General in Council, or a Governor or Governor in Council of any of the presidencies, for that purpose first obtained; but no license shall be revoked, unless in accordance with some express clause therein.

12. The Governor-General in Council, with previous consent of Directors, may declare other places open.

13. As the removal of restrictions on the intercourse of Europeans will render it necessary to provide against any mischiefs or dangers that may arise therefrom, the said Governor-General in Council shall, by laws or regulations, provide, with all convenient speed, for the protection of the natives from insult and outrage in their persons, religions, or opinions.

14. Lands within the Indian territories may be purchased by persons where resident.

15. No native, nor any natural-born subject of his Majesty resident therein, shall, by reason only of his religion, place of birth, descent, colour, or any of them, be disabled from holding any place, office, or employment under the said Company.

16. Slavery to be mitigated, and abolished as soon as practicable.

17. And as the present diocese of Calcutta is of too great an extent for the incumbent thereof to perform efficiently all the duties of the office without endangering his health and life, &c., his Majesty may found two bishoprics, one of Madras, and the other of Bombay, with revenues respectively of 24,000 Sicca rupees by the year.

18. The Bishop of Calcutta to be Metropolitan in India. 19. Provision is made for the due qualification of persons to be employed in the civil service of the Company, and with respect to Haileybury College, &c.

20. St. Helena to be vested in the crown.

21. The King's courts authorized to admit advocates and attorneys without the Company's license.

The China Trade Bill repeals all prohibitions against the importation of tea, annulling the exclusive privilege so long enjoyed by the East India Company in that respect, and throwing open the trade, it being henceforth "lawful for any of his Majesty's subjects to carry on trade with any countries beyond the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan;" with the conditions only, that lists of all persons on board of any ship arriving in India shall be delivered to officers of customs, under a penalty of 1007., and that a British authority

shall be established in the dominions of the Emperor of China.

The principal provisions of the Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies, are:

1. That all persons, who, on the 1st of August, 1834, shall have been registered as slaves, and shall appear on the registry to be six years old or upwards, shall from that day become apprenticed labourers to the persons then entitled to their services as slaves.

2. That all slaves brought into the United Kingdom with consent of their possessors, shall be absolutely free.

3. That apprenticed labourers be divided into three classes, viz. prædial, attached to the soil, and comprising all slaves usually employed in agriculture, or in the manufacture of any colonial produce, or otherwise, upon lands not belonging to their owners; prædial apprenticed labourers not attached to the soil, and comprising all slaves usually employed in agriculture, or in the manufacture of colonial produce, or otherwise, upon lands not belonging to their owners; non-prædial apprenticed labourers, and comprising all apprenticed labourers not included within either of the two preceding classes; but no person of the age of twelve years and upwards, shall by virtue of any act of Assembly, ordinance, or order in Council, be included in either of the said two classes of prædial apprenticed labourers, unless for twelve calendar months at least next before this act, habitually employed in agriculture, or in the manufacture of colonial produce.

4 and 5. That apprenticeship of all prædial labourers not to continue beyond 1st of August, 1840; nor his hours of labour to exceed forty-five in any one week; nor the apprenticeship of the non-prædial labourers to continue beyond 1st of August, 1838.

6. Before the apprenticeship is expired, the labourer may be discharged at the voluntary act of his employer; but discharged labourers, fifty years old, or infirm, are to be supported.

7. Apprenticed labourer may purchase his discharge, against the will of his employer, on an appraisement, to be regulated by such acts of Assembly, ordinance, or orders in Council, as thereinafter mentioned.

8. Apprenticed labourers not removable from the colony. Prædial apprenticed labourers not removable from the plantation, except by consent of two special justices, which

is not to be given till they have ascertained that the removal will not separate the members of families.

9. Right to the services of apprenticed labourers to be transferable property; but no labourer shall be separated from his wife and child.

10. Employer to supply the labourer with such food, &c. as then required in the case of slaves; and where the prædial labourer shall be maintained by the cultivation of provisiongrounds, a proper quantity of ground, with leisure time, shall be set apart by the employer.

11. Subject to the obligations imposed hereby, all slaves in the British colonies are emancipated, from the 1st of August, 1834.

12. Children below the age of six, on the 1st of August, 1834, or born after that time to any female apprentice, if destitute, may be bound out by any special magistrate; but the apprentice must be under ten years of age, and is only to be bound till twenty-one; and his employer must allow reasonable time and opportunity for his education and religious instruction.

13. Nothing shall prevent the enactment by Colonial Assemblies, or by his Majesty in Council, of the laws necessary for establishing local regulations, not repugnant or contradictory to this act.

