THE SLAVE-TRADE SUPPRESSION TREATIES. ONE great cause—the main cause of
the reluctance of Ministers to promote or even sanction an extensive system of free emigration from Western Africa to the West Indies—is the probable effect of such a measure upon their Slave-trade Suppression Treaties. They are apprehensive of remonstrances, replies, and rejoinders— of a tortuous and interminable chain of protocols—possibly of de- clarations on the part of France and America that these treaties are no longer binding. The prosperity, the very existence of the West India Colonies, must be perilled to prevent Ministers from being embarrassed by delicate questions originating in the stipulations of the Slave-trade Suppression Treaties, or the treaties themselves from being blown to the winds.
This is a new phasis of the treaties—a new illustration of the extent to which they hamper and paralyze the exertions of this country—of the difficulties and dangers to which they expose it at every turn. It is the crowning experience of the folly which has entangled our rulers in meshes of their own spinning.
Full long has it been known that the Slave-trade Suppression Treaties are and will continue barren of good. It is not by such means that the slave-trade is to be put down. So long as there is gain to be made by carrying it on, so long will the slave-trade exist. Armed intervention cannot crush it, even were all the par- ties to the treaties for its suppression acting in good faith, which is notoriously not the case. The combined naval forces of Europe would be unable to stop a traffic which has the shores of Africa and South America, and the ocean which surrounds them, for its field ; and more than half of these forces will only make-believe to at- tack the slave-trade in earnest. While it continues profitable, the utmost efforts to suppress it by force can only leave matters in the state to which they have already been brought—with the slave- trade undiminished in extent and activity, and increased in cruelty. For the privilege of exposing the Negro race to more acute and more brutalizing sufferings, Great Britain has subjected itself for many years to an annual expenditure of more than ; and this outlay is about to be augmented.
It has long been known that these useless treaties keep us con- stantly on the verge of war. The " right of search "—or " of visit "—which they concede, is an invidious one. Merchants and mariners detest it, for the annoyance it occasions ; and nations in general dislike it, from an idea that it implies submission to a foreign power. Again, the object for which this invidious right is conceded is a constant source of heartburning to a numerous class in those nations which still carry on the slave-trade. They do not, like us, regard the slave-trade as criminal ; they cannot conceive the mo- tives of our pertinacious activity in its suppression ; they feel them- selves thwarted and embarrassed in what they esteem legitimate industry ; and they attribute to us all sorts of imaginary ulterior designs. Their hostility is lively and enduring, for their property is at stake; and they have occasional losses to render them vindic- tive. They are consequently indefatigable in keeping alive the angry feelings of the classes of their fellow-citizens previously men- tioned. And while a spirit of eager hostility against Great Britain is thus maintained in various nations, the Slave-trade Suppression Treaties provide for the maintenance of naval squadrons from each of them, on the same cruising-grounds with ours, under inde• pendent commands, and exercising what may almost be called a concurrent jurisdiction. The ships crews, men and officers, parti- cipate in the prejudices and antipathies of their respective nations ; and they are incessantly brought into collision in a manner calcu- lated to kindle their passions into activity and occasion hostile col- lisions. The African station may be considered as the quarrelling- ground of the European States who are parties to the Slave-trade Suppression Treaties—a spot where countries inclined to go to war may at any time find or make an excuse for commencing hos- tiiities.
And now it appears that these costly, useless, and dangerous conventions, have power to paralyze our efforts to develop the re- sources of an important portion of our own dominions, and to assail slavery and the slave-trade in the only way in which they can be effectively assailed. The country calls for larger supplies of sugar at a lower price. The Colonies cannot increase the amount of their produce, nor diminish the cost of production, for want of labourers. A supply of free labourers, unlimited in extent, could be obtained from the West coast of Africa; and with their assistance, our Colonies, equal in soil and climate to any other Tropical countries—the nearest to Europe of all the Sugar coun- tries—supported by the improved machinery and redundant capital of England—could be made in a few years the most prosperous and productive of all. And in thus developing the resources of these colonies we should be giving a deathblow to slavery, in the slave- trade. We should be demonstrating practically the method by which free-labour can be rendered more productive and economical than slave-labour ; and we should at the same time be establishing a permanent intercourse between the West Indies and Western Africa, by means of which, and by which means alone, the civiliza- tion of the former region can be communicated to the latter. But this may not be, because the British Government has tied its hands with its Slave-trade Suppression Treaties.
Absurd and mischievous though these treaties are, they will not be abandoned in a hurry. False pride—that most miserable of consistencies, consistency in absurdity—obtains for them the sup- port of the leaders of our political parties. Still, the time is draw- ing nigh when they must be repudiated. The number of those who see and feel their real character and tendencies is daily increasing. And as soon as a Minister not compromised by his own declarations in their favour comes into office, they will be quietly shelved. When thus relegated to the region of history, they will for the first time become useful,—as warning monuments of human absurdity ; examples of the perversity of human judgment, which, at great cost and much hazard, can persist for a long tract of years in a course of policy fitted only to thwart its own ends.
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