The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-20 00:00:00

It is calculated that in the rich and middle ranks the an-

nual consumption of sugar by each individual for all purposes
is 401 b., while among the labouring classes it does not exceed
91b. for each individual. Every person serving on board one
of her Majesty's ships is allowed lioz. of sugar a day, which
amounts to 341 b. 3oz. yearly; and the allowance given to
aged paupers in the Union Houses is 1 oz. a day, or
2241 b. in the year. If we take the labouring classes
at four fifths of the population, we perceive the
gross injustice inflicted on the great body of the
people by depriving them of wholesome food through
excessive taxation, and the extent of the injury suf-
fered by our export trade by limiting the consumption of
sugar. Why should not the honest working man have as
plentiful a supply of sugar as the pauper or the sailor? Why
should the poorer classes be deprived of the means of pre-
serving fruit in abundant seasons? Are they not as deserv-
ing of protection as the West India landlords, who divided
among them twenty millions sterling as the price of the re-
demption of their slaves?
In order to resist the abolition of differential duties, colonial
avarice has formed an alliance with their former opponents.
It appears that the introduction of the sugars of Brazil and
Cuba would encourage slavery. The very men who would
not manumit their negroes till their bodies were ransomed
with gold, now affect to sympathise with the African, and
under the mask of Christian philanthropy seek to sustain
their rents by levying an annual tribute upon the very people
whom they taxed for the emancipation of their former slaves.
We ask these hypocrites if they will consent to pay the dif-
ference between the colonial and foreign duty into the public
treasury, instead of putting it into their own pockets? That
would test the purity of their motives. We ask them further,
why do they not prohibit the admission of slave-grown cot-
ton,"for the principle is the same in cotton as in sugar, and
what is just in the southern States of America cannot be un-
just in Cuba or Brazil ? " Silver and gold," said Milner
Gibson—and we hail his appointment to office as one of the
most promising acts of the new Ministry—" are slave pro-
duce;" yet who refuses to pocket them? Will these mono-
polists strain at gnats and swallow camels! And what will
those of our readers think who may now hear for the first
time that slave-grown sugar is regularly imported into
London, refined, and then exported, the drawback being
allowed, to be consumed in those very West India colonies
whose landowners insist that such sugar is sinful food
for the people of Britain, but a most holy diet for those
negroes who cultivate ieir own estates? By this con-
trivance they sell their own sugar to us for 7d. per lb., and
purchase slave-grown sugar for their own consumption at
4d. per lb. Are we not then justified in having remarked
that colonial avarice has formed an alliance with hypocrisy?
This subject is invested with peculiar interest at the pre-
sent moment, and will decide the strength of Lord John Rus-
sell's Administration. Whatever the Ministerial measure
may be, it is probable that it will not be submitted to Par-
liament for complete decision, before the following session.
But the people must be vigilant, and the same union and
energy which wrung from the reluctant grasp
abolition
thof
pro-
tectionists a free trade in corn, will compel the
the
West differential duties on sugar. The landowners of the
West Indies must prepare for the sameo_corg petition in the
markets of the world as the landowners t-2.3 tam.