The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-12 00:00:00

Vt,t ,§Ukt.

LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 1841.

In the Lords, the Arms (Ireland), and the Slave
Compensation Bills were read a second time.
After receiving petitions, their Lordships, on the mo-
tion of the Marquis of LANSDOWNE, appointed a Com-
mittee to inquire into the rate of interest on promissory

notes, with a view to illustrate the operation of the Act
_ _

of 4th William IV.

Another smart and most pleasant discussion on the Corn-
laws ensued, which serves to keep their Lordships' minds
alive to the subject, and make the public more and more
acquainted with the matter. It was proved by some re-
turns, which the Earl of RADNOR quoted, that Scotland
had, for some time, been an importing country, and that
the supplies from Ireland were gradually diminishing.
We learn from the testimony of the Earl of GLENGALL
that the consumption of bread in Ireland has much in-

creased with the change of consumption from spirits to

Lord ASHBURTON deprecated the discussion, but made
a longer speech than any other Peer. The Noble Lord has

always so many opinions to amend, so many matters to
explain and rectify, that he must speak at great length.
The Duke of WELLINGTON wished a notice to be given
of such discussions,:and quoted ADAM SMITH against free
trade in corn.

Earl Frrzwn.Lum very properly recommended the
Noble Duke to refresh his memory by a re•perusal of
the " Wealth of Nations." If he follow the advice, we

hope it will be to comprehend its principles, as well as to

snatch up a sentence or two of its details.

Before Seven their Lordships adjourned till Thursday.
In the Commons, after a great number of petitions had
been presented, many of which relate to the Import
Duties and the Corn-laws, Mr. EASTHOPE, supposing
there would be no opposition, moved for leave, according
to his notice to bring in a Bill to abolish Church-rates,
and to make other provisions for the maintenance of
churches and chapels.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL assented to the motion, declaring
that he should vote against the second reading of the
Bill, if the mode of making provision for repairing
churches were not proper.
Dr. Nicnou,s, however, said it was not fit such a Bill
should be introduced altering the law, and he moved aF
an amendment, that the Order of the Day for resuming
the adjourned debate be read.
Sir R. Nous seconded the amendment ; and after
a few words from Lord JOHN RUSSELL and Mr.
HOME, Mr. EASTHOPE withdrew his motion, giving no-
tice to renew it on Tuesday week. We approve of Bills
being stopped in limine, which a majority is resolved shall
not pass, because to introduce them is a mere waste of
time and expense ; what the Dissenters, however, may
think of this sturdy out-and-out denial of justice is
another consideration. They must take care, on a gene-
ral election, to vote for nobody but determined opponents
of Church-rates.
The House, after transacting some routine business,
'resumed the adjourned debate.
Mr. MACAULAY began, feeling himself called on to
speak by the observations made last night by the Hon.
Member for Newark. He was not then in his place, and
had now no other feelings but satisfaction at the terms
used by thellon. Gentleman. With respect to the laxity of
principle of which the Ministers were accused, he could
not understand it, for a great part of our trade was car-
ried on with slave countries, and the Tories, like him-
self, would resist all attempts to put a stop to that
trade. The Right Honourable Gentleman contented
himself with a short speech, in which he vindi-
cated the ' principle of the measure, and which he
obviously would not have made but for the allusion of
Mr. GLADSTONE to his father the evening before.
We must pass over Sir G. CLERK, Mr. WARD, Sir R.
INous, Mr. C. WOOD—who made, however, an excellent
business-like speech in favour of the Ministers' measure--
and Mr. GOULBURN, whose several speeches contained
nothing very remarkable, to come to the speech of
Sir GEORGE GREY, which was by far the most re-
markable speech of the night, and perhaps the
best debating speech of the Session. The Right Hon.
Gentleman began by nailing down Mr. GOULBURN to an
admission which, after three nights' cautious silence, he
had made on the part of the Opposition as to what they
would do in the present financial difficulties. That ad-
mission was to do nothing, and the announcement of the
Tory policy by Sir G. GREY made the House quite tu-
multuous with laughter on one side, and noise on the
other. It is good that the country should know that the
Tories will not allow the Ministers to act, and have
made up their mind not to do anything themselves. Sir
GEORGE said that while the Tories would do nothing,
and were careful not to state any principles, the gentle-
men on his side of the House had been clear and distinct
in avowing their principles. The Hon. Member for Lin-
colnghire, with that straightforwardness for which he
was distinguished, had openly avowed that he defended the
sugar duties as an outwork of the Corn-laws, and no
doubt many of the Opposition adopted his views. The
Right Hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, with that
sincerity which belonged to him, had opposed the
Ministers on the ground that it was wrong in any way
to encourage slavery while it was possible to procure
the commodities from any other source at whatever cost.
Which of these prine;tples did. the Hon. Gentlemen op-
posite embrace ? ;They had been silent on the subject ;
and the Hon. Meraber for Newark had said he did not
come there to discuss principles. So it seemed ;
but at one time he did elevate himself to
the height of the principle of the Right Honour-
able Gen th anan, but it afterwards turned out
that he held to the moral principle only
when sugar -was at 565. per cwt., and that his high moral
principle eanished when sugar was at 365., and then the
expedierrzy of obtaining a supply even from slave coun-
tries w: Ls admitted. The Right Hon. Baronet was ex-
tremely happy, too, in exposing the sham humanity of the
Honou able Member for Newark and his friends,
which squared with their pecuniary interest,
for the Honourable Member was now an East India
proprietor, and, therefore, a • defender of East India
as well as West India monopoly. Many gentlemen,
too, the Right Hon. Baronet said, who were loud in de-
claiming against the introduction of slave-grown sugar,
were themselves deriving profit from slaves. They
formed banks and made advances to slave countries, and
encouraged slavery. They objected to Brazilian sugar, but
there were mines in Brazil. They are worked
by 4nglisli companies and English_ capital. He violated

