The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-13 00:00:00

it
However it might answer for amusement,
I it certainly seldom answered in the way of profit.
' The same system 'was in operation in -the West
Indies, where gentlemen conducted the management
of their estates, and the entire process of the
manufacture of sugar by agents and letters ; the process
was one requiring great skill,
energy, and experience,
and he thought it could no more be conducted
properly by persons residing at a distance, than the great
manufacturers of Leeds or Manchester, could carry -on
their concerns at two thousand or three thousand miles
distance. Under the new arrangements of his Noble
Friend, he was satisfied that capital would accumulate in
the colony, that proprietors would let their estates to re-
spectable tenants, and that in many instances the negro
population would become themselves the tenants. They
knew of some cases in which that had already taken place,
and where the negroes had associated, and purchased
estates to carry on the manufacture of sugar. The white
inhabitants of the colonies, who were employed as book-
keepers, agents, and attorneys, instead of managing. the
estates of others as deputies, would take estates 'on .their
own account. He (Lord Howick) believed that that
process had begun to a considerable extent: The estates
of such persons would be managed with an energy which
belonged to men free from responsibility, and acting on
their own account. He had not the smallest doubt that
when that system came into action, the cost of cultivating
sugar in our West Indian colonies would be materially
lessened. He was persuaded that if the sugar cultivation
were carried on with intelligence, enterprise, and activity,
by free men .acting for their own interest, the article
would be produced much cheaper than it could be in
Cuba and Brazil under a system of slavery. In the East
Indies there was no deficiency of labour ; what was want-
ing was British capital and intelligence, which were ra-
pidly going there, and the removal of fiscal obstructions
to enterprise and industry. One great advantage of this
measure was, that it would lead the British Parliament,
the merchants, and the capitalists to look into the state
of India, to see what it was that impeded its prosperity.
They ought also to promote the success of the competi-
tion of their own colonies with slave-grown Atgar. His
Hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. had
brought forward a measure for removing the restrictions
upon them. He was sure that the House would support
him in that measure. Much might also be done by in-
creased efforts to suppress the slave trade. Papers
which had been laid on the table of the House had shown
that an officer of the name of Denman had destroyed
the slave depots ; that was a most effective blow to sla-
very. The Hon. Member for Nottingham told them the
other night that they had expended a great deal of Money
in efforts to suppress the slave trade, and after all it was
carried on to a great extent. What would be the result of the
success of the measure of his Noble Friend. Why, if they suc-
ceeded in producing sugar cheaper than it was produced by
free labour, the first pound of sugar produced by slave-labour
which was sold at a profit," would seal the entire abolition of
slavery. He thought the measures of the Government were
well calculated to answer the purposes intended. Government
had not attempted to alter the duties upon immediate abolition
of. slavery. It was now three sears since that measure had been
carried, and he (Lord Howick) thought,. that now, if eyeraias
the time to prevent: another bad system from- taking' root. -Now
was the time to prevent vested inter ests in-monopolies.. Now.
was . the time to -excite • competition: . On the other
side it was urged • that his Noble, Friend to
leave the colonies of this country without any protection,
he had done no such thing, for he had proposed a protecting
duty of 50 per cent. The Hon. Member for Antrim would
not admit competition ; in that he (Lord Howick) thought he
was in error, for if a moderate competition was admitted, he
thought it would tend to hasten the abolition of slavery in
Cuba and the Brazils. But when a measure was proposed
fur the relief of our own population, it was for those who
opposed it to prove that it would be for the encouragement of
slavery. They had not proved it. He was convinced they
could not prove it, and unless they did so, it was the duty of
the House to adopt a measure which was clearly for the relief
of our own population.—(Cheers.) Although attempts had
been made to prove that this measure would not be for
the relief of our own population, yet the argu-
ments advanced in support of the position were so
palpably fallacious, that he could not believe they
would at all influence the decision of the House. The
Hon. Member for Newark had gone into an elaborate calcu-
lation, for the purpose of showing what might be the amount
of sugar which we might expect from India and the West In-
dies during the present year. He had tried to prove that the
utmost that could be expected from the proposed reduction
of duty •weuld be a reduction in price of Is. 6d. per cwt.—a
reduction which would not be at all felt by the consumer.
