The Express.
London, England, 1849-07-03 00:00:00

saintlier to counsel the prime minister of Spain to resign.
Oar minister cote now no locate in Spain, and the same I
prime minister still exercis4 authority in Madrid. Her
Majesty's ministers had no influence in soy partof the world 1
except at Paris, end they had more influence at Paris than
their peedemosors. The idioms, of this country was
sever len than at present; and the policy pursued had
not in any instance elevated our commerce. (Hear.) He
had sow attempted, more imperfectly than he would desire,
to all the attention of the house to the state of this
country la all its principal relations. The canvas wee so
wide that it had been to him almost impossible
to do more than to sketch the principal features.
Bat he bad endeivoured, without euggaratioo, and relying
upon documents the accuracy of which could not and would
net be impugned, to lay before the house a fair sad impar-
tial statement of our position. He would not for one moment
pretend that what he deemed to be our calamitous condition
was to be:fricribod to one particular cause. Ho was ready to
admit that in the complicated transactions of • great country
like this, and in • period of time which in this rapid
age of events could not be considered a brief one,
many etsjunctures end calamities must occur which the
prescience of no statesman could have foreseen, and some of
which the power of no minister could remedy. He was not
one of thong who had ever looked upon the Irish famine as
• cobinet measure. (Hear, hear.) But he was bound to say
that taking a general, but he believed not en incomplete,
view of the whole coarse of the government, and of all that
had happened iu pclitical life in these last three yeses and
more, he did reerguise one predominant cause, to
which he attributed a great part of our calamities,
and that was our ',edition. (lieu, hear, and cheers.)
He had shown them that as an economic principle,
the principle they had attempted was • fallacious one ;
and that its necessary consequence was to cause the
embarrassment of the people ; he thought he bad proved by
the records he had already appealed to, that their system
had done more injury than that, and would lead to greater
misfortunes. The konoutable member for Sheffield
seems to suppose that we Burst the lot of those
who, conscious of the disease of the commonwealth,
• were not prepared to offer any remedy. He misstates us.
(Cheers.) It is because I wish to offer • remedy that I have
presumed to call upon the House of Commons to emcee the
r highest privilege with which the constitution has invested it.
It is to offer a remedy that I now place in your hands, sir,
• the resolution of which I have given notice, because I believe
• in my con/Mance it le the best and surest means to save a
suffering people and sustain a falling country. (Hear.)
The question bring put, that thehouse resolve itself tato a
I eommittee of the whole house to take into consideration the'
. state of the nation, &moment or two elapsed before as y one
. rue to address the house, when there were several loud cries
of" divide." Ministers looked towards Mr. Hume, but the
hon. gentleman shook his heed, and pointed to the treasury
bench amidst much laughter. Upon which Mr. Hawes went
round and spoke to the hon. member, who, however, still
. declined to rue.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said he
certainly expected that his hon. friend the member for Mon-
trose, following his own example on a former ecesaion. wonid
have risen to move the annulment of which he had given
notice, immediately after the hon. masher:tor Buckiogbam-
shire ; but riot having done so he must, in perfect sincerity
of purpose, express a hope, and suggest as a reoommeada-
don, that his hon. friend would abandon the notion of mov-
ing his amendment—not that he (the Chancellor of the
Exchequer) underrated its importance, or deemed that it was
not • proper subject of discussion; but with the experience
of his hon. irked, he hoped be would see the inconvenience
of bringing forward more than one great subject at a time
before the houn—the inconvenience of having speeches
following speeches that were not answers to them.
In the hope that his honourable friend would
not move his amendment, he would proceed at
once to address himself to the motion and arguments of
the hon. gentleman. The hon. gentleman made no apology
for shaping his motion as he had done. It was as he truly
stnted quite a constitutional motion. Neither he (the Chan-
cellor of the Xxchequert nor any member of the government
complained that the hon. member, as the avowed leader of
a large party opposite, should come forward on this occasion,
and with such a motion, in order to place their views b, fore
the country. The hon. gentleman slid he considered the
country to be in a state of great and general distress—that
those engaged in commerce or agriculture " suffered and
saw no hey." If that was his belief he was not only nal-
tied in bringing forward this motion, but would have not
been doing his duty it he had not. But he did not agel
with him in his opinion of the state of the country. He did
not believe that that gloom and despondency he described
hung over every class, nor could he congratulate him on
having offered much consolation to his friends, when he de-
clared, at the end of his speech, that the course he
now suggested was the remedy he had to propen for the
sufferings which he alleged them to be endming. The re
medy, he said, was simply contained in his resolution fur a
committee of that house to consider the state of the nation.
