Arkansas true Democrat., 1858-02-02
From the London Times of Dec. l9. Revival of the Slave Trade in the British
 Colonies

From the London Times of Dec. 19. Revival of the Slave Trade in the British
 Colonies.
 Never was the prospect of emancipation more | distant than that foreign siave-owners are | establishing a monopoly of all the great staples | of tropical produce. The islands which in the | old times supplied so much sugar. coffee and | cotton are going out of cultivation, while Cuba, | the United States, and Brazil are every day ex- tending the area of their cultivation and the number of their slaves. So valuable, indeed, is the slave in Cuba that in spite of treaties and penal laws, cruisers and blockades, thousand of Africans are yearly carried across the Atlantic to work on the sugar and tobacco plantations. The wealth of the island is such that in spite of misgovernment oppressive taxes, and Spanish army of 25,0OO men, its proprietors are among the richest Ill the world. As to the Unl- ted States, 1t is indeed folly to expect any change in that quarter. Slavery on the North American continent has extended, is extending, will extend As long as the supplies of cotton are below the demand in all the markets of the world, so long will slave labor be too valuable to be parted with Even the northern slave States which but few years ago were discussing the gradual abandonment of the system, are now silent about abolition, immediate or prospective. Their slaves at present d great, perhaps their greatest source of wealth If they can not cultivate their own lands they breed ne- groes to supply the new plantations in the south. It may be declared that the attacks of abolltl- onists and the interference of the north are the cause of this determination to uphold slavery; but no sensible man will believe that mere irri- tation and obstinacy could lead to such great results The existence of slavery is an eco- nomical question, and so long the system is profitable we cannot doubt that it will be main Munb tho he said with spect to Brazil, where the institution prevails with features of cruelty unknown even in the | worst of times under English rule.
 Now to these countries we have given a monopoly of products which are the chief basis | of our industry or among the chief sources of our revenue. They are becoming rich, power ful, arrogant, every day less inclined to be | guided by English counsels or moved by Eng | fish interference With all the readiness which | self-interest induces they have learnt the argu- ments against limiting slavery and slave i'm portation, from our. mishaps, our acknowledg ments of failure, from their own prosr rerity, and from our dependence upon them. They have the law of nations on their side and may quote it in answer to any assertion of our rights to in- terfere in the cause of humanity. They are free nations, and Africa is a free coast. Negroes are necessary to raise the cotton, sugar coffee
  man cannot work under tropical sun and un- less the African be used as a laborer the fairest regions of the New World must remain desert In fine, negroes must be had at any cost, and no nation has right to impose its own scrupulOsi- | tv on other free communities. If England has ruined her own colonies that IS no reason why she should seek to check the progress of the | whole American continent. Such Is the kind | of reasoning which is becoming more and more common every day; and we may depend upon ! 1t that in some tom or under some preteXt the | slaveowners of the other hemisphere will again attempt to obtain supply of negroes from the coast of Africa. The recent importation into the French colonies has naturally reused their attentlOn and 1t is no wonder that we hear 1t asked why few cargOes at such " "emigrants" could not be brought to New Orleans or Savan- nah, there to be settled according to the do- mestic institutions of the State With this re- newed vitality of slavery, owing to the rap dly increasing value ol the slave, we have now to | deal
 And it Is not by preaching or protesting, or threatening or denouncing, that the objects of humanity can be attained. The last generation were content to be merely destructIveS; they | broke down the slave system in the West Indies | without attempting to replace it by better, | and the consequence has been the mulhpica- ton of the former evils, and deepening of the guilt, in which we indirectly participate as consumers of the slave-raised produce After 20 years experience we are now called upon to provide a remedy. On all sides we hear the same cry,-the colonies are perishng for want of sufficient labor. By additional supplies alone the principle of free labor in the tropics be vindicated and a real blow struck at the iniqulIies against which we have 50 long acclaimed.
 There can be no doubt that slavery will once more gain the ascendant unless we carry out a plan of free labor. Our colonies in the west are the field for such a scheme, our empire in the east may furnish the laborers and the new hold we shall have on Asia will give facilities for doing what we wish. Whether we should send mutinouS Sepoys across the water is a matter hardly yet ripe for decision; but think, if they are to be transported anywhere they may as well people Trinidad as the Andamans or any Asatc island. But 1t is evident that the whole question of West Indian cultivation mus now be examined, and with such colonies as Jamaica, Trinidad, and Guiana, there is no reason why we should not show that the culture of the tropics by free labor is not the impossi- bility which the Partisans of slavery represent.