an immigration in any shape, and to any
nation, is a most serious matter. Unless the subject is considered in
all its bearings, with reference not only to the present but to future
times, and above all with reference to the steps which France, Portugal,
or any other European power, may take in Africa, and also with reference
to the steps which Great Britain may or may not take with regard to that
great continent--most embarrassing results must follow; while, on the
steps which may be taken by other nations, the British colonial
interests henceforward depend.

There remains but one certain and efficient way to prevent fatal evils
and destructive results, and that is the simple, and ready, and rational
course; namely, to oppose free labour _within_ Africa, and the West
Indies and the East Indies, to African labour, whether free or bond,
abstracted from her soil and carried by foreign nations to distant parts
of the globe. In Africa, where the soil, the climate, the productions
are equal and the same, _one-sixth_ part of the capital in labour would
obtain labour equally efficient, nay more efficient, because removing
Africans from their own country, either as slaves or freemen, even to
other Tropical climates, must be attended with considerable risk and
loss.

Produce, supplied cheaper from Africa than it can be obtained from the
places above alluded to, would speedily and completely terminate, not
only the foreign African slave trade, but the slave trade and slavery in
Africa itself. This is the only safe, secure, and certain way to
accomplish the great object. It is safe because it is just; it is secure
because it is profitable to all concerned, the giver as well as the
receiver of the boon.

It is neither prudent, patriotic, nor safe, to attempt to confine the
productions of colonial commodities to the present British Tropical
possessions; while the production of these in other countries and places
will be increased by the capital and industry of other nations, and even
by British capital and skill, more especially while capital cannot find
room for profitable employment in England. During the war, Great Britain
exported to the continent of Europe colonial produce to the extent of
five millions yearly; and which in every case, but especially in bad
seasons, when large supplies of continental grain were necessary for the
food of her population, always secured a large balance of trade in her
favour, and which would aga