I am conscious that this might be my own case; and I believe it to be theirs. As the right honourable gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has left the House, I will only say that, with respect to the question of slavery, he acted after the fashion of the class to which he belonged. But as the right honourable gentleman, the late President of the Board of Trade, is in his place, he must allow me to bring to his recollection the part which he took in the debates of 1833. He then said, "You raise a great clamour about the cultivation of sugar. You say that it is a species of industry fatal to the health and life of the slave. I do not deny that there is some difference between the labour of a sugar plantation and the labour of a cotton plantation, or a coffee plantation. But the difference is not so great as you think. In marshy soils, the slaves who cultivate the sugar cane suffer severely. But in Barbadoes, where the air is good, they thrive and multiply." He proceeded to say that, even at the worst, the labour of a sugar plantation was not more unhealthy than some kinds of labour in which the manufacturers of England are employed, and which nobody thinks of prohibiting. He particularly mentioned grinding. "See how grinding destroys the health, the sight, the life. Yet there is no outcry against grinding." He went on to say that the whole question ought to be left by Parliament to the West Indian Legislature. [Mr Gladstone: "Really I never said so. You are not quoting me at all correctly."] What, not about the sugar cultivation and the grinding? [Mr Gladstone: "That is correct; but I never recommended that the question should be left to the West Indian Legislatures."] I have quoted correctly. But since my right honourable friend disclaims the sentiment imputed to him by the reporters, I shall say no more about it. I have no doubt that he is quite right, and that what he said was misunderstood. What is undisputed is amply sufficient for my purpose. I see that the persons who now show so much zeal against slavery in foreign countries, are the same persons who formerly countenanced slavery in the British Colonies. I remember a time when they maintained that we were bound in justice to protect slave grown sugar against the competition of free grown sugar, and even of British free grown sugar. I now hear them calling on us to protect free grown sugar against the competition of slave grown sugar. I remember a time when they extenuated as much as they could the evils of the sugar cultivation. I now hear them exaggerating those evils. But, devious as their course has been, there is one clue by which I can easily track them through the whole maze. Inconstant in everything else, they are constant in demanding protection for the West Indian planter. While he employs slaves, they do their best to apologise for the evils of slavery. As soon as he is forced to employ freemen, they begin to cry up the blessings of freedom.