The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-02 00:00:00

TE SON,

leitry, or the freeholders of each parish, for one year,
a power of taxing themselves for paroc',ial purposes, but
to have them very much at liberty to decide in each
parish what might seem to the parishioners to be the
least inconvenient way in which the taxes should be
raised. If any wild or extravagant course should be
taken ender such a liberty, it would always be in tLe

power of the Legislature to correct it.
Such, gentlemen, appear to me to be the principal
points in your financial position and prospects. I venture
merely to indicate them in the most general manner,
leaving to yourselves that more•careful examination and
scrutiny which you will not fail to make. The situation
of the colony is one of embarrassment and difficulty, but
it is not desperate. Your finances are susceptible of ad-
justment and renovation, and I think without the imposi-
tion of any greater burdens than the island has hitherto
borne, if the present favourable state of the markets for
its produce should be sustained, and if, as we may hope,
the temporary pressure of unfavourable seasons should
be mercifully withdrawn, and if public faith be pres-
served inviolate, and if all branches of the Legislature
can be brought to act together.
" Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Assembly,—
As it is manifest that the whole of the usual revenue
will be required to meet the exigencies of the next twelve
months, I earnestly recommend and re quest that you
should pass the ordinary revenue Bills in the ordinary
manner, and I shall be disappointed in the opinion I
have formed of the good feeling and loyalty of the inha-
bitants of Jamaica, if, at the outset of a new Parliament,
when their representatives are as yet neither fettered by
resolutions, nor distracted, nor inflamed by party con-
tests, this request, which I make in the name of the
Crown, as its principal officer and minister within the
colony, should be refused. Whatever time may appear
to any of you to be required for the consideration of the
details, or for any amendments of these bills, would be
much more easily and conveniently secured by passing
them with a proviso that they may be amended during the
session, than by withholding them beyond the date at
which the action of them will be required for continuing
the existence of the revenue, or by offering to prolong
them in any form which is likely to involve the present
Parliament in the same contentions as the last.

" Gentlemen of the Council, Mr. Speaker, and Gentle-
men of the Assembly,—lt may appear that I have
brought forward too prominently, and that I dwell too
exclusively on the subject of revenue, but my conscience
acquits me of the fault of assigning to money for its own
sake too high a place amongst the objects of society and
Government. I have made it now the principal theme
only because you have been brought into a position in
which, if a false step were to be made at the outset
in relation to your revenue, it is not easy to say what
steps could be taken as to anything else; and I am the
more anxious upon that point, because I am under re•
striations which do not leave me at liberty to bear you
company in any devious course. I have received no
subsequent instructions which authorise, or which would
justify me, in disobeying the commands of her Majesty,
communicated to me by the dispatch of the Secretary
of State for the Colonies of the 16th April, which was
laid tefore the late House of Assembly on the 28th of
Juno. These, in the language of that dispatch, leave me
upon certain points no discretion. If the difficulties and
dangers to which I have adverted should be avoided at the
outset, there are, indeed, many objects of legislation of
higher and more solemn importance than revenue which
would demand your attention, and which might reward
the labour of a lengthened session. More than one of
the institutions of the colony require improvement, and
is susceptible of a restoration or of a greater approxi
mation to a constitutional and English model, and if
when imperfection and defects are perceived in any
particular quarter, instead of seeking to remedy them
by some counteraction of a more faulty and unconstitu-
tional description—the new legislature of Jamaica would
apply itself to the improvement by regular methods, and
upon a constitutional plan of the institution, in which
the defeat is first felt and complained of, I am sure
that their efforts would be crowned with success : and,
in such reforms, I, at least, should be a willing fellow-
labourer."

The reply presented to his Excellency was as
follows :

" May it please your Excellency,—
" We, her Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the
Assembly of Jamaica, thank your Excellency for your
speech at the opening of this session.

" We are indebted to your Excellency for the care
with which your Excellency has reviewed the financial
position of the colony, and we shall be prepared to give
the fullest consideration to the important returns to
which your Excellency refers, whenever they shall have
been laid before us. Until, however, we are afforded
an opportunity of considering these returns, we do not
feel ourselves in a condition to offer such an opinion,
either upon them or upon the state of the public finances,
as would become us in the responsible position in which
we stand ; but we shall be rejoiced to find that the sans.
tion of the colony, though confessedly one of embarrass-
ment and difficulty, is at least not desperate.
" We hope we shall be forgiven when we differ from your
Excellency with respect to the causes which have im-
paired the credit of the colony. A desire to reduce the
expenditure commensurately with the public means tend
to give confidence rather than to engender distrust,
whilst the continuance on the other hand of an annual
expenditure, involving a yearly accumulation of debt,
must necessarily tend to diminish confidence in the re-
sources of the colony, and materially to affect the public
credit.

