ourselves to an extent almost unlimited, by heavy duties upon imports from the East Indies, beyond what are laid on similar articles from the West Indies. 'A duty of 101. per ton more, (being 50 per cent on the prime cost,) is laid on East than on West India Sugar; the duty on West being 271. on East India 377., per ton. 281. per ton more is laid on East than on West India Coffee; the duty on West being 561., on East India, 841. per ton. "281. per ton more is laid on East than on West India Cocoa; the duty on West being 561., on East India, 841. per ton. 71. per ton more is laid on East than on West India Turmeric ; the duty on West being 31., on East India, 10l. per ton. '11s. 6d. per gallon more is laid on East than on West India Rum; the duty on West being 8s. 6d., on East India, 20s. per gallon. '61. per cent., ad valorem, is laid on East India Cotton Wool, while West India is admitted free of duty. * 'The Cotton Manufacturers of India are liable to a duty of 101. per cent. while English manufactured Cottons are admitted into India at a duty of 21. per cent. "The Silk Maufacturers of India are liable to a duty of 30l. per cent., while those of France are only chargeable with the same duty. 'There are also higher duties on a variety of other articles, such as Dye-woods, Mahogany, Hides, &c. &c., than on similar articles from the West Indies. The Mauritius, a small island, (ceded to us by France,) is cultivated by Slaves; it has lately been selected as the object of favour, being the only spot, in our Eastern Empire, put upon the footing of the West Indies, with regard to import duties. 'Notwithstanding these disadvantages, under which our EastIndia Trade is placed, it is a remarkable fact, that our exports to that country have increased in an astonishing degree. 'Export of Cotton Goods to India from Official Documents, but divided by 28, to give the quantity in Pieces 28 yards each. Printed. We are also shipping to India considerable quantities of Cotton Twist. We lay the same duty on Cotton from our own dominions in India, as on American Cotton, while America imposes from 25 to 100 per cent. on our manufactures.' "What, then, would be the extent of this trade, were the produce of British India put upon a fair footing, as regards import duties, with the produce of our other colonies! 'It may be objected, our Government is not in a situation to reduce the Revenue; but, on a little reflection, it will be evident, that, as an increased export of the manufactures of this country to the East Indies would enable the people of England to consume an increased quantity of the produce to be received in return, the Revenue would be benefited by the change;-besides, we are now paying a bounty of 31. per ton in the drawback allowed on refined sugar exported. To take off this bounty, would be some saving to the Treasury, and a large saving to the people. It is not only a clear loss to the nation of 31. per ton, upon the sugar exported; but mark, it also raises the price of all sugars consumed in this country, 31. per ton, and is a tax on the nation, paid to the sugar growers, of not less than SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS PER ANNUM. "It must in fairness be stated, that the East Indies have some advantage from this bounty in common with the West Indies, though comparatively only to a very small amount, as the sugars imported from the East Indies bear a small proportion to those from the West. Until last Session, the bounty was 67. per ton; 31. per ton was then taken off. This was a wise measure on the part of Government, and we rejoice in it, there being no good reason why the people of this country should pay a bounty on the produce of either the East or the West Indies. At the same time, it must be observed, that, as no equalization took place in the duties, this measure places the East India trade in a worse situation relatively than before, inasmuch as that, while, by the operation of the bounty, all sugar in the British market was sold 61. per ton above its natural price, some of the finer qualities of East India could be imported in return for our manufactures, and were brought into competition with the West India monopoly, even paying the extra duty of 101. per ton. Now receiving only 31. per ton, (an advantage, as before observed, to which neither the East nor the West is entitled,) and remaining subject to the extra duty of 10l. per ton, the measure is calculated still more to limit importation from the East Indies. The plea of the West Indians, (for the continuance of this bounty, and of those protecting duties so injurious to our commerce, and expensive to this country,) used to be, "You have the monopoly of our Trade and Navigation." Even the Colonial Assemblies have repeatedly admitted, that, when the restrictions on their trade should be taken off, they would no longer have a claim to any exclusive privilege in our markets. THESE RESTRICTIONS ARE TAKEN OFF.— The carrying Trade of our Colonies is thrown open-they may send their produce where they please; and, excepting a few prohibited articles, such as Gunpowder, Arms, Books, &c., may receive their * supply of manufactured goods from whom they please; but, will it be believed? a prohibitory duty has just now been laid on East India Rum!! These sacrifices, enormously great as they are, are not the whole of the burden imposed upon this country, to enable the planter of the West Indies to continue the expensive, the ruinous system of slave cultivation, which, without such support, he would long ago have been forced to abandon, and to have adopted a better; we will mention another item. The expense of our slave colonies during the year 1824, a year of profound peace, for naval and military defence, and other contingencies, amounted to upwards of One Million Six Hundred Thousand Pounds, and this is an expense which is going on from year to year; while, on the contrary, India MAINTAINS HERSELF-her defence and government cost us nothing. The expense of every establishment connected with her, at home or abroad, is defrayed from her own resources. 