The Slave Trade, Domestic And Foreign Part 34

[94] Thompson's Lectures on India, 57.

[95] Ibid. 185.

[96] Chapman, 22.

[97] Ibid, 25.

[98] Rambles in India, vol. ii. 109.

[99] Modern India, 394

[100] Thompson, Lectures on India, 25.

[101] The destruction of life in China from this extension of the market for the produce of India is stated at no less than 400,000 per annum. How this trade is regarded in India itself, by Christian men, may be seen from the following extract from a review, recently published in the Bombay _Telegraph_, of papers in regard to it published in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, in which the review is now republished:--

"That a professedly Christian government should, by its sole authority and on its sole responsibility, produce a drug which is not only contraband, but essentially detrimental to the best interests of humanity; that it should annually receive into its treasury crores of rupees, which, if they cannot, save by a too licentious figure, be termed 'the price of blood,' yet are demonstrably the price of the physical waste, the social wretchedness, and moral destruction of the Chinese; and yet that no sustained remonstrances from the press, secular or spiritual, nor from society, should issue forth against the unrighteous system, is surely an astonis.h.i.+ng fact in the history of our Christian ethics.

"_An American, accustomed to receive from us impa.s.sioned arguments against his own nation on account of slavery, might well be pardoned were he to say to us, with somewhat of intemperate feeling, 'Physician, heal thyself_,' and to expose with bitterness the awful inconsistency of Britain's vehement denunciation of American slavery, while, by most deadly measures, furthering Chinese demoralization."

The review, in referring to the waste of human life, closes as follows:-.

"What unparalleled destruction! The immolations of an Indian Juggernauth dwindle into insignificance before it! We again repeat, nothing but slavery is worthy to be compared for its horrors with this monstrous system of iniquity. As we write, we are amazed at the enormity of its unprincipledness, and the large extent of its destructiveness. Its very enormity seems in some measure to protect it. Were it a minor evil, it seems as though one might grapple with it. As it is, it is beyond the compa.s.s of our grasp. No words are adequate to expose its evil, no fires of indignant feeling are fierce enough to blast it.

"The enormous wealth it brings into our coffers is its only justification, the cheers of vice-enslaved wretches its only welcome; the curses of all that is moral and virtuous in an empire of three hundred and sixty millions attend its introduction; the prayers of enlightened Christians deprecate its course; the indignation of all righteous minds is its only 'G.o.d-speed.'

"It takes with it fire and sword, slaughter and death; it leaves behind it bankrupt fortunes, idiotized minds, broken hearts, and ruined souls. Foe to all the interests of humanity, hostile to the scanty virtues of earth; and warring against the overflowing benevolence of heaven, may we soon have to rejoice over its abolition!"

[102] Campbell, 390.

[103] Ibid. 393.

[104] Campbell, 384.

[105] Ibid. 377.

[106] Campbell, 359.

[107] Ibid. 332.

[108] Ibid. 345

[109] Chapman on the Commerce of India, 88.

[110] Lawson's Merchants' Magazine, January, 1853, 58.

[111] Ibid. 51.

[112] See page 140, _ante_.

[113] Backhouse's Visit to the Mauritius, 35.

[114] The danger of interference, even with the best intentions, when unaccompanied by knowledge, is thus shown by the same author, in speaking of Madagascar:--

"Dreadful wars are waged by the queen against other parts of the island, in which all the male prisoners above a certain stature are put to death, and the rest made slaves. This she is enabled to effect, by means of the standing army which her predecessor Radama was recommended to keep by the British. * * How lamentable is the reflection that the British nation, with the good intention of abolis.h.i.+ng the slave trade, should have strengthened despotic authority and made way for all its oppressive and depopulating results, by encouraging the arts of war instead of those of peace!"--P. 24.

[115] Thompson's Lectures on British India, 187.

[116] Lawson's Merchants' Magazine, January, 1853, 14.

[117] Bigelow's "Jamaica in 1850," 17.

[118] Sophisms of Free Trade, by J. Barnard Byles, Esq.

[119] Speech of Mr. T. F. Meagher, 1847.

[120] The following paragraph from an Irish journal exhibits strikingly the amount of political freedom exercised at the scene of these evictions:--

"Lord Erne held his annual show in Ballindreat, on Monday, the 25th ult, and after having delivered himself much as usual in regard to agricultural matters, he proceeded to lecture the a.s.sembled tenants on the necessity of implicit obedience to those who were placed over them, in reference not only to practical agriculture, but the elective franchise. To such of the tenants as his lords.h.i.+p considered to be of the right stamp, and who proved themselves so by voting for Sir Edmund Hayes and Thomas Connolly, Esq., the 15 per cent. in full would be allowed--to those who split their votes between one or other of these gentlemen and Campbell Johnston, Esq., 7-1/2 per cent.; but to the men who had the manliness to 'plump' for Johnston, no reduction of rents would be allowed this year, or any other until such parties might redeem their character at another election."--_Cork Examiner_, Nov. 8, 1852.

[121] Thornton on Over-population, 248.

[122] Ibid. 250.

[123] McCulloch, Stat. Acct. of British Empire, vol. I. 315.

[124] Times Newspaper, June 7th, 1844.

[125] Report of Highland Emigration Committee, 1841.

[126] Lectures on the Social and Moral Condition of the People, by various Ministers of the Gospel. Glasgow.

[127] See page 71, _ante_.

[128] Kay's Social Condition of England and of Europe, vol. i. 70

[129] Ibid. 359.

[130] Kay's Social Condition of England and of Europe, vol. 1, 183.

[131] On a recent occasion in the House of Lords, it was declared to be important to retain Canada, on the express ground that it greatly facilitated smuggling.

[132] Alton Locke.

[133] Lord Ashley informs us that there are 30,000 poor children such as these in London alone.

[134] Reports of the Health of Towns Commission, vol. i. 127.

[135] City Mission Magazine, Oct. 1847.