The Press. — London, England, 1853-08-13 00:00:00

AIIGCST 13, 1853. the ground that Cuba must ultimately become American. Nothing more has passed ; but a spirited reply from Lord J. RUSSELL aptly doses the dispute. The convention, says Lord JOHN, is effectual for the purpose for " which it in te nded—that of barring the ion of Cuba by any European possible acquisib. state :- 7' nited States. But if it is intended, on the part of ihti lis•••• • . to maintain that- Great Britain and France have no I►NFreat in the maintenance of the present atalus quo in Cuba, and that the United States have alone a right- to a voiee in that matter, her Majesty's Government at once refuse to admit such a claim. Her Majesty's possessions in the West Indies alone, without insisting on the importanee to Mezieo and other friendly States of the present distribution of power, give her Majesty an interest in this question which she cannot forego. The possessions of France in the American seas give a similar interest to France, which, no doubt, will be put forward by her Government. Nor is this tight at all in• validated by the argument of Mr. Everett. that Cuba is to the United States as an island at the mouth of the Thames or the Seine would be to England or France. The distance of ettba front thu nearest part of the trial. tory of the United States, viz., from the southernmost part of Florida, is 110 sriles.. - . An island at an equal distance from the mouth of the Thames would be placed about ten miles north of Antwerp, in Belgium : while an island at the same distance from Jamaica would be placed at Manzauills, a town in Cuba. Thus there are no grounds for saying that the possession of Cuba by Great Britain or Fral tea would be menaeing to the United States, but that its possession 11 the United States would not be so to Great Britain. There is one argument of the United States Seeretnry of State which appears to her Majesty's Government not only unfounded, but disquieting. Lord Malmesbury and M. de Turgot put forward. as a reason for entering into the proposed contract, " the at tacks which have lately been made on the island of Cuba by lawless bands of adventurers from the United States, and with the avowed design of taking possession of that island." To this reason Mr. Everett replies in these terms : " The President is convinced that the conclusion of such a treaty, instead of putting a stop to these lawless proceedings, would give a new and powerful impulse to them." The Government of Great Britain acknowledges with respect the conduct of the President in disavowing and discouraging the lawless attempts here referred to. 'l'll4l character of those attempts, indeed, was such as to excite Pie reprobation of every civilised state. The spectacle of bands of men collected together in reckless disregard of treaties, for the purpose of making from the ports of the United States a piratical attack on the territory of a Ismer in amity with their own State, and, when there, endeavour ing, by armed invasion to excite the obedient to revolt and the tranquil to disturbance, was a sight shocking, no doubt, to the just and honest principles of the President. But the statement made by the President, that a convention duly signed and ►egally ratified. engaging to respect the pre sent state of tiossession in all future time. would but excite these bandsolpirates to more violent !Roadies of all the laws of honesty and good neighbourhood. is a melancholy avowal for the chief of a great State. Without disput i»g its truth, her Majesty's Government may express a hope that this state of things will not endure, and that the citizens of the ITnited States, while they justly boast of their institutions, will not be insensible to the value of those eternal laws of right and wrong, of peace and friendship, and of duty to our neighbours, which ought to guide every Christian na tion. Nor can a people so enlightened fail to perceive the utility of those rules for the observance of international relations which for centuries have been known to Europe by the name of the Law of Nations. Among the commen tators on that, law, some of the most distinguished Aloe rican citizens have earned an enviable reputation ; and it is difficult to suppose that the United States would set the example of abrogating its most sacred provisions. We have given this document almost in full. because it furnishes another, though a tardy, proof how the depreciators of Lord MAtmEs firitY have been compelled to adopt his policy, to employ his arguments, and to follow in the truck which he had marked out Other op portunities may occur tbr the consideration of the Cuban question, especially in its relations to slavery and the slave trade. THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES COURT- OUGHT IT TO CONTINUE ? Ax ACT for the continuance, and, in reality, for the perpetuation, of this tribunal is await ing the Royal assent. That bill, as