The Express.
London, England, 1848-07-11 00:00:00

colonide had been falsified, and the ships which had been
sent to the Kroo coast had returned—one empty, and the
other with only one free labourer on board. lie would ask
whether the advocates of the abolition of slavery had ever
contemplated the abandonment of cultivation in the
colonise ? (Hear, hear.) No, the cry had always been that
free lebour could compete with slave labour, and so it could,
bed the experiment been properly carried out. As thtugs
were going on, government must rusk* up their minds soon
to colonic'
tae all the exses of the on themselvee. The
nob pen
lord's plan was • homorepathic plan, but
i the noble
as
lord would have done better to have left the law t was,
as the colonies would have died sooner.
Lord G. BENTINCE. said that the question was not
whether they should afford protection and relief to those
colonies, but what was to be the degree sad amount of that
protection and relief. The question was no longer whether
the act of 1846 should be adhered to or abandoned. That
bill which was carried by a majority of two to one in 1846
had been rejected by a majority of nine to one daring the
preceding week. (Hear, hear.) He must confess that he
Sid not approve of the plan of the hon. member for Leo.
'Muter, but the question was whether was it better or worse
than that of the government. (Hear.) He found that
the protection proposed by that hon. member would amount
to 03. fur six yearn; that was to say, 7s. 7d. per cwt. each
year for six ronvecutive years on the finest qualities of sugar,
and it was as 275. on the lower qualities of sugar, while the
government plan amounted to a protection of—for
the whole course of the six years—'32s. 6d. It was
impossible then to doubt that the proposition of the hon.
member for Leominster was, as regarded the colonies, a
better measure of relief than that proposed by the noble lord.
But in preferring the plan of the hon. member for Leomin-
ster to that of the government, it leather duty on behalf of the
West India body and the 'sugar.growing interests of the
Mauritius and the Hoot Indies, as well as on behalf of that
portion of the committee who had supported his view, to re.
padiate it as a final measure. (Hear, bear.) The proposal
of the hon. member was not suggested with the sanction of
any of the great interests concerned. Those intermits were
unanimous in favour of a differential duty of 10s, as the
only means of relief which would really benefit them, lie
had risen with the intention of unowering the arguments
which had been put forward by the two hon. members for
Manchester against any further claim on the pert of the
British sugar-growing colonies for relief, and be would
proceed to address himself to the question of whether
or sot those colonies had received full compensation for the
losses which the act of the Imperial Legislature had en-
tailed upon them. It had been argued by the hon. member
for Manchester (Mr. Bright) that the produce of Jamaica
had averaged during a lung course of years 3,000.0001. ster-
ling a year ; and the hon. gentleman endeavoured to show
that the money paid for compensation, it invested at 6 per
cent., wou'd far exceed a profit of 10 per cent. on the whole
annual value of the produce, and he went into a limiter cal-
culation with regard to the other colonies. That argument,
though ingenious, had no gelid foundation. No doubt the
merchants would be content if their profits amounted to 10
percent. on the whole produce of the Betel Wert Indies.
But to Pay that 10 per cent. on that produce was a lair and
ample return for the capital invented was the most extraor-
dinary position he had ever heard advanced. (Hear.) It would
be easy to show what had beta the average profits during a
long course of years. At the end of the last century the capital
invested in the British West ludies was equal to 130,000,0001 ,
and he believed it was not less at the present moment.
Taking Mr. Marshall's celeulation of the produce, and taking
the cost of manufacture, freight, brokerage, commeoion, &c.,
for 1814, which was a period of war, at double what it was
in 1831, be found that the value of the capital, (palmated at
the ordinary number of years' purchase, was 135.411,4901.
The hon. member for Manchester, it he were present, might
say that amount was only in consequence of being bolstered up
by protection in 1814. But that was nut the case. When
the West India proprietors were left to cultivate their estates
by the labour of their alive , under the mild and mitigated
system of slavery which existed iu our colonies, though they
had a non end protection in the British market, that pro.
Motion was really a dead letter, and not only did they
supply the home market, but exported largely to foreign
countries. (Hear.) From a return which had been pro.
duced at the instance of the hon. member for Bolton, he
found that the average price of colonial sugar as peened for
the year 1814 was 591. 101. ; the next year it rose to 73e 4d.,
but in that same year the price of Havennah sugar was
89s, 6d. ; both exclusive of duty. In 1816 the price of Bri-
tish colonial sugar was Gls. 10,1., and of Havannah sugar
71'. 2d. Therefore he contended that protection was a dead
letter, so long as the British West ladies were allowed to
remain on equal terms with other slave labeur states. He
would Lot leave this question on the result of one or two
rem, but would go to the years 1827, 8,9, and 30, in
which the average price of British col eniel sugar was
30s. 2d., while the price of Havannah sugar was 31s. 70.;
and though at this time we had obliged the West India
planters to give ue half a day every week, or 26 days a year,
of the labour of their slaves, they were still able to under.
sell all foreign slue-labour growing countries in the article
of sugar. (Hear.) As Lord Stanley stated in introducing
the Emancipation Bill, up to the year 1833 the British
pl inter had by his energy and capital successfully competed
with the foreigner, and even been enabled to beat
him in the foreign market, to which from fifty
to sixty thousand tons of British colonial sugar
annually found their way. (Hear, hear.) In toe
years 1827, 1828, and 1829, it appeared that the average
yearly value of all the produce exported from the British
West Indies had fallen from 12,000,0001. of sugar in value to
8,849.9191.; the cost of production, freight, brokerage, com-
mission, &c., being 3,288.98/41.; leaving a cle ir profit on
each of those years of 5,560.9311, which, if multiplell by
20, the number of years' purchase would represent a capital
of 111,218,6201. (Hear.) Now, he would show that the
16,600,0001. was no adequate compensation fur the property
we had compelled the West India reenters to surrender.
