The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-08 00:00:00

eixeniim

LONDON, TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1849.

The deepest interest prevailed yesterday as to the
course that would be adopted in the House of Lords
with respect to the Navigation Bill, the second read-
ing of which was to be moved that evening. Uni-
versal anxiety was manifested to obtain admission to
the debate, and Peers' orders were in the utmost

request throughout the day. It was generally sup.

posed that Lord STANLEY, in his acknowledged posi-
tion as Protectionist leader, would have opened the
opposition to the measure, and this expectation was
strengthened by the declaration of the Noble Lord that
"he was fully prepared for the consequences of the
rejection of the Bill"—thus intimating that his
party were ready to assume the Government of the
country in the event of the present Ministry resign.
ing office on the failure of the great Ministerial mea-
sure of the session. His Lordship, however,
remained silent during the evening, and the argument
against the proposed modifications were opened by a
no less accomplished orator, whose eloquence was, we
regret to say, directed against the popular cause of
free and unrestricted trade—a cause which he had so
repeatedly advocated with such transcendent ability.
His Lordship, it is true, attempted to show that the
Bill before the House was not " a question of free
trade," that "it had not any sort of connexion with
free trade," and he cited the accomplished author of
the " Wealth of Nations" as an authority in his
favour. The only grounds upon which ADAM
SMITH gave a partial support to the navigation-laws
have been. so frequently explained by ourselves as well
as others, that it is almost unnecessary to recur to
the subject. His opinion was clearly not founded on
the economical view of the question, for in the
very same page in which he praised the naviga-
tion code, he distinctly and unequivocally stated that
it was opposed to the great principle of buying in the
cheapest, and selling in the dearest market, and that
it was consequently injurious to the national wealth;
and he added, " as defence, however, is of greater im-
portance than opulence, the Act of Navigation is, per.
haps, the wisest of all the commercial regulations
of England," thus clearly showing that
he did consider it a " question of free trade,"
and intimately connected with free trade measures,
but that the general rule might be suspended in
favour of a principle of even greater importance—a
due regard for the national defences, and full and
adequate protection for the rights and liberties of
the British people. And it is on that point, and that
only, that the question admits of argument, except on
the obsolete views of the Protectionists, who would
desire that artificial restrictions should be imposed on
every article of trade and commerce.

We may, in this respect, adopt the language of an
able writer on the navigation-laws,* and ask—
" If free trade, however, be good in corn, or wool,
or catt'e, let us nn&rstsnd why it will not answer cur
purpose in the rctatter of shipping? If the principle of
buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market
be sound and true in the articles of consumption, let us
be informed why the same doctrine is not applicable to
the machines which we call ships, and which we use fur
carrying those articles across the waters, from one town
or one kingdom to another."
But ADAM ►SMITH subsequently proved that our
naval power was not in any degree owing to the
Acts of CROMWELL or of CHARLES H. ; that our

• The Total liepoal of the Navigation Laws. By W.
Lcckey Harle.

THE

maritime force was superior to that of France and
Holland united, before the navigation code could
have exercised any perceptible influence, or to uee
his own words, " could have had time to produce any
considerable effect ;" and if, as appears to be pretty
generally admitted, the result of the stringent regu-
lations at present in force is to lessen our trade and
commerce, and consequently to diminish the mercantile
marine trading with the country, it seems difficult to
understand how such a law can strengthen our national
defences. This, at least, is certain, that during the
strictest enforcement of its provisions, we have been
compelled to resort to the atrocious practice of im-
pressment, and also to take the refuse of our gaols,
who were willing to "volunteer," for the navy, in
order to avoid the penalties of their transgressions.
This evening, the fate of the measure will,
probably, be decided, and we can entertain no
doubt as to the result. Although Lord STANLEY
may be fully prepared for the consequences
of its rejection, may be willing to assume
the responsibility of forming a Cabinet, and,
if necessary, to appeal to the country by a dissolution
of Parliament, the more prudent and discreet
Members of the hereditary branch of the Legislature
will be unwilling to resort to so serious an alterna-
tive, or to enter into a collision that must inevitably
terminate injuriously to themselves. The power of the
people is now better understood, and more fully ap-
preciated than was formerly the case. The events
of the past year have afforded lessons that. cannot be
so speedily forgotten or despised. This evening, then,
we venture to predict will witness the second reading
of the Navigation Act carried in the House of Lords
by a small but saficient majority, and the injurious
consequence of a collision between the Houses will be
averted by the wisdom and discretion of the Peers of
England.

