Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/12

4 after having had, in 1837, the opportunity of stating their case, the parties to protest against hearing the other side of the question. And is the House aware of the composition of that committee, which was appointed in 1836, and re-appointed in 1837, to examine this subject? I will read the names. They are —

Very few of these are from the Conservative party. Only three are connected with West Indian property, and of these one is the hon. member for Ashburton, the brother to the hon. and learned member for the Tower Hamlets. Can any man listen to the recital of these names, and then need to be told, that if there had been a bias upon the mind of that committee, it would not have been a bias favourable to the planter?

And yet that committee had furnished a report, an unanimous report, in the year 1836, having then before its view the defects in the existing colonial laws, in which they stated,—