The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-13 00:00:00

Bide of the House. That Hen. Member said that they were
an infatuated set, and that their infatuation arose from laxity
of principle. In that there was no appearance of the bgoted
rengimest pealing the anathemas of the Church against those
who differed from it.—(Hear, hear.) He (Mr. Gisborne) had
given way, on the preceding evening, to the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman the Secretary at War, to reply to some of the observa-
tions of the Hon. Alember for Newark. There was one thing
which he (Mr. Gisborne) was not a little surprised at. The
late Mr. Macaulay had been for many years the object of the
foulest calumnies and the vilest slanders, which were heaped
upon him by the West India body and its supporters. And it
was strange to hear the ton of a member of that body pass a
splendid eulogium upon that man (the late Mr. Macau-
12ty,), who, because Exchequery, had been so persecuted.
Th Chancellor of the had stated to the House that
there was a great defficiency. in the revenue, which must be
suueppalilesnd,sttaotbedoththoaft
it hwi cohu di) rbe Pe
o sdi
itsieornesd
ithe
eHnonuts et
na srs eain,teed
a.
revenue equal to the expensesiof the year ; and for this pur-
pose the proposition of the Government was brought forward;
but to this the Noble Lord had brought forward what was
called in legal proceedings a demurrer, and which meant that
the person making it would not meet his opponent upon the
merits of the case, but upon some technical points re.ating to
it. The Noble Lord (Lord Sandon) said that an equaliza-
tion of the duty on sugar would give encouragement to slavery,
and that, morever, there was no necessity for it, since there
would be an abundant supply. He said we should have
40,000 tons from the Mauritius, but the fact was that
we never had 30,000 tons in any two years.—( Hear, hear. )
On this point, also, the Noble Lord was at issue with the
Right Hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel), who had stated that we
must not expect an abundant supply of sugar from the West
Indies, until there had b en a considerable increase in the
negro population. With respect to the East Indies, he was
aware that a considerable quantity had been imported, but this
had been solely occasioned by dearness of West India sugar.
He concurred so much with what had been said on the con-
nexion of slavery with the sugar duties, that he should say very
little on that subject. Froin the change of feeling which was
springing up on this subject in America, and other countries,
he certainly anticipated the period when slavery would be
abolished. He thought such a change would be more effectual
for this purpose than any measure could adopt. He had never
been able to observe that any efforts of this country
had had any effect worth mentioning in diminishing
the horrors of the slave trade, and such being the case he cud
not feel justified in postponing, for the prospect of so uncertain
an event, the relaxation of the sugar duties to the relief of the
labouring classes. The Hon. Member for Newark said the
Noble Lord was giving up a diplomatiC advantage which the
sugar duties afforded him to obtain a treaty respecting the
slave trade, but he (Mr. Gisborne) thought such au argument
savoured somewhat of 't laxity of principle."—( Hear, hear. )
He would only further detain the House by reading an opinion
delivered in the House of Commons on the 31st July, 1d33,
and which was to the following effect There are many
questions on which the declaration of the King% Government
it, their favour is derisive of their fate. I find this is so on the
question of the Cos n-laws. When the King and the Govern-
ment range themselves against any restriction, its fate is sealed,
for it is impossible to restore respect to an authority so weak-
ened." These were the words of Sir R. Peel.—(Cheers.)
He (Mr. Gisborne) therefore took the liberty of informing the
House, on the authority of Sir R. Peel, that the fate of the
Corn-laws and the present duty on sugar was sealed. —( Cheers. )
_Mr. SYDNEY HERBER said that a considerable por-
tion of that evening had been devoted by lion. Gentlemen on
the Ministerial side of the House to pouring out the phials of
their indignation against his Hon. Friend the Member for
Newark, bearing thereby a reluetant tribute to the pungency
of the remarks of his Hon. Friend. He need.say nothing in
defence of that Hon. Member, and his character was too well
known on both sides of the House to render it possible that
he should be injured by such attacks.—( Hear, hear.) With
regard to the general question, he would not discuss the
principle of free trade, which had been already adverted to
in speeches which would convince him, if he had not been
already an advocate for that doctrine.—(Cheers from the Ali-
Material benches.) 1114 principle had been defended with
an unnecessary ostentation by Hon. Gentlemen opposite.
