The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-17 00:00:00

rott6ings arliament. HOUSE OF LORDS—No:4cm The Royal assent was given by commission to several private bills. OATHS BILL. On the order of the day for considering the report of the s in their lordshi to be offered to the House of Commons ps' amendments to this for persisting bill, Earl GRANVILLE thought the policy of persisting i n these reasons , after having passed Lord Lucan's bill, permitting Jews to sit in Parliament, was very dou btf u l. It would seem as if their lordships made a concession against their will ; and the House of Commons might retort on them that the reasons required no reply, because they were urged against a course that had actually been adopted. Of the reasons themselves three were neither strong nor conclusive, while the others were offensive to the House of Commons, or insulting to those who were now to be admitted to Parliament. The Earl of DERBY defended the reasons as em. bodied in the report. They were quite consistent with the course their lordships bad taken. They had not changed their opinions on the propriety of admitting Jews to Parliament, but they had, for the sake of conciliation, given a permissive authority to the other house to admit them. It was therefore gill competent to their lordships to express their reasons for dissenting from the original bill. He would propose, however, to substitute another reason for the fourth in the report, and omit the sixth altogether. This, he hoped, would remove all objections to them. The Mivquis of LANSDOWNE thought the course proposed the most singular that could be adopted ; with a bill on their table that was really intended to allow Jews to sit in Parliament, they were asked to agree to reasons why they ought not to be allowed to sit there. It was most inconsistent that the records of the house for the same day should contain a declaration that Jews were morally unfit to legislate for the country and a bill admitting them to seats in the Legislature. Lord MALMESBURY was anxious that the views of the Government on this subject should not be mis taken: if there had been any concession, it had been made to a political necessity, not a moral conviction. A reply to the House of Commons was required ; it had been drawn up by a majority of their lordships' house; and he thought it unusual in a minority to object to reasons so approved. . . The Earl of CARLISLE condemned the course of passing the bill and the reasons against it as incon sistent and discreditable. The Earl of HARDWICKE supported the reasons. Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY strongly condemned them, as making the concession appear grudging and ungracious. After a few remarks from the Duke of NEWCASTLE, the first, second, and third reasons were agreed to. The house divided on the reason substituted for the fourth of the report, and the amendment was tarried by a majority of 8; the numbers being, contents 50, non•contents 42. With this amendment, and the omission of the sixth reason, the report was agreed to. The Earl of Lucen moved the third reading of the Jews Bill. Lord DIINGA24NON divided the house against the motion ; there appeared,— Contents Non contents .... 33 12 Majority for the third reading —2l Amendments proposed by Lord REDESDALE and the Earl of HARRINGTON were withdrawn, and the bill passed. Their lordships then adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS-MONDAT. At the morning sitting the Report of the Com mittee of Supply was brought up and agreed to. After a brief conversation upon the subjects of the Embassy -house at Paris and Westminster•bridge, the house resolved itself into a Committee of Supply upon the estimates for the Civil Service and Revenue Departments. THE MASSACRE AT JEDDAH. In the evening, in reply to Mr. LIDDELL, Mr. S. FITZGERALD said the onlj information the Government had received respecting the tragical oceurence at Jeddah was from the telegram, the truth of which they had no reason to doubt, and that immediately on the receipt of the intelligence Lord Malmesbury had forwarded instructions to our Commanders on the spot to take every means in their power to bring the perpetrators to justice. THE SLAVE TRADE. On the motion for going again into a Committee Of Supply, M . r. HUTT called a tt en ti on t o th e slave trade, Which, he observed, was never in a state of greater activity than at the present moment, in spite of our THE PRESS, JULY 17, 1858. armed cruisers. It had long ago been argued that we could never succeed by such means; that it was impossible for this country, so long as high prices were paid in any part of the world for African slaves, to suppress the trade, the great law of commercial intercourse, that of demand and supply, being opposed to the attempt. The conclusion drawn from reasoning had been confirmed by practical experi ence; our