" We regret that circumstances should have arisen i❑
the late Assembly to cause the suwpension of the ordinary
parochial revenue ; we cannot, however, agree with your
Excellency that it would be wise to confer on the jus-
tices at.d vestry, or the freeholders of each parish, the
power of levying a discretionary tax o❑ the parishioners
tor parochial purposes. We are strongly of opinion, that
the distinction which has hitherto been recognised be-
tween public and parochial taxation, except for the pur •
poses of providing for the wants of the Church and poor
should be abolished ; and we hope that we shall be
afforded an early opportunity of considering by what
means this salutary change can be most advantage-
ously and economically carried out,
" The loss in the revenue of the present year, from
the rejection of the rum law during a late session of a
former Assembly, while it is to be regretted by this
House, cannot be charged on the late Assembly. The
records of this House show that the representatives of
the people were willing to grant to her Majesty the
usual revenue derived from rum consumed in this
island, but that they resolved at the same time to
maintain their constitutional right to appropriate the
revenue which they raised to such purposes as they con-
sidered most conducive to the public welfare. From that
position we are bound to confess to your Excellency we
cannot swerve. Whilst we yield to none in that good
feeling and loyalty for which your Excellency has given
us credit, and although, in a new Parliament, unfettered
by resolutions, we feel that we should ill discharge the
duty we owe to our constituents at this important
juncture, were we to hesitate for one moment to declare
to your Excellency the pressing necessity which exists
for searching economy in every department of the public
service. in this disposition we are prepared to proceed
to the lettsiness of the country, and to give due consider-
ation to all such measures of legislation as are necessary
to the public good, for the protection of life and pro-
perty, and the support of public credit, and we shall be
ready to grant such supplies as may be necessary for
these purposes, so far as the diminished resources of the
colony will warrant. But we feel called upon to main-
tain the duty we owe to our constituents and to posterity,
which compels us, at all hazards, to preserve undimi-
nished and unimpaired our sole and exclusive right to
direct, limit, and appoint the disposal and appropriation
of the public money."

The feeling of the House is very clear from the
answer to the address, and a general opinion prevails
that another dissolution must take place immediately,
as it will be impossible to carry on the Government
with such a House of Assembly.
Hayti was quite quiet. The Haytians had pro-
claimed an empire, and their President Solongue
was called to the Imperal Throne. It is said he is to
be crowned Garibaldi Robespierre Napoleon So-
longue, Emperor of. Hayti.
Between Porto Rico and St. Thomas the Medway
spoke the royal mail steamer Tay, on passage to
Jamaica, and transferred surgeon to her, in conse-
quence of her surgeon having destroyed himself on
passage to Barbadoes. The former vessel arrived at
St. Thomas on the 12th, and sailed on the 14th for
Fayal and England. The Lame, with the mails from I
Porto Cabello and La Guayra, and the Conway, with
the Demerara and Northern Island mails, arrived on
the 12th. By the former information was brought that
the insurrection in Venezuela had been quelled, and
that General Paez and his followers (about 18) had
been taken prisoners by General Silva in the city of
Monagas, and were now in prison at Caraccas. The
president Monagas had issued a proclamation stating
that Paez's life would be spared and his property re-
spected on condition of perpetual banishment to any
country he may choose in Europe ; his followers were
also to be banished, but both he arid they were to be
kept close prisoners until tranquillity was thoroughly
re-established et Venezuela. At La Guayra there
were ships of war from America, Spain, and France,
but no English ship, at which great complaints were
made by the British residents.
By the Conway information was received that at
Demerara the government had obtained a majority in
the Combined Court, in favour of the imposition of the
old taxes, and there was every probability of things
going on more smoothly. The stoppage of immigra-
tion has been severely felt, and great hopes were en-
tertained that it would be re-opened, the want of
labour being universally felt, and its supply considered
the only thing that can give prosperity to the colony.
The Medway arrived at Fayal on the 25th, and left
on the same day for Southampton. The Americans
had been very successful in the sperm whale fishing,
having up to the 25th made 3,200 barrels of oil,
which had sold at 8/. the barrel. The fish all taken
within one hundred miles of the Azores. At St.
Thomas it was confidently stated that the American
government had determined upon making St. Thomas
the head quarters of what is termed their home
squadron, instead of Pensicola, where it now is, and
the reason assigned is the central position of that
island; which will enable them so much better to
watch over and protect those extensive mercantile

interests not only in the West Indies but on the
Spanish Main and South America.
The state of the weather and the crops in the West
Indies is encouraging. The sugar making at Bar-
badoes, Trinidad, and the neighbouring islands is
finished, and has turned out well. The prospects for
the next year are promising with the exception of
Antigua and St. Kitts; these islands have suffered
much from dry weather. At Demerara the weather