He (Lord HoWick) would admit to the Hon. Gentleman that
he thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer might safely have
carried his principle further.—(Cheers. ) That it would have
been more judicious to have made'a reduction in the duty en
colonial super of 7s. or Bs., leaving the proportion of duty
between foreign sugar and sugar the production or the British
possessions the same as that now_ proposed by the Government.
--(Loud cheers.) But, if the House thought proper, that al-
teration could be made in the- Committee.--( Loud cheers.)
But taking the measure as recommend,d by the Government,
stil the amount of the relief which it would afford to the con-
sumer would be great indeed. He considered the calculations
which had been made with regard to the sugar which might be
expected from the colonies, was quite beside the purpose. The
plain and simple case was this ; foreign sugar was at present
subject to a prohibitory rate of duty ; the Government pro-
posed to admit at a rate of duty amounting to 150 per cent. on
its value in bond, and exceeding by 50 per cent. the duty le-
vied on the same production from our colonies. The result
must be the extending the source of supply. it was no answer
to say that without this assistance 200,000 tons could be pro-
duced in the present year, and that the annual consumption
of the country had never exceeded that amount, and that
there were no means of ascertaining to what the consumption
might reach, if a cheap supply were placed within the reach of
the community—(Cheers)—and the very determination with
which this proposition • had been resisted by the West Indian
proprietors the eagerness with which they had sought to main-
tain their present monopoly, convinced him that it was impos-
sible but what they must consider that some great advantage
must accrue to the consumer, and some great fall in price must
be the result. He would not now advert to the language of
the Hen. Gentleman opposite., who spoke so slightingly of the
advantage to be derived frim the reduction of one penny a
pound its sugar; but when he recollected the sufferings of the
untortunate population of Bolton, whose eondition haa been so ,
feelingly and so eloquently described by his Noble Friend the other
evei.in,s—when they read the authentic accounts of the lowstate
to which our manufacturing population was every where reduced,
he would say that even a reduction on sugar of one penny in
in the pound was not Wbe lightly spoken of. It' was no such
trifling boon. The Hon. Member for London had shown that
it was equal to a reduction of taxation of 1,600,000/. But
large as the amount was, that. was not the source of relief to
which he looked for the improvement of • the condition of the
people. He looked to the increased field which would be
opened to their industry—(Loud cheers)—to the increased
and advantageous employment both for capital and industry,
which must result from a removal of those restrictions and
monopolies which now fettered our commerce, and prevented
it. from ,expanding.—(Cheers.) And because he knew that an
alteration of these duties must form a necessary and indis •
pensable part of any measure for a general revision of the Im-
port Duties, therefore it was that he considered that
it would afford a great relief to our own population. Could any
man deny that, who considered the great progre4s which public
opinion had made, and the extended position which they then
occupied of attacking monopolies generally, instead of being
forced to confirm their efforts to branches only? Would any
man deny that this must form au essential part of any measure
for the improvement of our commercial system.? .We were
ourselves great importers of sugar. Brazil was one
of our best customers, and it • had been stated that our
future trade with Brazil would, in a great degree, depend on
the course we should take with regard to foreign sugars. This
was part of a grand plan—of a grand attack on all monopolies—and
his Hon. Friend the Member of Lincolnshire had so treated it,
when he stated the other evening that he should vote against
any alteration in the sugar duties or the timber duties, because,
if he did not do so, he could not call upon the House to main-
tain the Corn-laws.-4 Cheers:). .House and the country
perfectly understood that that. was the real question at issue.—
(Chee: s.) The House and the country perfectly understood
that the plea of humanity which had been so freely made use
of, was nothing more than a popular mode of disguising the
ugly and repulsive features of monopoly.—(Loud cheers.)
