Chapter VII.
RESPONSIBILITY ATTACHING TO MINISTERS IF THEY ENFORCE COMPULSORY MANUMISSION.
Whoever notices the levity of manner with which this question is treated, would imagine that our constitution had undergone a change, and that His Majesty’s advisers were relieved from responsibility for the acts of the executive. On any occasion it is a rash step to counsel the crown to important measures before a full investigation has been instituted. But when a step is taken so contrary to the laws of the realm, as, by eminent law-authorities, Compulsory Manumission, in regard to mortgaged property, is conceived to be,responsibilityceases to be an idle term, and circumstances may arise from it to disturb the peace of a minister of state much longer than he anticipates.
It can never be too often repeated that, so far as legislation for the negroes is concerned, what is once done is irrevocable. In other public measures, an opportunity is afforded to a minister, when he makes a false step, to change his policy by a dexterous manœuvre. But no such resource being afforded in the West India Question, we should conclude that more cautious deliberation would inthe first instance be exercised, and that afull examinationwould take place before excitement was created by announcing even the heads of a new measure. The proceedings hitherto have been on a principle directly opposite. While the Irish Question remains undecided, though more than a generation has passed by since it commenced; and while the Corn Question has stood over until argument on the subject is exhausted: In the West India Question—where, wrong measures being once taken, all remedy is hopeless—the parties whose whole property is at stake cannot be allowed more than the lapse of a few weeks, to put on record all their objections to the most essential innovations.
This presents an anomaly in the history of public measures, and it can only be accounted for by supposing that ministers, amid their many duties, have completely undervalued the importance of the measure now pending. This conclusion is confirmed by what is understood to be their language to independent members of the legislature whose suffrage they solicit in future discussion. They say the principal opposition of the West Indians is no more than idle and transient clamour. It is merely of a piece with what has been always witnessed. When the abolition of the slave-trade was under discussion, did we not hear the cry, that our ancient colonies would be ruined? That greatmeasure was carried, yet no ruin ensued. When the Registry Bill was brought in, had we not a similar clamour, that the most dangerous excitement among the slaves would be the consequence? That point, too, was carried; yet no such direful evils attended it. Again, when the recent Amelioration Clauses were proposed, how furious was the opposition in the colonies,—the proprietors there were to be utterly ruined. Many of these clauses have since been enacted, even where opposition was strongest at the first, and yet no injury or change has taken place! What is the inference in regard to compulsory manumission? We have strenuous opposition at present, it is true; but when the measure is once carried, that will soon subside, and all the frightful features of danger which have alarmed the colonists will turn out to be mere phantoms of the imagination.
Now, in answer, may we not allege, in the first place, that the objections urged against those former measures were not groundless. Our abolition of the slave-trade, without securing the effectual concurrence of foreign powers in a similar act, has transferred from British to foreign colonies the principal supply of Europe with sugar, and without the smallest benefit to Africa. The Registry Bills are an enormous tax on our impoverished colonies, and it is not to them we owe the extinction of our colonial slave-trade. Of our recent AmeliorationClauses, the effect in diminishing production is as yet more certain than that of increased benefit to the negro-population.
In the second place, may we not pronounce that the case we are now submitting is very different from any of those cited?
But in this age of superficiality, where all laborious investigation seems exploded, and when a well-turned period of declamation in Parliament sways the nation, let us take another mode of pointing out the difference of this case.
In those important measures which were passed some time back, the Government carried a great number of colonial proprietors living in this country along with them. How different, then, onprimâ facieevidence, must be the nature and bearings of the measure now proposed, when colonial proprietors, who have always acted with ministers, are constrained, as a solemn duty in defence of their properties and of their families, to oppose it strenuously! It is evident, that to occasion such a feeling, there must be something in the measure alarmingly important, and demanding the most cautious scrutiny.
In former times, the letters sent out by colonial proprietors in England to their friends in the colonies impressed upon the latter, to do all that they were able, to silence clamour in England; but with regard to compulsory manumission, the lesser evil ischosen, and the admonition is, “Beware of passing this measure, and thus committing yourselves by your own act.Throw all the responsibility upon ministers, that you may hereafter have full claims for indemnification.”
