The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-28 00:00:00

FREE TRADE WITH INDIA .
On Tuesday evening a public meeting was hei ld in
the Eastern Institution, Commercial-road, the
purpose, as announced by advertisement, of aff rrding
an :opportunity to Mr. George Thompson, M .11., of
delivering to the electors and non-electors of tie,
Tower Hamlets, and all others interested in the
manufacturing, commercial, and trading prosperity of
the country, an address on the important subjedt. of
free trade with India, in connexion with the condition
and prospects of Great Britain. The chair was t aken
shortly before seven o clock by Mr. Francis Ca rnac
Brown, a and
well acquainted with the of fairs
of and who has a large estate on the coa ,t of
Malabar. Itungo Bapojee, the agent of the de.; posed
Raja of Sattara, was present on the platform.
After a brief introductory speech from the CILAIR-

MAN.
Mr. GEORGE Tnomrsoss said he thought it right to
admit, in the first instance, that he had sought this
opportunity of addressing them on this question.
Recently sent by their suffrages to the Ho-use of
Commons, he felt it his duty to ask for an occasion
of bringing before them the nature of a cueestion,
in which he had for many years taken a sleep in-
terest, and one which he should feel it his duty
in the House to which they had sent him, and
out of doors, to make it the subject of public
discussion. He entertained but little doubt
he should receiveosed their approbation of the
course he prop to pursue,
equally certain that, before they separated that even-
ing, they would share in his convictions of the in-
terest to the worl'll at large of the question he was
about to bring before them.—(Hear, hear.) The
subject they had met to discuss was free trade with
India, in connexion with the condition and prospects
of Great Britain. That text might appear to be a
restriction of the topiCs usually embraced under the
name of free trade ; but the subject, as it bad been
announced, extended to another result, viz., the at-
tainment of the overthrow of slavery and the slave
trade, an effect following naturally, necessarily, and
inevitably, from the attainment of the former object.
A few words on the subject of slavery, though this
was not an anti-slavery meeting exclusively, would
bring him naturally to the objects of their discus-
sion, and enable them the better to trace out for
themselves the true bearing of the several topics to
which he had referred. In the United States of
America—a country boasting the excellence of its
political institutions, its doctrines of equality, its
religious freedom, and its powerful organizations for
the propagation of the gospel—in that country every
sixth person was a slave. In that country sixteen
millions of free men had banded themselves together
to hold in hopeless bondage three millions of their
fellow-subjects. The case was the same in the em-
pire of Brazil. Spain had another million, and
France and Holland, in their colonies, parti-
cipated in the tyranny. Notwithstanding the
abolition of the slave trade in the year 1808 by
England and America, on the authority of Buxton,
which never yet had been called into question, a
thousand human beings were slaughtered in the
African trade, in their own villages, or died on their
way from the interior to the coast, or expiring on the
middle passage, were thrown into the deep ; or sur-
viving all those dangers, were employed in the sugar
plantations of Cuba and Brazil. In that way Africa,
at the present day, was annually plundered of 400,000
of her children.; Slavery began from the hope en-
tertained by avaricious men of obtaining the products
of the earth free of all charge of labour. Animated
by that motive, the Spaniards enslaved the Mexicans,
to employ them in their mines. The Caribs were
enslaved from a similar view, and the prospect of em-
ploying them in the cultivation of the sugar-cane,
led to the enslaving of the Africans. The Hon.
Gentleman then referred to Mr. Carnac's pamphlet on
India, from which he made several extracts alluding
to this portion of the subject as regarded India.
There would be hope for the slave, he continued, if
England would only be just and wise ; but inactivity
and supineness only operated as tacitly sanctioning
the most cruel outrages on the unalienable rights
of humanity, and the statutes of the Almighty.
Having given a brief sketch of the Indian em-
pire geographically, politically, and socially, the
Honourable Gentleman proceeded to explain the
natural facilities of the soil of the country for
the production of cotton, and the capacity of the
population fbr prepafing it. He showed, from the
evidence of Mr. Rickards, a member of the Council
of Bombay, and others, that if the cotton-grower of
India had not to yield one-half of his crop to the Go-
vernment, he would be satisfied, as he was now
obliged to be, with far less than he was compelled to
ask. It was therefore evident that but for the chartered
monopoly of the East India Company, taking,
the cotton crop at its entire price, and return•
ing one-half op account of land-tax to the
proprietors, the price of the best Surat cotton in
London would up to this time have been 2141.
per pound. It had varied, however, from 11d. to 13d.
Notwithstanding that enormous price for the un-
