The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-03 00:00:00

a time when distress and ruin impended over the colonies,
but when the correspondence between the Colonial Govern-
ment at home and its governors abroad exhibited a mass of
confusion and blundering almost without example. We saw
Governor Grey in Jamaica furiously scolded by Lord Grey in
Downing-street, and on the other hand Lord Grey was con-
victed of ignorant temerity by another Governor Grey in
New Zealand.—( Hear.) A stoppage of supplies was threat-
ened in one colony, whilst martial law and military execu-
tions to a frightful extent prevailed in another. Neverthe-
less, under these appallinf circumstances, the colonies were
passed over without the slightest mention. It was most nn-
fortunate that such a moment should be chosen for not only
exempting the colonies from the royal sympathy, bat even
excepting them by implication from the royal dominions. In
conclusion; he must repeat that publicity was the only gua-
rantee for good government, arid unless Parliament forced
publicity, it would neglect its duty.
Mr. SCOTT remarked, that the Hon. Member who had
just addressed the House had made a clever speech in oppo-
sition to the vote which he had announced his intention to

give; but, much as he admired the Hon. Gentleman's
ability, he confessed he would rather have had his vote than
his speech. He (Mr. Scott) concurred in all that had been
stated relative to the unsatigactory position of our foreign
relations, and thought that in such a state of things eco-

nomy might be practised by withdrawing some of our ambas-
sadors, or retrenching their expenses. As regarded the
colonies, the House expected that the gentlemen who pre-
sided over that department in that assembly would explain
the absence of all allusion to them in the Royal Speech. The
whole of our colonial system was vicious, and that was

attributable to the circumstance of their being placed

under the control of

a sort of Star Chamber in

Downing .street. The local assemblies were so re-
stricted as to have only the right of complaint, without
the power of redress. It would seem that for a colony to
obtain a representative system it was necessary that there
should be rebellion on its part, and payment of 2,600,8001.
on ours. That had been the case in Canada, and was likely
to happen at the Cape, though it appeared that the artifi-
cers in the workshop at Downing-street were mistaken in
supposing that the constitution which suited the latitude of
Quebec was adapted to that of Cape Town. The mal-ad.
ministration of the colonies had caused the dismemberment

