on the payment of wages.  How does all this contrast with the predictions of the “practical men?” “Oh,” said they, in 1833, “it is idle talking; the cart-whip must be used—­without that stimulant no negro will work—­the nature of the negro is idle and indolent, and without the thought of the cartwhip is before his eyes he falls asleep—­put the cartwhip aside and no labor will be done.”  Has this proved the case?  No, my lords, it has not; and while every abundance of voluntary labor has been found, in no one instance has the stimulus of the cartwhip been found wanting.  The apprentices work well without the whip, and wages have been found quite as good a stimulus as the scourge even to negro industry.  “Oh, but” it is said, “this may do in cotton planting and cotton picking, and indigo making; but the cane will cease to grow, the operation of hoeing will be known no more, boiling will cease to be practised, and sugar-making will terminate entirely.”  Many, I know, were appalled by these reasonings, and the hopes of many were dissipated by these confident predictions of these so-deemed experienced men.  But how stands the case now?  My lords, let these experienced men, come forth with their experience.  I will plant mine against it, and you will find he will talk no more of his experience when I tell him—­tell him, too, without fear of contradiction—­that during the year which followed the first of August, 1834, twice as much sugar per hour, and of a better quality as compared with the preceding years, was stored throughout the sugar districts; and that one man, a large planter, has expressly avowed, that with twenty freemen he could do more work than with a hundred slaves or fifty indentured apprentices. (Hear, hear.) But Antigua!—­what has happened there?  There has not been even the system of indentured apprentices.  In Antigua and the Bermudas, as would have been the case at Montserrat if the upper house had not thrown out the bill which was prepared by the planters themselves, there had been no preparatory step.  In Antigua and the Bermudas, since the first of August, 1834, not a slave or indentured apprentice was to be found.  Well, had idleness reigned there—­had indolence supplanted work—­had there been any deficiency of crop?  No.  On the contrary, there had been an increase, and not a diminution of crop. (Hear.) But, then, it was said that quiet could not be expected after slavery in its most complete and abject form had so long reigned paramount, and that any sudden emancipation must endanger the peace of the islands.  The experience of the first of August at once scattered to the winds that most fallacious prophecy.  Then it was said, only wait till Christmas, for that is a period when, by all who have any practical knowledge of the negro character, a rebellion on their part is most to be apprehended.  We did wait for this dreaded Christmas; and what was the result?  I will go for it to Antigua, for it is the strongest case, there being there no indentured apprentices—­no