Since the publication of our article on the Brazilian Treaty, we have
received several letters from individuals who, agreeing with us entirely
in the free-trade view of the question, nevertheless are at variance
with us as to the commercial policy which we should pursue towards that
country, in order to coerce them into our views regarding slavery. We
are glad to feel called upon to express our views on this subject, to
which we think full justice has not yet been done.
We must, however, in doing so, make a great distinction between the two
classes of persons who are now found to be joined in an alliance against
this application of free-trade principles; two classes who have always
hitherto been so much opposed to each other, that it would have been
very difficult ten years since to have conceived any possible
combinations of circumstances that could have brought them to act in
concert: we mean the West India interest, who so violently opposed every
step of amelioration to the slave from first to last; and that body of
_truly great philanthropists_ who have been unceasing in their efforts
to abolish slavery wherever and in whatever form it was to be found. To
the latter alone we shall address our remarks.
As far as it can be collected, the argument relied upon by this party
appears to be, that having once abolished slavery in our own dominions
we ought to interdict the importation of articles produced by slave
labour in other countries, in order to coerce them, for the sake of
their trade with us, to follow our example.
We trust we shall be among the last who will ever be found advocating
the continuance of slavery, or opposing any _legitimate_ means for its
extinction; but we feel well assured that those who have adopted the
opinion quoted above, have little considered either the consequences or
the tendencies of the policy they support.
The first consideration is, that if this policy is to be acted upon, on
principle, it must extend to the exclusion of _all_ articles produced in
whatever country by slaves. It must apply with equal force to the
_gold_, _silver_, and _copper_ of Brazil, as it does to the _sugar_ and
_coffee_ produced in that country;--it must apply with equal force to
the _cotton_, the _rice_, the _indigo_, the _cochineal_, and the
_tobacco_ of the Southern States of America, and Mexico, as it does to
the _sugar_ and _coffee_ of Cuba. To be in any way consistent in
carrying out this principle, we must exclude the great material on which
the millions of Lancashire, the West of Yorkshire, and Lanarkshire
depend for their daily subsistence; we must equally exclude tobacco,
which gives revenue to the extent of 3,500,000_l._ annually; we must
refuse any use of the precious metals, whether for coin, ornament, or
other purposes. But even these form only one class of the obligations
which the affirming of this principle would impose upon us. If we would
coerce the Brazilians by not buying from them, it necessarily involves
the duty of not selling to them; for if we sell, we supply them with all
the means of conducting their slave labour; we supply the implements of
labour, or the materials from which they are made; we supply clothing
for themselves and their slaves; we supply part of their foods and most
of their luxuries; the wines and the spirits in which the slave-owner
indulges; and we even supply the very materials of which the implements
of slave punishment or coercion are made;--and thus participate much
more directly in the profits of slavery than by admitting their produce
into this country. But if we supply them with all these articles, which
we do to the extent of nearly 3,000,000_l._ a year, and are not to
receive some of their slave-tainted produce, it must follow that we are
to give them without an equivalent, than which no greater encouragement
could be given for a perseverance in slave-holding. But the truth
is--whatever pretensions we make on this subject--we do, in exchange for
our goods, buy their polluted produce; we employ our ships to convey it
from their shores, and ourselves find a market for it among other
countries already well supplied with cheap sugar, where it is not
required, and where it only tends the more to depress the price in
markets already abundantly supplied. Nay, we do more; we admit it into
our ports, we land it on our shores, we place it in our bonded
warehouses, and our busy merchants and brokers deal as freely on our
exchanges in this slave produce as in any other, only with this
difference--that this cheap sugar is not permitted to be consumed by our
own starving population, but can only be sold to be refined in bond for
the consumption of the free labourers in our West India colonies and
others, or to be re-exported, as it is, for the use of "our less
scrupulous but more consistent" neighbours on the continent.
Consistency, therefore, requires equally the abandonment of all export
trade to slave-producing countries, as it does of the import of their
produce; and the effect will carry us even further. We know it is a
favourite feeling with Mr Joseph Sturge and others of that truly
benevolent class, that in eschewing any connexion with slave-producing
countries, we have the better reason to urge free-trading intercourse
with such countries as use only free labour,--with the Northern States
of America, with Java, and other countries similarly circumstanced. Now
of what does our trade to these countries, in common with others,
chiefly consist? Of the 51,400,000_l._ of British manufactures and
produce which we exported in 1840, upwards of 24,500,000_l._ consisted
of cotton goods, nearly the whole of which were manufactured from
slave-grown cotton, and partly dyed and printed with the cochineal and
indigo of Guatamala and Mexico. Consistency would therefore further
require that we abandon at least one-half of our present foreign trade
even with free-labour countries, instead of opening any opportunity for
its increase.