No intelligent mind can fail to be struck by the
extraordinary contrast afforded by the.condition of
things in Great Britain and in her colonial posses-
sions. Here, in the mother country, a continual de-
stitution is perpetually accompanied by a continual
increase in the population. With a glut of unem-
ployed labourers, both agricultural and manufactur-
ing, we are harassed by that deplorable deficiency of
provisions which the community is ever striving to
counterbalance by importations of all descriptions of
edibles, and by the gratuitous distribution
of the surplus of those importations to the
destitute in the form of private alms,
or of charities systematically dispensed in our poor-
law establishments. While these evils are maintained
within the shores of the United Kingdom, the foed
spontaneously springing into existence in the more
fruitful portions of our trans-Atlantic and trans-Pa-
cific territories is decaying in profusion through the
want' of mouths to consume it ; the resources of those
dominions are allowed to lie dormant from a paucity
of hands to perform the labours of cultivation ;
fruits drop from the boughs, season after
season, to rot with the leaves among
which they have fallen ; vegetables flourish
and decay in the wildest luxuriance ; fish spawn
in the rivers without a book or a net being
cast in to ensnare them; cattle browse in enormous
herds over the wildernesses, dying in successive gene•
rations, of disease or old age; while thousand:. in Eng-
land, Ireland, and Scotland never, except on very
rare occasions, become acquainted with the flavour of
animal food. Such is notoriously the condition of
Australia. Such is the state of very large tracks of
land throughout our North American possessions ;
and while these things are progressing the redundance
of nutrition in the colonies is contemporaneous with its
deficiency at home; and the redundance of popula-
tion at home is co-existent with its deficiency in the
colonies. To adjust this erroneous distribution is
the duty which now chiefly devolves upon us as a
people. To balance accurately the demand and the sup-
ply of food in Great Britain and of inhabitants in the
colonies is the goal towards which the impetus of the
age is directing us. More or less the facilitation of
this arrangement rests, with a greater or smaller
degree of responsibility, upon every individual mem-
ber of the community. More or less the
onus of the transaction is shared between
the nation and the Government. By hastening
the time when the anomalies of our wealth and
poverty as an empire shall be removed we are working
directly for our own advantage, and for the ultimate
realisation of the nobler destinies of our posterity.
These considerations have already recurred to most
of us, and in several instances the effects of their re-
currence are already perceptible. The destitution
prevalent among our labouring classes during a very
considerable period—a distress which reached its
height in the winter of 1847- B—afforded a bitter illus-
tration of the calamities which we must experience
periodically in the United Kingdom so long as the
people and the people's food are kept at such a
distance from each other as to render the
consumption of the one and the nutrition of the other
next to an impossibility. Three insufficient harvests
have demonstrated the absolute necessity for a change.
The failure of the potato crops in Ireland has re-
vealed in a still more awful manner the miserable
consequences of our improvidence. The political
tempests raging over the European continent, a►;d

materially interfering with the demands usually made
upon our manufacturers, have proclaimed in a very
urgent manner the necessity of opening to ourselves
fresh markets, so as to render our population less de-
pendent upon our immediate neighbours. Everything
has combined to enforce the great lesson upon the coun-
try, and through the country upon the Parliament, and

through the Parliament upon the Administration.
As yet, the initiative measures of the movement forced
upon the empire by PROVIDENCE, have been abandoned
by the Legislature, almost exclusively, to the Multi-
tude. Thanks, however, to the inherent energies of
the nation, the good labour is even now commencing
in real earnest. A little while longer, and the Cabinet
will be forced to systematize, under the direction of
Government, :he miscellaneous and scattered efforts of
the community.
By the report recently issued by the Society for
the Promotion of Colonization,* it will be seen
how far the auguries of the undertaking have, to the
April of 1849, provEd propitious. It will be seen that
donations and subscriptions have poured from all
quarters into the offices at Trinity-chambers, Charing-
cross ; that, in addition to a committee and the usual
officials, such as a treasurer and a secretary, branch
committees have been established in Dorsetshire, in
Staffordshire, at Winchester, at Brighton, at Bir-
mingham, at Lymington, at Bath, and at Northamp-
ton. Even now, we may venture to say, without
being over sanguine or premature, that the Associa-
tion promises to be very shortly in a flourishing con-
dition. And all.this, let it not be forgotten, thanks
in a particular degree, to three individuals—to the
Honourable FRANCIS SCOTT, M.P. for Bzrvvickshire,
to MANX BOYD, and E. LENNOX BoYD, Esquires.
We have not forgotten, and we would by no means
have it forgotten, that it is to those three gentlemen,
to their indefatigable exertions, and to their unflinch.
ing determination, that the country is in an especial
manner indebted for the organization of the society,
for its organization, moreover, in despite of the chill-

