an old abolition argument, that free is rendering exportation more dangerous and cheaper than slave labour, and that it was hazardous, you have made it the interest altogether inconsistent in us to urge for of the exporter to cram his victims still an instant the supposition that the West closer than before in those ships which are Indies could not compete with Cuba be- now constructed with the one regard to cause it is supplied with slave labour. This speed; and in this way you but increase the is entirely a mis-statement, though an un- agonies and add to the deaths of those intentional mis-statement, on the part of the whom you strive to save and preserve. And noble Earl. It was not an abolition argu- when they reach Cuba, how, again, do they ment that free is cheaper than slave labour, fare? I am ready to admit that there is no but an emancipation argument. It was code of slave-laws in the known world which always admitted that it was cheaper to im- contains, on paper and parchment, so many port slaves full grown, without the ex- securities for the life and protection of the pense of their youth or age, and work them slave as the code of Cuba; but in such a to death in the sugar plantations, supply- state of society as is there presented, that ing their place with others. The argu- code is a dead letter, and an unobserved ment was first used by Mr. Cropper, of document merely. There is no safety, no Liverpool; he said, as the slave trade was law, for the slave; and I believe there never abolished, it would be cheaper to prepare was a country where the sufferings and enthe slaves for freedom by working them as durance of the slave were greater than they a black peasantry. I believe free labour is are at this moment in Cuba and in the cheaper than slave labour. I believe that Brazils. Every horrible feature which has Providence has so ordered things that what been marked in the history of the enoris wrong cannot be really profitable. But mities of the field-slave system in the olden what is the measure of profit ? Is it the time is found to be exaggerated fourfold greatest amount of money got in the in the unhappy lands of which I speak. shortest given time by the least given Things which were never known, never quantity of labour ? If that is the true heard of, in the worst days of slavery in value of profit, we ought not to hold up as our own West Indian colonies, are there crimes the acts of the pirate and robber taking place unconcealed in the face of who by piracy and robbery makes himself day. The professed importation of the one suddenly rich. But in the long-run God sex alone, the evident intention to work sets his hand against wrong-doing; not by them, and not to reproduce them, the insuch a suspension of ordinary laws as variable use of the lash to compel to labour, would make six hours of a freeman pro- and the presence of bloodhounds in the duce as much as eighteen of the tasked plantation by the side of the miserable slave, but by filling the heart with such driver-these things are evidences of the terrors as those felt by the rich Cuba horrors of the system. As one of these planter, who trembles, knowing that his drivers said, when the question was put to wealth of to-day may be lost in an out- them, "Do you think I could trust my life break of his slaves to-morrow, by breaking in the field if I had nothing more than this down all the fabric of morality, peace, and lash to defend myself? I must have these happiness, which alone makes life dear, brute animals for guardians, and I must and wealth worth having. These are the have these weapons in my belt, and by ways in which God testifies at last against these only could I compel the code under the infraction of such laws as this. The which my victims are to live." And this, question returns simply to this-Shall we, observe, my Lords, is the system which, as the English nation, after so many sacri- as I contend, you are called upon to supfices to abolish the slave trade, for the port and perpetuate. Most truly do I, in sake of one penny in the price of a pound my conscience, believe that if these truths, of sugar content ourselves to share the in all their revolting aspect, were made profit of the Cuba planter? Let the House manifest-if the English people would but and the country remember, that great as recognise these facts, and see that it is not were the abominations of the slave trade, a question of protection, one way or the they are now still greater. If the blockade other, but whether or not they shall have does nothing else, at least it does this, it sugar cheaper by the sufferings of these aggravates a thousand-fold the sufferings slaves of Cuba, the settlement of this disof these wretched victims of man's cupidity. cussion would be certain and immediate. You have attempted with your war-vessels Let the principle be comprehended, and to close the ports of Africa, and in thus the mind of the people will insist upon mo

with neighbouring States an insulting and degrading mockery.