The gross proceeds of the sugar sold in 1830 was 195,631
tons, amounting in value to 4,890,7811., and taking the cost
of production, freight, insurance, brokerage, and commission
at 2,769,5171., the profit left to the planter was 2,121,2691.,
which et 20 years' purchase would represent a capital of
more than 40,000,0001. In 1847 the quantity of colonial
SUM imported was 149,557 tons. The cost of manufacture
had increased from 161. under slave lab tar to 211.95. per ton
under free labour; making for the whole quantity a
sum of 3,390,0861., which, added to 638.2291. for freight,
and 478,6701. for brokerage, insurance, &c., gave a total
cost of 4,506,9851. The quantity of auger actually
sold in 1847 was 129,130 tens, realising a gross return of
3,024,3231., 30,427 tons remaining unsold on the sth of
January last; if this also had been realised at the average
price of 221. 15m. a ton, the total value of the whole proceeds
would have been only 4,216,7441., to be set against a cost of
4,506,98.51, thus showing a dead loss of 290,2411., without
any charge for interest of capital inveeted, or interest pay-
able to mortgagees. (Hear, hear.) With this etat- mint
before them, which it was impossible to gainsay, he could
not understand how any one could say that the British West
Indies or the Mauritius had obtained anything like that fair
and reasonable compensation which the preamble of the Act
of Emancipation had showed that parliament intended ti
give them. (Hear, hear.) Both the hon, members for
Manchester had stated that the protection the colonies hail
received was t qual to a protection of 15s, per cwt. t n their
sugar, but those hon. gentlemen forgot that that 10e.
went in the difference of the cost of manufacture,
which had risen from 1,300,0001. a year during the
continuance of slave labour to 3,390,0001. a year
after the abolition of slavery. (liter, hear.) It had been
argued that the West Indies had no right to expect a mono-
poly of the British market—that there was no honourable or
implied understanding to that effect. But no one could look
to whet took place at the parsing of the Emancipation Act
without feeling that it was distinctly understood at the time
that slave grown sugar was not to he admitted to compete
with the free-grown produce of our colonies in the British
market (hear, hear.) Lord Stanley, in introducing the
measure, said : " It is complained that if slavery be aholished
production will be diminished. Ido not know but that that
might be beneficial to the planter." How it could be bene-
ficial to the planter unless it was meant to give him the mo-
nopoly of the home market, and AO secure him a better price,
he (Lord G. Bentinck) could not understand. (Hear, heer.)
But there could be no doubt as to what was the intention of
the government who brought forward the Emancipation
Act, and of subsequent governments, for Lord Glenelg, in
his circular despatch to all the sugar.growing colonies, dated
Oct. 12, 1835, said: " The purchaser of estates in the West
Indies does not incur the risk of losing money by such pur-
chase, for he has the nation's faith of Great Britain
and Ireland pledged in the most solemn form in
which an engagement was ever given, and if under
such circumstances the fuller supposes that any danger
really exists, he labours under a genes delusion." (hear,
hear.) What other construction could be put on this than that
the colonies were to have the monopoly of the home market ?
But the planters had also just cause to complain of the pre-
mature abolition of the period of apprenticeship without any
cometusation. Nur was this all. The planters bad been
made the victims of what he mkt not look upon but as a
sort of petty larceny. When 20,000,0001. was decided upon
as the sum which should be paid for compensation, a certain
amount was apportioned to each colony ; and after such ap-
portionment there was a sum of 1,330,0001. left over, of which
the colonies each wet entitled to have its fair proportion.
(Hear.) But the parliament of England had never yet
been sufficiently hone.t to pay the money. (Hear, hear.)
The late Vice President of the Board of Trade (Mr. M.
Gibson) said that the losses in the cotton trade amounted to
as much as the whole value of the British West Indies, and
he asked why was not the distress which that trade was suf.
feriag in consequence of those losses to he relieved by par-
liament as well as the West India interests ? His answer was
t tat if parliament had interfered to deprive them of their
fair profits, as it had in the case of the West India planter,
they would have had an equal claim. (Hear, hear.) He
lamented as much as any one the distress which prevailed in ,
the cotton districts, and which he would show was the recoil
of the distress which by the act of 1846 had been created in
she West India colonies and the Be.io,
East. (Hear.) Acting on the relieious and conscientious
feeling of the people of England parliament had deter-
mined not to permit the continuance of slavery, which
was the machinery by which sugar could be grown cheap.
If they destroyed that en iehinery they destroyed the means
of the British colonist to make sugar. Suppose the sentiment
to have taken the line of interfering with the machinery of
the cotton manufacturer in this country, would he not have
been entitled to compensation ? (Hear, hear.) If the pub.
lie had rend the reports of the Factory Inspectors, and there
discovered that in less than six months the deeths caused
by injuries, accidents, &c., showed a lager amount et
killed and wounded than it hod cost u" to win many of our
battles—if these reports Mowed no less than 2,276 eeaths
within that perio 1 in the manufacturing districts, while those
caused by the battle of Trafalgar were only I,69o—and if it
were said to the manufacturers that they should no longer
make use of steam, but that Ss. 10d, in the pound should be
paid them for their steam engines, &c., leaving their tall
chimneys and large manufactories out of the calculation,
would not that house feel itself called upon to make them
full corailensation for the loss they met necessarily have