The Press.
London, England, 1857-04-18 00:00:00

plitttal.

THE CONSERVATIVE MEMBERS for West Suffolk,
Mr. H. S. Waddington and Captain P. Bennet, were
entertained at a public dinner at the Town hall,Burf
St. Edmund's, this week. Mr. Waddington, in the
course of his speech, observed :
After the election of a Speaker by the new Parliament,
other questions would be brought forward, and he thought
an attempt would be made at a new Reform Bill, but until
the Conservative party knew exactly what that Reform Bill
was, they could not pronounce any judgment upon it.
There had been great alterations in the new Parliament.

TBE PRESS.

The house had lost, in the first place, the Manchester
squadron, who were good orators in their way, and expressed
themselves generally well, according to their own ideas
and opinions. With regard to taxation, he could not help
expressing his satisfaction that some reduction had taken
place in the income tax, and he hoped that before long
that tax would be entirely extinguished. He hoped also
that more money would not be voted away than the Govern-
ment had in hand, as the country would then be called
upon for more taxes.

Captain BENNET, M.P., after appealing to the
company to promote the Conservative interest in the
registration of the division, said he believed the
Times bad stated that the present Government was
a Conservative Ministry :

He doubted this altogether. He believed the present
Cabinet was, as Burke had said, a " tesselated Govern•
ment, made up of courtiers arid republicans." He was
going to Parliament to support Conservative measures,
and he trusted the part would not be a " tesselated " one
on the side of the house on which he should sit.

Sir R. BUXTON, adverting to the probability of a
new Reform Bill, said he believed the question was
one which would affect agriculturists more than free
trade or protection; for, in the case of free trade, the
farmers' skill and energy had enabled them to
triumph over their difficulties, while in the case of a
Reform Bill no skill or energy would avail the farmers
if they allowed the power which they now legiti-
mately possessed to be wrested from them :
The immediate result of a sweeping measure of reform,
which degraded the suffrage into the bands of the ignorant
and unlettered, would be that additions would be made to
the already heavy burdens of the agricultural interest;
and such a measure, instead of elevating the condition of
the people of England, would tend to degrade them, by in-
troducing the worst of all tyrannies, the tyranny of a de-
mocracy.

THE PARLIAMENTARY RETURN, relating generally
to the Chinese coolie trade and especially to the late
remarkable mortality on board the ship Portland,
where, out of 382 coolies taken on board at Hong
Kong and Macao, 128 died before reaching the
Havana, has been published. The correspondence
upon the subject in some measure illustrates the
nature of the coolie trade. The captain of the Port-
land, in his evidence, stated that the Chinese were
no sooner all on board than they attempted a
mutiny. A police force came on board, and the
coolies at length were driven below at the point of
the bayonet. This disturbance arose from the men
having been cheated of their bounty, eight dollars
each. The mate states:—" I understood from the
interpreter that the cause of the disturbance arose
from the promised amount of money in advance not
having been paid." The interpreter states :—" I
believe the men got only one dollar." The captain,
indeed, states that he " believes" they received their
eight dollars ; but the only reason he assigns for his
believe is, that "there had been a previous row about
it in the John Calvin." The captain also states
" I believe one-third of them had been kidnapped."
The attempt was suppressed, and every precaution
taken to prevent its repetition. A limited number
of coolies at a time were only permitted on the upper
deck ; the ship's crew were armed, and the captain
"never lay down without his cutlass." The coolies
soon after sailing became dispirited, committed sui-
cide, or fell sick and died like sheep. " The third
day," says the captain, " I had the first suicide, and
on an average I had three suicides daily between Hong
Kong and until l passed the Straits of Sunda." It was
a low typhoid fever that broke out. " Within a week
after sailing," says the surgeon, "as many as sixty
cases had appeared. The number of deaths," he
adds, " was neariy the same all the voyage, but in-
creased in malignity." Suicides and attempts at
suicide were frequent. " Those of the Chinese who
attempted to commit suicide and were picked up,
generally made a second attempt; they were then
more carefully looked after." " I had usually," says
the captain, " twelve to eighteen in irons for riotous
behaviour or attempted suicide." The poor creatures
refused to take food. "When they would not eat,',
says the captain, " I have tried to force their food
down their throats." The cause of this frightful
mortality appears mainly to have arisen from an in-
fringement of the Chinese Passenger Act, which re•
quires for each passenger a space of five superficial
feet on the upper and twelve superficial feet on the
lower deck. In the case of the Portland, about three
superficial feet above and eight below were only
allowed. A despatch from the Secretary of State for
the Colonies to Sir John Bowriog, calling his atten-
tion to this palpable infringement of the Passenger
Act, concludes the correspondence.
THE REPORTED RESIGNATION by Mr. Horsman of
the Irish Secretaryship is, we believe, premature.

THE Emu. OF ELGIN will be accompanied in his
diplomatic mission to China by his brother, the
Honourable Frederick Bruce, and by Mr. Oliphant as
his private secretary. Some further appointments
will be filled up from the Foreign Office.