LORD ASHBURTON then rose, but the noble Lord was nearly inaudible. He was understood to express an opinion favourable to the experiment on a large scale of immigration of free labour. In the mean time, however, in the depressed condition of colonial enterprise, much further loss would accrue (pending such an experiment) if the Government did not resort to other modes of relief. If it was admitted to be a national necessity that slave-labour sugar should not be altogether excluded from our markets, then, as we exposed our colonists at such odds to such competition, we were, as it appeared to him, in justice bound to assist them through the transition stage in which they were now passing. He anticipated some benefit from the loans which the Government proposed to tender to the

was made for the abolition of the navigation laws, he thought the discussion on that point might with propriety be postponed. The noble Lord laid several petitions on the table, one from the standing committee of the merchants and planters connected with the West Indies resident in the city of London; and another from the planters and other inhabitants of Mauritius, the concurring prayer of which was for the application of some immediate remedy or remedies to the position in which the petitioners had been placed by recent legisla tion.

rality and honour; they will dash at once from their lips the chalice you offer to them, tinged as it is with the blood of fellow-creatures sacrificed to economy. I am convinced that the people have been misled, and that they are ignorant of the inevitable truth that if they violate their most sacred duties and the holiest feelings, and become abettors in the guilt of others, they will be condemned, in some way or other, to be partakers in the punishment; for, as the noble Lord has eloquently remarked, it is impossible that any nation can continue long to set at defiance the plainest laws of God, without some corresponding suffering accruing to the sinners. You cannot share the Cuba profit without incurring your share of the Cuba guilt; and you cannot incur the Cuba guilt without having recorded against you the Cuba chastisement. Let, then, this question, in all its forcible simplicity, be stated in Eng-West Indians; but as to the demand which land, and I doubt not of the result. It may be a little sooner or a little later; but I hope, as ruin to the West Indians is impending, and we may shortly be called upon to abandon ourselves to new treaties with other States, the present moment will be made available to our purpose. Our colonists confessedly tremble on the verge of destruction-let us not forget the proof which the history of the world furnishes, that, the moment lost, we cannot recall the prosperity we might have preserved. This remark will apply especially to the condition of society in the West Indies; and it may be that if the ruin which threatens arrives, no efforts we may make, and no exercise of our power, will be able to restore the position we ought to have maintained. I have ventured to press this matter upon your Lordships once again, because I feel that it is a question of the deepest national morality, as well as of the deepest national prosperity. I have endeavoured to state the argument fairly; and I cannot believe, if the subject be but viewed in a clear light, that after all our anti-slavery labours we will now consent thus palpably to frustrate our own designs, and contradict our own principles. I, for one at least, do declare, if we barefacedly admit this produce of slave labour, on the single ground that sugar will be 1d. per pound dearer if we do not admit it—that is, in point of fact, to make our abolition struggle a deep and indelible disgrace to this country; to convert our cordon of ships on the coast of Africa into a glaring piece of hypocrisy; and to render our treaties

The petitions laid on the table.
House adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS,

Monday, February 7, 1848.

MINUTES.] NEW MEMBER SWORN.

-For Sunderland,

Sir Hedworth Williamson, Bart. PETITIONS PRESENTED. By several hon. Members, from an immense number of places, for and against the Jewish Disabilities Bill.-By Mr. Beresford, from Suffolk, and Viscount Emlyn, from Pembroke, complaining of the Conduct of the Roman Catholic Clergy (Ireland); and from Essex, against the Roman Catholic Relief Bill.-By Sir J. Y. Buller, from Axminster and Devon, for Repeal of Duty on Attorneys' Certificates.-By Viscount Palmerston, from Southampton, for Repeal of Property Tax Act.- By Mr. C. Buller, from Norfolk and Cambridge, for Rating Owners in Lieu of Occupiers of Tenements. By Viscount Morpeth, from Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Manchester Unity, for Extension of the Benefit Societies Act.-By Captain Berkeley, from City of Gloucester, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, from Halifax, for Sanitary Regulations.-By Mr. Milnes, from Pontefract, for Retrenchment of Naval and Military Expenditure.-By Sir J. Y. Buller, from Torbay, against Repeal of Navigation Laws.-By several hon. Members, from Officers connected with the Administration of the Poor Laws, for a Superannuation Fund,

