The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-25 00:00:00

SOAP DUTY.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is quite right as to
the important effect the abolition of the soap duty will,
—by way of stimulating the demand for palm oil,—have
on confirming the suppression of the slave trade ; and
in giving an additional impetus to negro improvement.
He might, however, have gone further in his African
speculations, and have added that by increasing the
consumption in England of another African production
—ground nuts—whence the oil so largely used in making
continental soaps is expressed, it will have still greater
effects than he anticipated upon the affairs on the western
coast of Africa. When the Portuguese first traded with
that coast they found palm oil and ground nuts articles
of native food, and so they remained down to a period
of living memory. So used, neither required any cul-
tivation or gave rise to any notions of property. Though
whole tracts of country are crowded by the palm -tree,
little care was taken of what was, in fact, superabundant ;
and as for ground nuts, they were simply dug up as
prudence or necessity dictated. Some thirty years ago
a cask or two of palm oil was sent home from the Gold
Coast ; it met so ready a sale that it was further
inquired after, and the total amount now imported into
England ranges from 25,000 to 80,000 tons annually.
The exportation of ground nuts is even larger ; but
owing to our excise on soap, they have hitherto
gone principally to France—to Marseilles especially.
Of these two articles, it is to be observed, the western
coast of Africa appears to have a monopoly ; and with
respect to palm oil, it is further to be remarked, that it
is exactly behind those ports and up those rivers which
were formerly the great nests of the slave trade that its
production is largest ; and just as the slave trade there
has been crushed, a commerce in palm oil has sprung up
and replaced it. There are men alive who recollect the
slave trade flourishing on the Gold Coast ; it has long
been extinct there ; and palm oil is now largely exported.
It is but a very few years ago since that traffic appeared
to be irrepressible at the mouths of the Niger ; it is now
expelled, and thence Liverpool obtains, instead, its sup-
plies of palm oil. So, also, later still, at Whydah, and
the other ports of the kingdom of Dahomi, and along the
Lagoon, which connects Dahomi with the Benin River,
there the Spanish slave dealers are themselves inaugurat-
ing a considerable commerce in palm oil. Already the
trade in this quarter is considerable ; and it would have
extended much more rapidly than it has done were it
not that disorder and warfare in the interior have been
promoted and prolonged by the indiscreet zeal of some
of our own naval officers and by the desire of some of
our missionaries to rule at Abeeokuta, at Lagos, and
at Badagry. When, however, order and tranquillity
are restored,, a most important trade will undoubtedly
arise here. A generation ago, when palm oil was
merely an article of food, there was, we have said, no
property in palm trees. Since, however, large foreign
demand has arisen for this oil, the plantations, as al-
ready they are called, begin to be cared for ; and lately
the title to some of them has been disputed in our courts
on the Gold Coast : a contention which constitutes the
first evidence we have received of the value of land, not
actually under their own cultivation, being recognised
by the natives. Thus the feeling of property and the
desire for accumulation are springing up out of the palm
oil trade ; and they are everywhere the germs of nascent
civilisation. It is no light question, therefore, thus in-
volved in an increased demand for this article ; it may
produce African consequences of incalculable importance
to the whole human race. It is in France hitherto that
the great consumption of ground nut oil has occurred.
It is there used in the manufacture of soaps which,
though preferred abroad, are little used in England—
very much because of the excise laws. The specific
gravity of the soap made out of ground nut oil is higher
than those laws permitted ; in consequence we could
neither make it for our own use or for foreign exporta-
tion ; and thus France has substantially the soap trade
of the world. By the repeal of the duty, England will
be enabled to compete—in this, as in all other trades,--
with France abroad.—Daily Newt.

LETTERS TO THE TURKS ISLANDS.—The following
notice has been issued from the General Post office :
" The postage of all letters addressed to the Turks or
Caicos Islands, in the West Indies, must in future be
paid in advance, according to the following scale, viz.—
ls. for a letter not exceeding 1 alf an ounce in weight ;
2s. for a letter exceeding half an ounce, and not exceed-
ing one ounce ; 4s. for a letter exceeding one not ex-
ceeding two ounces ; and so on, according to the scale
for charging inland letters."
ROBBERY AT MONS. LAFONT'S RESIDENCE.—On Fri-
day evening, while M. Lafont was delighting the audi-
ence at the St. James's Theatre by his admirable
performance of his great part of the Chevalier de St.