ing disregard of the Government. Their first endea

your towards the advancement of colonization was
made, it may still be remembered, as recently
as the December of 1847. Since then, although
a deputation on the subject has been " cold-
shouldered " by the Secretary for the Colonies, and
although a memorial to the Prime Minister has been
treated with the most disdainful indifference, the ne-
cessity for an emigrative movement has forced itself
more and more upon the popular judgment, ard,
little by little, the Society for the Promotion of Co-
lonization has acquired for itself additional vigour.
As affording conclusive evidence of the practical skill
with which the whole project is being organized, we
transcribe the following as the Society's scale of the

amount which each adult emigrant will be required
to contribute towards the cost of his passage—the

scale varying according to the age of the en►igrant,
and the colony selected :

I. AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.

Aged 14 to 40. 40 to 50. r 0 to CO. GO upw
New South Wales', Port
Philip, South Australia, 5/.
11. CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

Blacksmiths, brit:lila) ers,

carpenters,

71. 91.

masons,

coopers, millwrights,
and bakers ...

31. 61 9L

• "Report of the General Committee of the Society
for the Promotion of Colonization." April, 1849. Bvo.
Pp. 19. Richards, 1849.

SUN,

111. NORTH AMERICAN COLONIES.

All classes, of all ages.
Canada, Nova Scotia, N. vv Brunswick, Prince
Edward's Island (including emigrant tax,
and all expenses)

... ... ... ... ... 61. ss.

The other regulations and conditions of assistance
are conceived in a similar spirit of simplicity and
moderation. Nothing, in short, could be more
sensible, or more directly to the purpose, than the
whole character of the report issued by the Associa-
tion--an Association which, we need scarcely say,
has our heartiest good wishes for its development.

It was but the other day that we were contemplat-
ing the newly-published portrait of SAMUEL MAUN•
DER, and congratulating him upon the success he had
already achieved, and congratulating ourselves upon
the pleasure and benefit we yet expected to derive
from his labours. His " Treasuries" were already
so universal in their character, and so comprehensive
in their contents, that it was difficult to find unoccu-
pied ground for his future investigation. History—
history in its universal form, the particular history of
every country of the world : Biography—a full and
yet concise, an interesting and yet impartial, memoir
of every individual worth remembering from the
earliest era down to the present day : Natural His-
tory, Literature, and Science ; and, finally, Useful
Knowledge (the masterpiece of all his works), were
the treasures enshrined in his invaluable " Trea-
suries." Their number is now complete—no other
" treasury" may be added to the list. SAMUEL Maury-
DER is no more. We refer to his death with feel-
ings of very profound regret, and those feelings
will be shared in by a vast multitude. The
name of MAUNDER is familiar by many a fire-side.
He is endeared to us by a sense of obligation, he
was a friend ever at hand to help the inexperienced
and ignorant, aye, and the learned also in a moment
of difficulty. He was, have we said, he is so still-
His hand may be cold, and his brain inactive, but the
labour of that hand and brain still survive. The
services he has rendered to his countrymen do not
pass away with his life. Not his contemporaries only,
but their children and their children's children will
be indebted to him. This thought is the truest
encouragement of genius, the best stimulant to toil
and perseverance—the thought that our works may
outlive their authors, and "go about doing good" when
we are no more. If such (and who can doubt it ?)
were the ambition of SAMUEL MAUNDER, most tri-
umphantly will that ambition be realised. Never-
theless, while we are grateful for the " Treasuries "
he has bequeathed us, it is with unfeigned sorrow we
bid farewell to SAMUEL MAUNDER.