The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-05-01 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Zibrrpool

FRIDAY MORNING, MAY 1, 1840,

"We are quite ready to give to the Quakers any
credit they can fairly claim for their past efforts in
the cause of negro emancipation. 'We admit the
indefatigable zeal with which they have worked, and
the liberality with which they have contributed funds
in aid of that cause ; but we can neither allow
them that pre-eminent merit for their past efforts
which the Morning Herald assigns to them, nor admit
that the course which they are now pursuing in con-
nexion with the Anti-Slavery Society is one which is
consistent with their claim to be regarded as the ex-
clusive friends of the negro.
We entertain ourselves, against slavery in every fOrm,
as strong a feeling as any one. We would not tolerate
its existence in any part of the British possessions,
and should gladly witness its abolition throughout the
world. Undoubtedly the day will arrive when this
happy consummation shall be accomplished—when
the tread of a slave shall not be allowed to pollute the
earth, or the clank of a fetter to mock the free breath
of heaven, " from Indus to the pole." But that the
course which the Anti-Slavery Society are pursuing is
calculated to hasten the arrival of such a period, we
most emphatically deny. On the contrary, we know
that slavery, in all its most aggravated features, is in-
creasing at the present moment, and will continue to
increase, so long as England, led by the restless agita-
tion of mock philanthropists, is willing to feed it from
her own hands, by allowing to be wrested from her
the only power which she ever, possessed, or ever can
possess, of putting an end to its horrors,—viz., the
power of competing successfully with the foreign
slave-owner, and of driving his blood-stained com-
modities from the market, with the produce raised
by free labour in our own colonies. We believe
that the present Anti-Slavery Society are inflic

ing, by the course of agitation which they still keep
up against our colonial interests, a deep and fa'-al
wound upon those principles of true humanity of
which they assume to be the sole guardians; and,
having convinced ourselves of this fact, we certainly

:eel, like our contemporaries, disposed to call things by
;heir proper names, even at the risk of occasionally

offending by our plain speaking.
The real fact of the matter is, that a great
number of pretenders to superior sanctity have for
the last half-century existed upon the
.question of
negro emancipation. The .sufferings, real and ideal,
of the black population of our West India colonies,
has furnished, as our Manchester friends would say,
both the warp and the weft of the stuff of which these
saints are woven. From the sleek and sly member
who pursues the humble occupation of a vender of

tea, coffee, tapes, and tracts, to the demure aristocrat

who carries on the more lucrative pursuits of a banker
or a merchant, the tale of negro sufferings has been a
" stock piece," at the ,production of which the whole
House would dissolve in tears, and an immediate de-

mind be created for pocket-handkerchiefs and free-
labour sugar. At the name of a West India planter
the young 'ramifies would fall into fits, and every
hair upon their well-combed heads stand up, " like
quills upon the fretful porcupine;" whilst at the eupho-
nious cognomen of some woolly-headed African an

affected sympathy would brim their swimming eyes,
and they would paint, in their diseased imaginations,
the poor flat-nosed negro as the embodiment of every
grace and virtue under Heaven—the representative of
those

" Sons of the desert, men whose stately tread
Starts from the dust the sounds of Liberty !"
The abolition of slavery in our colonies has been, in
truth, a heavy blow to these people. The itinerant lec-
turer, who has been wont to elevate his saintly eye-
brows and lengthen his demure chin at the contem-
plation of its horrors, is deprived of a subject upon
which to exhaust his overflowing affection for the
human race. The meek and saintly person, who has
been accustomed to shine forth at the periodical ga-
therings of the society as the very paragon of philan-
thropy, is reduced to the simple condition of a mere
mortal, inflicted with a grievous propensity to disfigure
and deform the person which nature has allotted him,
by the adoption of an uncouth garb and a studied sin-
gularity of speech and manner. The saint, in short,
has become a mere man, and in that position we
would fain allow him to remain.
But we cannot, unfortunately, discover in this
meddling body a disposition to rest contented with
the good work which they have assisted in promoting.
The name and substance of slavery has been banished
from the possessions of Great Britain, but the bitter
feeling, with which they have been accustomed to re-
gard that foul blot upon our national reputation, kp.
pears to have been transferred, from the object which
excited it, to a body of men who, whatever may have
been their past delinquencies, ought certainly now to
be allowed to pursue their avocations without molesta-
tion. The agitators of the anti-slavery party appear
disposed to continue their restless interference until
every vestige of prosperity shall have been driven from
our %Vest Indian possessions, and those mines of Bri-
tish wealth shall be abandoned to sterility and deso-
lation.

We were told, when the emancipation of the slaves
in our colonies was granted, that under a system of
free labour the cultivation of our West Indian islands
could be satisfactorily and profitably carried on. The
planters and owners of those noble possessions con-
ceded more than was even demanded, and, by the
voluntary termination of the apprenticeship system,
entered at once fully and freely into a trial of the
question. They anticipated, what has since been fully
verified by experience, that, from the natural indolence
of the negro race, which generally confines its exer-
tions to the limit of its necessities, the quantity of free
labour which they would be able to command would
he insufficient for the purpose of developing fully the
resources which nature had placed within their reach.
They endeavoured, therefore, to supply the deficiency
by encouraging the voluntary immigration of labourers
from amongst a portion of the degraded popu-
lation of our East Indian possessions ; but here
the senseless outcry of a mock philanthropy was
allowed to prevail with the legislature, and this
mode of procuring a supply of labour was stopped.
Sufficient, however, had been already done to serve,
at least, as an experiment of the value of their project;
and now, when its working has been found to he suc-
cessful, and a disposition has been manifested by Go-
vernment to arrest the gradual decline of our colonial
prosperity, by allowing, under proper regulations, the
adoption of a system of immigration, the outcry of the
enemies of the West Indian interest is again raised,
and every weapon of offence, which the most malig-

" A Friend " wishes us to draw the attention of the public
and of the authorities of the town to the nuisance occa-
sioned by the parading of the tee-totallers, accompanied by
their bands, and surrounded by a set of the worst characters
in town. This annoyance the inhabitants are frequently
subjected to at as late an hour as half-past eleven.
We must apologize to our distant subscribers for not for-
warding the STANDARD to post at the usual hour; but we
felt assured they would prefer receiving a complete ac-
count of the festivities, though a few hours later than what
has been customary. A Stamped Supplement accompanies
the paper, which has enabled us to afford a full list of the
visitors at the Fancy Ball, without curtailing our customary
intelligence, and we have to express our acknowledgments
to those parties who yesterday kindly favoured us with
their names for insertion, which greatly assisted our own
" extraordinary" exertions.

A SUPPLEMENT is publisi►ed with .the LIVERPOOL
STANDARD of this day.