The object which Lord Elgin had most at heart was to improve the moral and social condition of the Negroes, and to fit them, by education, for the freedom which had been thrust upon them; but, with characteristic tact and sagacity, he preferred to compass this end through the agency of the planters themselves.  By encouraging the application of mechanical contrivances to agriculture, he sought to make it the interest not only of the peasants to acquire, but of the planters to give them, the education necessary for using machinery; while he lost no opportunity of impressing on the land-owning class that, if they wished to secure a constant supply of labour, they could not do so better than by creating in the labouring class the wants which belong to educated beings.

The following extracts from private letters, written at the time to the Secretary of State, contain the freshest and best expression of his views on these and similar questions of island politics:—­

In some quarters I am informed, that less desire for education is shown now by the Negroes than during the apprenticeship; and the reason assigned is, that it was then supposed that certain social and political advantages would accrue to those who were able to read, but that now, when all is gained, and all are on a par in these respects, the same zeal for learning no longer prevails.  It has been suggested that a great impulse might be given in this direction, by working on the feeling which existed formerly; confining the franchise for instance to qualified persons who could read, or by some other expedient of the same nature.  This being an important constitutional question, I have not thought it right to give the notion any encouragement; but I submit it as coming from persons who are, I believe, sincere well-wishers to the Negro.  It is not very easy to keep children steadily at school, or to enforce a very rigid discipline on them when they are there.  Parents who have never been themselves educated, cannot be expected to attach a very high value to education.  The system of Slavery was not calculated to strengthen the family ties; and parents do not, I apprehend, exercise generally a very steady and consistent control in their families.  The consequence is, that children are pretty generally at liberty to attend school or not as they please.  If the rising generation, however, are not educated, what is to become of this island?  That they have withdrawn themselves to a considerable extent from field labour is, I think, generally admitted.  It is therefore undoubtedly desirable that all legitimate inducements should be held out, both to parents and children, to encourage the latter to attend school.

In urging the adoption of machinery in aid of manual labour, one main object I have had in view has ever been the creation of an aristocracy among the labourers themselves; the substitution of a given amount of skilled labour for a larger