The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-29 00:00:00

T

contended ouolit to he tolmitted fee of duty. but it was sid
' they wanted revenue. Well, they could get it from
1 the duty which they imposed on slivasgt own sugar.
5 Hear, hear. ) But if the Government would not
abolish the duty on colonial sugar, let them at all events
considerably reduce it. He would reduc- colonial sugar to
I lOs per cwt. end foreign sugar to 14s. ; but the Chancellor of
the Exchequer said, considei stinris of revenue would not let
t him do it, althouch he admitted it to be just; while the Right
Hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, said the state of
• I parties prevented his doing justice.— ( Hear, and laughter.)
r What nonsense this was. Why could they not increase the
borne tax, and throw the burden upon those who were able
to bear it, and not upon the hard-working and industrious
/ classes of the country ?—(Chet rs. ) He would not say anything
f shout the wickedness and immorality of encouraging the
slave trade, but ther, could be no deuht that the Emanci-
eatien Act hod proved a complete failure. (Hear. hear. )
f The effset of it had haen to ruin the colonies and to increase
the price of sugar in this country; to convert our formerly
aefive rod irelussrious population into an extremely indolent
' and lazy one, and to Iran ter a considerable portion of their
labour to the slave labourers etf other countries. Berore the
Frnane ipatinn Act was passed he took the liberty of saying
that would be its result, but the House at the time, heir g
under the dominion of the philanthropy of the country,
would not listen to his warning —( Hear, hear.) And no
wonder that the Emancipation Act had failed, considering
that since it had passed the Government of this country had
made no exertions to carry out the principle of the measure,
hut on the contrary had rather thrown impediments in the
way of establishing a population of free labour in the colonies.
-.( Hear, hear.) The consequence was, there had never been
a proser supply of labour tor keeping the land in a state or
cultivation ; but still, if Government was determined
to admit foreign sugar into competition with colonial produce
the least they could do was to reduce the duty, and, therefore,
he begged to give notice that he should propose in Committee
that colonial sugar should be admitted at 10s. per cwt. and
foreign sugar at fa! s. Hear, hear. )
Mr. BARCLAY was for free trade in sugar as well as in
corn, but he blamed the Gentlemen who had been in office
since the passing of the Emancipation Act, for shutting out the
colonies from obtaintrg a supply of labourers from the conti-
nent of Africa —( Hear. hear.) The Emancipation Act had
succeeded morally, but it had faile economically, and he
thought some steps ought to be taken to remedy the latter
defect.—( Hear, hear.) He considered that the mea
sure of the Government was calculated to settle
this question. He thought. therefore, that the Noble Lord at
the head of her Majesty's Government would not be doing jus-
tice to the interests of the country, if he did not take these
circumstances into consideration.—(Hear, hear.) He be•
lieved he would not he discharging his duties, if he did not
make these observations. He was no party to placing the pre-
sent Government in office, but in giving his vote against their
measures, he was not actuated by any party consideration
whatever, but solely from a desire to discharge, to the best of
his ehilitiee, the duties with which he was entrusted.
Mr. DISR A ELI said the Noble Lord who moved the
amendment to the motion that the Speaker do leave the
chair, proposed to himself to submit three points to
the consideration of the House. The first was, that
it was in the power of this country to find three
legitimate sources of that sugar that was necessary for its con.
gumption;
the second, that her Majesty's Ministers, in the
calculations which they had made with respect to the revenue,
had furnished the House with very unsatisfactory prospects ;
and the third, that, in adopting the resolutions which they had
brought forward, they should he sanctioning that traffic in-
slaves which the House had so often and so signally reprobated.