proposed to Parliament, was an attempt to make an exceptional and anomalous institution a per manent branch of Irish judicature. We think it a great mistake, and that the time had come for stopping this machinery of confiscation, and for committing its functions to the Irish Court of Chancery. We are not about to comment upon the depreciation of property, the► individual ruin, the forced sales, and the facilities for fraud of THE PRESS. every kind which have been occasioned by this institution. These consequences were, perhaps, inseparable from the sudden opening of the Irish land market at a time of unprece dented depression. Nor do we wish to make any remarks upon the conduct of the officers who have presided in the Court, because we believe it to have been able and honourable. But we object to the attempt to establish per "tually a tribunal the exclusive object of , . -tie and transfer of landed pro- Witten IN the... • .•- against improvi perty, without any seem o v the due dent anti reckless litigation, or is. distribution of the produce of the sales. And we think that all its advantages, without any of Its evils, might be attained by a moderate Chancery reform. The peculiar business of the Encumbered Estates Commission is the speedy transfer of real estate. To accomplish this object they have been invested with powers of the most arbitrary character, and they have made rules contrary to all precedent. The rule of our Equity Courts. and, indeed, of natural justice, is, that a puisne encumbrancer shall not attempt to sell tut estate without of to redeem those paramount charges to which he was content to be subject, and which he had no right to disturb. But, as this salutary safeguard against improvident and vexatious suits tended to cheek the sale of the land, the rule of the Encumbered) Estates Commis sion is precisely the reverse. Tile result has certainly been to throw estates into the market., but, at the same time, to suNect land owners and mortgagees+ to attattkot &am parties front which the latter class at least should bate been exenipt, anti to multiply the order of " prowling assignees " of encum brances. Again, the rule of the Equity Courts is, that, with the exception of the general costs of the sale, each encumbraneer receives his costs in the priority of his de mand. But the new tribunal, steadily keeping in view its peculiar object, makes the peti tioner's costs the first charge upon the fund, and thus offers a tempting lnibe to bring land to the hammer. These two innovations are the chief changes in the preliminaries of liti gation. In the conduct of a suit. for the sale of an estate, the Encumbered Estates Commis sion has made an extraordinary revolution. The Court of Chancery satisfied itself of the rights of the parties and the ownerships of the encumbrances before it sought to transfer to another the fund which was their seeurity. The Encumbered Estates Court, upon a prima facie, and very often an exparie, statement that an estate is in a certain degree of embarrass ment, forces it into the market, and transfers to the purchase-money the rights of the par ties ; and finally, upon the completion of the purchaser's conveyance, it puts him into possession of the estate sold, by an indefeasi ble title, and summarily evicts any tenants who may question the validity of proeeedings of which they may never have heard. No one can doubt that these changes have tended to the speedy rode and transfer of landed property in Ireland. But is it wise to make them perpetual, and to establish for ever a tribunal which acts net only inconsistently with, but contradictorily to, our whole system of ,jurisp r udence? It is impossible to speak too highly of one privilege of the Commission, namely, its power of vesting in itself, by its deeretal order, the entire estate of the vendors, and of transferring it, by it simple and intelli gible conveyance, to a purchaser. But this privilege is merely applying to real estate the law which, in bankruptcy eases, has long been applied to personal estate, and might easily be conferred upon the Court of Chancery. There seems to be no reason for perpetuating the other practices of this tribunal, and thus far encouraging reckless litigation, endangering the rights of suitors and tenants, and, for a fancied expediency, cutting up justice by the roots. THE WEST INDIES. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRERs." Sir,—Lord John Russell, in his statement last week respecting the intention of Government with restard to Jamaica, said, "that in British thliana and Trinidad the exports of sugar, since 1840, had in creased from 8:3,000 cwts. to 1,321.000 cwts. in 184 more than 50 per cent. In Jamaica the export of sugar in 1840 was M 7,000, and in 1852 it bad fallen to 511,000, cwts. That Guiana and Trinidad had im • ported 13,000 emigrant labourers, and Jamaica only 11,000;" and wound up by saying, •, that he had no doubt but that Jamaica would now soon recover front her depression, and become as prosperous as the other colonie,.