The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-20 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 20, 1817.

the sugar paid U. 2s. 61, so that this measure on the most I
unfavourable calculation they could take, would not give the
smallest advantage or abatement of the tax on sugar, and if
they took sugar on its real calculation of 230 lbs. to the quar-
ter of malt, it would, instead of I/. Is. Bd., pay a tax of 11. 55.,
therefore, in this respect, there could be no partial duty. The
question was one of such perfect equality that it would
be in vain to refer it to a Committee. With respect
to spirits it was equally clear, and he did not think
that any man had ever maintained that the drawback on sugar
was more than was necessary, in order to put distillers in
sugar, and distillers in malt, on an equal footing ; he said there
was no doubt that they had, as nearly as possible, equalised the
burdens on these classes of manufacturers. Now, he never
recollected a case in which a matter of this kind was referred
to a Select Committee. The practice was, that the Govern-
ment for the time, acting fairly towards all parties, should
make some proposal to Parliament ; if they were wrong, their
views were contested, and the House divided ; but if they ap-
pealed from their views, they should appeal to one of the
Houses of Parliament, and not to a Select Committee. A
Chancellor of the Exchequer, he forgot which it was, but in a
proposal of this kind, one of the Chancellor's of the Ex-
chequer said, that he would never consent to have
his office put in commission. If his Noble
Friend thought that their calculations were wrong
he might have prop: sed an amendment, and the question
would have been fairly discussed, and they on that side of the
House would have been prepared to defend their own. He
would remind their Lordships that his Noble Friend wished
them to go into a sort of fishing Committee, in order to discover,
if possible,lsome error which was not before them. He only said,
you are wrong," but .he did not tell them where they were
not right. He (Earl Grey) confidently appealed to their Lord-
ships not to assent to a course which was unusual, not to say
inconvenient. There was one point in his Noble Friend's ar-
gument which excited in his mind so much surprise that he
must advert to it. He (Lord Stanley) said " this he supposed
was a measnre fur the advantage of the colonies, but the
colonies knew nothing about it." He (Lord Grey) presented
petitions from the West !mita planters, and his Noble Friend
beside him presented similar petitions from the China Associa-
tion in favour of this measure, yet his Noble Friend said they
knew nothing about it. He said that the measure was for the
benefit of the slave sugar grower. Their Lordships might
remember that by the provisions of the Bill passed last session,
the duty upon slave grown sugar would be reduced every year
till, at the end of five years, the duty upon slave grown and
colonial sugar would be equalized, and during that period the
proposed measure would operate in favour of the colonial
planters. There was advantage to be gained from the
extension of competition. This was a proposition so
plain that it Gould hardly bear argument. He could
not help saying that his Noble Friend, when he
said " competition in sugar would be injurious to
the colonial planter." He entertained the most confident belief
that the British colonists would be enabled to reduce the prices
of sugar, and he could not help expressing the greatest satis •
faction at the evidences which were afforded them, both in the
West Indies and in the Mauritius, of the tendencies on the part
of the planters to introduce a better mode of cultivation and
generally improving their system of growing, so as to increase
the amount of their produce. These improvements were pro•
gressive in Jamaica, Trinidad, Antigua, and in almost the
whole of the colonies. The planters were beginning to see
the identity of the species, and they were commencing to im-
prove the condition of the negro. lie believed that the crop
which was now in course of coming to the markets of this
country would turn out greatly superior to former crops; and
in proof of the progressive improvement, he might instance
the imports within the last few years. In the year 1845 the
imports amounted to 45,000 tons ; in the year 1846 the state-
ment was 50,000 tons ; and at the present time there were in
course of being sent to this country 60,000 tons, being an in-
crease of one-fifth on the produce of last year, or 15,000 tons
on that of 1845. For these reasons he would reject the amend-
ment of the Noble Lord.

