o pretence to say that it is so at this
moment in our West India colonies; and we undertake to show, in an early
number, in connexion with this fact, that _the existence of the high
protecting duties on our West India produce has done more than anything
else to endanger the whole experiment of emancipation_.

But, moreover, our West India monopoly,--the existence of the high
prohibitory differential duty on sugar, is the greatest, strongest, and
least answerable argument at present used by slave-holding countries
against emancipation. The following was put strongly to ourselves in
Amsterdam a short time since by a large slave owner in Dutch
Guiana:--"We should be glad," said he, "to follow your example, and
emancipate our slaves, if it were possible; but as long as your
differential duties on sugar are maintained, it will be impossible. Here
is an account sale of sugar produced in our colony, netting a return of
11_l._ per hogshead to the planter in Surinam; and here is an account
sale of similar sugar sold in London, netting a return of 33_l._ to the
planter in Demerara: the difference ascribable only to your differential
duty. The fields of these two classes of planters are separated only by
a few ditches. Now such is the effort made by the planter in Demerara to
extend his cultivation to secure the high price of 33_l._, that he is
importing free labourers from the hills of Hindostan, and from the coast
of Africa, at great cost, and is willing to pay higher wages than labour
will command even in Europe. Let us, then, emancipate our slaves, which,
if it had any effect, would confer the privilege of a choice of
employer, and Dutch Guiana would be depopulated in a day,--an easy means
of increasing the supply of labour to the planters of Demerara, at the
cost of entire annihilation of the cultivation of the estates in
Surinam. But abandon your differential duties, give us the same price
for our produce, and thus enable us to pay the same rate of wages, and
I, for one, will not object to liberate my slaves to-morrow."

Whatever amount of credence people may be disposed to place in this
willingness to abandon slavery, nothing can be more clear than that the
higher rate of wages paid in our colonies, attributable solely to the
high and extravagant price which, by our differential duties, their
produce commands, must ever form a strong and conclusive reason with
these slave-holding countries against their entertaining the que