But of all the innovations of the liberal party, that of which the consequences have been most disastrous within the sphere of their immediate influence, and which have now been demonstrated in the most decisive way by the results of experience, are the changes they have made on our West India colonies. They exhibit a series of alterations so perilous, so irrational, so disastrous, that we do not hesitate to say they are unparalleled in the annals, extensive as they are, of human folly and perversity. Only think what they were! We first, in 1807, abolished the slave trade in our dominions. So far there can be no doubt that the step taken was both just and expedient--just, because the iniquitous traffic in human flesh should, at all hazards, be stopped in a Christian state; expedient, because we already possessed, in the colonies themselves, a large negro population, perfectly capable, if well treated, of keeping up and increasing their own numbers, and performing all the field operations requisite for the cultivation of produce, which at that period employed two hundred and fifty thousand tons of British shipping for its transport, and maintained a population that consumed £3,500,000 worth of British manufactures. But as the British colonies were thus deprived of the aid of imported forced labour, which the rival sugar colonies of Cuba and the Brazils enjoyed, of course it was indispensable that the labour of the black cultivators in the British islands should be perpetuated, and the proprietors maintained in the means of getting that work from _them_ which they were prohibited from acquiring from foreign labourers. The way to do this, and withal to give the greatest possible security and means of improvement to the black population of which they were susceptible, was evident, and was clearly and forcibly pointed out at the time. It was to maintain slavery in the meantime, doing every thing possible to mitigate its severity, till the negro population had come so much under the influence of artificial wants as to be ready, for their enjoyment, to submit to regular and continuous toil; to regulate their days of forced labour, and give them some days in the week to work for themselves, of which they might reap the fruits; and to allow every negro, who could thus amass a sum equal to his price, to purchase his freedom from his master. By this simple system, no one could become free without having proved himself fit to be a freeman, and therefore the whole evils of premature emancipation were avoided. It was thus that slavery wore out almost without being noticed in the European kingdoms; it was thus it almost disappeared, insensibly and without a convulsion, in Spanish South America.