The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1857-07-10

THE SCHEME OF FREE NEGRO EMIGRATION FROM
AFRIcA.-The project Of establishing on large
scale the emigration of negro apprentices from the
Weet Coast of Africa to the dilapidated colonies
of the West Indies, is awakening spirit of op
position in England An article from the Lon
don Daily Nescs, which we publish in another
column, fully confirms the views we have already
expressed on this new phase of the slave trade.
1t exposes in strong terms the delusion or the i'm
petition of the scheme. Free emigration from
Africa where all labor, with few exceptions, is
slave labor; where for ages man has been the
great representative Of value, the circulating
medium, in fact, of the whole continent and
where there exists no class, besides the Kroomen,
that has exhibited, even temporarily, o DISPOSE.
ton to leave the country, is thing that can
never occur.
Those who are familiar with the emigration
trade as carried on in the crowded ports of
Europe, know full we'll the deception and fraud
that are practised upon the emigrant, and the
stringent laws that have been created there to
protect him. Yet in spite Of all these guards
and restrictive legislation, great abuses are being
constantly committed. What might then be ex.
pected in the distant and barbarous parts oil
Africa, where the Old machinery Of the slave
trade, and the old tastes Of the native chiefs for
it still exist The London Times and Lord Shaftes-
bury's committee both rejoice in the discovery
that slave costs Gl50; while free emigrant
will cost but Ct los. head, aud that slavery
cannot succeed pecunarily against such compe
tition. This is all very we'll; but what becomes
Of free emigration if the emigrants cost
q los. head! That is just about the price that
is paid by the slave dealers now for negroes on
the coast of Africa
We are told by Baron Humboldt that he ha:
heard the West India planters discuss, with the
greatest GOODNESS, the question, whether it was
better for the proprietor not to overwork hi:
slaves, and consequently have to replace them
with less frequency, or whether be should get all
he could out Of them in few years, and then
purchasc newly imported Africans With sys
tenn Of negro apprenticeship for limited term Of
years, such question cannot by any possibility
come up; the employer will undoubtedly get all
! he can out OF them in few years, and With the
limited intelligence Of the negro and the Isolation
OF the sugar plantation, no scheme of Legislation
can be contrivcd to prevent IL. The history oil
the slave trade In Jamaica can give but faint
idea Of the consumption OF negroes that would
take place 10 supply the vastly increr cd con
sumption Of sugar in Europe. Yet We arc told
that Cor more than one hundred years the EGG
lish West India colonies received an average o
twenty thousand Africans yearly, or over two
millions Of negroes, and at the end OF that tim'
had population Of only seven hundred thousand
blacks and mulattoes, free and slave. IL sucl
was the result when the English proprietor had I
life interest in the slave, il s easy TO foresce wba
ii would be when his possessorsbip must exp'r
I within fixed term.