- I would. sir, with your permission, put before your reiltliTS, in as brief a spree as ro..ibh•, u differeut view of this growing pru+t u •rity of his sanguine lord ship. British littiana and Trinidad. after importing 73,(X10 labourers, increase their produetion of sugar in twelve years -197,000 ewts., or 11,800 tons. In 18.11 the crop of sugar in Cuba was under 911,000 's ; in 18'5eini)t-owartinSolfitit l e ss W::;Nl i t l i al ls .2 . . ): d ' t t n l44 l% ) t tii t :l n t s ti ; la a v i e l inerefute nt., nduce with ease 2 tons of sugar an eat be made t 0 pa. live adult emigrant pro. nuttily; Alla, allowhig that • •e imported la. daces one.half of that quantity, um.. on boureN ought to have increased the proctuu. to 73,000 tons, instead of 2 1,t 4 :0) lona. This illereake to only at the rate of about one-third of a ton per La bourer, or one. sixth of the production of a slate. to the emigrants, Iterbice, which is a part of tittiatio, has abandoned the whole of her «states since 1841, the labour from which would also be atonable for sugar. I.ord Harris, in a letter to Earl tirey, dated lsth of December, 18.17, trout Trinidad, informs hint, with reference to the coolie emigrants, " that there is a dead low* on every Coolie, man, woman, anti child, this year, of 101. ;" and it i s now admitted that the Indian Coolie doe s not R ower well in the West I attics. And in the same bites. Lord I larris further says, " 1 possess a detailed ae count of the produce and expense of the same estate befitre and later vinatteipation: formerly, sugar wits made at 64 cents the luu lbs., it uow costa 0 dollar.., or It. 0., 1441. Jamaica, where the dearth of labour has heel greater, from the facilities it offers to negro squatters and from loss by eholern, than the other island', in Isll7 produced 11 MI 14 t i nt" fibs. of cl ar et ., nai l em ai l/ sod at ithota ~ tsJloo,ootillis. till the ctuancipation ; it not, prialoves alsint 3,1tii0,011411115., or not ono-seventh ut us shu• prowlnet ion. There have been abandoned in the island `ll4'o the 01118111410$11 in %W WI MO coffee and '!on sugar esian.m. The average produce or sugar for the three your.: previous to the enuaneipa tion was nearly 10,0011 tuns; it is tom, according to 1.44 rd .1. Unssell's statement, •25,5011 tons ; and not until the fah of July, 1145.1, will the differential duty in tu:,n of free labour sugar entirely CeaSi. ; and it has been computed also that from the emancipation to 1N54) the loss to the planters and the island was not less than 50,0110/. ; yet. still they struggle on, have imported may 11,000 hilmitrers, and Lord J. Russell tells John Dull that he has not the least doubt but that—Walden will soon be as prosperous as British I ;ninth' and Trinidad. 11f the latter, by the bye, 1 have sects a statement by Lord Mulls (though at this moment 1 cannot put my hand upon it), that up to a certain period the cost of keeping up the exports, n v, T the profits, ails I,ooo,ooL—Viair obedient ser vant, AN (01.11 PLANTKR. - . St. John's-w►NHI, .11igust 9, INA. P.S.—ln the Journoi of the Eastern Archipelago and Eastern Asia, Marti!, I MIS, I find It paper written by a gentleman of my acquaintance, Mr. Ilalasticr, the United States Consul at Singapore in 1519, fry m which I take the following extract :--" In the United States, where implements of husbandry a dapt e d to this cultme (sugar) are freely used, and notwith. standing the immature eondition of the clines when cut—which, owing to the cold sense:), are bilged to be immipulated at ten months old—ouch hand or lit bower (slave) on the estate, men, woaten, and children, able to work, pmluro from live to seven hogsheads of ljamilbs. each, according to the returns made and published by Congress." This is on the average 1 fiats 1:1 cwt. for ea c h man, woman, and child; and Lord .1101 in Russell's emigrants, by his own showing, in prosperous Guiana and 'hinidiel increase the production at the rate of about 7 cwt. each. Is it, therelere, to be wondered at, even supposing that the emigrant produced one ton, that the are a of, and the numbers of slaves thereon, are both rapidly increasing? A 4 1 % i t . e , 4 i m *Ns:I of the 6th inht. announce that. largo lionntitic. of corn are heing shipped for Frattec and Italy. I.citers from llesika Bay of the Wlth of July htato that the greatest enthusiasm i:revailed among the crewri of the duets of Great Britain and France. It is hair' that a telegraphic ile4patch has been rmeived from Vivant' announcing the acceptance by the Divan of the Vienna proposals. .1 new expedition is preparing l►y Russia againat the condoms, to tie undertaken at the end of this month. inol a fleet is arming in the men of Azof to support the !wet operations. Since the quaint with Turkey they.: has been great agitation in the Russet Caucasian provinces. MR