Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/54

46 And now learn, from a subsequent passage, which way, had he suffered himself to be influenced by personal motives, that influence would have tended. He subjoins:

"In thus advocating the continuance, for the present, of a system which, to a hasty observer, may appear to be too favourable to the interests of the planter as put in opposition to those of the labourer, I beg to explain to your Lordship, that I am influenced solely by what I conceive to be the general good, and that the apprentice system (if carefully superintended in its details) appears to me to be equally necessary and advantageous to both parties. If I was susceptible of being influenced by unworthy motives, the continued opposition and ill-will I have experienced on the part of the most influential of the planters would rather have induced me to have arrived at the conclusion that the apprentice system ought to be abolished. I am, however, of a decidedly contrary opinion; the managers and the labourers are daily approximating; not only wages for additional labour are becoming more common, but fields of sugar-canes are weeded or cut down by agreement. Labour is, in fact, finding its level and its value; nothing can be going on better, and I do not think that the permanent well-being of the labourer would be accelerated by any immediate change of system. We have everything to expect from persevering in the present plan; it is impossible to foretell what mis-