—( Hear, hear.) He had listened with great attention to the
speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—a member of the
Cabinet who had risen for the pursinse of giving an answer to
the speech of the Noble Lord the Men her for Lynn. He had
not been inattentive to any of those addresses which had fol-
lowed the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, though
there might be some of those spseches remark-
able for peculiar characteristics and particular circumstances,
not bearing any relation to the subject immediately before the
House —( Hear, hear.) Still, looking to those speeches which
had failed to discuss the question with respect to the immediate
point before the House, following in the wake of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, he could find at that moment no feature, no
characteristic, which removed them from the description which
he thought h-nposeable upon the speech of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer itself. It appeared to him that to the first pro
position of the Noble Lord the Chancellor of the Exchequer
had offered an assumption. It appeared to him that the Chan
cellor of the Exchequer had encountered the second pro-
position of the Noble Lord with an hypothesis ; and it
appeared to him that that Right Honourable Gentleman
had supposed that he could have vanquished the third
proposition of his (Mr. Disraeli's) Noble Friend with a
sophism.—(Hear, hear.) Now, he (Mr. Disraeli) was pre-
pared, if the House would permit him, to substantiate those
posit ions.—( Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord the Member for
Lynn, in supporting his position that this country could be sup-
plied from legitimate sources with a sufficient and ample quan-
tity of sugar for its consumption— the Noble Lord had offered
his estimates which, if they conid trust his figuret.
certainly proved the dogma which he laid down. Her
Majesty's Ministers had no confidence in that estimate. They
said at once that it was an assumption—the Chancellor of the
Exchequer called it an assumstion, hut he entered into no
details, and offered no facts contrary to the estimate of the
Noble Lord. The assumption of the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer was that, the estimate of the Noble Lord was erroneous.
but it was a remarkable instance, that in proving that the esti-
mate of the Noble Lord was erroneous, the first feature in the
demonstration was that the Noble Lord had underrated a very
important item in that estimate. Her Majesty's Ministers
had admitted that the produce of the West Indian colonies was
256,000. tons. 'The.Noble Lord had said that the produce of
those cOlonies. we's 115,000 tons. Well, therefore, as far -is that
first point went, it would seem that the Noble Lord, however
erroneous ho might be in his estimates, had, not been
inclined to over-estimate the •• produce of those different
quarters from which the aggregate could be obtained. Her
Alajesty's Ministers, who accused the Noble Lord of overesti-
mating-the mating the quantities which we might anticipate receiving, or
this the first item offered an estimate to the House exceed-
ing that which had been suggested by the Noble Lord. That
was at least the prim; facia evidence as far as that item was
concerned. The Noble Lord had not indulged in any
very excessive calculations. If they approached the
second item of the Noble Lord— he meant with reference to
the Mauritius—he (Mr. Disraeli) believed that her Majesty's
Ministers, notwithstanding their statements, were inclined to
quarrel with the first estimate of the Noble Lord in supposing
that the Mauritius would supply this country with 50,000 tons
of sugar. The Noble Lord had corrected him by saying that
the number which he had mentioned was 58,000 tons. He
(Mr. Disraeli) thought that the Noble Lord in his speech
mentioned the figure 50,000 tons. He knew the Noble Lord had
documents in his possession which would have afforded
him an opportunity of offering a correct calculation. He ( Mr.
Disraeli) himself had not those returns, but he had th it
morning placed in his hands a Mauritius paper, which was, he
believed, a journal of the most respectable character, and
which afforded an account of the crops of sugar which might
he expected during the present year. They said that
that crop might be counted upon as 60,000 tons.—(Hear,
hear. ) Well, then, as far as the quantity that they might an-
ticipate receiving from our colonies—as far as the quantity
that they might receive from the Mauritius was concerned—
he thought that it was not in the power of her Majesty's Minis-
ters at all to substantiate their point agains' the Noble Lord
that he had exaggerated in his estimate. But the Chancellor
of the Exchequer said, that with regard to the third point,
that the estimate of the Noble Lord had in-
deed astonished him, and that he could not
for a moment believe that India would offer to
us the quantity which the Noble Lord had supposed that
they would yield. and for which he had given them credit in
his estimate. Now they found that in two portions of the esti-
mate, that in the one the Noble Lord had underrated the cal-
culation of the Government, and that in the other he had ex-
pected a sum less then that which he was induced to expect by
the documents in his possession, and less than that which was
confirmed by the authority to which he had referred. They
