Labour.—That impatience to change the scene of •cadence, with which M. Malouct so strongly charges the French planters, happens, we must confess, to be tullv ..s applicable to our own. The continuance of the practice of performing labour on sugar estates by means of slaves, may be traced, though somewhat indirectly indeed, to the influence of this feeling. The eagerness of planters to buy negroes at a 'mice much beyond what it would have cost to rear them, was an e ident conse quence of the disposition described by NIalouet. A si milar cause seems hitherto to have prevented any delibe rate examination of the expediency of providing for the gradual emancipation of the negroes. It has been much disputed among political economists, whether there is in reality any saving by employing slaves. Al. Say, one of the most successful commentators on the work of Dr Smith, ventures, in this respect, to dissent front our countrymen, and enters Traite d' Economic Politiquc, p. 215.) into a long calculation of the expence of slave labour. The result is an estimate of 20/. or ',2,51. sterling, as the annual cost of a negro's support, a sum which he contends (p. 218-225) is greatly be low the amount of their annual earnings. On the other hand, Dr Smith, Sir James Stewart, and NI. Turgot, maintain, that slave labour is more expensive than free labour, because a man in that situation, having no in terest in his work or in his savings, toils as little and consumes as much as he finds possible, while the same reason operates to prevent him from acquiring that prac tical dexterity which seldom fails to reward the perse vering attention of the free labourer. At the time when NI. Say wrote, (1803), the abolition of the slave trade had not taken place, and the imagination of that valuable writer was impressed with the most gloomy conception of the condition of the West India ne groes. The circumstances attending their passage from Africa, appeared to hint full of horror. " C"est 225.) le climb: de l'averne qui conduit aux curers." Apprehensive that many ages must elapse before the planters can be prevailed on to change their plan of la bour, he proceeds to enquire whether it is not practi cable to obtain sugar from other quarters. lie cites the well-known M. Poivre as an authority for the low price of sugar in Cochinchina, and maintains, that Ent ope might derive sufficient supplies from that quarter, with out participating in the crime of oppressing the degrad ed natives of Africa. When we consider the much great er length of an India voyage, and the disappointment ex perienced in the case of the Bengal sugar, so much vaunt ed twenty year s ago, we must dissent from NI. Say, and continue to expect our chief supplies from the western hemisphere. Nor arc we without hopes of obtaining them without much violation of the duties of humanity. Already very considerable improvements have taken place in the care of negro women and their offspring in their years of infancy. To increase the number of negroes on our plantations, by mild and attentive treatment, is now perfectly understood to be better policy than to overwork them for the sake of making a few additional hogsheads of sugar. Without laying stress, therefore, on the influence of humanity, we may safely trust to the policy of the planters for a disposition to treat their slaves in the way that benevolence would dictate ; al though, it must be confessed, that they and their white servants have much to learn before they can be account ed capable of doing justice to the health of their humble dependants.
Disadvantages of Colonies to the Mother Country.—In bringing our remarks to a conclusion, we shall venture to say a few words on a topic on which mercantile pre judice runs as strongly against us as the feeling of the planters against the economists in the case of slave la bour. By way of illustrating our views, we shall have recourse to the sanction of past events. When our North American colonies succeeded, in 1783, in finally obtain ing their independence, there was a general belief that the brightest season of our commerce was past. No person ventured to think that our colonial trade would be as profitable as before ; and to have said that it was about to become moro profitable, would have been ac counted a singular example of delusion. The fact, how ever, was, that the colonies continued to make their purchases of manufactured goods from us in the same way as before, and that their new situation gave them additional means for the augmentation of these purchases. Before the era of their independence, an export to them of British goods to the amount of three millions was accounted a most favourable year of trade ; but of late, eleven and twelve millions were, in general, exported ; and when harmony is restored, we may anticipate a steady export of fifteen millions or more. In analyzing the causes of this auspicious augmentation, we find them of two of capital, and increase of peo ple. Both would have been in a course of advancement had the colonies remained subject to us and our regula tions, but the ratio of progress has been much more ra pid in their independent state. The way to quicken the increase of capital is, to leave its possessor at liberty to buy and sell whatever he thinks proper. In the case of the Americans, the principal change that took place was, the purchase in Holland and other countries of a pro portion of commodities, chiefly raw produce, which we formerly obliged them to take from us at a higher price. If we reckon the amount of these purchases at 1,000,000/. a year, and the annual saving to the Americans at 200,0001.
