The Express.
London, England, 1848-01-22 00:00:00

MAILS
The overland closed mane, tie %famines, to the Mediterranean,
Egypt, Men, Ceylon, India, Hong Kong, Sac., will be made up on the
,rvning &the 24th January.
The Mil' for Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Cadiz, and Gibraltar
will be made up on the moraine of the 27th Jemmy.
The mails for British North America, Bermuda, and the flatbed
4tstee, will be made up on the evening of the _9th January.
The mail, for N, lir South Wales, Van Inemen's Laud, sad NM
7.ealand will be made up on the evening of the Mee January.
The mails for the West Chet of Africa and Madeira will be may
up on the evening of the 31st inst.
The West India Mails„ including 13ermada, Naasaq Hamm..
Honduras, New Orleans, Vera Cruz, Tampico, end Porto Rico, of
including Mope for Madeira, Jacmel, Quahmrens, Santa Martha.
Champ, Panama, Wept Count of South America, and it. Juitnale•
Nicaragua, will be made up on the morning of the Ind February.
the overland snails for Gibraltar, Malta, Grieve, the lonian Wanda,
Y,‘ v I .%den, Ceylon, India, I long- Kam, end China, 14.4 &MUM:Opt/0.
Will be made up on the morning of the 3rd February.
The mails for the Brazils, the River Plate, Monte Video, Pernam.
Rallia. Madeira, and Buena Ayres, will be mails up en the
evening of the 4th February.

TO CORRISTON DENTS.
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LONDON, SATURDAY, JAN. 22
WITH reference to the sugar duties and the West
Indies the Times keeps hammering away at the gene-
ral question. In two articles it demonstrated (to its
owu satisfaction) that in the case of sugar a
protective duty is not a protective duty ; and
in a third that the West Indians have strong
claims to this non-protecting protective duty.
As yet, however, the Tones says nut a word about
the practical application it intends to make of its
' abstract propositions. The Times, like a groat com-
mander, is concentrating all its logical troops upon
one point, but keeps concealed the object it proposes
to attack. It is appalling to witness this thunder-
cloud of argument, destined to break cre long err,
some exposed or neglected out-post of free trade, in
the process of being slowly and laboriously piled op.
There is, however, a good deal of affectation in the pro-
found silence which the Times preserves as to its ulti-
mate object in all this parade of abstract economical dis-
cussion. No one has the slightest doubt as to wuat it is
driving at. Its secret is one of those which everybody
knows. The Times is caressing the public mind with
ingenious dissertations on political economy—as a
groom caresses with his hand a shy horse he is about
to mount or lay a burden on—to prepare the way
for the blunt proposal that the existing Sugar Duties
Act be repealed, and a higher differential duty int-
psed upon slave-grown sugars, or upon all foreign
sugars permanently, or for a longer period than that
fixed in 1846.
Were we West Indians, we should feel rather
sceptical as to the policy of such a campaign as the
Times contemplates. And the postponement of the
annual meeting of the standi::g com:nittee of planters
and merchants connected with the West ladle*, from
the 12th to the 26th inst., indicates that the more
judicious leaders of the body have also their mis-
givings on that subject.
The act of 1816 granted to the West Indian sugar
growers a protective duty against all foreign sugars,
commencing at 7s. per cwt. in July, 1846, and de-
creasing by degrees till it should be extinguished in
July, 1831. Five years of gradually diminishin
protection were granted them, to render the shock
of the transition from protected to free trade
less severe to their nerves. The decision of the
legislature—a decision pronounced after long
years of inquiry and argument—was distinctly
and explicitly in favour of free trade. The modo
by which free trade was to be introduced was the
result of a compromise. On the one hand was a
party (aumerous and respectable) entirely opposed
to free trade ; on the other was a party (at
the least as numerous and respectable) earnestly
demanding its immediate adoption. The majority in
parliament, averse to what are called extreme mea-
sures, declared that in justice to the nation the trade
in sugar must be thrown free, but gave the protected
interests certain days of grace. This decision is now
law. Right or wrong there is a decided aversion
among the bulk of the commnnity in this country to
frequent changes in commercial legislation. The un-
certainty of commercial speculation, the result of
natural casualties, is thought sufficient, without the
introduction of an additional element of uncertainty—
legislation varying with every recurring session.