of the empire eighty years ago, and a similar result might be
apprehended now, unless a change were to take place. It was
necessary that the colonies should be secured against the
vagaries of the Colonial-office, and admitted to the advan•
tage of good government (Hear.)
Colonel SIBTLIORP said that after the excellent speech
of his Hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire and the
Jesuitical, weak, and imperfect reply of the Noble Lord—(A
laugh)—admiring the one and despising the other—he could
not be content at the opening of a new session to give a mere
silent vote. The Speech they bad heard read from the chair
was not the Speech of her Majesty, but an onsnium gatherem
pie of her Ministers—(A laugh)--and, politically speaking,
it was a falsehood throughout.—(Continued laughter.)M Any
man who placed such a speech in the hands of her ajesty
ought to be impeached. There was nothing in it that was
good, favourable, satisfactory, or consoling to the country—
everything was black, underhand, and deceitful—full of
fraud, trickery, and subtlety. It was painful for him to use
strong language—(" Oh I" and laughter)— but he would not
shrink from speaking inthe House or acting out of it. How
much did he regret they had no longer amongst them the
Noble Lord who with such fearless ability had opposed the
Government. Not less than his Hon. Friend the Member for
Buckinghamshire, not less than any Member of that House
did he regret the early removal of such a man. Had that
Noble Lord been there to criticise the Speech from the Throne
he would have lashed the Prime Minister, as he had done
before, and made him shake in his seat with the conscious-
ness of his misconduct —( A laugh.) That Speech contained
a recommendation of economy. It was upon that principle
that the Whigs came into power. But, had they ever prac-
tised it? It was stated that the revenue had improved. It
that were so—if his Right Hon. relative the Chancellor of
the Exchequer would show him that the revenue was in so
prosperous a state as the Speech represented it to be, then he
would ask him, in the name of the people of England,
whether he meant to continue the income-tax and that most
unjust tax of all—the duty on fire insurances. He could
not place the slightest confidence in either the motives or the
intentions of her Majesty's Ministers.
Sir D. L. EVANS would remind the Chancellor of the
Exchequer that the opinion was generally entertained out of
doors that an injustice was done to the owners of personal
property by the present imposition of legacy duties. He
trusted that some inquiry would be made into this subject,
with a view to show whether this injustice was more appa-
rent than real. He was glad the Noble Lord had announced
reductions in the expenditure, and he only hoped they would
be commensurate in extent with the wishes of the public.
A revision and more equal partition of the taxation was
also strongly desired by the country. He felt inclined to de-
fend the foreign policy of the Government against the attacks
of the Hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, both with re-
spect to our mediation in the Schleswig-Holstein and in the
Sicilian question. He felt bound to add his meed of praise
to the Noble Lord at the head of Foreign Affairs, who had
for so many years and with se much success, supported the
cause of liberty in every country in the world.—(Hear,
hear.) He would remind the Non. Member for Stamford
that it was now sixteen or seventeen years ago since he
heard him (Mr. Herries) prophecy that it would be impos-
sible fer the Noble Lord (Palmerston) to maintain the peace
of Europe fer six months,
Mr. HERRIES intimated dissent.
Sir DE LACY EVANS—But, notwithstanding that pro-
phecy,
the peace of Europe had been preserved for sixteen
years, and great progress had been made in the cause of
liberty and constitutional government.—(Hear.) He thought
the present Government deserved the greatest credit for the
manly support they had given to that cause in every portion
of the world.—(Hear, hear.) He approved of the entire
cordiality which the English Government had maintained
with each successive Government in France. While that
Government were actaated by a liberal and generous policy
the cause of civilization and progress would be best promoted
by the existence of a continued cordiality between the two
Governments.
Captain HARRIS complained that the Speech from the
Throne contained no allusion to the suffering state of the
agricultural and colonial interests. In the present state of
public opininion he apprehended that nothing could be done
with respect to the corn-laws. He thought certainly that a
fair trial ought to be given to the experiment. But the
landed interest had, at the same time, a right to complain of
the unjust burdens and assessments to which they were sub-
jested. On their behalf, therefore, he thought himself jus-
tified in saying that the Government of this country ought
to lose no time in seeing what could be done for their relief.
The next topic in the Royal speech to which attention might
naturally be directed was that which related to the revenue.
It was true that with regard to the revenue of the present
year very little information had yet been communicated to
Parliament, and as they had few accounts before them, he
could say little upon that subject, but he might at least
venture to assert that nothing had yet appeared to warrant
the satisfaction expressed in the Royal Speech on account of
the condition of the revenue and the present state of the
commercial interest. The cotton trade certainly appeared
to be in a prosperous condition, but he ventured to assert that
no other interest was now flourishing. Hardware, wool, and
every other species of manufacture was suffering; cotton
alone was in a state even apparently prosperous. That
surely was not a condition of things that could be called free
