bad, but replaces it by something better? Have we not, while forbidding the further outpourings of the poison-stream that has for ages flowed in tears and blood from the ports of the east-African coast, driven back in a manner the hitter waters to eddy on themselves; and while stopping a recognized outlet of the unemployed and superabundant population, a wasteful and a wrongful one it is true, yet an outlet, created a novel surplus in the inland African labour-market, where violence and captivity are the only laws of exchange and supply? Have we not also, while depriving Zanzibar of its hateful but long-established trade, the trade that alone gave it importance and wealth, curtailed the revenues, and with the revenues the very kingship of one whose patrons we had before consented to be, and whom we had ourselves taught to shelter his authority, nay, his very existence, under our flag?
Now so it is that of both the evils I have indicated, and neither of them are imaginary, a remedy is within easy reach, a remedy not only efficacious with regard to its immediate object, but beneficial in its ulterior results. "Easy reach," did I say? Yes, easy enough if only well-meaning ignorance will stand aside, and have the grace to permit what it cannot comprehend, But this is a piece of good fortune to be wished for rather than hoped, and already I seem to hear a horrified outcry of "negro-kidnapping," "disguised slavery," "slave-trade re-established," and the rest, rising from every platform, and re-echoed from every bench of the Anti-Slavery Association and its kindred supporters. What! supply the deficit of West-Indian labour by negro importation from the East Coast! give the seyyid, sultan, or sultanlet of Zanzibar, perhaps him of Muscat, too, a nominal patronage and a real percentage of an emigration-agency! load ships with African semi-slaves! bear them "far from home and all its pleasures," to the coasts of Surinan, of Demerara, of St. Vincent, etc.! what is all this but to revive the monster we have ourselves so lately slain, to stultify our own wisdom, annul our own decree?
Nothing of the kind; say rather it is to hinder the brood that the monster has left from coming into life, to confirm the decree of self-maintaining freedom; to complete what else if left imperfect might speedily bring in question the wisdom of our former deeds. It is to transfer, not by compulsion, but by their own free consent, those who, if they remain at home, cannot by the nature of things be other than slaves or slave-makers, to the conditions of honourable labour, self-support, and security; to bring them into the full possession of whatever benefits organized society and equitable law can confer; to substitute, so far as their own former masters are concerned, a fair and beneficial for an unjust and cruel gain; to bestow on the lands of their destination advantages that no other means, no other colonists can equally secure.
It is certain that, if conducted under regulations and safeguards similar to those provided for the coolie emigrants of Bengal and Madras, and with the same or analogous provisions in matters of engagement, voyage, and occupation, the unnecessary and burdensome obligation of a return passage being alone omitted, east-African emigration would be much less costly, and at the same time much more profitable to the colonies, than Indian or Chinese. The negro is of himself a better agricultural labourer than the Hindoo; he is stronger, healthier, more readily domiciled, more easily ruled, and, an important point, more likely to devote himself to field and country work after the expiration of his indentures. He is also much less disposed than either coolie or Chinaman to swell the town population and the criminal list. I have said that in his case the option of a return passage might be safely omitted, for no negro, the solitary hero of Mrs. Hemans' ballad excepted, has any great to revisit his own natal land; his country is not where he was born, but where he is well off; no local worship, no sacred rivers, no ties of caste, draw him back to his first home. In him, therefore, is the best if not the only hope of supplementing the great, the urgent want of the New World, an indigenous population — for the Guiana Indian must unfortunately reckon for nothing, either in number or in available worth — and thus the benefit derived from him as an indentured labourer would be followed by the still more lasting benefit of an acclimatized and a useful colonist. And, to return to our friends of the Anti-Slavery Association, the evidence collected on all hands may surely have convinced the members of that respectable body, that coolie emigration and coolie labour in the West Indies are further removed from hardship, injustice, and slavery, than are too often the means by which our own agricultural labour-market is supplied, or the conditions by which it is governed.