They were not the originators of it, it had already
been developed by a Cabinet of which Mr. Huskisson was a
Member. The principle of free trade was one which nobody
could deny.—(Hear; hear.) The only question was as to the
mode of its application—( Hear, hear)—aud as to the time of
its application. Any child could understand so simple a prin-
ciple if it were to be taken as a uniform arithmetical rule, and if
it were not to be considered in its relation to the situation anti
the immediate interest of a great commercial country like
this. If that were riot the case sagacity and statesmanship
would be unnecessary in those who directed the destinies of
Great Britain, and any accountant in the City would make as
good a Chancellor of the Exchequer as the Right Hon Gen-
tleman opposite. The main argument used on the other side
of the House on the question then under discussion, was that
which had been so ably stated that evening by the Noble Lord
the Member for Northumberland, namely, that we had not a
sufficient supply of sugar from our own colonies, and that we
should consequently endeavour to obtain it from other quar-
ters. it appeared, however, to him (Alr. Sydney Herbert)
that there was now a prospect of an ususilly large supply from
the West Indies; and he also believed with the Noble Lord,
• the Member for Northumberland, that the resources of those
colonies were capable of a stilt further development. The
truth war, that the Government seemed to have mistaken their
own interests for these of the country, and to have overlooked
the people of England for the attainment of party ends. There
was a school of economists, of which the Henourable
Member for Kilkenny was the chief, who appeared to
think that patriotism consisted in an unwillingness to sup-
port the burdens of the State, or to make any sacrifice
for the, public goed ; but there were others who felt that
national honour should not be sacrificed to expediency, and
that Great Britain should not crow abandon the great experi-
ment she had engaged in for the suppression of slavery and the
slave-trade. He believed that tl at was the feeling of the peo-
ple of England, and he had no apprehension but it would be
adopted by their representatives by the decision to which the
House would come on the question then before them, a deci-
sion which must for ages affect the name and reputation-of this
country.—( Hear, hear.)
Mr. 'VERNON S shITH said that it appeared to him that
Honourable Gentlemen opposite had not confined them-
selves to the resolution then before the House; and
though they were prepared to back it with their
votes, they did not back it with their speeches. The
Honourable Gentleman who had last addressed the
House had declared himself an advocate for free trade, al-
though with some qualification as to the application of the
principle ; and the Hon. Member had gone so far as to state
that any child should assent to that doctrine, forgetting,
however, that two full-grown gentlemen, the Hon. Member
for Antrim arid the Hon. Baronet the Member for the Uni-
versity of oxford, had last eight professed their inability to
understand the principle.—( Hear, hear.) The Hon. Baronet
the Member for the Unisereity el Oxford had also expressed
his anxiety for the discouragement of the slave trade ; but, as
he (Mr. Vernon Smith) recollected, the Honourable Baronet
had not advocated the same doctrines during the
agitation which led to the measure of Emancipation,
although he should be loth to impute anything like hypocri-
tical pretext to the Hon. Member fur Oxford, yet he mast say
that the straightforeardness of his speech was not to be fol-
lowed out by the straightforwardness of his vote, for on prin-
ciple he ought not to vote for the resolution of the Noble Lord,
which admitted that the necessity might arise for continuing
the evil which he was desirous of exterminating. His (Mr.
V. Smith's) objection to the resolution of the Nole Lord was,
that the position it assumed did not contain a true statement
of the facts. The Noble Lord asserted that the people of
England had made a great sacrifice, not for the purpose of
effecting a great practical good, which had been effected, but
for sonic other purpose, of which they now heard for the first
time. He denied that they had made that sacrifice merely fer
the sake of example to other countries. tie denied that they
had made the sacrifice merely for the sake of sticking a feather
in the cap of the mother country. They made the sacrifice for
a valuable purpose, and, in the spirit of that sterling
sense which distinguished everything they did, for the
purpose of extinguishing slavery in our own dominions.—
( ('heeis. ) That purpose had been effected, that bargain had
been completed.—( Ironical cheers from the Opposition.)
