On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship/Appendix

by William Ewart Gladstone

APPENDIX.

A.

In justification of what was said in the speech, I subjoin larger extracts from Mr. Buxton's letter, dated Northrepps Hall, Nov. 3, 1837, most earnestly recommending the perusal of the whole document.

"I am not convinced of the propriety of making a grand effort for procuring the abolition of the apprenticeship in 1838. It seems to me an improbability of the highest order that we should succeed in such an attempt. What is our present situation? A contract sanctioned by the legislature exists—loe maintain that its conditions have been violated, and that therefore it ought to cease.

"Upon this matter of fact we are at issue with the West Indians, and it can hardly be expected that Parliament will pronounce its verdict until our evidence has been stated in detail, and the apprentice-holders have been heard in reply. I observe that some of our excellent and zealous friends have expressed an invincible aversion to parliamentary committees. But I cannot suppose that Parliament will decide so grave a question, and dissolve an existing contract of its own making, without inquiry; and an inquiry in this case implies a parliamentary committee. I take it then for granted that to an investigation before Parliament we must go.

*******

"I have supposed that you will get committees to investigate the question, whether the contract has not been virtually dissolved hy the misconduct of the planters. That I am persuaded you will never do. I am utterly deceived if you find a hundred men in either house who will vote even for inquiring whether the apprenticeship ought to be abolished. With these views, I venture to pronounce our failure to he certain, if we emhark in the attempt 'to secure entire freedom to the negroes in 1838.'"

Mr. Buxton proceeds to mention,

1. The emancipation of the non-prædials in 1838. Of this he says with truth and force,—

"Without exposing ourselves to the charge of endeavouring to break faith y or violate the contract, we might with irresistible force demand that this part of the bargain shall be carried into execution."

2. Negro education.

3. Entire freedom after 1st August, 1840.

He resumes, and says,—

"I submit, then, whether it would not be better to attempt the great and practical measures to which I have alluded, than to introduce a topic which, besides failing of any beneficial effect, will divert the attention of Parliament from measures which involve no violation of principle, are in unison with the act abolishing slavery, and would prove, if carried, of incalculable benefit to the negro.

"Another consideration has great weight with me. It is said there is danger of tumult in the West Indies when the period arrives for the emancipation of the non-prædials. If the negroes learn that their friends in England are making a mighty effort for the abolition of the apprenticeship, they will naturally anticipate success; and their disappointment will be deplorable, and their excitement dangerous, when they learn that the hopes, in which they have been taught to indulge so confidently, have not been realised. Anything like tumult would he laid hold of by our opponents in the West Indies; dreadful punishments would be inflicted; and the very disturbance would be construed into an argument for some restrictions upon their future liberty. I cannot think that we should be justified in exciting hopes which must prove fallacious.

I have thus placed before you my views upon the present crisis."

I take my extracts from the "Patriot" newspaper of Thursday, Nov. 16.

B.

Lord Stanley, July 24, 1833.

(Mirror, 3301.)

"I distinctly stated when 1 introduced the measure, and I do not hesitate to avow it now, that I consider the period of apprenticeship to he part of the compensation to be paid the proprietor."

Mr. Fryer—"Why are we to pay anything?"

Lord Stanley,—"The honourable gentleman asks me a very short and a very pithy question. 'Why are we to pay anything?' My answer is, because the principles of justice require that we should not take away a man's property without remunerating him for it."

Extract from a despatch of Lord Glenelg to the Marquis of Sligo, dated Downing Street, 31 March, 1836; and by' the latter communicated to the House of Assembly of Jamaica on the 24th May.

"The abolition of slavery, and the subordinate measures required to render it effectual, present a course of events altogether peculiar and anomalous.

That great act was nothing less than a national compact, of which Parliament was at once the author and the guarantee. Binding the people of the United Kingdom to the payment of a grant of unequalled magnitude, it also bound the emancipated slaves to contribute compulsory labour for several successive years, while it imposed upon the Assemblies the obligation of reconciling by proper laws the duties of the negro population, as apprenticed labourers, with their rights as free men.

On the part of the British treasury, as on that of the emancipated slaves, the agreement has been carried into complete execution.

"It follows, Parliament is therefore at once entitled and bound to enforce by its power the performance of any part of the duty of the Assembly of Jamaica towards the apprenticed labourers which that body may themselves have failed to fulfil."

C.

Report of 1836.