Without some more specific proposition, he should say that
the hon. gentleman had done notbine for their case. The
hon. gentleman hid spoken of their condition as being the
consequence of our legislation. If they referred to the reso-
lutioes of a recent meeting which were moved in the spirit
of the motion before them, it would be found that the views
of that meeting were u clearly developed as these of tie
bon. gentleman, but that the causes to which they attributed
the thanes were more clearly expressed, and the remedies
more distinctly pointed out. They, too, said that the
ft,. difficulty and distress prevailed, but they attributed
it to our recent legislation—to the indiscrimina.e admission
of foreign produce. He expected, therefore, that if the
house went into committee, the hon. gentleman would
be prepared to propose the restoration of protection
to all cleans of labour in this country. Because if
that was set the remedy to he proposed, a more fruitless die-
play of talent and eloquence on the part of the hon. gentle-
man he could not conceive. The honourable gentle.
man, in speaking of colonial matters, referred portly
to the effects of peat administrations and partly to the Colo-
nial-offiee. He knew of no grievances in any of our colonies,
except those of minor complaints, which were perpetually
made, and throe which were owing, not to the Colonial-
GSM, hut to the 1 litlatun of the country—to suck mes-
sages es the abolition of slavery, and free trade. These were
matters, not of colonial legislation, but for which the pulls,
aunt must be responsible. As for the effect of free
trade upon our colonies, he was willies to be
heand by the test and comparison of colonial importa-
ties before and after the adoption of free trade.
He was perfectly ready to have that question decided by •
reference to indisputable facts, and to the returns on the
table of the house. It was needless to say that, taking the
whole of the British possessions together, there was a eon.
sharable increase in the importation of sugar. Ile
had taken the yeses previous to any agitation on the
question of Les trade, and compared the average of these
years with the average of the years subsequent thereto; be
bad also taken an early period of the agitation of that
question, and compared it with the last few years, comparing
the two years ending 1816 with the two yeah subsequent;
and the contrast was most remarkable, as showing a very
considerable increase in the importation from those colotit.e,
which importation was the best test of the production of the
colonies. Taking the British possessions together, and OM.
paring the average annual importation of sugar into this
country, from 1831 to 1840, before any alteration of the
sugar duties was contemplated, with the average annual im-
portation from 1841 to 1848 inclusive, he found that in the
former period it was 211,000 tons, and in the latter 228,000
tons, being an increase of 17,000 tons per annum. (Hear
hear.) Comparing the insportatien from 1811 to 1844, betas,
the first alteration took place by which free labour auger was'
admitted, with the importation since 1944, he found that is
the first four years the annual average was 200,000 tons, in
the last four years 251,000, being an increase in the annual
importation from our colonial possessions of 51,000 tone of
sugar—a convincing proof that no argument could thence he
urged against the free trade measures. (Hear, hear.)
Taking the West India colonies alone, there would perhaps
be found • considerable diminution in the first period,
because they were most affected by the admission of East
India sugars. ,The average from 1831 to 1840 was 171,000 tons,
subsequently 128,000, showing a decrease of 43,000 tons per
annum. But 'comparison of the periods 1841-44, 1845-48,
showed a marked contrast, the average annual importation
in those periods respectively being 121,000 and 137,000 tons,
showing an annual increase of 16,000 tons from the British
West India colonies. Fearing there might be tome mistake in
thew figures, he had obtained a similar statement for each
mbar In Jamaica, the average annual importation de-
eresaed, as comparing 1831-40 with 1841-48, from 64,000 to
32,000 tons; but comparing 1841-44 with 184,1-48, it had
increased from 31,000 to 33,000 toss, being an increase of 2,000
tons per annum. In British Guiana, in like manner, there
• was a decrease in the first period of 14.000 toes, but in the
I hat period an increase of 3,000. This being one of
the most dist:need of the colonies, and the one
r wheat case had been most dwelt on, he would call the atten-
-1 tion of the hon. gentleman to the fact that the average im-
portation frost British Guiana had increased from 22,623
teas in 1845 sad 1816, to 33,458 in 1847 and 1848 ; being an
annual lacrosse, subsequent to the measure of 1918, of
10,835 tone. The same comparison held good for Trinidad,
I Antigua, Barbadoes, and Tobago; and there was no instance
la which the importation from dine colonies in 1817-48,
since the passing of the measure of 1846, which the hon. gen-
tleman said was destructive to colonial interests, had not
*Roosted the importation of 1846-46, the two years imme-
' diately preceding that act. He now came to the main topic,
and the one most werthy the attention of the house, and Into
this he should go into some detail, at the risk of wearying
the house a little; for without a due consideration of that
subject it was impossible to go fairly into the question of 11
the Mats of the country. He would endeavour to draw a faith.
ful picture of it, and of the condition of every class and inte-
rest, not confining himself, as the boa. gentleman had done,
to what he obtained fronfreturns of the state of things a year
and a half ago, which had not the slightest reference to the
state of the country at the present moment, and were no no-
tification for the motion he had submitted. (Hear, hew.)
He had said that the country was in a state of great sod
general distress, which had been progressing from the time
the present government took office ; and yet his proof of that
progressiveness sealed in March, 1848—a year and five
months ago. Was that any proof of the state of the country
now ? It might have been a reason for the hon. gentleman's
Motion then, but it was no reason for it now. (Hear, hear.)
He had fallen into a most material error as to the state of
the country In 1847. He had compared we state of the
country in the years ending Lady-day, 1847, and Lady-deg,
1848, to which period he said the reports of the poor-law
commissioners came down.
Mr. DISRAELI—I never =Mimed 1848; it was 1867
and 1848 that I compared.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER bed gee-
tainly understood the hon. gentleman to take two ears...
live years. (" No, no,") Was it then 1845 to wild* be
had alluded ?

Mr. DISRAELI said the right hon. gentleman was at
liberty to make use of any staniMm he liked, bat the con-
trast he wished to put before the home was that of the