Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/56

48 Indies after Aug. 1, 1840. They have postponed that inquiry until the time shall arrive for viewing the question under the many different aspects in which it must be regarded when all the necessary information shall have been collected."

Nor was this from the government alone. The committee of 1836 reported in exactly the same sense; and the right honourable gentleman, (Mr. Labouchere,) who sat as chairman of that committee, knows that I am correct in saying, this recommendation was peculiarly desired and pressed by those who are termed the friends of the negroes. And they were right. The obvious reason being, that in the prospect of so great a change, it is well to make your preparations with the advantage of the utmost possible degree of knowledge which can be gathered from the experience of the apprenticeship.

What then are you prepared to do? Will you throw all these communities into a state of anarchy? Will you cast forth the aged among the apprentices upon the world, and leave them to the mere mercy of those planters who are so much vituperated? They have no claim to relief, no means of subsistence. The Abolition Act was passed with the general, and I will say, the bonâ fide concurrence of the West Indian proprietary body; and yet it took two years to arrange, very imperfectly, the laws necessary for regulating a transition state of only six years' duration; and can it now be expected that all the measures which should attend emancipation can