trade, but a plan rather which gave a vast advantage to the
cotton trade, and to that solely. So long as there was a duty
on the importation of manufactured cottoa goods, it surely
could not be said that this country possessed anything like
free trade. In those proceedings which were taken for the
alleged purposes of free trade and economical reform, there
were spirits at work who were identical with those to whose
agency no small portion of the disturbance which had oc-
curred on the Continent might justly be attributed, and he
deeply apprehended that that party in this country were
urging on and stimulating the endeavours of Hon. Members
in that House whose voices were the most loudly raised in
favour of free trade. Nevertheless, he gave the Hon. Mem-
ber :for the West Riding full credit for the best inten-
tions; but at the same time he thought that Hon. Gentle-
man most grievously mistaken when ho talked of looking
forward to the time at which duties were not to be imposed
for the purpose of aiding the revenue. He understood the
Hon. Member to say that he would do away with all duties
for mere purposes of revenue, a project which could hardly
be carried into effect at any less cost than that of national
bankruptcy. He wished to add a word or two with regard
to the proposed reductions in the army and the navy. Let
it be remembered that these reductions were intended to
take place at a moment when it was admitted that an in-
surrectionary spirit was rife in Ireland and the war in the
Punjaub still going on. When the navy was mentioned in
that House, he often heard it said that the nine or ten
sail-of-the-line which we had in the Mediterranean consti-
tuted a needless drain upon the resources of the country;
but he looked to France, not as our natural enemy—that he
should never say—but as the Power which, from local posi-
tionstrength,e must always be to us the most
could at any time be called on to
formidable
ht
io h
w
encounter. England, therefore, ought at all times to main-
tain a force sufficient to balance that great state and main-
tain the peace of Europe.
Mr. COCHRANE did not think that the Hon. Member for
Pontefract proved himself a very competent judge of what
he was• speaking of when he applied such terms as those of
a great constitutional struggle to the events which in the
course of last year took place on the continent of Europe.
That Hon. Member had said that he regretted that he did
not belong to any party, but he (Mr. Cochrane) might fairly
say that the Hon. sientleman had taken his place on the
mountain of that House. TO apply himself, however, more
immediately to the Speech which they had yesterday heard
from the Throne. There was evidently in that document, and
what followed upon it, an indication upon the part of Minis-
ters to yield to the influence of pressure from without. He
conceived that it was not right for any Government to be
influenced by threats or menaces; and in those threats he
saw something more than naere retrenchment. The Hon.
Member fir the West Riding meant to organize a force
to override
He Mr.
eth e.(. Cochrane) considered that,
Legislature, and dictate to
at the whiche
a House wasnew
League was mow springing up in this country,
they were entitled to examine the opinions and objects of the
leaders of the movement. In 1846 the Hon. Member for
the West Riding warned the landlords that there was a
blacker spot in the legislation of the country than even the
corn-laws, namely, taxation, and he announced that when
his party were satisfied with regard to the corn-laws, they
would organize an agitation against the landlords on the
subject of taxation. The same Hon. Gentleman, in a memo-
rable speech which he delivered at Manchester in January,
1848, in alluding to the Duke of Wellington's opinions with
reference to the national armaments, spoke of the Noble
Duke in these terms :--" That the Duke was an old man,
and had passed into the last verge of existence, and —without
a figure of speech—was tottering to the grave." The Hon.
Member for Manchester ( Mr. Bright) said the other day at
a publle meeting, that he wished the people to be so repre-
sented that they might control the Throne and the House of
Lords,; and he added that there was nothing that was un-
attainable if the same means were used to which they had
before had recourse. He ( Ain:Cochrane) regretted, after the
enunciation of such principles, that the Government had
given in the Speech those pledges of retrenchment; for it
appeared to him that they were giving way to a pressure
from without. Last year, when there were no revolutions on
the Continent, and when there was not half the danger of
war that existed at present, no allusion to retrenchment was
made in the Royal Speech ' • and he conceived that no man,
looking to the state of the Continent now, could say there
was such a prospect of peace as would warrant—he would
not call it the retrenchment, but the disarmament now pro-
posed. He begged to remind Hon. Gentlemen that Mr,
Pitt came down to the House in February, 1792, with prog-
nostications of a fifteen years' peace, and with proposals for
retrenchment, and that precisely a year afterwards that war
was commenced which lasted for so many years. The motto
of the Hon. Gentleman opposite was "Peace and retrench-
ment ;" but he considered that the motto of this country
should be " Peace and armament."
Mr. BANKES regretted to observe Oat no allusion to the
interests of most important portions of the empire was made
in the Speech which had been submitted to the Queen by
herde v iMlle) that it was their duty to take care that the interests
Ministers. He agreed with the Noble Lord (Lord Man-
of the tritish colonies, which had no specific representation
in that Ilouse, should not be neglected; and this was espe-
cially necessary at the present time when it was notorious
that the colonists were suffering extraordinary pressure.
The Hon. Member ibr Montrose had brought charges of