The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-27 00:00:00

timing

LONDON, MONDAY. JULY 27, 1846.

No reasonable doubt now exists that the great mea-
sure of the RussELL Administration will obtain the
sanction of Parliament as decisively, if not more
triumphantly, than did the great measure of the
PEEL Administration. That the abolition of all

differential duties upon sugar should follow the aboli-
tion of 'all restrictions against the importation of
corn, is but natural. It is the rational sequence in
commercial reform. It is the next segment in the
circle. Bearing in mind, however, the long con-
tinuance of those systems which are now considered
so obnoxious ; remembering that so many thousands
have been pampered by an unnatural protection from
competition, and that these thousands have imbibed,
during a series of generations, a prejudice in favour
of those protective imposts, it cannot be surprising
that any step made towards the removal
of their revered talisman should arouse their
indignation, excite their fears, or elicit the
most general and earnest opposition. Hitherto the
Legislature has been fostering that very enthusiasm
for protection which it now endeavours to allay, in
the bosoms of our insular agriculturists and our colo-
nial planters. The latter are, in point of fact, nothing
less than the spoilt children of a villanous mercantile
code ; and, in accordance with what we may term
the prescriptive rights of spoilt children, our agricul-
turists and planters become petulant and restive
under the tardy correction of the Legislature—they
are vociferous for the perpetuation of their old
system of leniency. The time has, however, arrived
when they must emerge from their leading
strings and maintain their position them-
selves, unscared by the multitude of their
competitors, winning their way, as all honest
merchants and husbandmen should, by their own
good industry, probity, and enterprise. They must
never again look for that mistaken kindness which
has hitherto been awarded them by the Government
—a kindness alike prejudicial to their own prosperity
and pernicious to the interests of their common
country. Still, in abandoning the old pathway blocked
up with so many obstructions, dug into so many pit-
falls, and deteriorated by so many intolerable sinuosi-
ties, and in entering the level and capacious highway
of free trade, it is both just and generous to explain
the reasons for such an alteration to every one who
questions its policy or denies its necessity.
As regards the Corn question such has been the beha-
viour pursued throughout. ADAM SMITH and other
political economists broached the advisability of such
a change. The pamphlets of Colonel THOMPSON,
together with the rhymes of ELLIOTT, enforced the
same notion. The annual motion of Mr. VILLIERS
drew the attention of cur legislators to the matter,
and compelled them to acknowledge that at least
there was a necessity for some examination into the
matter. The League, by its orations, its discussions,
its tracts, and its newspapers, laid all the bearings of

that gigantic question before the British population
And not only was the rationality of the proposed re•
form demonstrated to all refractory minds by logica

arguments, but likewise by experiments, the success
of which there was no means of denying—we mean
the tariff experiments of Sir ROBERT PEEL. :Not
until the matter had been thus thoroughly sifted by
the national intellect ; not until the most ample and
elaborate explanations had been 'reiterated to the pro-
tectionists, was the grand measure of abolishing the
corn-laws brought to a termination. The same
conduct has been pursued with reference to
the Sugar question; but with a considerable abbre-
viation in the mode of explanation and remonstrance,
from the fact, that in most of the arguments to be
employed it is nothing better than travelling over the
same ground. The relaxations in regard to sugar
and corn are only different tracks to the realisation of
universal freedom in commerce; and we admire the

pithy observation of the Courrier Fran cais, that " the
natural Consequences of the revision of the corn-laws
ought to be the revision of the sugar duties." There
is, so to speak, a consanguinity in the two measures.
We have ourselves already reiterated, again and
again, the whys and the wherefores of this proposed
enactment in favour of placing foreign and colonial
sugar upon an equal footing, or of avoiding. any
mincing distinctions between the produce of free-
labour and slave-labour in this instance. But, as we
had formerly experienced, in the free-trade measures
passed during the previous Administration, the same
arguments might be gone over and over again with-
out producing the slightest effect upon the minds of
those to whom they were so peculiarly unwelcome—
after statements had been demolished to the satisfac-
tion of the smallest understandings, they were still
brought forward, time after time, as though they
were the most indisputable of moral truths, and as
though their accuracy has never been impeached even
by a whisper. Precisely of the same character is the
opposition pursued in behalf of the preservation of the
differential duties upon sugar. Mr. GRANTLEY
BERKELEY, anxious to explain his sentiments be-
yond all possibility of misapprehension, has issued
a second letter to the Premier, in which lie persists
in the same fallacious style of reasoning. Ile de-
mands a trial for the planters, and maintains that the
capabilities of the colonies should be tested; as if
that trial (and one, moreover, of a terribly expensive
character) had not been given by this country during
a long series of years ; and as if those capabilities
had not been thoroughly tested and found insufficient
to supply that necessary article of nourishment to the
mother country ! But he even proceeds beyond this
very comprehensive flight of imagination. He actu-
ally makes an ingenious display of calculations by
which—this being done, and that being done, and the
other being done—the 472 estates of Berbice alone
would return "130,000 hogsheads of sugar for home
consumption ! " Such are, undoubtedly, very ad-
mirable schemes and air-built temples, but they are
altogether dispelled by a few blunt, dogged facts,
Stich facts, for instance, as that out of these 472
sugar estates of Berbice, "all, except thirty-five, have
been abandoned"—(we are quoting Mr. BERKELEY
himself )—and that " these thirty -five estates in the
last year made 8,800 hogsheads." Eight thousand
eight hundred hogsheads—not one hundred and
thirty thousands ! But, says Mr. BERKELEY, the
opportunities must be given us by the Legislature.
To this we cannot but opine that plenty of oppor-
tunities have presented themselves since the passing
of the Emancipation Act. And, notwithstanding these
opportunities, we find that in the five principal
ports of England the sales from the East In-
dies have fallen to 776,510 quintals for the
present year, from 958,125 quintals in a corre-
sponding portion of 1845—and a decrease from
Java, Manilla. &c., of 14,272, in 1846, from 30,176,
in 1845. Mr. STURGE, again, declares himself opposed
to the projected measure solely on the plea of its tending
to propagate the spirit of the slave-trade, and without
alluding to its being prejudicial to the pecuniary in-
terests of our colonial possessions, while Mr.
BERKELEY solely enters his protest against the
measure upon the latter consideration, acknowledging
that "the cry of immorality cannot be fairly raised to
prevent the admission of slave sugar." This looks
uncommonly like inconsistency in our colonial protec •
tionists, and we doubt not that the present will con-
stitute another illustrious example, that a house
divided against 'itself cannot by possibility stand.

The naval estimates fur the year were brought
forward on Friday night, by Mr. 11. G. WARD, the
new Secretary of the Admiralty, in a speech which de-
servedly obtained the approbation of persons of
all classes of politics. The knowledge of the
subject he displayed, having been so short a time
in office, was most creditable to him. Sir CHARLES
NepiEß, who, it is well known, criticises in