Already the people in the Brazils have begun to moot the question—that they ought in sincerity to put an end to the African slave trade, and in lieu thereof to bring labourers from Africa as free people. The supply of such that will be required, both to maintain the present numbers of the black population and to extend cultivation in that country, will certainly be great and lasting. The disparity of the sexes in Brazils is undoubtedly great. In Cuba it is in the proportion of 275,000 males to 150,000 females, and, amongst the whole, the number of young persons is small. To keep up the population only in these countries will probably require 130,000 people from Africa yearly; while interest will lead the agricultural capitalist in those countries to bring only effective labourers, and these as a matter of course chiefly males; which will tend to perpetuate the evils arising from the inequality of the sexes, and thus continue, to a period the most remote, the demand from Africa, and consequently a continued expense, equal perhaps to £30 each, for every effective free labourer brought from that continent.
It is thus obvious that African immigration in any shape, and to any nation, is a most serious matter. Unless the subject is considered in all its bearings, with reference not only to the present but to future times, and above all with reference to the steps which France, Portugal, or any other European power, may take in Africa, and also with reference to the steps which Great Britain may or may not take with regard to that great continent—most embarrassing results must follow; while, on the steps which may be taken by other nations, the British colonial interests henceforward depend.
There remains but one certain and efficient way to prevent fatal evils and destructive results, and that is the simple, and ready, and rational course; namely, to oppose free labour within Africa, and the West Indies and the East Indies, to African labour, whether free or bond, abstracted from her soil and carried by foreign nations to distant parts of the globe. In Africa, where the soil, the climate, the productions are equal and the same, one-sixth part of the capital in labour would obtain labour equally efficient, nay more efficient, because removing Africans from their own country, either as slaves or freemen, even to other Tropical climates, must be attended with considerable risk and loss.
Produce, supplied cheaper from Africa than it can be obtained from the places above alluded to, would speedily and completely terminate, not only the foreign African slave trade, but the slave trade and slavery in Africa itself. This is the only safe, secure, and certain way to accomplish the great object. It is safe because it is just; it is secure because it is profitable to all concerned, the giver as well as the receiver of the boon.
It is neither prudent, patriotic, nor safe, to attempt to confine the productions of colonial commodities to the present British Tropical possessions; while the production of these in other countries and places will be increased by the capital and industry of other nations, and even by British capital and skill, more especially while capital cannot find room for profitable employment in England. During the war, Great Britain exported to the continent of Europe colonial produce to the extent of five millions yearly; and which in every case, but especially in bad seasons, when large supplies of continental grain were necessary for the food of her population, always secured a large balance of trade in her favour, and which would again be the case if she adopts the course here pointed out.
Adopting the course recommended, Great Britain at an early day would be able to supply, not only her own extensive markets, both home and colonial, with sugar, coffee, cotton, and dye-stuffs, &c. &c., but, in every other market of the world, she would come in for a large share of the external traffic. Her ships and her seamen would carry, both to her own and to foreign markets, the productions raised by British subjects and British capital, instead of carrying from foreign port to foreign port, as her ships and her seamen do at this moment, the productions raised by foreign people, capital, and industry. Great additional wealth would thus be drawn to this country; Tropical produce of every description would be obtained at a reasonable, yet remunerating rate; now, extensive, and profitable markets would be opened up to our manufactures. They would become and remain prosperous; and all classes of the community would be benefited and relieved. Prosperity would increase the power of the people to consume; increased consumption would produce increased revenue; and the government would be relieved from unceasing applications for relief, which, under existing circumstances, they have it not in their power to give.
The point under consideration also, important as it is, becomes still more important when the fact is considered, that if Great Britain does not set about the work to raise that produce in Africa, and command the trade proceeding from it, other nations most assuredly will; when she will lose, not only the advantages which that cultivation and trade would give her, but that trade also which she at present holds with her own colonies; for it is plain that the proceedings of foreign countries, such as have been adverted to, both in Africa, America, and other places, would cover the British colonies with poverty and ruin.
The geographical position of Africa is peculiarly favourable for commerce with all other countries, and especially with Great Britain and her vast and varied possessions. Africa, or rather Tropical Africa, is equally distant from America, and Europe, and the most civilized parts of Asia, besides her proximity to Arabia, and, by means of the Red Sea, with Egypt and the Mediterranean. Africa, whether we look to the Cape of Good Hope or the Red Sea, is the impregnable halfway house to India—the quarter to make good the loss of an Indian empire. She has numerous good harbours, many navigable rivers, a most fruitful soil, valuable productions of every kind, known in every other quarter of the Tropical world, besides some peculiarly her own; and a climate and a country, take it all in all, equal, if not superior, to any other Tropical quarter of the world in point of salubrity. Her population are indeed ignorant and debased; but generally speaking, and especially over large portions of her surface, they are even more active, and intelligent, and industrious, than the Indians of America, or the people in some parts of Asia are, or than the population of Europe was, before the arms of Rome coerced and civilized them. Why, then, is Africa overlooked and neglected?
Let us attend to the following facts. They are, both in a political and commercial point of view, of great importance, as showing the progress of the opinions and efforts of foreign nations as directed towards Africa.
The great energies of France are, it is well known, at present strongly directed to the more important points of Tropical Africa, for the purpose of extending colonization, cultivation, and commerce therein, in order that she may thereby obtain supplies of colonial produce from the application of her own capital, and at the same time, and by this measure, to raise up a more extensive commercial marine, and consequently a more powerful and commanding navy.