no confidence in referring to the Hon. Member for An-
trim (Mr. IRVINE), for he saw his name as Chairman of
an English company which obtained gold from the mines
in the Brazils, and supplied the capital ; but the gold, on
which they made their profit was brought out of the mines
by the bones and sinews of slaves. Such a home truth
excited indignation against the Tory hypocrites, and will
cover them with shame. We must refer to our report for
a few more of the many capital hits which Sir GEORGE
GREY made ; all, we are aware, are not given, for, un-
fortunately ; the Right Hon. Baronet speaks with such
rapidity, though with such power, that his splendid
speech will be in a manner lost to the world.
He created quite a tumult in the House, which was con-
vulsed with different sentiments. He flurried the wordy
and solemn Mr. GOULBURN, he astonished the prim Lord
SANDON, he held up to eternal ridicule the shallow and
pert humanity-monger Mr. GLADSTONE, and he quite
overwhelmed the stolid Mr. IRVINE. Accordingly he no
sooner took his seat than three of these gentlemen rose to
explain. Lord SANDON was ashamed of what he had
implied, and was in haste to disavow it. Mr. Gout,-
BURN backed out, as he best could, of the do-nothing
policy of which he had been the sponsor, and Mr. GLAD-
STONE was silent and ashamed. Not so
Mr. IRVINE ; the unfortunate gentleman, smitten to the
core by the keen truth told of him in the face of the
world, stammered out in defence an apology. But,
like all men in his situation, he made the matter worse
for himself and his party. He said he did not know why
the Right Hon. Baronet singled him out from amongst
many ; the poor conscience-stricken man implying that
he was surrounded by gentlemen, at that moment, and
every day of his life, who, like him, make a
profit out of the bones and sinews of slaves, and yet get
up a factious opposition to the Government, and are ready
to throw the country into confusion, lest the half-starved
people of England should consume a grain of slave-
grown sugar. A more complete and damning exposure
of drivelling, avaricious hypocrisy was never seen, and was
proper to be the crowning work of the evening. Honour,
great honour to the bold, manly, truth-telling Sir GEORGE
GREY ! Shame, eternal shame, to the monstrous hypo-
crites who refuse, on the plea of humanity, to al-
low the English to use slave-grown sugar, and who
revel in wealth, extorted from the bones and sinews of
slaves ! We expect that the speech of Sir G. GREY will
effect a revulsion in the feelings of the philanthropists,
and make them heartily ashamed of their new associates,
and of that hostility to the rights and liberties of their
own countrymen in which they are now unfortunately
engaged. The debate was adjourned, after Mr. IRVINE
had exposed himself and his party ; and at One o'Clock
the House adjourned.

