§ Mr. Villiersrose to put a question to the Government, of which he had given notice, respecting slavery in British India; he wished to know if any steps had been taken for carrying the intentions of the British Legislature into effect, or whether any measures were contemplated for terminating the system of slavery which existed in that part of the British empire? [Mr. Villiers here read the provision in the East-India Charter 1075 Act, which provided for the extinction of slavery.] He wished especially to know what steps had been taken for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade which had been proved to exist without the sanction of law in the British settlements of Penang, Province Wellesley, and Singapore?
Mr. B. Baringsaid, that legislation on the subject must be initiated in India. Orders had been sent out in November last to Singapore and Penang, directing the governors of those provinces to transmit without delay a project of law for the immediate abolition of slavery in those provinces. With respect to India, the Governor-general at the beginning of the present year had transmitted drafts of projects of law for the mitigation and gradual abolition of slavery for the consideration of the Court of Directors, and the Court of Directors and the Government had signified their desire to accede to all the propositions of the Governor-general on that subject. The subject would be best understood from the papers that would be presented to the House. In the first place, they gave every security to individuals in enacting that no one should be dispossessed of his property on the ground that his predecessors, having been slaves, had no right to acquire it. They also prohibited the selling of children into slavery in periods of scarcity. The papers would be laid on the Table of the House before the prorogation.