Lord ASHBURTON totally objected to the course of legis-
lation adopted cn this subject. The negroes in the British
colonies, with an inferior soil, were expected to cope with the
cheap labour and better soil of Cuba and the
Brazils, and the result would naturally be, that the
British colonists would he driven out of the markets.
They were seeking to reduce the price of a small article
of consumption, by sacrificing the interest and lives of
hundreds and thousands of individuals. There never was a
subject which demanded more of their Lordships' consideration
than this, because the measure itself depended upon evidence
and calculation. It would lead to the introduction of the
worst kinds of sugar into breweries, and thus it would have the
additional effect of stimulating the slave-trade. It was rather
in sonsistent for them to be spending large sums of money in
attempts to suppress the slave-trade, while they were directly
stimulating it in another way.
Lord MONTEAGLE wished to explain the vote he was
about to give, because he did not wish it to go abroad that he
was supporting a measure of the serious character represented
by the Noble Lord. Whatever might be its effects upon the
revenue, it had become absolutely necessary that sugar should,
for the present, be introduced into breweries, but really its
effect upon the sugar market would be so insignificant, that it
was not worth while instituting any inquiry into that branch
of the subject. Its effect upon the market, it had been de-
monstrated, would be infinidecimally small. In saying thus
much, however, he did not wish to commit himself upon the
measure for the reduction of the duty on rum. There he
thought an inquiry was necessary, and, when that Bill came
before them, he should vote accordingly.--( Hear.)
The Duke of RICHMOND said it had been urged that this
measure would confer no very material benefit upon any class,
and that in his opinion was a sufficient reason for inquiry. In
his opinion the measure would produce injury rather than
good. The Noble Lord, who had just sat down, had told them
that there was a Bill about to come up to that House that he
was anxious should be inquired into, because it was based
upon erroneous calculations. Now, these two Bills came
from the same shop, and if the one was wrong
he bad a right to suppose that the other was too.
Last ae.iort the agricultural party had been deceived,
with the free-trade measure, and it was the duty of their
Lordships to see that they were not deceived again.—(Hear.)
The manly declaration of his Noble Friend now at the head of
the Board of Trade admitted as much, and he must be allowed
to say that he better liked a faic and manly opponent than an
insidious friend.—(Hear, hear.) It was the duty of th tit
Lordships not to allow any measure to pass without a full and
ample inquiry into its details, or the agricultural party might
be victimised again.—(hear, hear.) If they wanted to give
the people good wholesome beer, let them get rid
of the malt-tax.—(Hear.) A partner of Mr. Whitbread in
his evidence given before the committee which sat upon this
subject said, beer made from sugar was wretched stuff, and the
only way to make it good and wholesome was to manufacture
it from English malt and hops. He asked whether the parti-
sans of that measure would go to the hustings and say to the
people, " We promised you cheap bread, but cheaa bread yod
have not got ; but now we promise you cheap beer ;" and some
poor man, more daring than his neighbour, would taste this
cheap beer, which would half poison him and all his boon cons-
panions.—( Laughter.) Ile thought that Parliament had been
for some time in the habit of passing measures which ulti-
mately in their operation, by their defects, gave
little satisfaction to the country, in consequence of passing
measures with little inquiry, or with no inquiry at all, and liey
might expect by and bye that the country would not respect the
measures of Parliament at all. He begged to be understood
that he did nut give his vote for going into Select Committee
for the purpose of defeating the Bill, and he hoped that the
Noble Lords who agreed with him would get credit for it, that
it was no intention of theirs to defeat the Bill by the Com-
mittee which had been moved for; indeed, if the Noble Lord
in that Committee should make out the case which he had pre-
sented, he (the Duke of Richmond) would support the Bill,
but he certainly would like to know, before the Bill passed into
operation, that the effect of it would not be to poison half the
people.—( Laughter.) Much had been said on the other side
about putting off the Bill ; but surely in the
case of this last, of all the measures, there could
be no objection to deferring for two or three days,
or even a week. He had always been the advocate'
for inquiry, as that which was most satisfactory to the minds of
the people—inquiry into those subjects where inquiry had no
tendency to unsettle the public mind on great public mercan-
