The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—We do not think it can fairly be denied that
some measure of consideration is due to an interest which re-
cent legislation has placed iu its present difficulties. We
have no particular tenderness for the West India interest ;
but neither can we allow ourselves to be transported by any
antipathy to it, nor by any exclusive devotion to the single
principle of free trade, to treat that interest with less justice
than should regulate all transactions between man and man.
The only question is, in what shape that justice can be afforded
them ; and it is quite evident it cannot be afforded in the
shape of a perpetual monopoly of their decreasing pro-
ducts. The difficulties of the West India colonies collectively
began with the abolition—not of slavery, but the slave-trade.
Before that epoch, they not only brought large revenues to
our treasury., but large contributions to our trade of export.
There could be no complaint then of monopoly; and there
would be no complaint now, if Demerara had gone
OD driving the slave trade, and bringing under
culture her vast tracts of yet virgin fertility.
This certainly constitutes a case for considerate treat-
ment of that colonial interest, which our own measures
done prevented from continuing to afford large contributions
to our commerce and finance. All that we now seek from
foreign commerce in this article, colonial commerce would
have given u 3; our legislation deprived ourselves of it ; and
the West Indians certainly have some colour for complaining
that their invested capital should be the sole and total sacri-
fice of our scruples ; and that those scruples, having ope-
rated to deprive them of labour, should now be silenced,
in favour of trading with their competitors, whose sole
advantage over them is labour. This certainly seems a hard
case ; and it is a hard case ; but harder still would be the
ease of the people of England, if they must go on, for an in-
definite period, submitting to starved markets of a prime
necessary. Enlightened rulers should have foreseen,
from the very hour of abolishing the slave tilde, the
difficulties and necessities which have come thicken-
ing on us over since. Enlightened slave owners (if
that were not apt to be scarce less than A contradic-
tion in terms) should have foreseen from that very hour, and
should have advanced to meet abolition of slavery. They
should have told the trade-abolishing Government—You
are henceforth responsible for the culture of these colonies.
You are responsible for opening future sources for supply-
ing that labour whose past source you have stopped.
We give up the notion of upholding slavery ; we can
no longer make it productive in the degree which is
necessary for working the resources of these regions. Be-
• aides, we are sure you will put an end to it ; as you have
already put an end to its reinforcement. Give slavery the
coup de grace—take the transition on your shoulders—orga-
nise the regimen you would substitute. Or else, take on
- yourselves the loss of the whole capital sunk in these sugar
colonies ; compensate us, as equity dictates ; look to foreigners
for supplies, and don't look how they raise them. We will
leave the islands and mainlands to the negroes ; and let
them barbarise or civilise on them—as in Hayti. If the
planters had possessed calmness and foresight to impose this
alternative on the home Government, we do not see how
Government could have refused the responsibility, which
really belonged to them, of initiating a new industrial regi-
men—or else confessing they could not do it—which would
have reduced to absurdity the act of abolishing our slave-
trade. For clearly, if that act was to land us in our pre-
- sent necessity of going for supplies (directly or indirectly) to
other slave traders, it must have been worse than useless—
worse than useless by the whole amount of the sunk capital
sacrificed in our West Indies. We do not here take account
of the well-founded abhorrence which led us to abolish
the slave-trade—because, if our West Indians did not
feel that abhorrence, we might have consigned them to
self-government and self-protection,—which they might
have defrayed out of the taxes we levied on
their products,- and which we should have remitted.
It will hardly be said, that if we had had distinct fore-
knowledge that we must needs buy sugar of some slave
dealers, there was common sense in abolishing the trade of
some, to promote that of others. Therefore we say there was
not common sense in our measures of that period. Not that
the slave-trade should have been tolerated under the British
Government, but that the British Government should have
held itself answerable to provide some substitute for its use.
And this responsibility should have been imposed on our
Government by the planters ; and aided by them. Instead of
this, they stiffened themselves against all interference. They
contented themselves with mere resistance to the inevitable
consummation of abolition of slavery. But even the main-
tenance of slavery could not have maintained adequate
powers of production. In Demerara particularly, the slave
population rapidly decreased from the period of slave-trade
abolition. The stoppage of the previous source of supply of
labour caused the over-working of the slaves, and the de-'
crease of their numbers.