1. Question 5397. Mr. Jones paid about 88l. sterling for extra labour, or, according to question 5378, 128l.: he had 400 apprentices: his cultivation fell off by one-third. The interest on his whole compensation money at four per cent, would be from 310l. to 320l.

2. Question 3556. Mr. Miller paid about 150l. sterling for extra labour. Had 320 apprentices. Interest on the whole compensation money would be about 256l. His crop fell off by one tenth.

3. Question 4581, 4820, 4888, 4902. Mr. Oldham had under 4,000 apprentices. He had paid 7,000l. currency, or about 4,500l. sterling, in a year, for extra labour. He kept up his crops. But the interest of the whole compensation money would be, at four per cent., little over 3,000l. sterling.

4. Question 5037 et seq. Mr. Shirley paid the whole interest of the compensation money, and made the same crops. To charge the old colonial interest of six per cent, would of course change the aspect of these calculations; but what planter could now command such an investment on adequate security? It seems certainly not too much to say, that one half of the compensation money must be regarded as given for the time of the free children in 1834, and that of the adults from 1840. The apprenticeship in this view should, strictly speaking, be credited only with one moiety of the interest, and the remainder should be regarded as an accumulating fund, to meet the increased expenses of the approaching period of absolute freedom.

D.

In order to complete that part of the argument which regards the account between the State of Great Britain and the planters, it is highly requisite to take into view such probable evidence as is already within our reach, having reference to that, now not distant, period, when the emancipation will be brought finally to the test of experience.

There are two questions for consideration: the first whether the negroes will be willing to work habitually, continuously, and generally, in West Indian agriculture: the second, whether the planters will be able to pay them such wages as, supposing there is a degree of inducement which would suffice, will lead them to continue the present cultivation.

As regards the first, the balance of probabilities, however subject to doubt, appears to be in its favour. The circumstances which throw uncertainty upon it are, in some but I trust few cases, the want of good feeling between the labouring class and those set over them; the progress of the free children towards maturity without their being trained to industrial pursuits, or, in a considerable number of instances, by any religious education; the facility with which it is likely they may be able to obtain patches, or what have been called pocket-handkerchiefs, of land; and the fact that the manumitted field-labourers do not return to that employment after emancipation in the apprentice colonies.

But, upon the other hand, their abandonment of that occupation may be owing to the demi-servile associations which attend it: while apprenticed, they appear always willing to work in their extra time, and commonly for wages at field or manufacturing labour; and although the cases of Bermuda and the Bahamas are quite irrelevant, there is also some encouragement in the case of Antigua.

That island^[1] differs from nearly all the other West Indian colonies in the cheapness of labour, the comparatively high cost of maintenance, which is by imported food, the general appropriation of the available land, a larger portion of resident proprietors, a population whose spiritual interests have been more extensively cultivated, and in the absence of religious discord.

Still, had there been that general and invincible repugnance to field labour on the part of the negro which was once presumed, would not the emancipation have been followed by a systematic and determined strike, and that, in turn, by a disposition on the part of the poorer proprietors to break up their lands into small allotments, as has, I understand, been the case to some extent in Jamaica?

It is difficult to say whether or how far the decline in the crops of Antigua is chargeable upon the abolition of coerced labour.

The second question is more formidable. The East Indian competition must, one should suppose, now that the duties are equalized, be found to exercise a most depressing influence, within no very long period of time, on the prosperity of the West Indian colonies, as countries exporting sugar. It does not appear how the prices at which Bengal can supply our market, will suffer the West Indian planter to offer such wages to the negroes, then a free peasantry, as should divert them from their plots of ground to a more steady and laborious cultivation, however far it may be from real severity of toil, and however he may be aided by the plough, and by rattooning, and by that great reduction in the expenditure connected with the management of estates which will probably attend the increased need of economy.

The importations from the East Indies have been as follows during the years which have followed the passing of the Abolition Act:—

1834	4,800 tons
1835	5,500 tons
1836	7,800 tons
1837	17,000 tons.

E.

On Mr. Sturge's retention of the statements which he had obtained in Jamaica, Lord Glenelg thus writes to Sir Lionel Smith, in a despatch dated 1st February, 1838, and to be found at page 264 of the Papers, Part V.

"I confess I deeply regret that the circumstances which have led to the present inquiry, instead of having been brought under the notice of her Majesty's government for the first time in a pamphlet printed and circulated in this country, were not fully stated to you in Jamaica when they first came to the knowledge of the parties, through whom they have at last happily transpired. Had this course been adopted, the dismissal of Mr. Rawlinson would have taken place at a much earlier period, and the authentic statement of the written disclosures, contained in the evidence now before me, would long since have supplied a motive and laid a foundation for a more complete remedy than it has yet been in the power of the government to provide against the recurrence of such enormous abuses."

