The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-03 00:00:00

11-trientni

LONDON. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1847

On presenting two petitions from certain growers
of malt in Linlithgow and Dalkeith, Lord STANLEY
availed himself of the opportunity to throw some im-
pediment, if possible, in the way of the Government,
by inveighing against the Ministerial measure for
the admission of sugar in the operations of brewing

and distillation. The Noble Lord appeared to protest
against this proposition simply for the purpose of
indicating his continued adherence to the obsolete
principles of Protection. There was no necessity for
this parade of pertinacity. The imperviousness of
Lord STANLEY'S mind to the convictions which, to
other men are inevitable, from the combined argu-
ments of reason and experience, is thoroughly com-
prehended by the mass of the population. It needs
neither such observations as those uttered last night
in the Upper House by Lord STANLEY, nor such de-
monstrations as the memorable whitebait dinner of

last season, to convince us of the obstinacy of
the Noble Leader of the Protectionist Oppo•
sition. There is an insurmountable barrier—
a sort of moral chevaux-de- frieze—between the
Noble Lord and the free-trade movement—the
alternate cross-bars of the chevaux-de-frieze being hia
egotism and his ambition. Every sensible observer
of the fluctuations of our statemen will acknowledge
at once that nothing short of a political miracle can
remove the scales of agricultural prejudice from the
eyes of Lord STANLEY, or pour the light of true corn •
mercial knowledge into the wilful darkness of his
judgment. Even if the flourishing state of our na-
tional revenue, and the increased prosperity of our
native and colonial agriculturists, and the improved
condition of our labouring classes, and the extended
comforts of our shopkeepers and manufacturers, at-
tested at this moment the advantages of free trade,
Lord STANLEY would still require some preternatural
transmutation of his whole nature before he could
avow him.AlF a convert to the doctrines of mercantile
freedom. The whole individuality of Lord STANLBY

(would be annihilated in the change. He would be
metamorphosed into somebody else by the abandon-
ment of all his old and cherished phantasms.
Like RIP VAN WINKLE on awaking from
a trance of years, Lord STANLEY would
be bewildered as to his own identity. Who does not
remember the exclamation of RIP VAN WINKLE--
" I'lll not myself; I'm somebody else; that's me
there!"—pointing to a neighbour. Inevitably, Lord
STANLEY would find himself in a state of incredulity
quite as extravagant as that imagined by WASHING-
TON IRVING. He would behold himself surrounded
by the manifestations of the blessings consequent upon
an emancipated commerce, and be loth to credit his
own stolid loyalty to the cause of protection. That
would be inevitable, supposing the advantages of free
trade could be obtained at a bound, instead of gra-
dually and progressively. As it would be out of the
course of all nature, however, to realise the benefits of
the new system suddenly, Lord STANLEY must con-
tinue the same pertinacious upholder of the monopo-

list creed. He must wait for the miracle we speak of.
Although the Noble Leader of the Protectionists
endeavoured to disguise his objections to the proposed
admission of sugar into distilleries, under the plea of
its being calculated to injure our colonial cultivators
of sugar and our native growers of malt, the mask
was too transparent to screen his real purpose. The
gist of Lord STANLEY'S objections amount, in fact, to
the advocacy of those old principles of monopoly
which were finally exploded by the Legislature
during the course of last session, and which have
been cleansed from our commercial code. Allow the
introduction of sugar to our distillers, and permit at
the same time the gradual reduction of duty upon
sugar grown in foreign plantations from 21s. to 145.,
so as to be upon an equality with our colonial pro-
duce, and what will be the consequence ? Why, ex-
claims Lord STANLEY, the consequence is ob-
vious ; the facilitation of the purchase of foreign
sugar will naturally arid necessarily deteriorate
the interests of our colonial planters, and the extended
employment of that commodity in distillation will
prove equally prejudicial to our growers of malt.
The proposition, we will admit, is plausible enough at
a superficial glance, but its sophistry vanishes upon
a closer examination. It is reported that grain is
now so far reduced, and the duty upon sugar still con-
tinues so considerable, that there is no inducement
whatever to our distillers to forsake their system of
extracting saccharine matter from malt for the pur-
pose of obtaining it directly from sugar. Besides
this, the argument of Lord STANLEY against the dimi-
nution of the duty upon foreign sugar to the amount
levied upon colonial sugar, is nothing more than
a revival of the old Protectionist howl. Because

it suits the purpose of the discomfited mono-
polists, they altogether throw into 1 the back-
ground the object of the Administration in intro-
ducing this measure in reference to the employment
of sugar in distillation--that object being to afford
brewers and distillers a substitute for malt whenever
a panic has so far acted upon the corn-market as
to carry grain up to the enormous price of 70s.
or 80s. per quarter. That is the grand
intention of the Government, and that is the inten-
tion which Lord STANLEY and his followers would
misrepresent as a wanton interference with the inte-
re,ts of our English growers of malt and of our
colonial cultivators of sugar. The logic of the Pro-
tectionists has become too threadbare, however, to
cover their insidious attempts with anything like
decency.

