Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/30

22 we are to be bound by the rule and not the exception in the conduct of the planters; I join issue with him on the very terms which he stated, and which at the moment I took down, "that the contract has been broken by a very large and preponderating majority of the island of Jamaica."

First, as to the abuses in the law: they were for the most part before the committee of 1836, when it came to its unanimous report. As to those which have since come to light, they are completely met, together with the first, by the provisions of the bill now before the House. That bill, says the honourable and learned member for Dublin, (Mr. O'Connell,) goes to establish a dictatorship or a despotism in the West Indies. Sir, it is true that the provisions of the bill for the protection of the negro are most stringent: the constitutional rights of their employers are utterly set aside in the bill, to secure that great object: and I enter into no questions of political privilege, I freely waive those rights, not now for the first time, but as I have ever been ready for such a cause to do: I think that the West Indians, on every ground, but especially as non-resident proprietors, are bound to yield everything for the protection of the negro: in the substance and principle of the enactments of the bill I entirely concur: and I have a right to ask, why have we not had this legal remedy at an earlier period? Sir, I do not hesitate to state my deliberate belief that the postponement is mainly owing to Mr. Sturge and his coadjutors.