FREE AFRICAN EMIGRATION.
THE deputation which waited upon Lord Palinerston last week laid before him a plan for the final extinction of Negro slavery, which comprises three points,—the removal of the Mixed Commission from Havannah to Jamaica ; the formation of a fleet of gunboats to intercept the slavers nearer the ports of debarkation, especially in the island of Cuba ; and the substitution of a free African emigration for all countries joining in the proposed league. The very fact that a new plan should be proposed shows that the advocates of Anti-Slavery agitation do not feel a perfect confidence in the continuance of their own measures. On the contrary, it is confessed that the high price of sugar, with the consequent demand for Negro labour on the plantations, threatens to give a new impulse to the slave-trade. They are therefore not satisfied with the Anti-Slavery plan of a preventive force ; and, after more than twenty years in which they have had it all their own way, they come round to allow that the arguments used against them are substantiated by the event. They have not "extinguished the slave.rtrade" ; they have perhaps increased its cruelties ; and they have destroyed the example which the British West Indies might have presented, for they have there given an illustration of White ruin as the consequence of Negro emancipation. As the inventors of new suggestions, they come into court -with damaged repute; but we will examine their proposal on its merits.
The removal of the Mixed Commission from Ilavannah to Jamaica is a proposal recommended by the facts. Spain is dishonest; she pretends to go with us in prohibiting the slave-trade, and somewhat more than winks at it. It is known that the Governors in Cuba make a large profit out of the licence which they afford to the slave-dealers. The Governorship of Cuba is thus rendered a post of reward for the subservient officer—a means of conferring upon him a fortune at the expense of the Negro, and of this country, whose policy is foiled., and whose sacrifices are rendered vain. On the plain grounds it would be desirable to remove the Mixed Commission: but what will Spain say to it ? or if we do it in spite of Spain, what will other countries, whose coaperation we desire to purchase, say to this treatment of an " ally " ? . To increase the preventive force, to render it, more effeotual by the use of gun-boats, and to concentrate the guard on the principal points of debarkation, are operations that may be admitted by any one who admits the policy of using a preventive force at all ; but the impolicy of that system has been shown. We do not convert Spain, or any other 'foreign country, to assist us in extinguishing the slave-trade. We only convert them to being slave-smugglers instead of open slave-dealers ; and slave-smuggling is much worse for the Negro, for the sugar-consumer, and for the state of our alliances, than an open dealing in slaves would be. You cannot make other countries moral or humane by force of treaties and gun-boats ; and the endeavour to carry on a crusade in that form will only tend to increase bad blood and embarrassment. The United States have no right to interfere with us in Cuba ; but, as an accident, we cannot help perceiving that the plan may result in an explosion fatal and dangerous to the peace between the two countries and to the trade of both. Thus we increase a risk destructive of the White, without advantage to the Black; injurious to real alliances, favourable to none.
The substitution of free African emigration for slave emigration is in many respects much more defensible, and it might probably be of great advantage. It might even retrieve seine of the injury effected by Negro emancipation, if it were freed from complication with the repressive system. After England has become convinced of the criminality of her own dealing in slaves, she has used treaties and war-ships to restrain other countries; she has since emancipated her slaves, and she expects other nations to follow her example, though she so seldom follows theirs. Now she has presented to other nations an example not of promise but of warning. The extinction of Negro slavery in the West Indies ruined our planters by wholesale, injured the whole of the British people as sugar-consumers, and has not resulted in establishing a class of free Blacks, able to develop the wealth of the West Indies and to constitute a free community of themselves. No kind of oblique compulsion will correct the mischievous effect of this example. We agree that the colonization of the West Indies with free Blacks would tend "to civilize Africa, by constant communication through the emigration highway,!' and by intercourse between African tribes and civilized nations; and if our Government were to follow a broad and clear course this communication might be rendered very complete.
Large assistance might be imported into it One auxiliary would be found by invoking the assistance of Liberia, a colony which is under American patronage. An instance of our own disinterestedness might be found in directions which the deputations did not indicate. We will mention one, although we are quite aware that the proposal, which was advanced some years back, is open to controversy. We have in the West of Africa a colony which is nearly useless, Sierra Leone, where we plant the Negroes freed from slave-ships. But the colony languishes. The people
of Liberia would be stronger in numbers and resources if their territory could be enlarged ; and some time since, we know there was in certain quarters an idea of annexing Sierra Leone to Liberia. The reasons for not acquiescing in the proposition have never been stated. Arguments against it we have heard, and in the present state of suspense on the subject we are not advocating the plan. If that will not do' some other mode might be adopted ; but at all events it furnishes the example of a concession which, if it were volunteered by Great Britain, would go far to convince a small but influential party in the United States of our sincerity., and to ingratiate the cooperation of that important republic. Such a step would at once open a direct path between the civilized world and the settled Black on his native continent.
The Anti-Slavery gentlemen who waited upon Lord Palmerston propose that we should withhold this free African emigration from any countries which have not yet repressed slavery in their own dominions—Spain or Portugal. Now we have as little belief that Spaiu would really put down slavery, as that the people of this country would suddenly give up the forcible suppression of the traffic. If, say Lord Shaftesbury and his friends, we were to commence the free African emigration to the West Indies without such a preliminary, our sincerity would be doubted ; but other pledges might be given quite as convinoing. As for extending free African emigration to Spain or France, it is highly improbable that either country would really treat the Negroes as free men. But if we could retrieve the example of our own West Indian islands— if we could convert them from a specimen of ruin to a specimen of prosperity without the slave-trade—then we should "teach the nations by example," and induce where we cannot compel. If we could reconcile the civilization of Africa and the freedom of the Negro in the West Indies with abundance of Negro labour on the American side of the Atlantic, and cheap sugar all over the world, the question of slavery and its extinction would be settled.
Previous page
