The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-17 00:00:00

duties of the colonies lightened, while nothing is
done to remove the most onerous and unprofit-
able restrictions borne by the people of the
mother country." Let us take the first item in
Mr. LABOUCHERE'S list, and see how much
better the Government treats the colonies than
the people of England. The present duty on
flour imported from the United States into our
West India colonies is ss. per barrel, and Mr.
LABOUCHERE proposes to reduce that to 2s. per
barrel. Now a barrel of flour may be said to be
worth on the average 5 dollars, or 205., conse-
quently the present duty is 25 per cent. on the
value, and Mr. LABOUCTIERE proposes to reduce
it to 25., or to 10 per cent. We should not
grumble if it were wholly abolished.
But now look at the duty levied on wheat in
England. According to the last week's Corn
Averages the price of wheat was 61s. 3d., and the
duty 255. Bd. ; so that the duty here is about
43 per cent. on the price, and the people
here are very nearly twice as badly
treated as the colonists, or have to pay twice as
much duty as they have to pay on their food. At the
same time Mr. LABOUCTIERE proposes to remit
three-fifths of the duty now payable in the co-
lonies, and to the people at home he gives no re-
lief whatever. Such a course of proceeding
would be very unfair, provided it were no worse
than we have now represented it ; but there are
several circumstances which give to this differ-
ent treatment an aggravated character.
First, the price of subsistence, or the difficulty
of procuring food, is much greater in our crowded
community than in New York. If we estimate
the difference of price on au average at 20 per
cent. we shall be guihy of no exaggeration. Our
people, then, necessarily labour under a difficulty
of procuring food at least 20 per cent. greater
than the inhabitants of the colonies, who can im-
port it from New York, which aggravates the
unfavourable difference we have pointed out to
that extent.
Secondly, the flour is a manufactured article,
wheat a comparatively raw material. The wheat
contains bran and pollard, which are worth no-
thing for human food]: but in the wheat they
pay duty, while the flour contains them
not and is all food. A miller might
tell us how much this circumstance ag-
gravates the unfavourable difference, but
we have no means of forming an opinion. It
is, however, something very considerable, and
becomes heavy in proportion as the wheat im-
ported into England is thin and poor, and as the
flour imported into the colonies is fine and rich.
Thirdly, the people of England are heavily
taxed to pay a large bounty on the produce of
these colonies. If we say that this tax is nearer
six than five millions, we shall not overrate it.
The Report of the Manchester Chamber of Com-
merce estimates it at upwards of six millions,
which is over and above the 20,000,0001. the peo-
ple of England paid the colonists for the conver-
sion of unskilled slaves into skilled and independ-
ent labourers. These circumstances, namely,
the large sum we paid the colonists for emanci-
pation, which is a permanent burden on our
industry, to the extent of 200,0001. a year, the
bounty levied on us by the discriminating duties
on colonial produce fbr their behoof, while they
can give us nothing in return—dinounting to
nearer 6,000,000/. than 5,000,0001. a year—the
tax being levied here on a raw material and
there on a manufactured article of more value—
and the natural difficulty experienced in our
well-peopled and monopolised soil, to obtain the of life, aggravate the difference be-
tween the taxation on our food and the tax on
the food of the colonies, at least cent. per cent.
Yet we are not to be relieved, and the colonies
are. Mr. LABOUCHERE and the Ministers can-
not answer to the country for this partiality.
We need not travel through the other articles,
such as timber and fish, to show that the same
partiality pervades the whole scheme. The
latter, except they be such luxuries as lobsters
and turbots, which are brought in free, cannot be
imported, if caught and cured by foreign fisher-
men. The importation of fish into the colonies was
in like manner prohibited, but they are now, by
Mr. LABOUCHERE'S scheme, to be imported on
the payment of a duty of 23. 6d. or 53. per bar-
rel: Why should not a similar rule be adopted
to procure a supply for the hungry spinners and
weavers of England ? With respect to timber
also, Mr. LABOUCHERE reduces the duties oi,
that imported into the colonies more than one-
half, while not a farthing is to be taken off the
heavy discriminating duties levied on the peopl(
of England to enrich a few shipowners and 1..
few employers of lumberers in the North Ame-
rican provinces.
No man can suppose that the people of Eng-
land do not need relief. For the last three
mouths the average rate of mortality in
the metropolis has been one-tenth more
than the average of the same months of the
two former years, when the Corn-laws were
also in existence, though they had not
then reached their highest murdering power.
Every species of industry is here overdone with
candidates for employment, and every class, but
particularly the poorer classes, are dreadfully
hampered and constrained in their means. Dis-
tress is everywhere complained of, and the
whole community seems to move in fetters,
clanking its chains with a horrid noise, impa-
tient under the irksome restraint, and striving in
vain to bound onward.

Why the Ministers should not undertake
to lessen, if they dare not attempt wholly
to cure, this great disease, backed as they would
be by the exertions of the people, instead of
merely peddling with these colonial trifles, we
cannot say. Perhaps, as the Times remarks, "they
are afraid to throw themselves on the good
sense of the House and the country." For that
fear there is no ground. They have only to
pronounce the word m their own proper charac-
ter of servants of the Crown—have only to de-
clare to the landed gentlemen that they cannot
answer either for the peace or the prosperity of
the country, and cannot answer for the revenue,
unless the taxes be abolished, which are now

levied, contrary to all principle, on one class for
the benefit of another—they have only to speak
solemnly and firmly to the public, to hush every
breath of opposition. Nobody would take the
government out of their hands, on the condition
of keeping up the present odious system of tim-
ber dutie, and Corn-laws, and sugar taxes ;
on the contrary, the probability is, if they
do not boldly set about reforming it, that
other men will be carried into power,
wisely and deliberately, to restore, if pos-
sible, by a return to an honest system, the
peace and the prosperity of the empire. "The
only option," says the Times, " which the Go-
vernment is free to use, consists either in ex-
tending the basis of taxation by enlarging and
relieving the class of consumers, or in narrowing
that class and increasing its actual burdens, to
the great injury of all trades, and the general
welfitre." Between these alternatives the Minis-
ters have to choose; heretofore they have gene-
rally chosen wisely, and poor as we think their
colonial reforms, they are still of a character
which makes us hope that they will choose
wisely as to those larger reforms which are now
demanded by the commercial world, and will
speedily announce to the public a grand reform
in our system of taxation.

The following rassage from the Standard of
last night seems worthy of consideration. Our
Contemporary's anger with his party has made
him utter, though this is very seldom the case,
some serious and important truths. In reference
to the St. Sulpice debate of Monday, the Stan-
dard said—

" Your party did something like shat we are doing some
twenty or, it may be, tome fifty years ago ; therefore, whatever
truths may have come to light, whatever changes may have
occurred in the interval, you surely cannot resist us now."
On the other side, " What you propose is illegal, unconstitu-
tional, abominable, that is certain ; but as we are
and as you remind me that some of my friends did something
of the kind some twenty or fifty years ago, you must proceed—
better that all go to wreck, than break the spell of our party's
infallibility." And thus it is that this great country is governed,
and has been governed, since (and before) the death of Mr.
Perceval. The blunder or defection of yesterday is exalted
into a precedent to-day, and becomes the parent of a princi-
ple of government for all time to come, of a principle para-
mount to the express commands of the law, or the clearly
declared spirit of the Constitution.

Now this, in the organ of a party which decries
reason, and rests altogether on prescription,
which is nothing if it be not a combination of
precedents, is a remarkable passage. " The