system bad failed, and he wished, he acid, it were no worse; that we had merely wasted our money and resources ; but, in his opinion, it had entailed consequences terrible to contemplate. He drew a frightful picture of the horrors of the middle passage, in which the mortality of the negroes was calculated at from 25 to 33 per cent., and for this result be held that house responsible. Another disastrous consequence of the system was that it bad been dragging this country to the verge of hostilities with two maritime States with which it was our interest to remain on terms of amity. Under these circumstances, he moved a resolution, "That it is expedient to discontinue the practice of authorizing her Majesty's ships to visit and search vessels under foreign flags, with a view of suppressing the traffic in slaves." Mr. CARDWELL observed that this was not a mo tion to withdraw our African squadron, but to pass a resolution, and so to fetter the hands of the Govern ment,—a proposition which the house was, be thought, not likely to adopt. Mr. Hutt had not noticed the resolution of the House of Lords, that the squadron was not ineffective, but was effective, and that its removal would annihilate a nascent and now flourishing commerce in Africa. It bad been argued that it was hopeless to put down the slave trade with Brazil ; but we had nevertheless perse vered, and the traffic with Brazil had been wiped out. The squadron bad repressed the slave trade along 1,000 miles of the African coast, while a legitimate trade had sprung up in native hands, which experi enced witnesses had testified must inevitably be ex tinguished if the squadron were removed. He hoped, therefore, that the house would not give its sanction to a retrogade policy, which would be preju dicial to the interests of humanity and derogatory to our honour. Mr. S. FITZGERALD said he should ask the house to express a strong dissent from the resolution. In reversing any policy of this country there would be a general disinclination on the part of the house to come to a precipitate decision ; but the policy we bad pursued with reference to the slave trade was one in which we asserted a high principle, and had invited the co-operation of all the nations of the globe, and its moral effect upon the conduct of other States had been most important. Mr. Hutt had put the question upon two issues ; first, whether the policy bad been successful or unsuccessful; and, secondly, whether particular circumstances did not render that policy at present unadvisable. As to the first, after a careful consideration of the matter, he had come to a conclusion totally opposite to that of Mr. Hutt. In stating the fists upon which he based his conclusion, he showed the enormous increase which bad taken place in the exports from Africa, not merely in palm oil, but in cotton, expressing a confident hope that, if we succeeded, as he believed we should, in repressing the slave trade, before many years we should receive a most important supply of this article from the west coast of Africa. With regard to the second point, be explained the grounds upon which he entertained no doubt that the fears of Mr. Hutt as to any interruption of our good under standing with France in respect to this matter were unfounded. As to the United States, he repeated what be bad stated upon a former evening on the subject of the right of search, and read a despatch which he had received that day containing very satis factory assurances on the part of General Cass, which showed, he said, that there was no prospect of any difficulties occuring betweeen this country and the United States to prevent ourj perseverance in that just and humane policy which we had pursued for so many years, and which he hoped the house would not relinquish. Mr. M. GIBSON said be was glad that the practice of visiting American ships in the Cuban waters bad been given up, and he thought that the Government was, to a certain extent, carrying out the principle of Mr. Hutt's motion, which only sought to discon tinue the practice of visiting and searching vessels under foreign flags. We were paying, he observed, a large sum of money to keep up a maritime police which was ineffectual, since slaves were obtained, and it was impossible to maintain an effective blockade of the extensive coast of Africa. Cuba got as many slaves as she required ; but, in order to allow a margin for the negroes our cruisers might capture, more were shipped from Africa; the middle passage was thus rendered more fatal, and our squadr on inflicted a great increase of suffering and mortality. He called upon her Majesty's Government to repeal the Brazil Act of 1845, which had bean passed on the ground that Brazil had failed in fulfilling her treaty obligations with this country in regard to the slave trade, but which there was no reason now for 687 maintaining. It was a most offensive and