The debate on the Sugar Duties is full of in-
struction for the people. Alarmed at the state
of the finances, .Itnd at the deterioration of trade,
the Ministers came down to Parliament with
propositions which they assert, and we certainly
believe, though we wish their schemes went
further, will relieve the pressure on the finances,
mitigate the distress of the people, and improve
trade. Those propositions include an alteration
of the Corn-laws, one of the most iniquitous
enactments that ever disgtaced a Christian
country. To avoid, if possible, a discussion of that
law, the Tories will not allow the Ministers to go
into Committee, where their propositions can be
discussed in detail ; they oppose them at the
outset with a declaration that it is not fit and
proper to give relief to lour suffering people,
27,000,000, and extend our trade, lest so doing
might, perchance, injure the comparatively scanty
negro population, 800,000, of our West India
Islands. What is this but an avowal, an open
bare-faced avowal, on the part of the
Tories, that they will seize any pretext,
however absurd, to prevent the borne-down and
crushed industrious classes from obtaining the
least relief'! They refuse even to consider the
means of relieving them. All their sympathies
are with the blacks. They hate their suffering
countrymen with all the bitterness of conscious
oppressors, and they fear them equally. They
have no fear of the blacks, and they make bene-
fiting them the pretext for grinding the people
of England.
Let the reader remark, too, the serpent-like
hypocrisy of the Opposition. The saintly Lord
SAN DON—the Puseyite Mr. GLADSTONE—(we
know from Mr. NEWTON'S late work in what
Jesuitical school he has studied)—object to the
Ministerial scheme, that the reduction of the
sugar duty will give the p ople little or no relief.
They expatiate on its being only a benefit of a
halfpenny in the pound, and that benefit they
say has disappeared while the discussion is going
on. They being so regardful of the people,
and the benefit so small, what should be their
conduct? Lower the duties still more. Reduce
the duty on West India sugar to 155., and on
foreign to 205., by which the consumption would
be surely doubled, and the revenue augmented
at least one-fourth. Do they propose such a
generous measure? Not they. They refuse to
give the people the little benefit the Ministers
propose to confer on them, and at the same time
complain of its smallness. If they proposed the
large measures we have indicated, we should be-
lieve in their sincerity.
It is natural that bread taxers should make
common cause with sugar taxers, but we deeply
regret to see the professed lovers of liberty unit-
ing with them in their refusal to take the Minis-

tens' plan into consideration. They take un-
doubtedly a narrow view, and. forget in the par-
ticular case their general principles. At the
same time they much over-estimate their power
either to do good or evil to the population of
Africa and the slaves of Cuba and the Brazils.
It is a preposterous supposition that to lower our
sugar duties a few shillings should influence the
fate of that vast population. Acts of Parliament
are often impotent even when they relate to
England ; their authors are grievously deceived
and disappointed; and is it to be supposed that
a law directly altering our import duties a few
shillings will indirectly have a mighty effect on
slavery and the slave trade? Sir FOWELL Bux••
TON and his schemes are examples of the power-
lessness of Acts of Parliament; and it is quite

Quixotic to deny the smallest particle of benefit
to the people of England, on the supposition that
it may at some remote time provoke cruelty and
cause suffering in the Brazils.

