Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/27

19 And thus, Sir, having shown the amount of present returns, and the probability of future loss, I have only to add on this part of the subject, that I do not regret that loss, whatever it may eventually be. I do not complain that, bearing a share as a portion of the community, the planters should likewise make an additional and a heavy sacrifice. To emerge from such a state as that of slavery without serious loss, would be alike beyond our deserts and our anticipations, but I think it hard only, that an accusation of enormous profits should be brought when the case is likely to prove the very reverse.

I now approach the more essential portion of the argument. There was a compact. Has it been broken by the West Indian body, or by the Assembly of Jamaica? Sir, when the bill of 1833 was passed. Parliament itself provided a criterion for determining absolutely whether the substance of the compact had, so far as legislation was concerned, been fulfilled.

The decision was referred, by some strange error, not to an unseen and unknown committee, but to the king in council and to his administration, acting on their public responsibility! In every single case, this the appointed authority has long ago declared the conditions to have been fulfilled. But a question arises respecting the subsidiary and secondary legislation, required for carrying out the spirit of the Act. I do not seek to avoid this question, but it is a distinct one. And here I neither myself comprehend,