The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-30 00:00:00

insert Galway in schedule B. The other alterations
referred to the details, but unless the amendments were
made, he should oppose the third reading of the Bill.
The LORD CHANCELLOR said the Noble Lord's
amendments as to freemen would give the franchise to
those who did not now possess it, while the Bill secured
it to all those who now possessed it. His Noble
Friend's object was to let in all the freemen of the guilds
to the Parliamentary: franchise. Tne number of towns
were left by this Bill as by the Bill of 1838, to which
their Lordships had agreed ; he hoped the Peers would
not in 1840 repudiate their own work of 1838.
Lord BROUGHAM gave his support to the Bill, but
feared it would be lost.
The Earl of Wrem.ow thought the question of the
boundaries should be settled, and he objected to allow-
ing grand juries to tax the towns, after the rural dis-
t tricts were separated from them.
The Marquis of LANSDOWIIE protested against sub-
jecting the towns to doublejaxation, which would be
the case were the Noble Lord's amendment to be car-
' tied. One amendment gave. the Lord Lieutenant
the power to tax the municip4ities at his pleasure, and
that clause the House of Cornnions would never agree to.
Their Lordships went int? Committee, and on the
6th clause concerning freemen, divided, when Lord
LYNDHURST'S amendment was carried by 104 to 60.
Several other clauses were amended, as the Noble Lord
proposed. A second division took place upon the qua-
lification clause, which was amended, according to Lord
LYNDHURST'S views, by 29 to 50. Some few clauses
were postponed, but the bulk of them were agreed to
as madifid or mangled by the Tories. At twelve,
Lord LYNDHURST being satisfied with his triumph, the
House adjourned •
In the Commons the adjourned debate on the Weaver
Churches was resumed, and the clause was agreed to
by 70 to 58 votes. A motion to print the e% idence,
was lost by 166 to 136 ; a sad augury of the success of
Sir R. INGLIS this evening, though Mr. HOME gave
notice of moving his amendment. We, however, de-
spair of any good from the present House of Commons,
and look, therefore, to see it consent to Sir R. Isicers's
motion.
In reply to Mr. MACLEAN'S question—Did the
Gosernment propose to grant compensation to the
opium merchants?—Lord PALMERSTON said his views
on that subject had undergone no alteration. In reply
to another question, the Noble Lord said it was not in-
tended to recall Captain ELLIOT.
In reply to Lord INGESTRIE, the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER said the people of the Post Office had
double work to perform, and it was not therefore his in-
tention to recommend at present that letters might be
posted at as a late an hour as formerly.
The Sugar Duties Bill was read a third time and
passed, after Lord JOHN RUSSELL had stated, in answer
to Mr. HUME, that he did not think Government
would be justified in advising the Crown to adopt any
measures for securing a supply of free labour for the
Colonies till the question bad been brought before Par-
liament. He was anxious to secure them a supply of
free labour, as the best means of enabling them to com-
pete with slave countries. To do that Lord JOHN
RUSSELL should make the planter get rid of all the
vestiges of slavery.
The Chimney-sweepers Bill was read a third time
and passed.
On the Order of the Day for a Committee on the Ec-
clesiastical Duties and Revenues, Mr. PUSEY moved
an address for further information as to the duties of
Chapters, &c., and expressed a wish that they may be
made to fulfil those duties. The Clergy in his county
were unanimous in opposing the Bill, and to postpone it
for one year would only tend to improve it.
Colonel SIBTIIORP seconded the motion.
Lord J. RUSSELL would have doubted, had the
motion proceeded from any less sincere person than Mr.
Poses', whether it was not made merely for delay.
The Bi!l was founded on the report of an Ecclesiasti-
cal Commission appointed by Sir R. PEEL.
Mr. ESTCOURT and Mr. ACLAND supported Mr.
PUSEY.
Mr. GLADSTONE said it was well known that the
Bishops composing the Commission were divided as
three to two on the Bill. It could never accomplish
the object the Noble Lord had in view. It
confiscated property, instead of defining and establishing
duties. Jealous of Rome, Mr. GLADSTONE held her
up as an example they ought to imitate ; and as she is
reforming her chapters in England, the Church of Eng-
land, which is in all things Roman, should do the
same. Well done, Popery in Parliament under a Pro-
testant disguise !
After some discussion the House divided, and the
amendment was rejected by 117 to 48. The House
went into Committee.
In Committee the clauses of the Bill were warmly
contested, and several divisions took place, all of which
left the Bill as it was. The Committee is to sit again
on Friday.
Several measures were subsequently forwarded a
stage, and at a Quarter before One the House adjourned.
'e 1 eta

