We are not the advocates of idleness and imprudence. The question before us is, not whether it be desirable that men all over the world should labour more steadily than they now do; but whether the laws which regulate labour within the tropics differ from those which are in operation elsewhere. This is a question which never can be settled, merely by comparing the quantity of work done in different places. By pursuing such a course, we should establish a separate law of labour for every country, and for every trade in every country. The free African does not work so steadily as the Englishman. But the wild Indian, by the Major’s own account, works still less steadily than the African. The Chinese labourer, on the other hand, works more steadily than the Englishman. In this island, the industry of the porter or the waterman, is less steady than the industry {385}of the ploughman. But the great general principle is the same in all. All will work extremely hard rather than miss the comforts to which they have been habituated; and all, when they find it possible to obtain their accustomed comforts with less than their accustomed labour, will not work so hard as they formerly worked, merely to increase them. The real point to be ascertained, therefore, is, whether the free African is content to miss his usual enjoyments, not whether he works steadily or not; for the Chinese peasant would work as irregularly as the Englishman, and the Englishman as irregularly as the negro, if this could be done without any diminution of comforts. Now, it does not appear from any passage in the whole Report, that the free blacks are retrograding in their mode of living. It appears on the contrary, that their work, however irregular, does in fact enable them to live more comfortably than they ever did as slaves. The unsteadiness, therefore, of which they are accused, if it be an argument for coercing them, is equally an argument for coercing the spinners of Manchester and the grinders of Sheffield.