The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-20 00:00:00

SPEECH OF THE GOVERNOR.

After a few words on the reasons for meeting as
early as possible, his Excellency turned at once to the
absorbing question of the day :
" Gentlemen," he said, "in proportion to the
weight of circumstances which you feel to be press-
ing on you your deliberations ought to be grave ;
your resolutions such as will bear the criterion of
public opinion in other places than Jamaica; and
such as you may be sure will obtain for you every-
where the support of the wise and good. Preludes,
which indicate unreasonable purposes, raise obstruc-
tions in the path of those who indulge in them, and
no one is blamed for closing a conference with him
who asks what is plainly impossible to grant. But I
have seen nothing which makes me fear the existence
of a disposition on the part of her Majesty's Govern-
ment to turn a deaf ear to any who address them in
the language of reason, or to fix themselves before.
hand in a rigid posture of denial against temperate
claims. An attempt to re-establish the principle of
protection, or to renew generally the practice of
making the prices of commodities artificially high to
the British people by the exclusion of foreign
ffstortsincerelyand
be-
lieve
several
legislative measures have now passed into laws, all
produce
u wouldcefrom be the
an ut intearlrykehtsOpelles ms
founded on the opposite principle, •which are so con-
nected with each other, that it seems to be an equally
vain expectation that any of them could be repealed
without repealing the others. Prohibitory duties could
not be re-imposed upon foreign sugar without im-
posing them also on foreign corn. The battle of the
corn-laws must be fought over again in the United
Kingdom, and gained by the party who lost it, before
you could succeed in having your sugar protected by
a prohibition of foreign sugar. But if I have rightly
comprehended the policy on which the system of free
trade is founded, and which has led to the open aban-
donment of protective systems, the planters of Jamaica
have no reason to fear that they are permanently con-
demned to remain exactly in the same commercial rela-
tions in which they now stand to the mother country.
The grand and fundamental changes of commercial
policy which have recently taken place seem to involve
minor changes, and to make it impossible that some
further revisions of the import duties of the United
Kingdom should not be pet mitted for the purpose of
making adjustments that will give fair play to all par-
ties. Without such examination, duties might in
some instances remain so high as to be destructive not
only of the interests of the planters, but equally so of
the trade and revenue of the United Kingdom ; and
no effort, as it seems to me, can be more legitimate
than that Jamaica should use its best endeavours to
have justice done to itself in the progress of the in-
quiries that are sure to be made ; nor do I hesitate to
declare that, to the extent I am ab Jilt to explain, you
have, in my opinion, a strong and sacred case to bring
forward. On the 20th August, 1844, the declared
average price of West India muscovado sugar, exclu-
sive of the import duty, was 325. 4id.; and in March,
1845, when the first distinct measures for the intro-
duction of foreign sugar were carried by the Minister
of that day, the duty on colonial muscovado was re-
duced from 245. to 14s. the cwt., and sugar from
foreign countries, in which slavery did not exist,
was admitted at a duty of 235. 4d., instead of the
former prohibitory duty. In August, 1846, the dis-
tinction between foreign sugar the produce of slave
labour, and foreign sugar the produce of free labour,
was done away with ; and all foreign sugar was ad-
mitted at a duty for the ensuing ten months of 215.,
which moreover is gradually to decrease until, in
1851, foreign sugar and colonial sugar are to be ad-
mitted at the same rate of duty ; but when this fur-
ther encouragement was given to the importation of
foreign sugar, permission was given for the use of
sugar in the British distilleries which had previously
been excluded from them, and changes were made in
the duties on rum in favour of the colonial distiller,
and for the purpose of putting him on an equal foot-
ing of advantage with the British distiller. Nothing
can be more certain than that these reductions of
duty on colonial sugar in 1845 and on colonial rum in
1846 were intended to operate in the way of com-
pensation for the fall in the price of sugar expected to
be produced by the competition of foreigners, and that
the permission for the use of sugar in distilleries was
meant in some degree to moderate that fall. I can scarcely
imagine indeed that it entered into the plans of the
Government at either epoch to leave the situation of the
British sugar planter permanently worse than it had
already become, and for that reason I incline strongly
to the supposition that it was hoped these compensa-
tions would be complete equivalents. But what has
been the result ? The average price of August, 1844,
exclusive of duty, namely, 325. 41d. with the addi-
tion of 345. duty, constituted a London market price
of 565. 4id., but the average prices of similar sugar,
exclusive of duty on the 28th of last August, was
only 255. sfd., which, with the reduced duty of 145.,
gives a London market price of only 395. Sid. So
that whilst there has been a reduction of 10s. duty
in West India muscovado, it has sustained a fall of
price in the English market of 16s. 1 ld. the cwt , or,

. . .
setting aside the duty, of more than 6/. sterling per
ton. Against the apparent and grievous loss, how-

ever, which would be consequent on so sudden a fall,
the Jamaica proprietor and planter ought to set off
the advantage he derives from the reduction in the

duties of rum; and a part of the apparent fall in
price ought, no doubt, to be rather called a rise in

the exchangeable value of cash, and to be attributed
to the extraordinary pressure of money in Lon-
don, which it may be hoped will not be of a perma-
nent duration. But to whatever extent the real fall

of price has exceeded the aggregate value of the
reduction of the duties on sugar and rum, I freely
declare my opinion that you have a strong claim to
relief by a further reduction of duty, if the finances
of England can sustain it; as far as I am capable of
forming a judgment, such relief would indirectly be
advantageous even to the English revenue, derivable
from the import of sugar ; and on the other hand
would be effectual for the purpose of at least. neu-
tralizing the effects of competition, and of placing
the sugar planter in as good a position as that in

which he stood three years ago. I wish, with all my
heart, you could be placed in a much better one ; but

we must look to What is practicable, and after a
careful and painstaking examination of the circum-
stances in which you stand, and taking these in con-
nexion with the considerations of awful importance
which are implicated with the finances of the United
. .

Kingdom, on which it is not too much to say that the
peace and salvation of the world depends, I cannot,

. . .
at present, extend any hopes for your obtaining
direct relief from the Imperial Parliament
beyond the limit I have pointed out. I
have, indeed, no instructions or authority
from her Majesty's Government on which I am en-
titled to hold out an expectation even of that relief;
nor can I pretend to be so well acquainted with the
finances of the United Kingdom as to be capable of

forming a confident judgment whether any further
reduction of duties on sugar may be conceded; but
some indications of large and unexpected increases
in the British revenue encourage a not unreasonable
hope that such may possibly be the case, and I am at
all events convinced that here is the strong point of

your case, and that if you are to be relieved at all it
is in this way, and on the grounds which I have
stated, that there is the greatest likelihood of its being
done." Reverting, then, to the question of labour,
his Excellency continued :—" Of obtaining any early
and effectual supply of additional labour by means
of immigration, and to such an extent as to work
any general improvement in the state of the island, I
cannot honestly say that I entertain much expecta-
tion. All persons here, I believe, are convinced that
the importation of coolies from the East Indies is too
costly, and that the numbers of these people whom
you could afford to bring from the other side of
the globe must be too few to be efficient instruments
in elevating Jamaica to a new prosperity. From
Africa I trust you may receive some reply, even
before the end of the year; but I know that at pre-
sent it can only be to a very limited extent, though
I hopee
effectualntchee onfobtainingassistance umber may
from
rngo rmtandetuhae
alnitdy
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eteeagrs e , and myreisatsetrroanngd
cnolonrfied
and undiminished. I feel sure that the slave trade
cannot last. Condemned and prohibited by the
treaties of all the most powerful states in the world,