"By a statement furnished to the Committee Total amount collected in the twelve months :of the British Relief Association by their agent in Ireland, dated the 31st of January, it appears that assistance has been afforded out of the funds at

would now, with the permission of the their political disfranchisement "the last House, proceed at once to the more diffi- remnant of religious persecution;" and the cult and onerous task which he had under-right hon. Gentleman the Member for taken, that of moving that the Bill be read a second time that day six months; and it must be conceded by all hon. Members who were conversant with the debates of the House, whatever might be the opinions which they might entertain on the measure now submitted for their consideration, that any one who rose to address the House on the subject laboured under two of the greatest disadvantages that ever constituted a claim upon its indulgence. In the first place, the subject was one on which the arguments were so very few, and the ground so very limited and so frequently traversed, that no novelty of treatment could be reasonably expected; and in the next place, the arguments themselves were of so sacred a nature, that if they were not interwoven with the character of the Bill itself, he should most reluctantly approach them in the course of the discussion. Although the House had seen a number of petitions presented on this subject, yet those who recollected the number of petitions presented when other similar religious questions were involved, would not fail to remark that the petitions presented that night were comparatively few when considered with reference to the number of petitions presented about Maynooth and other similar subjects. In proportion, then, as the pressure from without was small, the House must consider the question as one of abstract principle. It would be necessary for him to travel over again the ground which had already been traversed, lest it might be said that he and those with whom he acted had seen the unsoundness of their arguments, and had yielded to conviction. The question before the House was not one of religious persecution, and was not even one of religious toleration. These two questions were decided when the Legislature determined that everybody, of whatever religious persuasion he might be, should be at liberty to attend religious worship and hold religious opinions without let or hindrance by the State. The question for present decision was, whether the House should continue to hold that the possession of certain religious opinions, or of no religious opinions, ought to operate as a political disqualification. The noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) had placed the case of the Jews on what he called the broad basis of religious liberty, and he called

Oxford protested against any particular period of our history being chosen as the date of our constitution, both agreeing in thus much, namely, that the whole of our history had been consistent with itself as to the maintenance of a policy whose last remnant we were now called on to remove. He agreed in the main with both these opinions; but he thought that to narrow this question within the limits of this island, or to date back no earlier than from Magna Charta downwards, was to underrate its importance, and to deny it a just amplitude of discussion. If he ventured, therefore, to assign to that system, whose last remnant they were called on to remove, a far wider field thau England, and a far earlier date than Magna Charta, and if in support of such a view he was obliged to touch upon sacred and awful subjects, they would believe that he was not actuated by any feelings of irreverence, far less by any Pharisaic arrogance, which not only would there be miserably misplaced, but which was, he trusted, abhorrent to his nature. As soon as Christianity emerged from her dens and hiding places, and was called to embrace nations within her pale, it was believed that the new principles upon which she based her morality must be thoroughly incorporated with legislation, must be completely interwoven with all the customs and usages of life, with all the edicts which restrained the bad, with all the covenants that bound society together, with all the punishments that awaited the guilty, and with all the rewards that consecrated ambition; so that whether in its ministers or its mysteries, its ceremonies, its martyrs, its saints, or its truths, the question was never within how narrow limits they could draw up their religion, but how far, how wide, they could diffuse its salutary waters. As all law, therefore, and all usage, did theoretically rest, not merely on religious but on Christian sanctions, any difference of opinion as to those sanctions was considered not merely as a sin against their great Teacher, but also as a treason against society. True it was that great crimes were committed in this zeal for religious truth; true it was that in its exaggeration it depressed the energies of the human mind; that the wicked traded on it, and that the frivolous trifled with it; but still he was not ashamed to declare that, in the early struggles of Chris

tianity with the last forms of heathenism | may have entered into this discussion, it and through rough and unlettered ages, never did enter in such a manner as to they owed to it far more than they were affect his present arguments. Till now, either willing to acknowledge, or even to they had, ever since the conversion of this appreciate; and, even as it was said that island to Christianity, recognised the phithe rival vices were each other's pre- losophy, the morality, the ethics, of the sent foes, so he believed that zeal was a New Testament as the basis of all our far better extreme, if extreme there must legislation; and whether they had deposed be, than than to which this age was tend- their monarchs, changed their forms of ing; and he agreed with that French wri- government, or separated themselves from ter who, in the beginning of his Essay on Popes, still they had declared that the Indifference, saidteaching of Him who taught on the Mount