tile interests. He and his Noble Friends did not act as the
free traders had done in reference to the navigation laws,
with minds hostilely set against these laws. They moved for
this Select Committee in a friendly spirit, believing if it were
granted that it would assist the manufacturing interests of the
country, and certainly not destroy the maritime supremacy of
the nation, and render her a secondary power in Europe.
Lord BEAUIIONT said, in rising to address their Lord-
ships, he was convinced most distinctly that this Bill would
either effect the intended object, or c rtainly that it could pro-
duce no harm. He was rather inclined to think that any
effect it should produce would be very small, if it produced any
at all. But he could not suppose that it would at all injure
any colonial interests. If he were called upon to produce any
argument in support of this, and against the amendment, he
would instance the speech made by the Noble Lord who had
moved for the Select Committee. That Noble Lord
had moved for it in a speech not only exhausting the
general principles of the subject, but exhausting
it in the details. He would give the Noble Lord credit for
his statements and his calculations, as correct. The Noble
Lord, however, who followed put forward calculations which
varied from those considerably, for his figures were from 180
to 210. But on whatever calculations the Noble Lord rested,
he was convinced that sugar would never come into competi-
tion with barley, for sugar used in distilleries would only be
used in assistance to the inferior qualities of barley. Its the
Committee on the subject last year, it was given in evidence
that there was no market for the inferior qualities of barley,
and therefore sugar coming into use as an assistance would
rather be in favour of than against the sale of barley. But
this Bill, which was of little or no importance, was one which
would produce little effect, and certainly one which would pro-
duce no harm. He acknowledged that the Bill was but a part
of a consequence and a chain of measures some of them already
passed, and some of them vet to follow.—(Hear, hear.) He
always had maintained that when they had passed that first
step, by repealing the corn-laws, it would be an injustice to
stop short of free trade in full. If their Lordships had adopted
a principle they must carry that out into all the ramifications of
free trade ; the Sugar-duties Bill was a necessary sequence to
the Corn Bill. The abolition of differential duties was a
matter of mere justice to the colonies after the repeal of the
duties en corn ; and this Bill was a just consequence, and if the
colonies demanded it their Lordships could not refuse it. He
doubted not but that after the excise duties had been con-
siderably reduced on manufactured produce as well
as agricultural produce, that those duties that should be re-
tained, such as the malt-tax, which was a burden cn land,
would come forward more prominently than ever.
The Marquis of SALISBURY said he had been the mover
for the Committee last year to consider the burdens on land, and
he begged to remind their Lordships that the inquiry into the
effect of the malt-tax, which he considered a burden upon land,
was interrupted before they had well entered into it. This,
therefore, he thought was the time for getting that inquiry
resumed, and it ought not to be lost. The Noble
Lord then proceeded in a very few sentences, which
were almost inaudible in the gallery, to contend for the reduc-
tion of the malt tax, as a compensation for the object proposed
by the present Bill.

_
Lord REDESDALE said the principle of the Bill before
their Lordships was not the principle of free trade, for that
principle was contradictory to prohibition, produced by excess
in duty on one article • but now, in this case, there would be
an excess of duty, and it would be against the British pro-
ducers, the refiners of sugar. He believed that for the pur-
poses of brewing, malt and sugar might be reduced to equality
in duty without bad effects ; but, as in the case of spirits, sugar
would not come into competition with malt, he contended that
it would become prohibitory if they should relieve sugar and
have the duties on malt. He contended, therefore, that the
effect would be to produce a prohibition against the British
producer.

The Marquis of WESTMEATH said that he felt it his
duty to vote against the motion of the Noble Lord. He could
not lend himself t• any measure calculated to embarrass the
present Government, who had taken office under very peculiar
circumstances in their financial mea.ures. Upon all those
questions relating to Ireland, on which he thought himself
better informed than the Government, he would reserve to
himself the liberty of voting as he thought proper.
Their Lordships then divided on the original motion, when
there appeared—

-Contents
Non-Contents .
Majority . —B
The Bill then went through Committee without amend-
ments.

35