The Sugar Duties Bill was read a third time last
night in the House of Commons, and is for the,
Session, past the reach of our missiles. Neverthe-
less, we may add a word or two on the subject for
the benefit of Sir S. LUSIIINGTON, Mr. O'CoN-
NELL, and the Morning Chronicle, when the sub-
ject is next discussed. If they who advocated the
repeal or abolition of the. Corn-laws, are resolved to
levy a tax on the people of England, to the amount
of more than 4,000,0001. per year, for the behoof of
the West Indian aristocracy, we cannot possibly com-
prehend why they should object to levy 30,000,0001.
or 60,000,0001 a year on the people for the benefit
of the British and Irish aristocracy, who are at least
as deserving of being maintained in idleness and
wealth by a tax as the planters. Every argument
nearly that can be urged against the Corn-
laws may be urged against the discrimi-
nating Sugar Duties. Both schemes rest on the
unjust principle of taxing the most numerous class
of her MAJESTY'S subjects to enrich a few, and
the arguments drawn from a supposed expediency to
keep the land in cultivation in one case, and to put
down slave labour in the other, belong to that order
of reasoning which is much more common than
wise, and goes under the expressive name of humbug.
It seems to us that little or no improvement can
ever take place in society composed exclusively of
masters and slaves. Any advance made by the
West Indian communities is much more due to the
mother countries with which they have remained
connected than to themselves. Slaves, it is clear,
have neither motive nor means to improve. They
must do as they are bid, and can invent nothing or
can carry no inventions into execution. They con-
tinue, like gin horses, to work in the same track,
from first handling their tools, till they cease to la-
bour. The principal occupation of their masters,
to which all their time and all their energies are de-
voted, is how to preserve their slaves in obedience,
and exact from them the greatest amount of toil.
They live under an overwhelming apprehension
of an insurrection, and have neither thought
nor inclination for improvement. Under such
circumstances it appears idle to believe for one
moment that slave-grown produce can enter into
competition with the produce of free men ; and
certainly, if forced into competition with it from any
peculiar circumstances, it must speedily be driven
from the market. We look on this characteristic
difference, the chief one which statesmen should
regard, as of itself a complete answer to the puerile
apprehension that the slave-grown produce of the
Brazils will beat the produce of free labour out of
the market.

The slave-owner has to purchase the slave, the
capitalist who employs a free labourer is at no such
expense. The latter provides for himself in sick-
ness ; the master must provide for the slave. The
death of the -labourer may deprive his family of
their breadwinner an d protector ; the death of a
slave in the prime of life is a pecuniary loss to his
master. Taking into consideration the difficulties
now thrown in the way of tile slave trade, and the
hardships to which the slaves are exposed, which
must shorten their lives, the expense of either con-
tinually purchasing new slaves or of rearing them,
while the free labourers rear the next generation of
labourers out of their wages, we have a perfect con-
viction, which history confirms, that free labour
must be cheaper to the capitalist than slave labour,
and enable the employer of labourers to beat the
slave-owners from the field.
The greatest impediment to the cultivation of
sugar by free labour, atises neither from the climate
where the sugar cane grows most luxuriantly, nor
the difficulty of cultivation, but from the old prac-
tice of cultivating it only by slaves,
a recently published Supplement to his Cuin-
g, Lahcair in sugar plantations (says Mr. M'Cul-
ilnoccria
ICila Dictionary) has hitherto been associated in the
minds of the blacks with all that is most revolting to the
feelings; sand it is not rational to suppose now that they
arc fr,:e that they should apply themselves to what has been
the g
the badge and test of their degradation,y with energy
that the lash used formerly to inspire."
But these observations are especially true of the
whites, and that which they have been accustomed
to see performed by the blacks, under the terror of
the lash, they will shrink from with instinctive aver-
sion. One of the most striking curses of slavery,
which brings it home to the bosoms of those who
inflict it, is, that it so degrades all the occupations
by which life is sustained, that a free man will not
touch them. In dooming others to slavery he
dooms the arts they practise to degradation, and is
likely to perish by his own he]plessnes3 whenever
slavery is extinguished.