If the West Indians were to take their stand
upon the existing Sugar Duties Act as law,
any attempt to assail it with a view to
accelerate the advent of free trade in sugar
would be hopeless. JOHN Buie. would protest against
what he calls " continual chopping and changing."
If, on the contrary, the West Indiana aim at the
repeal of the act, not only do they incur the risk of
defeat from opposing themselves to the very disposi-
tion which would strengthen them in tho contrary
policy, but they run the risk of having the act repealed
for a purpose diametrically the reverse of what they
wish. We believe a majority, both in the country
and in parliament, is at this moment averse to re-
, opening the question. But if the West Indians insist
I upon having it arguid over again, those among the
free-traders who might otherwise have remained
lquieseent will renew their agitation also ; and many
of the parliamentary majority who voted for allowing
five years of protection to the Wee' Indians will ask
themselves, What is the use of granting fine to men
who instead of using, waste it, in unavailing efforts
to avert that free competition which we have told
them they must prepare to encounter? The increase
of revenue certain to be the result of assimilated
duties on sugar, is particularly tempting at present.
That the sugar growers in the West Indies have
good reason to complain of the legislation by which
the mother country has for years cramped and cur-
tailed their supply of labour, we have been amongst
the foremost to proclaim. But has the fault been en-
tirely on the aide of the mother country ? During the
last six or seven years, the meet intelligent and in-
fluential of the West India leaders have repeatedly
declared that with an adequate supply of free labour
they could compete with slave-grown sugars on equal
terms in the market of the world ; that the enabling
them to do so was the only way to put down slavery
and the slave-trade. But during the whole long con-
troversy which preceded emancipation, they stead-
fastly denied the possibility. They clung to
slavery with desperate fidelity —proclaimed it
the only mode in which sugar could be cul-
tivated until after the law had destroyed it. They
left government no alternative but to maintain slavery
with them, or destroy it with their adversaries. They
lent government no aid from their practical expe-
rience in devising the means of a safe and unembar-
rassed transition from slavery to freedom. Even after
the emancipation act had pa-Fed, years were allowed
to elapse before they seriously set about the task of
recruiting the diminished ranks of their labourers.
In 1838 even apprenticeship terminated. In 1836
Mr. BUILNI.I.Y, when examined by Mr. WARD'S com-
mittee on colonial lands and emigration, suggested
the possibility of remed'iag the deficient supply of
labour in the West Indies by a large and systematic
immigration of free labourers from Africa. But
it was not till 1841 that this view was earnest-
ly adopted by the leaders of the Wet India
body; and though they have since displayed
most commendable and persevering energy in their
attempts to carry it into practice, they have been but
languidly and irresolutely supported by their fol-
lowers. Even now that the day at which fire-trade in
sugar must become law has been fixed, they are weakly
beating about to avert the inevitable, instead of in-
creasing their efforts to prepare for its encounter.
The public say, and say with justice, that ten years,
counting from the fiaal termination of apprenticeship
till now—eighteen years, counting from the passing of
the Emancipation Act till the final termination of the
differential duty in 1851—thus purposely and irreso-
lutely wasted, are demonstrative that nothing will
compel these men to trust to their own resources, and
exert themselves as they ought, but the actual pressure
of free trade.
Ina spirit the reverse of hostile—in a spirit of friend.
ship and sympathy—we tell the West Indians that
any attempt on their part to obtain a higher protect-
ive duty or a prolongation of the term of protection
allowed them, cannot succeed, but may accelerate the
entire extinction of differential duties on sugar.
The argument of facts is against them. In 1846
and 1847 the quantity of foreign, East Indian, and
Mauritius sugars imported has increased in a larger
ratio than the quantity of West Indian sugars im-
ported, but the quantity of both classes of sugar
consumed has increased in nearly the same ratio.
In the case of Mauritius sugars the ratio of in-
crease has been greater ; but that is owing to
sales forced on by commercial tsilures having their
origin in the maddest mismanagement. West Indian
sugar has kept its ground in the market against