STANDARD.—TweIve years ago this country abolished
negro slavery—a great act of justice and of mercy, but an
act which involved a vast present sacrifice, without any
definite prospect of compensation, however distant ; but what
has been the effect ? The first effect, and beyond doubt an
nndesigned one, has been to paralyse completely and for ever
the power of our most formidable western rival, to in-
jure the British empire. The second effect has been to bind
still more closely to the metropolitan state, by the link of
a profitable trade, the vast empire of India. Another effect,
now opening to view, is a like commercial connexion with the
still larger and richer empire of China. This has been the re-
ward of justice to the negro—a reward of any part of which no
one dreamed twelve years ago. Now, however, we are
called upon for another act of justice, or rather to resist
an act of gross injustice. The emancipation of the negro fell
heavily upon his owner ; the loss was in part compensated,
but in part only, by a munificent grant of twenty millions ;
but the injury was of that kind which 100 millions could not
repair. The Emancipation Act did not take away merely
the planter's servant, it took away his estate, and all the capi-
tal sunk upon that estate. Lands cannot be cultivated or
works carried on without labourers, and if you take away the
labourers, you, in effect, take away the lands and the works ;
and less than the fee-simple of the lands and the
whole price of the works will not compensate the owner.
Such has been to a great extent the effect of the Emancipa-
tion Act upon the West India planters. They cannot all
get labourers at any price, and we have heard and
believe that the few who can get them, are often
compelled to pay at the rate of one shilling per
hour. Now, to admit the competition of slave
labour with men so circumstanced must be in-
stant ruin, and even to admit the competition of free
labour of countries less burthened and more populous would
be almost as unjust, yet this is what has been proposed by.
the Anti-Corn-law Leaguers, by Mr. Ewart and Mr. Roe-
buck ; and firmly to resist the propositions of these persons is
the vindication of justice for which the occasion calls. England
is as much bound to protect the West India planters as she
is to protect the natives of Great Britain. It has been
said that the twenty millions was the price of negro emanci-
pation, and that the planters, having had their money, have
no further claim. This is, however, a false view of the trans
action of 1832. That was not a bargain between equals, in
which one could demand and the other pay a price. It
was an arrangement imposed by a strong party upon
a party unable to resist, but which was most de-
sirous to resist ; and the stronger party took upon
itself solely to award the amount of compen-
sation, which therefore can be in no sense regarded
as a price, binding the weaker to any arrangement. The
compensation has proved wholly inadequate to the injury, and
it now reverts to those who inflicted the injury to supply the
deficiency. We have no right to arrogate the praise of abolish-
ing slavery, if we are unwilling to pay the last penny of the
cost. It is idle and fallacious to talk of our twenty millious,
if the cost to the planters has been twice twenty millions
snore. We must not, as the phrase is, " ride to heaven upon
another man's horse." No round sum of money that any one
could dare to name is, inflict, sufficient to compensate the West
India planter. If we are just, we will compensate him by pro-
tecting his industry, the only way in which we can compensate
him. The measure of protection is a question into which we
are not competent to enter. If excessive, it would but serve to
enhance the extravagant rate of wages in the West Indies, as
there the labourers are masters ; if deficient, it would be a fraud,
for an insufficient protection is in fact no protection. What
we contend for is the principle of real protection, and to apply
thi.s principle is, we maintain, necessary to justice. Returning
to the point from which we set out, we hold that in this and
every other case, to "be just and fear not" is the true
wisdom. Let us treat the West Indiana with justice, and
we know from experience that, sooner or later, they
Will repay us tenfold. How, we do not pretend to conjec-
ture. It may be that the islands will, by a multiplication of
the people from natural increase, or by migration from the
neighbouring slave states, or by drafts from civilised Africa,
again exhibit an universal cultivation. Our readers are
aware that we look to the civili‘ation of the west coast of
Africa as the most promising source' of supply, and to
civilise that coast would, like all the works of mercy, be
twice blessed, blessing hint that gives, and him to whom
it is given?'