When men are prepared and conceive it a duty to urge the accomplishment
of all these results, they may then consistently oppose the introduction
of Brazilian sugar and coffee, and support the present West India
monopoly; but not till then.
But now, what effect must this argument have upon slave-producing
states, in inducing them to abandon slavery? Has it not long been one of
the chief arguments of the anti-slavery party everywhere, that free
labour is actually cheaper than slave labour? Now, will the Brazilians
give credit to this proposition, so strongly insisted upon, when they
see that the anti-slavery party conceive it needful to give support to a
system which affirms the necessity of protecting free labour against
slave labour, by imposing a prohibitory duty of upwards of 100 per cent.
on the produce of the latter? Will their opinion of the relative
cheapness of the two kinds of labour not rather be determined by our
actions than our professions?
We firmly believe that free labour, properly exercised, is cheaper than
slave labour; but there is no pretence to say that it is so at this
moment in our West India colonies; and we undertake to show, in an early
number, in connexion with this fact, that _the existence of the high
protecting duties on our West India produce has done more than anything
else to endanger the whole experiment of emancipation_.
But, moreover, our West India monopoly,--the existence of the high
prohibitory differential duty on sugar, is the greatest, strongest, and
least answerable argument at present used by slave-holding countries
against emancipation. The following was put strongly to ourselves in
Amsterdam a short time since by a large slave owner in Dutch
Guiana:--"We should be glad," said he, "to follow your example, and
emancipate our slaves, if it were possible; but as long as your
differential duties on sugar are maintained, it will be impossible. Here
is an account sale of sugar produced in our colony, netting a return of
11_l._ per hogshead to the planter in Surinam; and here is an account
sale of similar sugar sold in London, netting a return of 33_l._ to the
planter in Demerara: the difference ascribable only to your differential
duty. The fields of these two classes of planters are separated only by
a few ditches. Now such is the effort made by the planter in Demerara to
extend his cultivation to secure the high price of 33_l._, that he is
importing free labourers from the hills of Hindostan, and from the coast
of Africa, at great cost, and is willing to pay higher wages than labour
will command even in Europe. Let us, then, emancipate our slaves, which,
if it had any effect, would confer the privilege of a choice of
employer, and Dutch Guiana would be depopulated in a day,--an easy means
of increasing the supply of labour to the planters of Demerara, at the
cost of entire annihilation of the cultivation of the estates in
Surinam. But abandon your differential duties, give us the same price
for our produce, and thus enable us to pay the same rate of wages, and
I, for one, will not object to liberate my slaves to-morrow."
Whatever amount of credence people may be disposed to place in this
willingness to abandon slavery, nothing can be more clear than that the
higher rate of wages paid in our colonies, attributable solely to the
high and extravagant price which, by our differential duties, their
produce commands, must ever form a strong and conclusive reason with
these slave-holding countries against their entertaining the question of
emancipation.
We believe most sincerely that an equalization of these duties--that an
entire free trade would do more than any other act to encourage an
adoption of our example everywhere: while the maintenance of monopoly
and high prices _as an essential to the carrying out of the experiment
of free labour successfully_--must be the strongest reason against its
adoption with all those countries who have no means of commanding this
accompanying confessed essential.
But now were it otherwise:--have the professors of these opinions ever
considered the huge responsibility which they arrogate to themselves by
such a course? Let these men remember that, by seeking to coerce the
_slave-labour producer_ in distant countries, they inflict a severe
punishment on the millions of hard-working, ill-fed _consumers_ among
their fellow countrymen; but they seem always to overlook the fact, that
there is a _consumer_ to consider as well as a _producer_;--and that
this consumer is their own countryman, their own neighbour, whose
condition it is their _first_ duty to consult and watch;--duty as well
as charity ought to be first exercised at home. That is a very doubtful
humanity which exercises itself on the uncertain result of influence
indirectly produced upon governments in the other hemisphere of the
globe, and neglects, nay sacrifices, the interests of the poor and
helpless around our own doors,--not only by placing the necessaries of
life beyond their reach, but at the same time destroying the demand for
their labour by which alone they can obtain them.
If _individuals_ entertain conscientious scruples against the use of
slave produce--let them, if they please, act upon them themselves, but
do not let them seek to inflict _certain_ punishment, and the whole
train of vice and misery consequent on starvation and want of
employment, upon their poorer neighbours, for the purpose of conferring
some _speculative_ advantage on the slaves of the Brazils or elsewhere:
no man can be called upon as a duty to do so great a present evil, in
order to accomplish some distant good, however great--or however
certain.