If the foreign slave trade be not extinguished, and the cultivation of the Tropical territories of other powers opposed and checked by British Tropical cultivation, then the interests and the power of such states will rise into a preponderance over those of Great Britain; and the power and influence of the latter will cease to be felt, feared, and respected, amongst the civilized and powerful nations of this world.
Civilization and peace can only be brought round in Africa by the extension of cultivation, accompanied by the introduction of true religion. Commerce will doubtless prove a powerful auxiliary; but to render it so, and to raise commerce to any permanent or beneficial extent, cultivation upon an extensive scale must precede commerce in Africa.
It is, therefore, within Africa, and by African hands and African exertions chiefly, that the slave trade can be destroyed. It is in Africa, not out of Africa, that Africans, generally speaking, can and must be enlightened and civilized. Teach and show her rulers and her people, that they can obtain, and that white men will give them, more for the productions of their soil than for the hands which can produce these—and the work is done. All other steps are futile, can only be mischievous and delusive, and terminate in disappointment and defeat. To eradicate the slave trade will not eradicate the passions which gave it birth.
In attempting to extinguish the African slave trade and to benefit Africa, Great Britain has, in one shape or other, expended during the last thirty-six years above £20,000,000; yet, instead of that traffic being destroyed, it has, as regards the possessions of foreign powers, been trebled, and is now as great as ever, while Africa has received no advantage whatever. Since 1808, about 3,500,000 slaves have been transported from Africa to the Brazils and Cuba. The productions of what is technically denominated colonial Tropical produce has, in consequence, been increased from £15,000,000 to £60,000,000 annually, augmented in part, it is true, from the natural increase of nearly one million slaves more in the United States of America.
In abolishing slavery in the West Indies, Great Britain has besides expended above £20,000,000; still that measure has hitherto been so little successful, that £100,000,000 of fixed capital additional, invested in these colonies, stand on the brink of destruction; while, in addition to the former sums, the people of Great Britain have, from the enhanced price of produce, paid during the last six or seven years £10,000,00 more, and which has gone chiefly, if not wholly, into the pockets of the negro labourers in excessive high wages, the giant evil which afflicts the West Indies.
When the emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies was carried amidst feeling without judgment, the nation was so ready to pay £20,000,000, and the West Indians, especially those in England, so anxious to receive it, each considering that act all that was requisite to be done, that neither party ever thought for a moment of what foreign nations had done, were doing, and would do, in consequence. The warnings and advice of local knowledge were scouted in England, till these evils, which prudence might and ought to have prevented, now stare all parties in the face with a strength that puzzles the wisest and appals the boldest.
Instead of supplying her own wants with Tropical produce, and next nearly all Europe, as she formerly did, it is the fact that, in some of the most important articles, she has barely sufficient to supply her own wants; while the whole of her colonial possessions, east, west, north, and south, are at this moment supplied with—and, as regards the article of sugar, are consuming—foreign slave produce, brought direct, or, refined in bond, exported and sold in the colonies at a rate as cheap, if not really cheaper, than British muscovado, the produce of these colonies.
Such a state of things cannot continue, nor ought it any longer to be permitted to continue, without adopting an effectual remedy.
The extent of the power and the interests which are arrayed against each other, in this serious conflict, must be minutely considered to be properly understood in a commercial and in a political point of view. Unless this is done the magnitude of the danger, and the assistance which is necessary to be given, and the exertions which are requisite in order to bring the contest to a successful issue, cannot be properly appreciated or correctly understood.
The value of what is technically called colonial produce at present produced in the British colonial possessions, the East Indies included, is about £10,000,000 yearly, from a capital invested to the extent of £150,000,000. The trade thus created employs 800 ships, 300,000 tons, and 17,000 seamen yearly. This is the yearly value of the property and produce of the British Tropical agricultural trade, now dependent upon free labour.