393 
513. The black population of these ee was originally 
placed in them by force as slaves; the race was 
increased under artificial conditions aka nna A by the authority 
of the British Government. What the e people were at the time of 
emancipation, and their very ppm in the Colonies at all, were 
owing to British action, or the action of sens European 
nations for the results of HN policy the United Kingdom 
assumed responsibility on taking possession of the eee a in 
question ; we could not, by the single act of freeing them, divest 
ourselves of responsibility for their future, which must necessarily 
be the outcome of the past and of the present. For E ons 
en on 
maintenance of the progress that they have made hitherto. We 
cannot abandon them, and if economic conditions become such 
that private enterprise and the profits of trade and cultivation 
cease to attract white men to the Colonies, or to keep them there, 
this may render it more difficult for the British Government to 
discharge its obligations, but will not in any way diminish the 
force of them. We have placed the labouring population where 
it is, and cr eated for it the conditions, moral and material, under 
which it exists, and we cannot divest ourselves of responsibility 
EC its future 
. There is also another consideration, which in our opinion 
ought not to be overlooked. The distress which is beginning to 
be felt by the population ; the difficulty in which some of them are 
already, or may soon be, placed of finding a livelihood ; the still 
e ‘certain difficulty of providing for their government and 
education, will be due to the failure of the sugar industr y, which is 
to the bounties which some of them grant on the production 
or export of sugar. To some extent at any rate these bounties 
and this policy have made sugar cheaper outside the countries in 
question, a result by which the British consumer has gained 
very largely. Whilst, therefore, it is unfair to ed that the cause 
of the depression in the West Indies is due to any act of the 
British Government, we cannot overlook the fact that the British 
people e been reaping great benefit from precisely that set of 
circumstances which has been a factor in bringing the West 
Indies to the verge of serious "men ter 
515. In our opinion, this makes it impossible for Your Majesty's 
Government to take a narrow view of the question, seed k the 
British people not only have gained, but continue to gain pro- 
be generous in discharging the obligations of the mother country 
to those dependencies which suffer so severely from the operation 
of the bounty system 
iii.—THE UNITED STATES MARKET. 
516. Some witnesses complainisias Sin in their opinion the 
Colonies had been hampered in ing advantageous com- 
mercial arrangements with the United ied 