manufactured article, if the several items of its pro-
ductions were deducted, it would be found that the
grower did not realise more than a halfpenny in the
pound. It was impossible for Great Britain to look
to India for a supply of cotton, whilst these heavy im-
posts remained in force, and Gen. Briggs said he was
prepared to demonstrate that proposition on official
evidence. The cultivation of cotton was no mystery.
In all America only half a million of slaves were
employed in producing it. Only give men the pro-
spect of gain, and they would produce it from a
piece of fine and, as large as Yorkshire. There was,
an fact, monopoly in it, but not mystery ; and
the organized exactions in India of collector
after collector, only showed how a country could
be desolated by the tyranny of a man. The con-
nexion between this subject and slavery was obvious,
and, had time permitted it, he was prepared to show
that the planters of New Orleans had declared the
cotton tree to be the palladium of slavery. The sub-
ject was a vast one, and of vast importance to the
interests of the kingdom. It was connected, more-
over, ;with the liberty, happiness, and activity of
200,000,000 of their fellow-subjects, and with their
leave, he would bring it prominently before the public
and the Parliament, and do his best to procure re-
dress for the injustice and hardships to which he had
called attention, trustissg to their assistance and
encouragement in prosecuting that glorious object.—
(Cheers.) The Hon. Gentleman concluded by moving
the following resolutions, observing that he had no
doubt of the concurrence of the meeting in the several
propositions there laid down :
" That it has been demonstrated to this meeting
that India, a vast British possession, peopled by mil-
lions of peaceable, intelligent, and civilised British
subjects, has been gifted by nature with the capacity
of producing every tropical raw commodity, which
the capital and industry of England require for the
constant and profitable employment of her population,
or for the supply of any of their other wants.
" That it has been further demonstrated that Eng-
land, although the mistress of such a possession as
British India, is rendered year by year more depen-
dent for the supply of raw cotton, which is the staple
of her principal manufacture, and one of the main
supports of the public revenue, upon the United States
of America, a foreign country; and that England is
also dependent upon the same country for the supply
of the tobacco demanded by her population—both the
cotton and the tobacco being the produce of slave
labour. That, consequently, the domestic peace and
prosperity of this country, and the stability of a large
portion of the public revenue, are made dependent—
first, upon the vicissitudes of the seasons, to which
the cotton and tobacco plants, in common with all
other productions of any one country, is liable ;
secondly, upon the maintenance of amicable relations
between this country and the United States, and be-
tween the United States and other countries; thirdly,
upon the submission of a numerous and increasing
servile population, and the continuance of internal
peace among the slave States of America.
" That this exclusive, unnecessary, and unnatural
dependence perpetuating as it does the slavery
of millions of men—is the source, to a great extent,
as is now experienced, of existing calamities, and
manifestly._ pregnant with future evils to the best in-
'crests of England. That the free agricultural popu-
lation of
tome__
of British India would be the natural cus-
tomers I this country in the exact measure that they
dities for
permitted,
become the producers of commo-
dities
showne wits of England. That it has been
British subjects thatare these intelligent and deserving
with the produce of
rendered incapable of competing
the
the burdens imposed upoljnited States,
by reason of
" Therefore resolved—That soil and industry :
people of England, for the sake it is the duty of the
Ike of England, of
India, and of the enslaved thruu
require of the Legislature the immediateg°the world, to
energies removal of
all imposts which depress the agricultll
the native population : and the institution gisetsr strict
and impartial inquiry in India into the condition
of
the natives, and into the conduct and the acts ti9l:
out of the peculiar government ruling over theta
affect their well-being and retard th • ena, pros-
perity."
Mr. WILLIAM HowITT having secondel the reso-
lutions, the question was put, and the resolutions
unanimously adopted.
A vote of thanks was then passed to the Chairman,
and the meeting broke up.

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SOUTH WALES RAILWAY.—OPENING A RAILWAY
CHAPEL AT GATCOMBE.—ThiS interesting ceremony
Took place on Sunday, the 17th instant, being the
appointed by her Majesty as a day of thanksgiving for
the late abundant harvest. The Lord Bishop of Glou-
cester having granted a license, the service was per-
formed by the Rev. W. Ma!pass, curare of Blakerey.
The situation of the building is most picturesque, being
:gx_ri quiet bay, close under a high rock, crowned with
dy while the Severn rills rapidly by and spreads
.v. t
trime expense, of water in its front, bounded by the
:at and very beautiful scenery of Stroud, Berkeley,
.flouter Journal,