The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLOBE.—The promoters of free American
emigration to the West Indies (a topic we treated
generally a few weeks back) are directly at issue
with the Anti• Slavery Society and its tbllowers.
The possible important consequences of the ex-
periment induce us to recur to its consideration,
and endeavour calmly to estimate the value of
the two great objections used against it. These
are reducible to two heads-Ist, that it would be
a revival of virtual slavery under another name ;
2dly, that the emigrated Africans would not
return to their own country. The first is an
assumed case of hardship towards the Afri-
cans themselves. This might take place
m two ways—their being induced to em-
bark from their native shores by violence
or unfair representations, and their being
ill-treated when arrived in our colonies, or de-
nied the means of returning. The responsible
authorities to whose control the obtaining emi-
grant labourers in Africa would be confided,
would afford a strong guarantee against the em-
ployment of crimping, kidnapping, and other
means not unknown in the annals of colonial ad--
ministration ; but a still surer economical check
would seem to exist, in the numbers who are
eager to leave the shore of Africa—for who
would incur the gratuitous infamy of crimping,
when the number of claimants exceeds the
present demand or means of transport? With
respect to the deluding emigrants under unfair
representations, the recent Report of the Colo-
nial Commissioners says, " No person is allowed
to go who has not been a resident in Sierra
Leone six weeks, nor any -child without the
written consent of its parents or guardians, nor
any liberated African without the like consent of
the Government superintendent. Their adequate
comfbrts on the voyage are also provided for by
the Passengers Act. There remains their con-
dition when arrived in our colonies. Here again
the economic state of the West Indian colonies,
to which emigration will be chiefly directed, seems
to ensure good treatment and abundant wages.
Their arrival will be a boon to the planters, suf-
fering under scarcity of labour; they will compete
with an inadequate number of emancipated negroes
now receiving more than an adequate remunera-
tion, and consequently unwilling to labour for more
than a limited period. No case can be more pro-
mising for good treatment and fair remuneration,
unless the supply of emigrants should increase so
as to cause a redundancy, which would of course
call for an administrative check to further emi-
gration, such as has lately been applied to New
South Wales. Neither could they be oppressed
in the colonies in 'defiance of the laws, under
whose full protection they would be placed; and
a free passage back, atter a certain period, com-
pletes the guarantees for the welfare of the Afri-
can. But suppose, 2dly, they are not willing to
return. We will assume this; but still the great
economic question of
.qupplying labour where
urgently wanted remains untouched ; there
remains, too, uninjured, the less probable perhaps,
but still grander, result of underselling .slave
labour by free. All that would have to be given
up would be the regenerating Africa by a con-
stant reflux of civilised labourers. This would
be a great drawback doubtless, but still how
much might be gained 1 But,the weight of tes-
timony and evidence is on the other side. From
those who have studied the character of the
natives, it appears that the desire to return and
permanently settle in their native land is com-
mon to them along with most other nations; and
this tendency would be naturally increased by
acquisition of capital, civilization, and intelli-
gence. But facts speak more distinctly, and,
small as has been the number who have crossed
the Atlantic, there Las already been a re-emigFa-
tion to Sierra Leone.
STANDARD.—We must once more recal
attention to the real state of the question which
was the subject of the late negotiations with
America. This is the more necessary, because
the real state of the question has been carefully
concealed by the Opposition journals; and it is
not likely to occur to those who are familiar
only with such negotiations as have generally
occupied diplomatists. Now, the usual subjects
of diplomatic arrangement relate to a status quo.
A. has that, and claims to have it of right, which
B. claims also upon a plea of right. It in such a
negotiation A. surrenders anything without an
equivalent, he confesses that he has been a
wrong doer, or that lie is too weak and spirit-
less to assert his right. Such are the usual
cases of diplomacy, and as such the op-
position journals affect to treat the case
of the late arrangement with America: but the
state of the question between us and the
United States was wholly different. In this there
was no status quo; the subject of negotiation
was, and had for ever been, a matter left uncer-
tain by agreement. Great Britain or the United
States might, therefore, have freely surrendered
the whole without the slightest compromise of
honour. As to the sacrifice of interest, whoever
looks at the map of our American possessions,
inhabited and uninhabited, explored or unex-
plored, named and unnamed, must see that the
greater the amount of the forests of the disputed
territory (we believe that it has not yet got a
name) we should obtain, the greater would be
our loss, because the more extensive, the weaker,
and the more distant from resources would
be our frontier, the security of our com-
munication with Canada the only con-
sideration that makes an acre of the dis-
puted, or rather undetermined territory
worth accepting. The question of honour
had been settled (if such a question could exist
iu such a case) by the King of the Netherlands—
the question of interest is apparent from the map.
But Lord Ashburton put forward claimsi upon
which he did not ultimately insist. 10 be sure
he did. Does not the very essence of an un-
determined question require that every imagin-
able claim he advanced on both sides by those
who are appointed to adjust it? Is it not thus
that men settle accounts ? Could they ever
settle an account if; instead of setting down
to present and balance all imaginable claims,
each should draw up a balance sheet
upon his own views, and then insist that
the sum at foot must be admitted as the
sum due ? And why are negotiations called
by - the name, if not because iu this re-
spect diplomatists are to imitate the practice
of merchants and accountants? For the rest, it
is surely unjust to charge Lord Ashburton with
failure, because, though he has succeeded in all
the principal objects of his mission, he has not
rendered impossible the arising of new causes of
quarrel with the citizens of the United States—
all omission gravely charged against his
Lord-.
Lord-
ship. Lord Ashburton was not the Minister of
the United States, but of Great Britain; ariti all
that, as such, he could effect was this—that no
ease of quarrel should arise that would not put
the Republic in the wrong. This lie has dune,
and we suspect were he the dictator of the Union
he could not do more, as the conduct of the
Sympathisers seems sufficiently to prove.

A letter forwarded to us by our correspondent at
Malta professes to give most welcome news from our
army in Affghanistan. We publish this extract in
the very words in which it has reached us, but with-
out in any degree pledging ourselves for the cornet-
ness of a statement given, not on the authority of our
own correspondent, but by him from a respectable re-
sident at Beyrout, who had received it in a letter from
Bagdad. 'lle following is the extract:—" General
Pollock has reached Caubul, and the Affghans have
succumbed."—Times.
mbed."—
'The co:n averages for this week do not differ ma-
teriallrfrom those-of last-week; the import duty on
. 4
wheat remains at 1&s. per quarter.