To put down slavery, then, we have only to let free labour have fair play. It is not the continuance of monopoly, but emigration, that is wanted. The first consequence of emancipation was the formation of a middle class where it had not before existed, which middle class was entirely subtracted from the agricultural population. 718,525 human beings were emancipated in our sugar colonies, including the Mauritius, of whom one-fourth were immediately absorbed in the formation of a middle class. Hence the deficiency in labour which at present affects the West India Islands. We believe, with Mr. Laird, {24} “that it is the _quantity_, not the quality, of labour that is wanting.” Indeed it has been shown that a free negro in Guiana creates double the amount of sugar that his enslaved countryman in Cuba does. In many parts of the East labourers may be hired at three-halfpence and two-pence a day. From the evidence given before the West African Committee, we learn, that wages average from two-pence to four-pence a day in our three settlements on the coast of Africa. The cost of the slave in Cuba or Brazil equals this. Let the experiment be fairly tried, and it will soon be evident that slave labour must be driven out of the market. That becomes still plainer when we look at the actual condition of the slave-grown sugar. From Cuba every fresh post brings a continuance of bad news. There is a want of capital and skill—a blight rests upon the land—property and life are insecure. On March 6th, a statement appeared in the _Anti-Slavery Reporter_, giving an account of the wretched condition of the slaves. “We are credibly informed,” observes the editor, “that on some of the sugar plantations in Cuba the slaves are in a most miserable condition—not less than the half of a gang being sickly, covered with sores, and even cripples—the whip supplying virtue and strength, health and numbers. Unable to ‘trot’ to the field, they are placed on carts and carried to it, there to creep and toil by the help of the lash. No description can exhibit the neglect, cruelty, and inhumanity, with which they are treated. In crop-time they have no holiday—no Sunday—and no sleep!” The _Times_ gave the following, as from Havanna, under date of February 17:—“A slaver, with 1200 negroes, has arrived on our coast. They have been offered at 340 dollars a-head, and our planters has determined to buy no more, and none of this cargo has been disposed of. _No one is now inclined to encourage this abominable traffic_, _which begins to be considered as highly injurious to the welfare of the island_. Several corporations and planters have given in reports favourable to the total abolition of the slave trade; it is understood these will be sent forthwith to the Spanish Government.”