The Sun.
London, England, 1833-12-05 00:00:00

bourer has throughout the year some spare time and some
spare money, which be cannot turn to account. He is
sometimes several days out of employment, and he is some-
times ill and unable to do a full day's work. Now his
spare time and his spare money are very fond of one
another's company; and if either of them be idle, he is
sure to carry his friend off with him to the public-house.
Therefore any plan proposed ought to aim equally at the
time and at the money. This plan does so with the ex-
ception of winter evenings ; but this exception is only in
full force for about three months in the year.
"Much of the evil seems to lie here. Let any one con.
hider the situation of the labourer after his work is over.
Every spot of ground belongs to other people. What is
he to do with himself? Even if he is a bookish man,
which he very seldom is, and can find amusement in that
way, what is he to do with the spare sixpence in his
pocket ? What have his wife and younger children to do
for the greater part of the day ? How is their labour to
be turned to account ? Under the eye of the parents there
is no moral education going on upon the children ; nothing
to open their understandings, to set their minds at work, to
teach them the value of industry and thrift. It never
answers to make any set of men mere machines. If the
labourer is suffered to go from his daily work, like a farm-
horse, with nothing of his own to think about, he will
find amusement for himself in some way or other, and will
fall into bad habits. Addressing, as I do, country people,
I need not enlarge on the evils of the public•house and the
beer- shop, how the habit grows on a man, and how im-
provident he becomes, how the money slides away, and
the family suffer; yet the public-house and the beer shop,
with their beer and their company, offer a very strong
temptation—a temptation, of the force of which a rich
man is perhaps not quite aware, and which we must op-
pose by some very strong motive if we hope for success.
Now here the law, however administered, gives no help ;
and experience proves school education to be quite insuf-
ficient."

The mistake into which the writer has fallen
is that of supposing that there has yet been a
trial of proper school education. It would be
a wonder if the course of instruction usually
pursued in country charity or Sunday schools,
or, indeed, the majority of all schools, did pro-
duce any material benefit. Had the sums which
have been wasted in ill directed and desultory
efforts to diffuse faulty instruction been properly
applied, Mr. CARRINGTON would not now have
to remark that so few agricultural labourers are
" bookish men." When they do become
bookish men, we shill hear of no more midnight
burnings, no more heavy poor rates, no more
arguing that either they or their brethren engaged
in manufactures must starve.

Accounts arrived yesterday from several o
.he West India islands, but the details, not•

withstanding the stir some of the Conservative
prints are endeavouring to make about them,
will excite little interest in this country. That
most worthy of note is from Anligua, the last

date from which place is the 4th November.
It appears that the joint Committee of the
Legislature of Antigua, appointed to consider
the Slave Emancipation Act of the Imperial
Parliament, made a report on the 31st October,
in the shape of a despatch to the Governor, in
order to prevent any delay in the preparation of
one, if the Legislature should agree to this.

Both houses of the Legislature did agree to it
unanimously. One of the most marked features
in it is the opinion it expresses that immediate
emancipation would be better than the appren-
ticeship plan proposed by Mr. STANLEY.
They give the same reasons against the inter-
mediate stage of apprenticeship as were given
by Lord HowicK, and they wish his Excellency
to apply to the Home Government for per-
mission to grant immediate emancipation. They
allege the peculiar fitness of this colony, its full
population, the religious and moral habits of
that population, for such a course. This is
rather inconsistent with the perpetual declara-
tions we have had of the utter inaptitude of the
negroes for immediate freedom. For years have
we been told we must wait longer ; we were told
so even last Session by large men-owners ; so that if
the Government was deceived, if, as is very likely,

those who lived upon stolen goods did not stick
at a lie to preserve those goods, there can now,
that the truth is known, be no difficulty, we
should imagine, in granting the request of the
Antigua people. We see that they besides want
to get rid of the 42per cent. duties, and although
the pretence they set up for it may be ridiculous,
we do not see that there can be any objection to
it, provided a proper reduction be made of the
unjust duty now levied upon East India sugar.
The House of Assembly of Jamaica, on the
17th October, protest against the Bill of the
Imperial Parliament, in order, they say, to shield
themselves from responsibility, but express their
determination to give their best support to such
plans as may be proposed by the Supreme Go-
vernment at home to carry into effect the aboli-
tion of slavery in the colony. Two days before
the House of Assembly of Barbadoes came to
the resolution to suspend all proceedings upon
the subject until they had learned what Jamaica
meant to do.
Before quitting the Antigua document there
is one point in it which we cannot help noticing.
Every one knows that West Indian landed
property has for years been almost as valueless
as English, and that West Indian landowners
are almost as much distressed as the English.
The similitude does not end here, for both en-
deavour to mend their case, not by honest in-
dustry, but by robbing some weak and defenceless
party. We suspect that their dishonesty is one
main cause of the distress they both feel ; but,
strange to say, they both contend that this dis-
honesty is the only thing that enables them to live.
The report of the Committee of the Antigua Le-
gislature speaks of the slave owners as " now but
too sadly depressed by overwhelming difficulties of
all kinds." We are not fond of lightly appealing
to the Deity, but we cannot help declaring that
there are many who would think it an impeach-
ment of GOD'S Providence, if the atrocious
iniquity the West India planters have been seek-
ing to maintain, were visited by any thing else
but distress. Indeed it would be a singular
phenomenon to find a few score of men thriving
and happy by depriving nearly a million of human
beings of the right to their own labour, when all
over the world we find much smaller violations
of the immutable laws of the CREATOR followed
by loss, ruin, and misery. To return to our
comparison of the landed interest of the West
Indies and of England. The Antigua report
says—
Without entering more fully into the painful difficul-
ties which beset the present enactments, we would not,
however, omit to remark that the diminished fertility of
our soil in many districts, and the uncertainty of our
climate everywhere, render the supplies of food for our