And Sir Lionel Smith writes, dating 16 July, 1837, (see p. 271 of the same papers,)

"It would be puerile in me to complain of the want of personal courtesy in Joseph Sturge, but I do complain of his want of confidence in me to put him in the way of the best information.

"I should have felt obliged to Joseph Sturge if he had told me of any abuses he had discovered in our system towards the apprentices."

F.

In illustration of the natural liability of all ex parte statements to the grossest exaggerations, I cannot avoid quoting the following passage from the Times of Feb. 27.

"Lord Brougham was certain, that if he had found amongst the records of cruelty in the colonies a passage like the present—if he had found that children of four, five, and seven years of age, answering to six, seven, and nine in this cold climate, had been sentenced to years of solitary confinement, under the authority of a colonial secretary, or under the authority of those appointed by and responsible to him—if he had found that children of those tender years had been shut up for months and years in solitude, he could not have found a climax more appropriate for his closing appeal, in the narration of cruelty which he had given to the House; but there was nothing so bad as the present case in the records of West India Slavery."

This referred to three female children in Milbank Penitentiary. I had seen them within a day or two of the speech, cheerful, well behaved, remarkably healthy in appearance, and without the slightest disposition to complain. A Committee of the House of Lords has since investigated the allegations, and found them wholly destitute of truth. But if fiction can grow into such magnitude in traversing the short mile which separates the Penitentiary from the Houses of Parliament, how can ex parte statements imported from the West Indies be received without hesitation, or acted upon by conscientious persons without inquiry?

APPENDIX G.

The return in my possession (from Messrs Corrie & Co. Mincing Lane) is as follows:

DEMERARA.				BERBICE.
Year.	Great Britain.	Ireland.	Total.	Year.	Great Britain.	Ireland.	Total.
1832	30,060	2,760	36,820	1832	6,870		6,870
1833	34,850	2,650	37,700	1833	4,670	410	5,080
1834	30,510	3,850	34,360	1834	4,200	340	4,540
1835	34,260	3,750	38,010	1835	6,300	20	6,320
1836	38,520	4,680	43,200	1836	10,260	420	10,680
1837	33,600			1837	7,800

It will be perceived that I have not got the Irish return for 1837. I assume it to bear the same proportion as the British to that of 1836. This will give about 4,000 tons for Demerara, and 325 tons for Berbice.

1832—4	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	From Demerara	108,880	tons.
		From Berbice	16,490
			3) 125,370
			41,790	tons.
1835—7	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	From Demerara	118,810	tons.
		From Berbice	25,125
			3) 143,935
			47,978	tons.

K.

I had wished to call the attention of the House to the apparent fact, that however unsatisfactory our West Indian history, and under all present disadvantages, still the relations between whites and blacks in those colonies seem less incapable of permanent rectification than those between the analogous classes in the United States, or in other colonies of European nations, or even than those which exist between our own colonists and the respective aborigines in some other quarters.

Utterly denying that intellectual culture and civilised habits will ensure the permanent elevation and happiness of men, I yet believe that all his faculties are meant to be developed in unison for his perfect well-being; and looking to such information as we have respecting Saint Domingo or Hayti, and Liberia, I think it is not too much to say, that the social fusion of the two races is of the highest importance in the case before us.

It is clear that a milder and more christian sentiment begins to prevail among the dominant class. The late Mr. Froude observes early in the year 1834, that the general body of the planters had "eaten dirt,"^[2] admitted the time for emancipation to be come, and no longer protested against the imputations thrown upon the state of slavery. And again, in the island of Barbadoes, Mr. Hart, a Missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, became unpopular and was complained of, some ten years back, for admitting a black to the Holy Communion in company with whites. But writes Mr. Froude in January 1834,^[3] "Last Sunday, when I received the Sacrament at his church, at which near 200 people were present, all colours were mixed indiscriminately."

If there be a general progression of this kind, and a sincere recognition of religious brotherhood, we may hope to see wrought out a final harmony and amalgamation between races hitherto never combined, except upon terms shameful to one and deterioriating to both.

1. See "Jamaica under the Apprenticeship System," by Lord Sligo, p. 107.
2. Froude's Remains, vol. i. pp. 346—8.
3. Ibid. p. 335.

ERRATUM.

Page 9, line 2, for seven years, read twelve years.