Mr. Evelyn Ashley moved on Monday "That no arrangement for
the government of the Gold Coast would be satisfactory which involved the recognition of slavery in any form," and proved that as the number of inhabitants was only 200,000, and as Captain Glover had bought of Houssas from slavery for /5 each, emancipation could not possibly cost a million. Mr. Lowther made an able but non-committal speech in reply, in which he showed that Liberals, to their disgrace, had tolerated the system, but mainly relied upon the argument that we had no power in the Protectorate to put down slavery, an argument which does not at all events prove that we have no power to put it down in our own territory, where it exists, where it is recognised, and where it renders all our parade of hatred to slavery hypocri- tical bluster. We are always plaguing Brazil about slaves, and then allow their existence in our own dominions ; and the House of Commons, but for Mr. Whitbread's interference, would actually have voted, by a crushing majorityvthat this was proper. Mr. Whitbread, who has tact in its highest degree, advised the with- drawal of the motion, and assumed that some remarks of Mr. Disraeli's implied a promise of immediate actiort. They implied nothing of the sort, Mr. Disraeli distinctly stating that he.con- sidered immediate emancipation "an act of violence." He might as, well call a law prohibiting murder under penalty of death "an act of violence." The plain truth of the matter is, that if the -Commons, by a heavy vote, insisted that slavery on the Gold Coast should cease by January 1, 1875, slavery would cease ; and if Lord Palmerston had been among them, they would have done it.
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