Georges, some thieves entered his apartments, in Bury-
street, St. James's, and completely stripped them. His
entire wardrobe, comprising every article of wearing ap-
parel, jewellery, including gold snuff-box and a valuable
gold chain, presented to him by his Excellency the
French Ambassador,: were carried off, leaving him lite-
rally nothing but the clothes he was wearing at the time.
THE NEW EMPLOYMENT FOR THE LONDON POLICE.—
It having been moved, on Saturday last, in the Maryle-
bone vestry, that the police rate, 12,3441., be paid by
instalments, Mr. Nicholay said that he could not allow
that vote to pass without calling the attention of the
vestry, and the nation at large, to the fact, that the
police were employed by the Austrian Government to
pursue and persecute the Hungarians, who sought
shelter here from the from the fangs of that despotic
power. Such conduct was illegal —was a disgrace to the
English nation, and the English Government, and exe-
crated by the rate payers, who paid and supported the
police —but who, instead of protecting the lives and pro-
perties of English subjects, were dressed in disguise, and
thus employed to hound down the wretched foreigners
whom tyranny compelled to fly from their native land,
and seek protection on English soil. He did not make
these charges hastily or unadvisedly, for he could fully
substantiate them. Mr. Hodges corroborated the .pre-
vious speaker, and unqualifiedly denounced the policy
of the Government in allowing the police to be so em-
ployed. The motion for paying the police-rate was ulti-
mately carried.
MR. GEORGE FRENCH FLOWERS' SOIREE.MUSICALE.—
At a soiree given by Mr. George French Flowers, Mus.
Bac. Oxon, at his residence, 3, Keppel-street, Russell-
square, on Wednesday evening, the music he has to
the poet Laureate's fine ode on the death of the Duke
of Wellington, was performed in the presence of a dis-
tinguished audience of professional an amateur musicians.
The members of the British school of vocalisation (educated
for the profession under that gentleman's new method of
teaching the art) exhibited great progress since their first
appearance in the Hanover-square rooms last year, by
their execution of the ode, the music of which is both
classical and characteristic ; and we understand it will
be publicly produced in the course of the ensuing month.
STEAM TO THE BRAZILS. —The Braziliana, a screw
steamer
of 1,100 tons, the first vessel of the new line
Navigation Compdany,
projected by the South American and General Steam
the presence oy;''was launched on Saturday from
the building
of Liverpoo
yard
largec. Mr. John Laird, Birkenhead, in
; '
assemblage of the principal mer-
chants23o feet • beam, 30 feet •Her dimensions are ;—length,
of spar deck, 8 feetdepth of hold, 14 feet ; height
rule, about 1,300. Shetonnage,laold measure, 1,014 ; new
RAILWAY RETURNS. —On engines of 200 horse-power.
par-
liamentary document, extending
was printed a
con-
taining returns relative to capitalo 36 folio pages,
&c., of all railways. It appears andl loans, lengths,
loan authorised to Dec., 1850, amountedtls the capital and
and by act passed in 1851, 6,815L773,672,726,6771,
369,611,8491. The reduction authorised' " --.making
The decrease in 1851 was 1,368,2291. was 9,183,4011.
raised by shares and loans during /851 Was 7,970,1511. amount
The amount raised at the end of 1851 was 248,240,8971.
4s. 6d , and the amount which at the end of 1851 t.
companies retained powers to raise was 113,382,0471. e
19s. 2d., making 361,622,9451. 3s. Bd. The capital
authorised previous to December, 1851, was 361,428,448/.
17s. The difference which has been raised by companies
in excess of their parliamentary powers is 194,4961.
6s.TBHCIE REPRESENTATION OF PLYMOUTH.—The promoters
of the petition against Mr. C. J. Mare, the eminent ship
builder of Blackwall, are very confident of making out
a very strong case for the unseating of that' gentleman.
The petition against Mr. R P. Collier, promoted by the
supporters of Mr. Mare, is also to be gone on with ; it
is for want of proper qualification ; but the friends of
Mr. Collier assert that there are no grounds to sustain
its prayer. The committee will be struck for on the 3d
or May, and the inquiry will in all probability com-
mence about the 6th or 7th. The inquiry will be of all
the more public interest from its presumed collateral
hearing upon the labours of the committee, to be ap.
motion
pointed upon the of Sir Benjamin Hall in eon.
nexion with the dispensation of patronage in the Roya
Dockyards.