122 



carlyle's remedy. 



scure Black friends, is and was always the Law of the 

 World, for you and for all men : To be servants, the more 

 foolish of us to the more wise ; and only sorrow, futility 

 and disappointment will betide both, till both in some ap- 

 proximate degree get to conform to the same. Heaven's 

 laws are not repealable by Earth, however Earth may 

 try, — and it has been trying hard, in some directions, of 

 life ! I say, no well-being and in the end no being at all, 

 will be possible for you or us, if the law of Heaven is not 

 complied with. And if ' slave ' mean essentially 4 servant 

 hired for life, '—for life, or by a contract of long continu- 

 ance and not easily dissoluble,— I ask, whether, in all 

 human things, the ' contract of long continuance' is not 

 precisely the contract to be desired, were the right terms 

 once found for it ? Servant hired for life, were the right 

 terms once found, which I do not pretend they are, seems 

 to me much preferable to servant hired for the month, or 

 by contract dissoluble in a day. An ill-situated servant, 

 that; — servant grown to be nomadic; between whom 

 and his master a good relation cannot easily spring up !" 



Such is the solution of the West Indian problem, advo- 

 cated by one of the most distinguished writers and think- 

 ers in England : a restoration of slavery. He would in- 

 troduce compulsory labor, the price of which should not 

 be regulated by the laws of supply and demand which 

 control the wages of whites, but by acts of parliament, or 



