12
But further, we must recollect, that the experiment of apprenticeship at the time was considered by the most eager promoters of abolition as one that would be ruinous. The noble lord, (for example,) now secretary at war, (Lord Howick,) prophesied that it would fail to secure labour. Something was of course to be allowed for that uncertainty, connected with those anticipations, nor are the West Indians to be reprobated if they have been falsified.
Now, Sir, it has been observed, that property has become marketable during the apprenticeship, and that a stimulus has been given to the cultivation, and that these causes have made the West Indies absolutely gainers by the change.
With regard to the first, the case is this:—Before the abolition of slavery, the excitement upon that subject had been such, as to throw the greatest uncertainty upon the title of West Indian property. In a state of which uncertainty was the main characteristic, it became better worth the while both of buyers and sellers to wait for some settlement of the question, than to run the enormous risks on the one hand, or incur the immense losses on the other, which would then have attended the transfer of the property. But when the Abolition Act was passed, you gave a new legal guarantee to the labour on which the planter depends; security was substituted for doubt, and estates became saleable. But at what price? We have the evidence of Mr. Miller and Mr. Oldham,[1] given before the committee of
- ↑ Questions 3798-9, 4345.
