The Sun.
London, England, 1830-06-22 00:00:00

measures without due consideration, and then as
lightly abandoning them, without regard or cons'z
• deratlon for the ruin which he thereby Caused to nu,
merous individuals •
" I implore the Right honourable Gentleman," he said,
" to considei• the consequences Which result from these
discussions; and from this continual alteration of opinions 7.
its effect has been to suspend all trade at this, the most
active period of the year. lam now standing here as' the
representative of, I admit in a general ease, all the interests
of the country; but I am also the immediate represen-
tative of the second great commercial town in this empire;
and I speak the opinions of the great portion of the ex-
tensive and linpollatat interests of that great emporium of
ttimmeiee, of all those closely bound in co_mexion with
the West Indian colonies, when I say, ti.at tWs system of
indecision and of experiment produces 1.12 e 'greatest alarm
—inflicts serous injuries or' cern:tierce—and is calculated
to unsettle all the transactions between man and man.
Only laok et the spectacle which has been produced by the
Way that Government have proceeded with the Spirit
Duties.—(Hear, hear.)—When the Right Honourable
Gentleman proposed to hy a duty of one shilling on Bri-
tish spirits, orders were of course sent cut to the West
Indies to make snore rum anti less sugar. Is it nothing
to those interests to have declarations emanating from a
Government like this, taken up and abandoned without
system, foresight, or consideration ? Look at the course
that it pursued With regard to other articles. Three
months ago it was announced that the growth of tobacco
in this enuntry would be encouraged under certain regu-
lations. Orders were of course sent out to America to
stop the importation of tobacco in anticipation of this
change. Now, however, comes a determination that to-
bacco shall not be grown in this country."
This is hard hitting. The Right Hon. Gentleman
did not forget his old friend, the Premier, in wind-
ing up his sermon. "We cannot manage (he
observed) the extensive and complicated transac-
tions of Government- in the same manner as we
would manage an army, and put forth a law one
day as a kind of advanced guard, which may be
ordered to draw back the next." Mr. Keith
Douglas touched on the real cause of West Indian
distress, the excess of 220,000 .cwt. beyond con-
sumption, and the unfair competition abroad to
which our colonists were exposed through the in-
flnence of the foreign slave trade. • He thought the
plan would confuse the commercial transactions of
the country. Mr. P. Thomson protested against
the plan—first, as unintelligible; second, as im-
practicable; and lastly, as unjust. to the East Indian
interests, partial to the West Indian, and injurious
to the country generally. He also contended that
the vacillation of Government had been most
unworthy, and most injurious to the com-
mercial interests of the country. Mr. Bright,
Mr. Hume, in short, all independent Mem-
bers who spoke, opposed the plan. Government
were quite deserted on this occasion. Ministers
may do what they like abroad; but when they
touch London and Liverpool, and put speculators
on a wrong scent, it is quite another affair. The
plan was feebly advocated by Ministers themselves,
who attempted something like a retaliation of the
charge of vacillation against Mr. Huekisson for hav-
ing changed his mind in the case of the Silk Ditties.
Sir Robert Peel had an argument ad misericordiam.
It was unkind to charge Minkters with vacillation,
when they were cot off from all counsel of practical
men. The Right Hon. Member of Liverpool must
be aware of the difficulty of making arrangements
of this kind, and of the impossibility of consulting
beforehand the parties concerned in the trade, lest

injury should be done by premature diec'osure. Mr.
Brougham rallied the 182 Members on the quick-
ness of perception indicated by their vote of appro-
bation of a plan which, though perfectly clear to
them, was a matter of the utmost difficulty to him.
After these indications of dia,atisfaction, we pre-
sume the Chancellor will be obliged to give another
instance of vacillation, by abandoning hi.; resolu-
tions.—Morning chronicle.
This evening is fixed for the second reading of
the Forgery Bill in the House of Lords, when, it is
understood, the discussion will take place. Our
readers will recollect that this Bill was introduced
by Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons, on
the principle of revising, consolidating, and amelio-
rating the Lives relative to a crime which, though of
great moral guilt, and of pernicious consequences,
has been visited with such disproportionate severity
by a multiplicity of penal statutes as to prevent, in

a great measure, their own execution. It was ac

mitted by the Right Honourable Secretary, on
moving for leave to bring in his Bill, that the Le-
gislature, in treating of this offence, from the righth

year of the reign of King William to the present
day, had added upwards of sixty capital enactments
to the Statute-book ; thus including a multitude of
offences, coming within the definition of forgery, of
various degrees of moral and social delinquency,
under the one sanguinary denunciation of death !
The feelings of society have long been disgusted
with the spectacles of extermination which these
laws have produced. The repeated executions,
some years ago, for the forgery of l/. notes, in
consequence of prosecutions by the Bank of
England, are fresh in the recollection of the
public, who saw, at that time, that the crime,.
instead of being repressed, became alarmingly more
frequent, as one batch of victims after another
was offered up to the vengeance of the law !
These executions only ceased when the small notes
were withdrawn from circulation, so much stronger
was the temptation to the crime than the terror of
the punishment. Society saw with that horror
which, under such circumstances, must ever charac-
terise the feelings of a civilized community, that so
much blood was shed in vain. Nor is it to be won-

dered at that the terrible examples of the law were
ineffective, when the severity of the punishment
caused the odium of the crime to be lost in sym-
pathy for. the offender. Since that time the pubic
aversion to the law of forgery has become more
strong, and the expression of that sentiment more
loud and general. In compliance with the public
call for an alteration of the law, which was grow-

ing too powerful to be much longer resisted, Sir
Robert Peel gpmmenced his work of revising the
statutes relating to this offence. From the manner

in which he had executed his task of revising the
criminal law in general, we were not led to expect
much from him, as his statutory repeals went no
further than to lop off some of those ferocious enact-
ments which had fallen into humane disuse, and
.which, in -a practical point of view, had already
ceased to exist. In his Bill to amend the law
of forgery he pursued the same plan. His own
words will justify what we assert. Here is his
exposition of the provisions of his Bill, as it
stood before the third reading—" My great prin-
ciple (said the Right Honourable Secretary)
in this Bill is to retain the capital penalty for the
crime of forgery of those documents or instruments
which may be considered in the light of negotiable
and transferable securities, and to remit it in others,
where, though now continued, this view does not
appear to me to be fitly taken. Keeping this prin-
ciple then in view, I shall now proceed to enumerate
the cases in which I propose to remit and retain the
capital punishment for the crime of forgery. I shall
retain it in all forgeries of the Great Seal, Privy
Seal, and Sign Manual; in all forgeries on the public
funds, on Bank or money notes, or orders for the
payment of money—in short, as I before said, of all
documews which represent money, and are nego-
tiable and transferable for it. I also add the forgery
of wills relating to personal property." After some
observations, he proceeds to the other branch of his
subject—the remission of capital punishments. "I'.
propose to exceyt from the punishment of death all
forgeries of receipts for motley or goods—all issuing
of forged stamps, or forgeries of stamps—all attempts
to defraud by forged orders, ad fabrications of Bank
paper—that is, the paper on whicli notes are stamped;
all forgeries of deeds and bonds, and every document
which, in short, does not come under the class I have

already named, and which are not in the nature of
negotiable or transferable securities.. For these offences
death, be it borne in mind, is now very rarely in-
flicted, and I am ready to-adOnit that it ought not to
be inflicted." For the word " rarely," -in the last
sentence, the Right Hon. Secretary ought to have