§ Mr. Fowell Buxton, seeing the right hon. the President of the Board of Control in his place, would take that opportunity of asking what steps had been taken in respect of that important provision in the East-India Company's Charter relative to the abolition of slavery in India?
§ Sir John Hobhouseassured his hon. Friend, that the Government were fully impressed with the importance of the subject involved in the question of his hon. Friend, and grounded on the Charter of 1833; but he could only then inform him that the subject was left entirely in the hands of the local authorities in India, who were on the spot, and could apply the operation of the clause in the Act with better effect than those at a distance. They would take the matter into consideration, and submit to the home authorities certain regulations for the manumission of slaves. Until such a plan was sent home they could not take the subject into consideration. The House was aware that the local authorities had taken means to prevent the introduction or the exportation of slaves, and they had entered into several treaties for that purpose; but he was sorry to say, that at Goa, and other Portuguese settlements, the slave trade was still carried on to an extent which he regretted very much. He would take an opportunity of drawing the attention of the Court of Directors to the fact, that no plan had been yet sent home, but as soon as it was, his hon. Friend might rest assured that every attention should be paid to the important subject.
§ Mr. Fowell Buxtonhoped, that he misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman when he said that the Government either here or in India, did not feel themselves pledged to abolish slavery. It was understood in the House, that means would be taken to abolish slavery in India, and if that were an erroneous impression, the effect would be to raise a strong feeling throughout this country.
§ Sir John Hobhousewould read the clause of the Act by which the Charter was groaned. The effect was, that the local authorities be required to take into consideration the means of mitigating the state of the slaves, and of extinguishing slavery throughout the whole of the Indian territories, so soon as such extinction should be safe and practicable, and that from time to time they should prepare and transmit to the Court of Directors the laws or regulations for this purpose, and in preparing such plans, due regard should be had to the laws of marriage and to the rights and authority of fathers and heads of families. He would, as he stated before, draw the attention of the Court of Directors to the fact that no law, regulation, or plan, had been sent home, to enable them to carry their intention in this respect into effect.
§ Subject dropped.