Page:On the motion of Sir George Strickland; for the abolition of the negro apprenticeship.djvu/65

57 I have thus placed before you my views upon the present crisis."

I take my extracts from the "Patriot" newspaper of Thursday, Nov. 16.

, July 24, 1833.

(Mirror, 3301.)

"I distinctly stated when 1 introduced the measure, and I do not hesitate to avow it now, that I consider the period of apprenticeship to he part of the compensation to be paid the proprietor."

Mr. Fryer—"Why are we to pay anything?"

Lord Stanley,—"The honourable gentleman asks me a very short and a very pithy question. 'Why are we to pay anything?' My answer is, because the principles of justice require that we should not take away a man's property without remunerating him for it."

Extract from a despatch of Lord Glenelg to the Marquis of Sligo, dated Downing Street, 31 March, 1836; and by' the latter communicated to the House of Assembly of Jamaica on the 24th May.

"The abolition of slavery, and the subordinate measures required to render it effectual, present a course of events altogether peculiar and anomalous.

That great act was nothing less than a national compact, of which Parliament was at once the author and the guarantee. Binding the people of the United Kingdom to the payment of a grant of unequalled magnitude, it also bound the emancipated slaves to contribute compulsory labour for several successive years, while it imposed upon the Assemblies the obligation of reconciling by proper laws the duties of the negro population, as apprenticed labourers, with their rights as free men.

On the part of the British treasury, as on that of the emancipated slaves, the agreement has been carried into complete execution.