ABSTRACT
In the West Indies, as in South Africa, it was difficult for the Imperial Government to bring itself to a full realization of its responsibilities. It was an Imperial Act that had abolished slavery. It was the Imperial Government, acting under pressure from public opinion in England, that had induced the legislatures of the colonies in 1838 to bring the period of ‘apprenticeship’ to an end. The planters indeed were only too ready to impute to the Imperial Government the main responsibility for this state of affairs. It would be unfair to judge harshly Lord Stanley’s regime in the West Indies. He was awake to the fact that Great Britain had some responsibility for restoring prosperity to the colonies as far as might be, and that this was in the best interests of the negroes themselves; he initiated that Indian emigration which was in the end to do so much for some at least of the West India colonies.