'But it is said, the West Indies are a source of wealth to the mother country;-that they give extensive employment to her manufacturers. On the contrary, as matters are now managed, they are a dead weight; a source of enormous expense, without any adequate return. It is calculated, that, on account of the West Indies, we have added ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLIONS to our National Debt. But to say nothing of this, whether it be more or less; to say nothing of the MILLIONS which this nation has annually to pay for interest upon this mighty sum; to say nothing of the incalculable loss which this country sustains, from our Trade being cramped and limited, by protecting duties to favour the West Indies; to say nothing of the sum levied upon the consumers, the people of England, Ireland, and Scotland, in an enhancement of the price of their sugars, &c., by the operation of these duties, which prevent the produce of the East Indies being brought into fair competition with the West; and which sum, whatever the amount, goes not into the Treasury, but direct into the pocket of the West Indian planter;—to say nothing of all these, we have besides, as stated above, before we derive any profit from the trade of the West Indies, for defence and other contingencies, and in their part of the bounty, an absolute outlay of more than TWO MILLIONS per annum; a sum, in itself, nearly as great as the WHOLE AMOUNT of our manufactures consumed in our West India Colonies. In an address to the Cotton Manufactures, it is further remarked, that "It is an indisputable fact, that a large proportion of the human race are willing to wear cotton clothing; and that you can supply them with that clothing at a much cheaper rate than they can pro See England Enslaved by her own Colonies;' and, for information, 'Huskisson's Speech,' March 21st, 1825. cure it from any other quarter, provided only you are allowed to take their produce, freely, in exchange for it? At present your export of cotton goods, large as it is, is not sufficient to meet the wants of a fortieth part of that immense population, who would gladly buy their clothing of you, if they might but pay you for it in the fruits of their labour. "You have witnessed, on former occasions, the beneficial effects of fresh openings for our commerce and manufactures. A few years ago, a new trade was opened with about twenty millions of people in South America, and you know what extensive benefits you derived from it. Hence you may form some idea of what the effect would be of opening a free and unrestricted trade with more than twenty times that number-I mean, with nearly five hundred millions of people in Asia. "What was it which prevented you, until lately, from trading with South America! What, but the restrictions imposed on that trade by the Governments of Spain and Portugal ? "And what now prevents your trading with the five hundred millions of China, Hindoostan, and the rest of Asia? What but the restrictions imposed on that trade by your own Government? You have only, as it appears to me, to ask that these restrictions should be removed, in order to its being done. So reasonable a request could hardly be refused, more particularly as it is in strict agreement with the very liberal principles of trade which have been avowed, and which, in a variety of other instances, have been acted upon, by his Majesty's Government." We need not add another word to this. Let there be but corresponding exertions made by the merchants in India, to support the claims of the advocates of unrestricted intercourse between England and her Eastern possessions, in this country, and their united efforts must and will prevail. SONNET. WHO sees thee must adore ;-thy beauteous face While in thy faultless form, that thralling grace Effaces all that love had graved before, And makes me feel, alas! how true I spoke Those fatal words- Who sees thee must adore!' "Tis ecstacy to love thee, though despair Hang o'er the future like a moonless night,- In gilded visions summon'd into light. B. G. B. ON THE CIVILIZATION OF THE INTERIOR OF AFRICA, AND THE EDUCATION OF NEGROES. IN entering on this subject, it is impossible to refrain from contemplating, with a sigh, the enormous expenditure so uselessly made in the Establishment of Sierra Leone, which is either abandoned, or about to be so, after a terrible loss of life, an almost total failure of every object to which the public ardently looked forward, and every ameliorating effect corresponding to the assistance and liberal subscriptions supplied. Africa, which has, for so many centuries, bled at every pore from European cupidity, still suffers in her wretched population; nor has any visible advantage hitherto resulted, which can be reckoned as the commencement of a remunerating process likely to redeem the past, which, by enlightening her debased and ignorant sons, and teaching them the rudiments of useful learning and Christian truths, might reclaim them into the great family of man, partaking of, and augmenting from their own stores, the inexhaustible products of nature, which a genial commerce and enlightened views might establish. To accomplish the amelioration of the much injured African, nothing more is requisite than the cul. tivation of his faculties: how long will it be ere the promoter of this desired end shall be convinced, that it is by the formation of negro schools, amid our islands or in Europe, wherein the sons of Africa may gain an insight into the simplest truths of knowledge, and thence return to their native abodes to disseminate their new lights, that we may look forward, by little and little, by slow but certain steps, to obtain this most important result? The power of becoming intelligent and well informed, appertains to the African as well as the European. The celebrated Blumenbach gives us a most entertaining account of a little library, which he possesses, of works written by negroes, from which it appears, that there is not a single department of taste or science in which some negro has not distinguished himself. Without venturing to pronounce so sanguine an encomium as this, the following observations, from a Memoir of M. Pacho, recently read before the Geographical Society of Paris, with an early copy of which we have been favoured, are so entirely in accordance with our own opinion, that we perform only our duty in recommending them to the public notice and favour. Stationed for many years at the confines of the interior of Africa, M. Drovetti (the late Consul-General of France at Cairo) had peculiar advantages for considering the great problem of exclusion from intercourse, which attached to the central parts of this great portion of the globe we know not how to bestow the term of States on those African hordes, which, bounding their exertions to their phy |