William Ewart Gladstone

“ It does not appear how the prices at which Bengal can supply our market, will suffer the West Indian planter to offer such wages to the negroes, then a free peasantry, as should divert them from their plots of ground to a more steady and laborious cultivation, however far it may be from real severity of toil, and however he may be aided by the plough, and by rattooning, and by that great reduction in the expenditure connected with the management of estates which will probably attend the increased need of economy. ”

“ It is difficult to say whether or how far the decline in the crops of Antigua is chargeable upon the abolition of coerced labour.
The second question is more formidable. The East Indian competition must, one should suppose, now that the duties are equalized, be found to exercise a most depressing influence, within no very long period of time, on the prosperity of the West Indian colonies, as countries exporting sugar. ”

“ There are two questions for consideration: the first whether the negroes will be willing to work habitually, continuously, and generally, in West Indian agriculture: the second, whether the planters will be able to pay them such wages as, supposing there is a degree of inducement which would suffice, will lead them to continue the present cultivation. ”

“ That island [1] differs from nearly all the other West Indian colonies in the cheapness of labour, the comparatively high cost of maintenance, which is by imported food, the general appropriation of the available land, a larger portion of resident proprietors, a population whose spiritual interests have been more extensively cultivated, and in the absence of religious discord. ”

“ Utterly denying that intellectual culture and civilised habits will ensure the permanent elevation and happiness of men, I yet believe that all his faculties are meant to be developed in unison for his perfect well-being ”

“ It seems certainly not too much to say, that one half of the compensation money must be regarded as given for the time of the free children in 1834, and that of the adults from 1840. The apprenticeship in this view should, strictly speaking, be credited only with one moiety of the interest, and the remainder should be regarded as an accumulating fund, to meet the increased expenses of the approaching period of absolute freedom. ”

“ But, upon the other hand, their abandonment of that occupation may be owing to the demi-servile associations which attend it: while apprenticed, they appear always willing to work in their extra time, and commonly for wages at field or manufacturing labour ”