Many Gentlemen, no doubt, bad been actuated by a profound
and conscientious objection to the slave trade. Ne man i
could doubt but that such was the nature of the. Objec-
tions entertained by his Right Hon. and Learned Friend.
the Member for the Tower Hamlet, who had ;evil. acted so
distinguished and consistenta part on that question.—( Hear,
hear.) No man could doubt . that. such was the nature of the
objections entertained by the Hon. Baronet the Member for
Oxford, who had spoken last night ; but he .could look with
nothing but disgust at those petitions on the table of that
House, signed by all those mmes which he remembered to have
seen attached to every remonstrance against every measure
which had bean adopted for the benefit of our negro popula-
tion.—(Cheers.) When he knew what the past conduct of
those gentlemen had been, this new cloak of philanthropy
could not conceal the strong interest which they had in the ex-
isting monopoly—( Cheers)—and he could not regard their peti-
tions with the same respect which he paid to the conscientious ob-
jections of his Right Hon. Friend the Member for the Tower
Hamlets.—(Cheers.):lle would not follow the example set him
by the Hon. Member for Newark, who had attributed the con-
duct of hii Noble Friend and the Government to low and son-
didmotives, but he must tell that Hon. Gentleman, that it
was impossible for him (Lord Howick) to forget the part which
he ( slr. Gladstone) had taken in the debates in 16.33.—(L0ud
cheers.) it was impossible for him to forget who was the
owner of the Wendell-Hoop estate ill Demerara—(Continued
cheering)—it was impossible for him to forget that t had been
clearly shown that the rates of production of sugar per head
on that estate, with the corresponding mortality among the
slaves, had been shown to be higher than had ever been known
even in the colony, high as the general average there was.—
(Continued cheering.) That estate, for three or four years, had
produced an enormous qusntity of sugar, and during that time
this hail been attended by a diminution of the sieves, ot eig;..ty-
one being one-seventh of the whole number.—(Loud cheers. )
There was an old proverb which he would recommend to the
attention of the Hon. Gentleman, which was, that persons
living in glass-houses should not throw stones.—( Cheers, and
laugh:er. ) He had referred to these facts not because the
Hon. Member for Newark had imputed low and degraded
motives to the Goverment, but in order to show the conduct
which he had followed on this subject. He was persuaded the
House ought net on such a plea of the encouragement' of
slavery, hastily to reject a measure for the improvement of
our own munition. No one could deny that some such
m, asure was necessary to be observed in the intense compe-
tition which existed in every branch of labour, and the diffi-
culty experienced by every one in finding means for profitably
exercising this intustry. To what could this be attri-
buted. but to the manner in which the field of
employment was narrowed by our restrictive commercial
policy.—Cheers.) The Brazils was willing to furnish us with
their sugars if we would consent to receive them ; and no man
could doubt but that they must be paid for by the produce
of our industry, thus affording a larger field for employment.
If they refused to adopt this plain and simple means of relief,
only alteration would be the imposition of
if they refused to improve their revenue by a revision of the
import duties, the
some heavy tax upon the already overburdened population.
Any tax upon articles of consumption must fall more parti-
cularly upon the lower orders, but even if they resorted to a
property tax, or • the restoration • of • the house tax,
it must increase the pressure upon the -labouring
population, by depriving the higher orders, to a certain extent,
Of the mean's of giving them employment. Therefore, he be-
lieved the present to be a politic Measure, and one which
would be advantageous to the monopolist! themselves. He
while it was
thought the landoviner, the' West Indian, and the Canadian,
.age which must accrue to
would be respecively compensated by getting rid of the
thtme
ptaoxsswibhleichtothd
iesyg
upiasied monopolists,tshreeaotthadervaita
the great body. of the..nation: What the result might be he
knew not ; but the man who watched the signs of the times
with attention, ei,uid entertain a moment's doubt as to the re-
sult,—(Loud cheers-) The Right Hon. Baronet, the Member
for Tamworth, might P4/§llO tine sPle fatal course which he
had doze with regasd to Catholic Emancipation ; he might,
at ~the .price of great su4oting, 444 by great evert,