leader of
Opposition in the House of Lords. But he began his great Parliamentary
career as a Whig and as a Reformer, and he was one of the most zealous
of Lord Grey's colleagues in pressing forward the great measure which
was carried to success in 1832. Among those who can remember him there
is only one opinion about the high order of his Parliamentary
eloquence, and that opinion is that he was a worthy rival of Gladstone
and of Bright. To him as Colonial Secretary was entrusted the task of
bringing forward, in the House of Commons, the measures of the
Government for dealing with the question of slavery in the British
colonies. Stanley's speech was such a magnificent blending of reason
and emotion, so close and so powerful in its arguments, so thrilling in
its eloquence, that many of those who heard the speech naturally
expected that it was destined to announce a bold and a comprehensive
policy. A certain feeling of disappointment came up among the
abolitionists when the measures were described which the Government had
resolved to submit to the House of Commons. What Stanley had to
propose was not a complete measure, but a {197} series of resolutions
embodying the purposes of the Government's policy. It is enough to say
that the Government proposed a plan which amounted to a scheme of
abolition by stages. There was to be a certain period of
apprenticeship, a term of fifteen years, during which the slaves, men
and women, were to continue to work for their masters as before, under
conditions gradually relaxing as the slave drew nearer to the time of
emancipation, and then when that hour at length arrived the slave was
to be free forever. This principle, however, was not to apply to
children under six years old at the time of the passing of the measure,
or to any children born after that time. The idea on which the whole
scheme was founded was the notion, very common at that time and since,
that the sudden emancipation of any set of human beings could only tend
to bewilder them, and to prevent them from making a proper use of the
freedom thus abruptly thrust upon them. "The fool in the fable," said
Macaulay, when dealing with a somewhat similar question, "declared that
no man ought to go into the water until he had learned to swim." Lord
Grey's Ministry had apparently much the same idea about the perils of
emancipation. Another part of the scheme proposed that fifteen
millions should be advanced by the Governme