The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-06 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SlR,—Although differing from you in many points on
the principle on which our new commercial policy has
been established, and believing that the first step towards
its true establishment in the world should have been the
forming of a British Zollverein, with no customs duties
or imports, between each and all our possessions, and
then to have offered to admit, on the same terms of perfect
reciprocity, other countries, excluding slavery from the
compact, and which would, I feel convinced, have laid
the foundation for universal peace, and the extension of
our Reformed Faith, I am yet induced to address you,
believing, as I do, that you cordially hate slavery and
despotism in any form.
In 1846, as a bribe to Manchester for its support, in
the hope that with it the house of Bedford would be
enabled to hold the purse strings and patronage of the
empire at command, Lord John Russell passed
his unasked-for bill for the equalisation of duty on slave
sugar when imported into this country, it being at the
time asserted in arguing in its favour by his Lordship,
and also by the then Colonial Minister, Lord Grey, that
such was the energy and industry of free as compared
with slave•labour (owners), that the latter would speedily
succumb to the former when thus stimulated to compe-
tition.

In 1830, according to the last United States' Census,
the total population of 14 of the principal slave-holding
states of the Union was 5,498,943 ; in 1840 it was
6,661,945 ; and in 1850 it is stated to be 8,734,646, be-
ing an increase of upwards of 2,000,000 in the 10 years
in which the system of slavery was so powerfully stimu-
lated by this country.
Coupling this increase of population in these slave
states, into which the tide of European emigration does
not flow, from the fact of its being impossible for them
to labour and live in the humid heat in the level and
swampy lands of the southern states, which produce the
greatest abundance of cotton, rice, and sugar, with the
increase on them of cotton alone, which in 1831 con-
sisted of 2,000,000 bales for export and home consump-
tion of all kinds, and which in 1852 had increased to
5,000,000 bales for export, and the increased home con-
sumption, one is naturally led to ask, with these facts
before uo. From whence comes all this slave-labour, re-
quisite to produce this great increase in the supply of
cotton ? and also to inquire if our Indian Empire, with
its 100 millions of population, and when the degradation
of the last is unknown, has kept pace with its slave
competition in the West, and can show similar results
in increased productions in the same period ? In truth,
are we not compelled to ask, Has not our cotton
production in India decreased from the period
that Sir R. Peel gave the boon of Id. per lb. to the
slave-grower, when he took that import duty off his pro-
duce at our Customhouse, and was it not at the ex-
pense of our Indian growers when thus brought to Man-
chester ? And this was done despite the fact that Ameri-
can ships, bringing their thus encouraged slave produce,
had some 10,000 miles less of ocean to traverse than
our British ships bringing home our free produce from
India.*

All their lordships' free-labour theories, as it appears
to me, are therefore utter fallacies.
Moreover, how will they now reconcile the anomaly,
if their theory has any substance, of the recently passed
Nebraska Bill for the perpetuation and the extension of
slavery, and of the Fugitive Slave Bill for its guardian.
ship and protection ? And it must now be observed that
if, after eight years' experience of the erroneousness of
their assertions, their lordships do not take some steps
to put a check to this terrible sacrifice of human life, and
of human misery, at this shrine of their free-trade theory,
their lordship's hearts must be held to be as callous to
human suffering, and to the best interests of civilisation,
as those of the Legrees who benefit by slavery.
Again, if freedom be such a stimulant to labour in
tropical heats, how comes it that our sharp Yankee
cousins are so partial to slavery as to be ever increasing
the numbers of their human chattels, of which some are
now valued at 3001., that nine years since would not
have realised but little over 1001. ?

Unless something be speedily done to mitigate this cry-
ing injustice and inhumanity, one will have no other al-
ternative left but to think that a large section of the
people of this country are favourable to the system
of slavery, or that they have taken leave of their wits,
or of their powers of common observation, now that this
sophism of free labour subduing slave labour (owners),
of my Lords Grey and Russell is patent to the world ;
bearing in mind also the contingency, than which many
more improbable have occurred, of a serious outbreak or
sudden revolt among the slaves of Cuba or in the United
States, and which would at once treble the price of cot-
ton and sugar, and for years before our now semi-para-
lysed and sinking colonies could recover and make up
the deficiency.
In conclusion, I cannot but express an opinion that
there is a more subtle power than even the sophistry al-
luded to at work among us, the object of which is to de-
stroy the free Protestant British empire. We have been
told over and over again, and by some in high position,
that England would be better without colonies, or, as I
suppose we must now, in accordance with our Yankee
competitors, phrase it, "annexations"for the extension of
which for themselves, they however appear inclined to
imperil the present great prosperity of the country.
Yours, sir, obediently,
AN OLD PLANTER, WHO ASKS FOR JUSTICE

TO OUR COLONIES.
St. John's-wood, June, 1854.

that the largest
1819..
* Mackey, the gentleman sent out by. Manchester, in his
" Western India," tells us
watorePagpreolr9to,
productions of coton there)Also, at
page 9, that "No matter to how. low a. point American
pricer might drop, they seemed to have in reserve a lower
point still."

DESERTERS.— The Lords Commissioners of
leGstily's Treasury- have caused to be transmitted to
Commissioners of Customs, for the • information and
thheerFCM7aminiAeir officers at the several ports throughout
guidance
iiivg of Hanover the benefit of the Foreign De-
the kingdom, an order in council, giving to the subjects
snefrtethres' Act, 1852. By virtue of this order, seamen, not
being slaves, and not being British subjects, who desert
from merchant ships belonging to subjects of the King of
Hanover, within her Majesty's dominions, or the terri-
tories of the East India Company, are liable to be appre-
hended and carried on board their respective ships.
SMOKE PREVENTION.—"
Among the most effectual
plans hitherto adapted to furnaces, are those by Messrs.
Jucke, Hall, Hazeldine, and Lee Stevens. * Mr.
Lee Stevens's plan has the great advantage of requiring
no machinery ; so that no inattention or unskilfulness
of the stoker can affect its action. We have witnessed
and tested its efficacy at the office of the Times news-
paper, at the famous blacking mart of Day and Martin,
and at. the great sweetmeat manufactory of Hill &Jones."
—Dickens's Household Words.—" After having wit-
' nessed the operation of Mr. Lee Stevens's patent furnaces
under many varying circumstances, and having ourselves
watched with impartial scrutiny the results, as well as
having made the strictest inquiries, we have no hesita-
tion in stating our conviction, that the invention pos-
sesses all the advantages which the patentee claims for
it : that steam can be got up by it in two-thirds the
time required by the ordinary furnace ; that it will
effectually prevent the emission of smoke, to the full re-
quirement of the Act of Parliament; that it is most
economical in first cost, and will effect a saving in fuel,
varying from 15 to 30 per ceut., according to ciroum•
stances,"—Mining Journal.