, which has unhappily been stimu-
lated by the ruinous condition to which the pro-
prietors have been already reduced, and the
absence of any hope in them for better times.
The Committee's inquiries were not intended
to be directed to the slave question, which is
probably unfortunate, as the whole case of the
West Indies requires to be looked into, and in
it slavery is so important a feature. It cannot
be expected that the Anti-Slavery party in this
country will cease from their humane exertions,
for the feeling is assuredly as strong as ever,
and the cry for abolition will, no doubt, be
vigorously renewed, as soon as the excitement of
the Reform Bill shall have ceased, if not sooner.
It is contended by the advocates of abolition, that
scarcely any change has taken place since the pass-
ing of Mr. CANNING'S resolutions in 1823, and
that the condition of the Negro, in most of the
islands, is in substance the same as it was then.
The slave, it is stated, has not yet the enjoy-
ment of the Sunday as a day of rest, and is
obliged, at all events, to market on that day,
having no other assigned him for the purpose.
The use of the cart-whip is still continued as a
stimulant to labour, and there are said to be
many instances of pregnant females being flogged
on the ground. Slave evidence is still rejected
as against a white ; and the Negro is made to
labour under the lash for six days and three
nights in the week, during crop-time, being
about half of the year, whilst his daily food is a
scanty supply of salt fish and vegetables. In
these and other instances, the Colonial Legisla-
tures are charged with persisting in a cruel and
inhuman course of treatment, in defiance of the
express resolutions of the House of Commons
and, after making every allowance for the ex-
aggerations of the Anti-Slavery party, it certainly
does appear that the condition of the Negro in
most of the islands remains so degraded and
unhappy as to be revolting to all benevolent minds.
In regard to one fact mainly relied on by the
opponents of slavery, viz., the rapid decrease of
the Negro population, it would be an ex-
tremely strong one, if it could be satisfac-
torily shewn to have been caused solely by
the system of slavery. We should be very
glad to see it impartially investigated, for we
have seen statements leading to the conclusion
that there are, at least, other causes to which
the decrease may be referable. The Creole
women are said to have always had au objection
to African husbands, though the Creole men
were not scrupulous as to the daughters of
Africa, !so that since the abolition in 1807 the
progress of the African Negroes has been decreas-
ing, for want of the same facilities as when the
shipment of females equalled that of the males.
The Negroes are universally older than the
Creoles, and if' the average age of the Negroes
imported up to 1807 be taken at thirty years of
age, it may easily be conceived that the women
may have then left many children in Africa
where their youth had been spent. It would
appear that few of the African women now
bear children, and that the Creoles are invari-
ably now prolific, owing to the circumstances
before adverted to connected with die abolition
of the slave traffic. Some reason for the de-
cay of population may also be found in the dis-
soluteness of the female slaves, who are re-
marked always to prefer partners on different
estates from their own ; and it has been ascer-
tained that the slaves on estates near towns, or
roadsteads, decrease much more rapidly than
those in remote situations, owing to the greater
facilities for dissolute practices. Possibly, also,
intemperance may have thinned the black, as
well as the white population, which has been in
some cases so greatly reduced, that in the Island
of Nevis, where the whites were 800 in number
in 1824, they are in 1831, only 160, and in
St. Kitt's they have fallen from 1800, to 400,
in the same period. Some remarkable facts of
this kind are mentioned in a late pamphlet, by
CHRISTOPHER CLAXTON, on the " Colonial
Crisis," to which we refer, as worthy of consider-
ation, although experience has convinced us that
few allegations of the partisans of either side of
this question ought to be implicitly relied on.
The example of Hayti is a proof that the
condition of the slave is capable of great prac-
tical improvement, and we are much inclined to
think that Mr. CLARKSON'S suggestion of
taking the codc-rurale of Hayti as a guide, is
in many respects a good one. In Hayti a sort
of metayer system has been established, by
assigning to the black labourers one-fourth of
the crops, and the remaining three-fourths to
the whites, or capitalists. This plan might
possibly form the basis of an arrangement, by
which slave labour might be converted into free
labour, and the slaves be gradually raised to
the happy state of the llaytian peasantry,
who are as well off' as any in the world. It
is full time that something at all events
should be done ; and though we are far from
under-rating the difficulties that lie in the
way, and from under-valuing the claims of the
conflicting interests in the colonies, we cax
scarcely anticipate the possibility of leaving slavery
much longer on its present footing. To both
parties we would warmly recommend modera-
tion and forbearance, but it is to be feared such