All the evils of which Dr. LUSIIINGTON COM,

plains exist with our prohibitory system. It has
not put an end to them. The foreign market is

open to the Brazilian and Cuba sugars, and will
continue to be open to them. Nay, we
refine their sugars for our colonial and
the foreign markets, and, according to Dr.
Lusllt NeTON, encourage horrors, against which
he protests. But neither he nor any other per-
son has brought the smallest tittle of evidence,
except their own fancies, to show that slavery will
be made more onerous, and the slave-trade in-
creased by lowering the price of sugar. On the
contrary, the high price kept up in our market
by the duty, and the hope of obtaining that,
stimulates slavery ; and were the price of sugar
to be lowered by a general competition, it
would cease to be an inducement to extend sla-
very and the slave-trade. We look on the ob-
jections of the philanthropists to be as shallow as
those of the Tories are hypocritical. In one thing
they both agree. Both utterly disregard the people
of England, and would pinch and starve them,
while they overflow with psuedo humanity for
the negro race.

By the arrival of her MAJESTY'S ship Dee al
Portsmouth, at half-past six o'clock on Monday
evening, from Antigua, we have received news
from that island to the sth of April inclusive.
The Dee did not touch at Bermuda. and brings
no account of the President. On the 3d a dread-
ful fire broke out in the city of St. John's, the
capital of Antigua, which reduced the greater
part of the town to ashes. Of the immense pro-
perty destroyed no part is said to be insured, so
that a whole community is thus reduced to abso-
lute destitution.

The Dee spoke to no vessel on her passage
homeward.

With the Paris Papers of Sunday we have re-
ceived the Report of the Commission of the
Chamber of Peers, respecting DARMES, the regi-
cide. The printed Report occupies seventy-six
pages—verbosity here being synoniinous with
loyalty. The only important fact established by
this document is, that a secret society does exist

in France, the members of which have sworn to
extirpate Royalty. The date of the origin of
this society is not given, but from an examina-
tion of details and circumstances, we have no
doubt that it is the spawn of that monster, the
Holy Alliance. When Kings openly combined
to crush their people, desperate men con-
spired for the destruction of Kings.
DARMES is proved to have accomplices, of
whom two, DUCLOS and CONSIDERE, will
probably be brought to trial with him. Sixty
others arrested have been set at liberty.
The Report was to be read in the Chamber of
Peer's yesterday. The conspirators are all work-
ing men. DARMES is a man of bad character in
every relation of life. He was a bad son and a
bad husband ; and whoever is both, is capable of
any villainy. _ _

The Bishop of PAMPELUNA, banished from
Spain by the Regency, arrived at Bayonne on
the Gth instant. This ecclesiastic chooses rather
to obey the POPE than the civil authorities of his
native country.
The Gazette du Mida of the sth states that it was decided
at the Cabinet Council held by the King 'on the 27th ult.,
to reduce from twenty tarins to eight the duties on sulphur.
His Majesty, however, taking into consideration the immense
quantity of that article recently exported from Sicily, and
wishing to avert all commercial disasters, had ordered that
the new tariff should only come into operation on the first
of January next.
We find the following article in the Gazette du Dauphine :
We learn from an official quarter that the seizures of the
Gazette du Douphine are on account of the conspiracy of
Grenoble. We are said to ;have accused his Royal Highness
the Duke of Orleans of having been the accomplice of Didier
in 1815.
This article, which is repeated this morning in several of the
Paris Journals, makes us hope that the truth will be at length
known respecting this important affair. We must wait for
the public proceedings. The Tribuneaux will doubtless call for
the testimony of those men who are acquainted with the fact.
The well known character of the person who acted the prin-
cipal part in putting down this attempt, is a pledge that he
will not keep back the truth, which every body now seems de-
sirous of knowing.— Gazette de France.