improper law, he said, and should be erased from our statute book. Mr. A. Mims noticed the difference between the circumstances of Brazil and Cuba. Mr. GURNEY admitted that the real question was whether the system had been successful or unsuc cessful. Mr. Hutt said it had been an entire failure ; he (Mr. Gurney) believed there was good evidence to the contrary. After some remarks by Sir G. PECHELL and Sir C. NAPIER, Mr. ROEBUCK, while denouncing the slave trade u an unholy traffic, asked whether Cuba did not obtain as many staves as she wanted ? If so, as far as regarded importation, our endeavours bad had no effect whatever; but, as regarded exportation, we bad compelled the export of a larger number of slaves to keep up the importation, so our efforts had been mischievous ; they had been nugatory for good, and, besides the sacrifice of money, they had in creased the sufferings of the slaves. He insisted that the operations of our cruisers had in no way contributed to the growth of legitimate commerce in Africa. He contrasted our conduct towards Brazil with that we had just adopted towards America. "We had truckled, be said, to one, and bullied the other, because this was weak and that was strong. He supported the motion, which he regarded as a humane one. Sir J. PAKINOTON contended that although we bad not done all we wished, we had accomplished great things, and that, if it had not been for the continued efforts of this country, the slave trade would have been far more prosperous. The revival of the slave trade, which our squadron had reduced to a mini mum, was contemporaneous with the reduction of the squadron in the Cuban waters in consequence of the demands upon our navy in the Russian war. Late accounts from Cuba, however, stated that, not withstanding the revival of the traffic, so great was the difficulty of introducing a sufficient number of slaves into Cuba that a considerable number of Indians had been brought thither from Yucatan. The good rendered by the African squadron was not limited to the suppression of the slave trade ; it bad fostered legitimate commerce, and in a few years we might look to Africa for a supply of cotton He gave an indignant denial to Mr. Roebuck's as sertion that we had truckled to the United States, a charge which, he said, was utterly unfounded. Mr. Burros denied that the efforts of our African squadron bad been a complete failure, or that they had increased the horrors of the middle passage. Ile mentioned facts which he thought demonstrated that our cruisers were very effective and threw serious impediments in the way of the slave trade. He enlarged upon the splendid commercial prospects of the west coast of Africa if the traffic in slaves could be stopped. Lord C. PAGET said, he had a pocket-full of letters from naval officers, stating that the efforts of our squadron on the coast of Africa, though noble and sublime, were utterly futile. He added his own testimony to the amount of suffering caused by the pursuit of slavers and to the hardships endured by the crews of our own ships on the African station. Lord PALMERSTON observed, if mere assertions could induce the house to concur with those who made them, Mr. Hutt would succeed in his motion, but all his assertions were diametrically opposed to the facts. Our policy, instead of having been un successful, had been eminently successful. That it had increased the horrors of the middle passage was an assertion diametrically opposed to the fact, as well as the statement that the Cubans got as many slaves .as they wanted ; the well-known high price of slim as n Cuba showed that the supply fell short of the demand. He claimed credit to the British Govern ment for putting down the slave trade in Brazil, which he denied to have been the result of any im proved opinion in that country. It had been argued that the British Government were bound to propose to Parliament to rescind the Act of 1845 ; but he believed that the continuance of that act for the present was the only security against the revival of the slave trade in Brazil. Upon commercial and political grounds ho thought it would be unwise to retrace our steps, and, regarding the matter in a religious point of view, he suggested that, by revers ing our policy and re-establishing this abominable traffic, England would bring upon itself a measure of guilt. Mr. Glum supported the motion, contending that the facts which were said to be at variance with its object had not been established, and that negro slavery could not be put an end to by the means we had adopted. Mr. P. O'BRIEN and General THOMPSON made a few remarks. Mr. DRUM BOND warmly opposed the motion, declaring that he would heartily rejoice at bearing of the rising of the blacks, and at their inflicting a measure of justice upon their oppressors. d r C n b I b a tl Si it 01 al ai fc tt tl to II h 11 , 01 si tt tl tt F tl I t' C I