We have zealously advocated the interests of Ire•
land on all occasions, to the best of our ability ; we
have urged the adoption of all such measures as may
be calculated to afford relief to her suffering children,
or to be beneficial in any respect to the Irish gene-
rally, or to any particular class of Irishmen, unless
some great principle of national policy, or national
justice, should be infringed on, or violated by the
concession. When demands, unreasonable in them-
selves, and in direct opposition to the recognised
principles_of legislation, are made, it becomes our

SUN' LONDON W 1
duty, as otblic journalists, to expose the fallacies of
which they' are founded, and to enter our protest
against the el, precedents of again recurring to ex-
ploded doctrines ,and vicious principles.
The session of 18-16 was remarkable for the total
and what has been most
abolition of moncYolY,
improperly termed protection. Class legislation
received its death-blow ; and we could scarcely
have supposed that gentlemen, who were arrayed in
the ranks of the free-traders in their glorious con-
flict and triumphant victory, should be found seriously
pressing upon the attention pf the Government the
propriety of preserving for their own exclusive
benefit a taxation, not for the purposes of re-
venue, but of protection, amounting almost
to a prohibition, and practically creating
a monopoly in an article of very general
consumption. Yet such has been the conduct of the
Irish distillers, and such would be the result, if any
weight were given to the arguments of the gentlemen
forming the deputation from that body, who waited
on the Secretary for Ireland on Saturday last.
The object of that deputation was "to represent
the ruinous effect that the diminution of the
duty on rum would have on the distilling
trade throughout Ireland, and to claim, on
grounds of justice and sound policy, that
the projected diminution of duty should be of a tem-
porary, and nct of a permanent character." Hitherto
the extraordinary duty charged on rum has nearly
banished it from the Irish market. In 1809, the
average annual consumption of rum in Ireland
amounted to no less than one million gallons, whereas
for the last four or five years it has diminished to
thirteen thousand, twelve thousand, and even eleven
thousand gallons in each year: this was owing chiefly
to the duty being 6s. Bd. per gallon higher than that
on spirit manufactured in Ireland. It was not for
the purpose of encouraging the consumption of
ardent spirits, or the trade of the distiller in that
country, that the duty on Irish spirits was fixed at
the low rate of 2s. Bd. per gallon ; of all articles
it was that which might most justly be taxed,
and the diminution in the production of which would
be hailed with the greatest delight by the philan-
thropist. But its use could not be wholly abolished,
or even materially checked, by any amount of tax-
ation, or any restrictive measures. An attempt to do
so would inevitably-lead to illicit distillation on a
gigantic scale, and the demoralisation of vast num-
bers of the peasantry—indeed of all classes of
society. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer
most truly stated, " the only limit to the
amount of duty on spirits is the risk of illicit dis-
tillation ;" the measure of the duty should therefore
be the facilities and opportunities afforded in each of
the countries for the production of contraband spirits.
This varies materially in different localities, for while
7s. 10d. per gallon can be levied in England, it was
found that 3s. Bd. was the maximum that could be
obtained in Scotland, while any attempt to raise a
higher duty than 2s. Bd. in Ireland was invariably
defeated, and led to the most injurious results to the
fair trader, and occasioned the working of an in-
credible number of potteen stills, and almost universal
breaches of. the Excise-laws in that country. For
that reason, therefore, and that reason only, the
duties in the several parts of the United Kingdom
were fixed at 7s. 10d., 3s. Bd., and 2s. Bd. respec-
tively, and a great boon was thus given to the Irish
distillers, which it is not desired or intended to take

from them.
The reduction now about to be made in the duties
on rum is a just debt due to our West Indian
colonists. They are our fellow-subjects, and entitled
to all the rights and privileges of British citizens.
Up to the last session of Parliament a certain pro-
tection was afforded to the staple commodities of the
West India islands, which was then withdrawn for
the general benefit of the entire kingdom;; the colonists
had a just claim for the abolition of all injurious
restrictions on the use of their produce. It should,
in justice to them, have been contemporaneous with
the withdrawal of protection. But, although the
equity of ,the claim was acknowledged, and a Minis-
terial, indeed a legislative, promise given for:their re-
lief, the measures calculated to effect the object were
necessarily postponed to the present time. A
differential duty of sixpence per gallon, it was,
on due investigation, found, might justly be retained
as an equivalent for the disadvantages to which the
home distillers are subjected by the Excise regula-
tions, and that is given to the Irish and Scotch as
well as to the English distiller; and, therefore. none
hare any just cause of complaint. If the Irish dis-
tillers sought an abolition of the restrictions on the
use of Irish spirit in this country, and that (on pay-
ment of the difference of daty) the same freedom of
transit from Ireland to England should be
allowed that is now sanctioned from one part of Ire-
land to another, their claim would receive the sup-
port to which it was justly entitled, and its concession
would lead to a great increase in the quantity of Irish
spirits consumed in this country.

It will be remembered that one of the first acts of the
Provisional Government of Geneva, after the late revolu-
tion, was to declare that it would hold the members of
the last Council ref ponsible for all the damage caused by
the troops in the attempt to resist the insurrection. The
amount of damage having been estimated at 42,000 f.,
the members of the late Council were ordered to pay it.
They refused, on the ground that their condect in the
insurrection was imposed upon them by the law for the
preservation of public order; but a deoree having been
obtained from the tribunal for immediate payment, they
yielded to force, and paid the money. A few days ago
several of the citizens of Geneva held a meeting for the
purpose of raising a subscription to repay the sum thus
unjustly wrung from the members of the late Govern-
ment. The latter, however, have, in an address to their
fellow-citizens thanking them for their sympathy, de-
clined receiving the proposed reimbursement.

Madrid papers to the 26th ult. have arrived. They
contain no intelligence. No Ministry had been formed
up to that date.

Mennen BOLSA, JAN. 26.—The Three per Cents.
closed on that day at 31 15.16; the Five per Cents. at
21 15-16; Caupons at 184.

Accounts from Constantinople, dated 13th January,
announce that the Circassians have gained a brilliant
victory over the Russians. On the 19th December they
stormed Marquki, having completely defeated the Rus-
sians, and killed great numbers of them. The loss of
the Circassians was 300 men. When the accounts left
they were preparing to attack Abouhour.