The question then resolves itself into this,—Are ministers, considering the situation in which they are placed, and having a due regard to their own fame, prepared to take this responsibility upon themselves? Do they rely upon the passing opinions of the day for their support? Lord Bathurst says, in his despatches, that the colonial legislature “may be assured, that from the final accomplishment of this object this country will not be diverted.”
Now it may be true that, with the unthinking populace, the extinction of slavery is desired; but what practical statesman would take this vague expression of feeling for his guide? It may safely be affirmed, that the intelligent portion of the community are aware of the difficulties, and expect from Government, not what is theoretically to be desired, but what is practically and wisely attainable. They are not prepared to lose our West India colonies, which are believed to contribute largely to the prosperity and strength of the kingdom; nor are they at all disposed to inflict injustice upon their fellow-subjects, knowing well, that whatever odium may now attach to the colonial proprietor,the charge of having countenanced slavery is one which he shares with the whole British nation.
But it ought further to be known, and well reflected on by His Majesty’s ministers, that humane and enlightened individuals, not anxious for the political so much as the moral grandeur of the country, who waive every notion of expediency, and consider the cause of humanity as paramount, are beginning to entertain doubts as to the wisdom of the proceedings of Government.
This is not vague opinion, but is founded on weighty reasons.
First: That it is the object of British humanity to exalt the entire African race, and to accomplish it as a matter of genuine philanthropy in the most general and efficient manner.
It appears by parliamentary documents, that as cultivation, during some years past, has decreased in the British colonies, precisely in the same degree has the slave-trade of foreigners increased.
To ruin or deteriorate the British colonies is thus to encourage the horrors of the slave-trade, and to increase the sum of African suffering.
Therefore, it being the object of the British nation to abridge that suffering, and not to make a mere display of sensibility, if the proposed measures can be proved to be destructive of cultivation in the British colonies, their spirit must be pronouncedto be contrary to the sentiments of the country.
And,Secondly: That having long since committed the crime of transporting the negroes to our West India colonies, it is expected by the British nation, that the welfare of future generations will be contemplated; and that, hereafter, a black society may be witnessed, possessing in itself the attributes, moral, intellectual, and political, of a civilized people.
So strongly does this sentiment pervade the nation, that it is common to hear the inquiry—“What are the negroes to do when free?” implying the belief that rash interference may have proceeded far to accomplish the object, but that judicious legislation has stopped short on the threshold.
If we were to make an appeal to Lord Bathurst, and to all who have taken an active part in the promotion of compulsory manumission, must they not acknowledge, that since the agitation of the subject in 1823, a considerable and perceptible change has taken place in public opinion, in consequence of the inquiry relative to free labour; and that the idea of having a free negro-peasantry labouring under a tropical climate for hire is impracticable and hopeless.
Does not, then, the whole question depend on free labour?
We cannot but infer, that when the relations and consequences of granting freedom to the negroes by compulsion are fully understood in all their widely-spreading effects, the opinion of the country will be as strongly expressed in reprobation, as Earl Bathurst pronounces it at present to be in approbation of the speedy adoption of the measure.
Without any disrespect it may be stated, that some of our ministers, who are upborne by the current of public applause, have had sufficient experience of the fickleness of popularity. Let us recall to mind the wise precept of Mr. Canning in 1819—“Speak not thewillof the populace, but consult theirbenefit.”
We appeal to each member of parliament to further this counsel. The question of negro-emancipationis virtually before them. It is conceived, by all those whose properties are at stake, to be presented in its most objectionable form, and they unanimously oppose it. Before deciding on the subject, let every member reflect on the sentiments of two of our greatest statesmen.
Mr. Pitt, in every discussion in which negro-emancipation was agitated, pronounced, that it was an act which must “flow from the master alone.”
When that presiding genius of the country’s commercial greatness was no more—when Mr. Fox had coalesced with Lord Grenville,—and above all, when the whole anti-colonial party, with Mr. Wilberforceat its head, had joined his ranks, Mr. Fox, in the full tide of his popularity and his power, declared—
“That the idea of an act of parliament to emancipate the slaves in the West Indies,without the consent and concurrent feeling of all parties concerned,BOTH IN THIS COUNTRY AND IN THAT, would not only be mischievous in its consequences, but totally extravagant in its conception, as well as impracticable in its execution.”
THE END.