Could any one doubt it who looked at the present state of the
West Indies, anti who compared the state of prosperity of
those who had been formerly slaves in the country with the
condition of the working classes in this ?—( Cheers.) With
the view of showing the actual condition of the labouring
classes in Jamaica he would quote from a ds spatch of Sir
Charles Metcalfe, who said that the real difficulty which the
holders of property in that island felt was " the not possess-
ing sufficient inducements to get the working classes to la-
bour. The mass of the population possessed the
means of . comfortable subsistence without labour. They
may, to obtain articles of luxury, be induced to la-
bour, but they never can be reduced to it by absolute
necessity. • It is considered no favour to give employ -
ment, but on the other hand it is considered a great favour to
give labour." Such was the statement of Sir C. Metcalf. He
with the would ask ail, Hon. Gentleman to contrast that
con-
dition of the labourers in his own immediate neighbourhood.
Did Gentlemen know of any district in the kingdom in which
it was considered no favour to give employment, but a great
favour to give 1. bour ?—(Cheers.) That was the position of
Jamaica. For that the people of this country had made
great sacrifices. They had made those sacrifices to make
this people of Jamaica free and happy, but not to plae6 them
in a position so infinitely. above the middle and labouring
classes of this country. British Guiana was infinitely more pros-
perous. According to the statement of Governor Light, in 140
the negroes were all eager to buy land ; they were better
dressed than the generality of the peasantry of England; they
would not wear coarse cloth ; they slept on good beds, and pos-
sessed sideeboares, and other expensive articles of furniture ;
they drank champagne, we: e fond of salt fish—( A laugh) —but
preferred plaintain and coo food, which was a paste to; med by
beating plaintains in a mortar, and which he supposed must be
the dinner of herbs to which his Hight Hon. Friend the Mem-
ber ter the Tower Hamlets had alluded the other evening.
(Cheers and laughter)—in a speech to the principles of which
the Hon. Baronet the Member fur Cambridge had been so
eager to tender his support, that he had thought proper to re-
peat it to the House that evening.—(Laughter.) If such
was the state of the negro population, he would ask the House
if the bargain had not been so Mr effective ? Die he complain
of that state ? On the contrary, he rejoiced at it • but he
would say that it was not fair to call on the people of this coun-
try for fresh taxes after the bargain had been is fully corn-
pleted.—( Cheers.) The question was merely one of a mercan-
tile nature--it was a quest'ou of protection to the West India
interest, amid not one of the slave trade or slavery—of protec-
tion granted to that interest at the time they were slave-owners
—( Cheers)—although advantage was now taken of the
question for another purpose, as he had already stated. If it
were a question of humanity, some of the words introduced
by the Noble Lord into' his resolution ought to be omitted.
—(Cheers.) It was an attempt to carry out the
ancient prejudices under the cloak of philanthropy. It was
monopoly assuming the disguise of philanthropy.—(Cheers.)
He would not then go into the question of cotton, tobacco, and
other slave-labour produce which was freely permitted to be in-
troduced into this country, hut he would merely advert to the
position assumed by his Right Hon. Friend the Member for the
Tosser Hamlets, that it was not a question of free trade at all,
because it could not be called a question of free trade or fair
'competition when free labour was brought into competition.
with slave labour. He would admit it was not a question of
free trade, because there was still a great protection cunt' ~ea
to the West India interest—(Cheers)—but he would ask his
Rion
Right Honourable Friend when the experiment off Fonipert
t ied?
between slave labour and free labour had ever bee rl
the Yople of
When they talked about the saeritices whicth
samires_f,r
England had made—and they had made
knowagre what sacra
the extinction of slavery, he should like t
reprietors them'.
flees had ever been made by the West India
to that House, they
selves ?—(Cheers. ) Whenever they
cameation of their monopoly. •
invaLlably came to complain of some
cried out that the abolition of
—(Cheers.) In Iwo7 they
the slave trade would be their destruction. _ . They had made
the same complaint when it was proposed to admit.
_at urettes.
sugar, and they, had repeated it when it was proposed that East
Every alters ion that had b •
India sugar should he admitted. Been
their own ace, unt, be at tended
according to
proposed would,
n - yet there they were, at the
with their immediate rut pres:eut
a
moment, in state infinitely more prosperous than they hail
been before the emancipatioile—(Hear, hear.) The Noble
Lord, the Member for Liverpool, had, when the Noble Lord
the Member for North Lancashire had brought forward his
plan for emancipation, moved a resolution for giving 416 West
India planters a larger sum than 20 minims, -on the ground
of the =mews losses they woUld have to. i4cur. It had been
calculated that, during the apprenticeship, the leas,to tilts ,West
India proprietor! must amount to 150,0001. • annuelly sow,
- •