we shall soon find the benefit of the saving in an increased demand for our manufactures. The 200,0001. saved, formed an annual addition to the American capital, and increased, in a correspondent proportion, their general power of purchase. While one fourth part of it was employed in extending their continental trade, it is no exaggeration to compute that the remaining three-fourths were remitted to this country. From official returns some years ago, it appeared that the United States pur chased only to the value of three millions a year from the continent, while from us they took the triple, or ra ther the quadruple sum mentioned above. (Baring on the Orders in Council.) It is evident, therefore, that of every additional guinea made•by America, the half, or more properly two-thirds, were vested in British pur chases. Need we add more to prove that it is our inte rest to let them increase their capital in their own way? If we forego a small profit on ai tides of continental incr. chandize, we have soon an opportunity of reaping this profit threefold in the extended purchase of our own goods consequent on this saving to the Americans. It is clearly better for us to sell them twelve millions in va lue of British manufactures, than six millions of the latter, and two millions of continental goods. Now this is no unfair statement of the difference produced by the independent situation of the United States. Ilad they remained till now part of our empire, they would have been involved in the war of 1793 ; and even in peace, they would have been n ithout all the saving and conse quent augmentation of capital which has ensued from their purchasing continental produce at the first hand.
The course of our reasoning will be rendered clearer by attending to the material point, that in the case of foreign merchandize re-sold to the Americans, the loss to them was much greater than the profit to us. Of the sum of 200,0001. already mentioned as the computed amount of enhancement, the chief part went in freight, insurance, warehouse rent, and shipping charges, on all of which the clear profit is much smaller than persons out of trade are apt to imagine. The advantage to our merchants on such transactions will not be underrated by estimating the gain of all the parties employed at one fifth of the 200,0001. Next as to revenue : Those who calculate on public emolument from the carrying trade, appear to forget that our duties arc almost always drawn back on re-expoltation. Is it not better, therefore, that a people eager to make an annual extension of the pur chase of our manufactures, should increase their dis posable capital by 200,000/. a year, than that we, for the sake of .10,000/. should cause them a loss to that amount? It may, however, be urged, that the additional employ ment in the importation and re-shipment of the continen tal merchandize was productive of considerable advan tage to this country. Now, in reply, we have to ask, whether in time of peace any considerable number of our countrymen ever are at a loss for employment ? Even in war, the want of work has been very little felt, until the Orders in Council, an act of our own, caused a kind of revolution throughout the commercial world. The truth is, that the wants of mankind are such as to supply, necessarily and permanently, an effectual de mand for the labour of the industrious ; so that we may allow the consumers of merchandize to provide them selves, on all occasions, in the shortest and cheapest way, without disquieting ourselves with an apprehended deficiency of employment. If we apply this course of reasoning, and the practical lesson given us by the ex ample of America, we shall soon see that most govern ments have overrated the advantage of retaining set tlements in the tributary shape of colonies. The value of colonial trade, when free and unrestricted, is, like the value of other branches of trade, of the highest conse quence; but the amount of this value becomes material ly lessened by the imposition of restraints. While, on he one hand, by favouring certain colonial articles to the exclusion of those of foreign countries, we com mit the error so strongly deprecated by Dr Smith, of driving into the colonial trade an undue proportion of home capital ; on the other hand, by compulsory limi tations in regard to the sale of colonial produce, we cramp most seriously the growth of colonial capital. As mat ters stand, such sales can take place only through our medium ; and had Mr Brougham composed his book with a knowledge of the eventful history of the last ten years, he would not have considered the monopoly in so harmless a light. If farther arguments arc wanted to produce the conviction, that our colonies would be more profitable to us in a free than in a restricted shape, we need merely refer our readers to the instructive tract written on this subject by Mr Bentham, at the outset of the I rend' olution. Nor will it be unprofitable, to make a practical contrast between the annual burden at tendant on the defence and government of the Rest In dies, Canada, or Nova Scotia, and our complete exemp tion from ex pence in the case of the United States, from whom our mercantile gains arc so much greater. Sec Ilumboldt's Travels in Mrxico, Brougham's Catania: Policy, Smith's Wealth of Nations, Talleyrand on Co lonies, Say's Economic Pohtique, Robertson's Histori. of .gmerica, Bryan Edwards' History of the Irest Sir William Young's Irest India Common-Place Book. and Mann's Nelo South frales. (x)