Madrid Papers to the 3d inst. have reached
us, but without any political news of interest.
On the 2d was celebrated the anniversary festi-
val of the rising of the Spaniards against the
French in 1808. The concourse of people was
immense, and the rites consecrated by religion to
patriotism solemn and imposing. There was no
meeting of the Cortes on that day :
The following ceremonial has been ordered by the Senate
when the oath is taken by the Regent or Regents elected by
the Cortes:—
"Ist. When the Cortes are assembled in the place desig-
nated by Governinent, the' President shall order one the Se-
cretaries to read aloud the list•of thenotnina:tion of the Regent,
or of the Regents.-2dly. Eight Senators and Eight Deputies
shall then proceed to meet the Regent or the Regents.-341y.
On the entry of:the Regent or the Regents, the Senators, and
the Deputies shall rise, the President alone to remain seated.
4thly. The Regent or the Regents shall then take their
places, standing, to the right of the President; who, also stand-
ing and holding open the book 0 t the Holy Gospel, shall proceed
to read aloud the form of the oath, which is as follows :—• You
swear, by God and by his holy Gospel, to observe, and to cause to
be observed, the constitution of the Spanish monarchy and the
laws of the realm ; being determined thereunto solely by a con-
sideration of the public welfare and interest, and to be faithful to
the august Queen of Spain, Donna Isabella the Second.'
The Regent sr the Regents having placed their hand upon
the Gospel, shall reply aloud, I swear it.' The President then
shall say, So God reward you as you render him an ac-
count.' bthly. The Regent or the Regents shall then proceed
to occupy the seats placed before the steps of the Throne. The
Senators and the Deputies then to reseat themselves, and the
President to pronounce these words :—• The Cortes have regis-
tered the oath which the Regent (or the Regents) have Just
taken of fidelity to the Constitution, to the Spanish Monarchy,
and to the laws of the realm, as also to the Queen.' 6thly.
The Regent or the Regents then to retire with the ceremony
and the procession of introduction.

The humanity of Mr. Gladstone, which as-
sumed a sort of conventicle tone, was quite con-
spicuous in the House of Commons on Monday
evening. How much of it was prompted by in-
terest, and how much by a fellow-feeling with
the blacks we will not pretend to say, but it re-
minded us of the stor3 of the lady who died of
love and the small-pox. The passion had a very
small share in producing the fatal result, and so
much a share, we fancy, had Mr. Gladstone's
affection for the blacks in producing the torrent
of sweet humanity which he poured out. That
gentleman is the unfortunate possessor of a name
notorious in the annals of slavery and hill coolies,
and being confounded, perhaps, with another
person, will be very likely to incur the suspicion
of promoting private interests by an affectation of
love for the negroes.
A GENERAL ELECTION.—The prevailing re-
ports on this subject induce us to say to all Radi-
cal and Liberal constituencies, Look out for pro-
per candidates, and reject all quacks, and return
none but honest and determined Anti-Corn-
law men.
THE PRICE OF SUGAR.—MINUTE LBGIBLA-
TION.-It must be very satisfactory to the people
of England to see their interests discussed in the
House of Commons in so minute a manner. A
great law is made to depend on a few cwts.
more or less of sugar to be grown in the Antilles.
A reduction of taxation is to be determined by a
Gazette price, which a little speculation may
lower or raise. Nay, according to Mr. Glad-
stone, the price has already fallen to the price
contemplated by the proposed sch,:.'me of finance,
and therefore there is no occasion to reduce the
duty on sugar. How singular that a connection
of a great sugar house should come prepared
with that argument ! Could any nominal sales
effect it ? How still more singular is it that a
permanent law affecting the welfare of England
should be influenced by the momentary price of
speculation! That, however, is a 'specimen of
the minute manner in which our legislators exa-
mine the great questions brought before them.
Whether they are likely by such close investi-
gation of particulars to form a clear comprehen-
sion of the whole, we must leave the public to
decide. For our parts we are' somewhat afraid
that, in so dealing with the national welfare,
they are more like the critic fly scanning St.
Paul's, than an architect like Wren capable of
inr the whole.