14. Colonial acts may not authorize the whipping or other punishment of the labourer by the employer's authority: nor any court, judge, or justice to punish any such apprenticed labourer, being a female, for any offence, by whipping or beating her person.

15. Apprenticed labourers not to be subjected to a prolongation or renewal of their apprenticeship, nor to more than fifteen hours extra labour in any week for their employer's benefit, nor to be compelled to work on Sundays, nor prevented from attending religious worship.

16. Towards compensating the persons at present entitled to the services of the slaves to be manumitted by this act, the Treasury may raise such sums as are required from time to time, and may grant redeemable perpetual annuities, not exceeding in the whole 20,000,000l. sterling.

17. Treasury to give public notice of their intention to raise the same.

18. Commissioners to be appointed for distributing the compensation, &c.

Inferior in importance to the momentous measures thus

briefly explained, though of the utmost interest to large classes of the community, are two other acts, which the session of 1833 has conferred upon the public; the one, by which depositors in savings' banks, and others, are enabled to purchase government annuities of a limited amount; and the other, passed after much laborious and patient inquiry, to regulate the labour of children in mills and factories. The former of these two measures, framed with the view of enabling the industrious classes to purchase, by the payment of a certain sum in the first instance, or by annual instalments, an annuity to commence at any age the purchaser may please, either immediate or deferred, for life or term of years.

By the provisions of the statute, a Parochial Society may be formed in any parish, provided the rector, minister, or vicar, or a resident justice be one of the trustees. No unnecessary expenses are incurred in the management, which is wholly gratuitous-the trustees and managers acting as the agents of government. The amount of the annuity to be purchased cannot be less than 4l., or more than 207. per annum, and is secured by government. No annuity can be contracted for on the life of a person under the age of fifteen. The money to be paid may be either in one sum in the first instance, or by weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly payments, as may suit the convenience of the purchaser. The amount of the money paid down, or of the yearly instalments, will of course depend upon the age of the party, and the time when he wishes the annuity to commence. The annuity is payable half-yearly, viz. on the 5th of January and 5th of July, or 5th of April and 10th of October. But if a party wish to have the annuity payable quarterly, he may effect his object by purchasing one half payable in January and July, and the other in April and October. Provision is also made for continuing the annual payments, or receiving the annuity at any other society than at the one at which the contract was originally entered into; and if the annuitant die after the payment of the annuity has commenced, his executors, &c. will be entitled not only to all the half-yearly arrears due at his decease, but also to one fourth part of the expired annuity in addition thereto, provided the same is claimed within two years of his decease.

Independently of the advantages which are thus afforded to the industrious classes to obtain, by small payments, a certain provision in old age, or at any other stated period, secured

by government, and of which they cannot be deprived, either on account of miscalculation in the first instance, or afterwards by the fraud or mismanagement of those who have the conducting the affairs of the society, the tables of contributions have been so calculated, that if the purchaser of a deferred annuity die before the time arrives at which the annuity is to commence, the whole of the money he has contributed will be returned, without any deduction, to his family. And, if it does not exceed 50%., it is not necessary that probate or letters of administration should be taken out. But, if he has left a will, or administration is taken out, no stamp or legacy duty is payable in respect of the sum so returnable, if the whole estate, &c. of the member is under 50%.; and again, if the purchaser is incapable of continuing the payment of his yearly instalments, he may at any time, upon giving three months' notice, receive back the whole of the money he has paid. No annuity granted will be subject or liable to any taxes, &c., nor can the same be transferred or assigned, but must continue to be the property, or be received for the benefit of the party by or for whom it was purchased; but, in case of the bankruptcy or insolvency of the purchaser of an annuity, the same is to be re-purchased by the commissioners at a valuation according to the tables upon which the annuity was originally granted, and the money will be paid to the assignee for the benefit of the creditors.

From the above statement, it will appear that the purchaser of an annuity, from a society established under this statute, if he lives to the age at which the annuity is to commence, will be entitled to receive an annuity equivalent to the value of all his payments, with the accumulation of compound interest; if he is unable to continue his yearly instalments, he may have back all the money he has paid; and, if he die before the commencement of the annuity, his family will receive the whole of the contributions he may have made previous to his decease.-Abstracts of both these statutes will be found under the proper heading.

As there may still be those who will be ready to inquire what actual relief accrues to the public from the arrangement of all the measures of which we have spoken, it seems necessary to carry our retrospect of the parliamentary proceedings of the year to the point which may supply an answer to such questions. By a reduction of official places and salaries, a saving has been effected to the country by the Whig ad

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