The Colony of Surinam. 251 
I therein endeavoured to oppose and refute the argu- 
ments and the views of the Ministry and Colonial Office, 
then in power, and strongly advocated not only the 
advisability but the necessity of introducing into the colony 
a system of Government based on a right of direct 
representation of the colonists by their chosen repre- 
sentatives ; a system closely connected with the pros- 
perity of the colony, securing an efficient form of 
Government and, above all, a sacred right of the subjects 
of His Majesty in the West Indian Possessions of the 
Realm. I also claimed for the future House of Assem- 
bly, Colonial Council, Colonial States (whatever might 
be its name), the same rights and privileges as granted 
to the Representation of the Nation at Home, and more 
particularly the right of disapproving and rejecting 
Bills introduced by the Government, the right of amend- 
ment and specially the right of initiative. 
The organization and constitution of 1832, with its des- 
tructive and depressing efforts, continued however to 
remain in force, but not without a strong expression of 
feelings at home as well as in the colony, urging in 
favour of a new fundamental law and of the adherence of 
the Government to the intentions laid down in her 
Addresses to the States-General in 1851 and 1855. 
The Bill for the Abolition of Slavery and the Emanci- 
pation of the Slaves in the Dutch West Indies, was in 
the interval laid before the Chambers, passed all its 
stages, became law on the 8th of August, 1862, was pro- 
claimed in the colony on the 30th October of that year ; 
and on the 1st of July, 1863, slavery had ceased to exist 
in the Dutch West Indies. 
In 1865 a liberal Ministry was at the head of affairs, 
GG 2 