had aright to suppose that one so cautious in his estimate had
not at random, and without 'thought, and with recklessness,
offered to them any calculation which, at least, was not founded
upon data, and that he had not sought to influence the opinion
of that House by a statement on which he had not paid great
thought and research.—( Hear, hear.) Now he (Mr. Dis-
raeli) begged the Chancellor of the Exchequer
(though he expressed great incredulity on the subject
of the estimate of Indian produce) to recollect that
not a single fact, not even an argument had been offered against
the statements of the Noble Lord. He (the Chancellor of the
Exchequer ) had said that it was extremely astonishing; and the
Honourable Baronet the Member for Beverley, who certainly
upon the sugar question should be a good authority—( Hear,
hear, and laughter)—and to whose opinions they always
listened with great respect—the Hon. Member for Beverley
occupied, as he tad told them, a most important position in
the home Government in India—had risen in his place to confirm
the unsupported assertion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Neither the Hon. Member the Chancellor of the Exchequer
nor the Hon.. Baronet the.nembec.for.Beverley—who was the
chairman, be believed, of an association connected with the
Indian.trade—notwithstanding they expressed their disbelief in
that assertion—neither of those gentlemen came forward to
offer a single argument, or adduce a single fact to
induce the House to disbelieve the estimate of the
Noble Lord.—(
Hear, hear.) Now, in this case, with
bproductionChancellor
f sugarf itnh e
Exchequer, India—from
rposition t otaktehne
endorsed and ratified by the Hon. Member for Beverley, as
to the great importance of the question—there was
one
consideration which had not been brought before the House,
but which should not be absent from them at that moment, for
it was a great element in forming their opinion upon this in-
teresting and important question. It was the nature and
quantity of the productions in India. The Noble Lord had
hi ought forward a great deal of authentic intelligence to show
the amount of British capital now invested in India, and to
show them the energy and the quantity of the British capital
that bad been distributer' in the working of the es-
tates in India, and the considerable results that night
be anticipated from an encouragement of the investment of that
capital. But what he (Mr. Disraeli) wanted to bring before
the attention of the House was—for it was most important—that
the sugar in India was produced by two classes of persons.—
( iear.) These were the British capitalists.—(Hear, hear.)
But they were told by a great authority that they needed no
protection; there was, however, a class of capitalists
who were producing sugar, who might refuse pro-
tection.—( Hear, and loud cheers ) But if they required
protection; he would show the House that it was protection,
and that alone which would bring great results to their country
—the wealth of England, and not only commercial wealth, but
political power.—( Hear, hear.) Tne Hon. Baronet, the
Member for Beverley, told the House that the sugar producers
of India required no protection.—(Hear, hear.) Another
Honourable Baronet, who was once a Member of that House,
called a public meeting of those interested in the sugar trade,
and they met at his counting house—( Hear, hear )—a
meeting that was never heard of—and they passed
resolutions which nobody ever knew of.—( Hear, hear, and
laughter,) Well, all that might be very true. It might be
very true that there might be sugar producers who were in
favour of the measures of her Majesty's Ministers. It might
be very tiue that, as the Hon. Baronet the Member for Beverley
.said, the sugar producers had not a fair competition. The
• Hon. Baronet the Member for Beverley told the House that
the condition of India was improved during the last five years,
although they had not a fair competition. He (Mr. Disraeli)
thought it very possible that the condition of India might have
improved s it could not have been worse than it was in 1841,
India, was then bankrupt. It required but an event—an hour
—certainly but the transition of a post—to prevent her bank-
ruptcy; and nobody will deny-this that is in the least con-
versant with Indian affairs. He could prove it from documents
which he had in his hand at that moment, written by those
whose names, if lie mentioned them, would be of weight and
authority with that House. He did not wish to enter further
into the subject, but he was prepared to prove it, should th
House demand it. Well, India was improved, no doubt, but at
that time it could not have been worse. He held a letter in his
hand which was exceedingly interesting. though he would not
trouble the House by reading it, but it was written by a
gentleman in India second to nano in importance, in intelli.
; and he observes that " such is the con
1 and patriotism
sequence of our commercial system there, that the country
would beceine too poor to govern, for they had reduced the
Country to pauperism. It is not an insurrection or a con-
spiracy that you have to fear, but you will never be able to
raise a 'revenue from a nation of beggars.—( Hear, hear.)
. Your establishment must fall, and before five years are past, sous,
will'losc radia2!—(Hear, hear.) Then they were told that
_pat to wed 44 tin MAR