The Sun.
London, England, 1838-10-01 00:00:00

LONDON :
MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 1, 1838.

We have much pleasure in directing attention to
an excellent article, which we copy from the Cambridge
Independent Free Press, respecting the merits of the
National Loan Fund Life Assurance Society. It
is highly gratifying to learn that this Institution is
taking deep root throughout the country. Branch
societies are forming in all the large towns and influen-
tial districts, where the manifold benefits resulting
from life assurance are becoming more duly appreciated.
Life insurance is to the provident man in humble life
what an estate is to the rich. It adds to his present
comfort and self respect, while it secures his future
independence.

A short time ago we adverted in general terms to
the chilling manner in which the Right Honourable
the PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE had not
only disappointed the just hopes of his constituents,
but also those of a large party who gave their support

- -
to the present Administration because he had been
- nominated a Cabinet Minister, and because he had
been appointed to an office, the duties of which were
peculiarly adapted, from his previous commercial ex-
perience, to his habits and talents. This nomination
also gave the greater satisfaction to the Reformers of
that day, inasmuch as they indulged in the expectation
that a sprinkling of his already avowed liberal senti-
ments at the Council Board, would not fail to have the
beneficial effect of neutralizing, at least, some of the
Conservative leaven—which in spite of Whig pro-

fessions had begun to swell, and to betray
the character of the mass. Moreover, his of-

ficial station conferred on him ample power and
convenient opportunity to expunge all those abuses
and absurdities with which he had over and over
again declared the practices of the Board of Trade
were crowded, and against which he had so loudly and
eloquently inveighed for several Sessions from the
Opposition benches. We mean, therefore, to particu-
larise, and for that purpose we select one of the nu-
merous abuses which, as Mr. THOMSON, he had con-
demned, and which, as the Right Hon. C. P. THONI-
- he has allowed to remain in blooming vigour to
the hour of our writing.
Amidst a heap of other abuses none seemed
in the eyes of Mr. THOMSON so fraudulent
as the bounty granted on sugar. Whenever the
question of sugar-duties and bounties came under the
consideration of the House, Mr. TimmsoN was at his
post, prepared with his strongest invective to rail against
the scandalous properties of the bounty system, cha-
racterizing it as a fraud invented solely to enrich the
West India Slave-owners, at the expense of the honest
public—in fact, as a job that ought not to disgrace
the country for another day. These were the opinions
of plain Mr. THOMSON. Now let us examine how
the sayings of plain Mr. THOMSON harmonize with
the doings of the Right Hon. C. P. THOMSON,
the Cabinet Minister.
It was naturally supposed, and candy expected, by
all those who had suffered from the rapacity of this
monster evil—this denounced bounty on sugar—that
the new PRESIDENT of the Boson would, without
delay, attack and annihilate the grievance ; that he
would not brook its existence an hour beyond the time
required to abolish it. How did he act ? Why, to
the surprise of the suffering consumers, and to the
exultation of the West India recipients of the spoil,
the Right Hon. Gentleman announced in a moderated
tone, that he should institute
an inquiry as-
certain what the bounty really amounteCl
q
to
t—o
anti
whether a part of it might not be of that legitimate
nature, which would render his official interference
improper ; so that that which had been denounced as
,
a glaring fraud by plain Mr. TiromsNc.:o a , in
became
the eye of the Right Hon. C. P. Tuo
doubt-
ful affair
After a
vast deal of twaddle and much lossilfe
roefd time,,
during which the public were recklessly p the
Right Hon. Gentleman expressed his determination to
satisfy his mind by actual experiment. Not content
with the notorious fact, that the sugar refiners were
selling their double-refined sugar at an ex-bounty price,
four or five shillings below the ex-duty price of the Mus-
covado sugar from which it was made—disregarding al-
together that the markets indicated indisputably an
enormous bounty, and that the British consumer
was paying something like 203. per cwt. for his
sugar above the Continental value of it, he deter-
mined on indulging his whim in an experiment. A
sugar house was prepared with the necessary utensils,
and a fitting person secured who could undertake the
management of this pet concern. After the lapse of
lump months, the services of an eminent chem,:at were i