Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/71

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63

1832—4 From Demerara 108,880 tons.
From Berbice 16,490
3) 125,370
41,790 tons.
 
1835—7 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,"[1] admitted the time for emancipation to be come, and

  1. Froude's Remains, vol. i. pp. 346—8.