SELF-GOVERNMENT OF THE COLONIES.
GLOBE—We wish most heartily the Government would take the people of Jamaica at their words, and allow them and the other West India colonists to govern themselves, and to defend themselves at their own expence—we mean against i eternal enemies, as the British Navy of course would he a sufficient pro- tection to them against external attacks. Slavery is no doubt a horrible evil, and the abolition of it, if it could be effected, would be worthy of some considerable national sacrifice ; but such an improvement in the Colonial laws concerning slavery as can be effected through the agency of jealous and turbulent local legislatures, and is to be executed by slave holding magistrates, is, though not perhaps absolutely without value, not worth the national sacrifice which we now make for the purpose of effecting it. Whatever might be done in the West Indies for the improvement of the slaves, it is obvious that all that is done of any value is by the effects of the improvement of the slave-population; and that population cannot fail to improve, now that the importation of fresh supplies of savages from the coast of Africa has ceased. Setting the questions concerning the slaves out of the way, there would be no reason for interfering with the internal concerns of the islands, or for disbursing any money con- cerning them. If the people of Jamaica wish for troops for protection against their servants, they ought to pay for them. and they may think themselves fortunate that the mother country guards them against foreign attack. The Colonies are the great source, incidental as well as direct, of the expenditure of the empire ; and the expellees thus incurred are in great part the result of interference with affairs which the colonists would be better pleased and bet- ter able to manage for themselves. We have in the island of Cuba an ex- ample of what a West Indian island may do when the mother country is by accident prevented from blessing it with over-government. It maintains great establishments, and is contented and attached to the mother. country, though it aids Spain instead of being itself assisted. Jamaica, we have no doubt, would, under similar circumstances, maintain itself as well, and not be less loyal.
Previous page
