The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-23 00:00:00

GROUP LX IX,

This Committee met again to-day in Room 23, Grand Corridor
Mr. W. Baring in the chair.
WISBEACII, ST. IVES, AND CAMBRIDGE

JUNCTION.

The evidence in support of the promoters of this Bill was renewed,
and had not concluded when the Committee rose at four o'clock, and
adjourned till to-morrow.

GROUP LXX.

This Committee re-assembled to-day in room 24 (Grand Corridor);
present, Sir George Clerk (in the chair), Colonel Peel, Mr. Tower,
and Mr. Smythe.

DIIIIIMEir AND lINNISXIMMEN.

The evidence on' the part of this Bits was resumed, Mr. Robert
Stephenson, the engineer.in-chief of the line being the tirst witness.
The gradients, he said, were remarkably favourable. The estimated
cost of the line from Navan to Kells was 83,8391.. from Navan to
Newtown Butler, 106,4071., and of the Belturbet 25,253/., making a
total (exclusive of the cost of the land and stations) of 275,304/. The
land required for the line would cost 30,0001.
Mr. Joseph Fisher, next gave traffic evidence, which closed the
case for the promoters.
Mr. MCRPUT, Q.C., said he appeared on behalf of the Dublin, Bel-
fast, and Coleraine Junction, and certain landowners on the line be
tween Navan and Kells, amd was abeut to call evidence against this
line, when

Mr. Sergeant Mr.rarnY contended that his Learned Friend had no
locus stanch on behalf of the Public], Belfast, and Coleraine Junetio.l,
merely on the ground that it was a rival of this line. The Committee
7'hattl no right to Inquire Into any pointe of comparison with any other
line.

Mr. Mt.TapnY contended that he had a perfect right to appear on
behalf of the Dublin and Belfast Company.
It appearing that that Company had dissolved, .

The. Committee said that they -would postpone hearing counsel on
behalf of it. but Mr. Murphy might proceed to tender evidenee on
behalf 01 the landowners fur whom he appeared.
Mr. It. It. Mooaa said, he appeared on behalf of the North Mid-
land, which Company ho admitted was taking steps to wind up
their affairs.
The Committee said, that the same remarks as had been made
with respect to the Dublin and Belfast Company would also apply to
the North Midland. _

Mr. MURPILT then called Sir Wm. Somerville, M.P. for Drogheda,
after whom

;Mr. Ralph Smith, merchant, Drogheda, was called and examined
by Mr. MOORE, who appeared in conjunction with Mr. Murphy for
some of the landowners along the line.

The Committee adjourned at Four o'clock until Twelve to-morrow

THE SUGAR QUESTION.
(From the Times.)
The time is come when the discussion of the last great
question of commercial reform must bring the whole
question of the slave trade once more before the country.
It is at least as essential that the policy of the Govern-
ment on this momentous subject should be established
on enlightened and practical principles, as that the exact
amount of duty to be paid on some thousand hogsheads
of foreign sugar should be equitably determined. Those
evil days are happily long since past when the slave
trade itself was debated as a British question, and its
horrors palliated by supp. sed British interests. As far
as the mercantile pursuits and the colonial system of
this empire ars concerned, the slave trade and slavery
itself are eradicated ; and England has embarked too
deeply in the great experiment of emancipating the
negro race, and of inculcating the lesson of free labour
in her colonies, to abate her efforts in this cause. But
in the long course of measures with reference to this
object which have been demanded by the people and
adopted by the Government of this country, a mass of
exp.rience has been acquired, to which we must allow
its full weight if we intend to avoid a complete and dis-
astr,,us failure. The generous suggestions of humanity,
the sacrifices and exertions of half. a century, will have
taught us little indeed, if they have not taught us to
avoid some acknowledged errors, and to reject some in-
controvertible delusions. At the present time, there-
fore, if it be our duty to rnain:ain with unabated force
our hostility to the slave trade, it is no less our duty to
select means of repressing it which experience has not
proved to be ineffectual and dangerous. Nothing is to
be gained by a passionate contention for expedients
which have already failed ; and it is far more conducive
to the real suppression of the slave trade, and to the
general interests of humanity, to acknowledge errors
of this kind than to persist in them. This feeling has
of late years extorted from several of the most power-
ful avid- virtntms opponents of the slave trade an ac-
knowledgement whlelt.,eould not have been made with-
out pain by men who halt deviated the best years of their
lives to this cause. Nothing but a misjudging fana-
ticism can attempt to withheld or to invalidate these
declarations or the facts on which they rest. No piens
fraud will put down the alavalrade ; and it is of .much
less importance to form a correct estimate of the seal
which has inspired our efforts than. to ascertain what
positive results have followed them. In spite, then, of
all that has been done by this country and by France
and the United States, each of which has effectually put
an end to slave trade in its own terr
of
fritebs inquirysiorunder
by
own flag, we are met at the outset
the appalling fact that the number of slaves exported
from Africa has doubled within the last thirty years,
and that it never was carried on with greater activity
than at the present moment, or with equal barbarity.
The papers annually laid before Parliament furnish
most abundant evidence of this deplorable truth; and of
late years the men who have been most strenuous in
the cause have not hesitated to avow their conviction on
this point. The book published in 1840 by the late Sir
Fowell Buxton will be fresh in the memory of our
readers; that zealous abolitionist had learned from ex-
perience that the moral impossibility of compelling
foreign Powers to observe the stipulations of their own
treaties with us, and the physical impossibility of pre-
venting a contraband trade in negroes on the African
coast, defied oar diplomacy and our navy, and pointed
out the necessity of using other means of repression.
Several members of the present Government have, on
various occasions, both iu and ont of office, avowed
,ina:lar convictions. In Lord John Russell's letter to
the Treasury of the 26th Decetnher, 1839, after stating
his belief that more than 100,000 slaves are annually
imported from Africa into foreign states or colonies in
America and the West Indies, and that this illegal
traffic is stimulated by tenfold profits and protected by
insurances, his Lordship (who was then Colonial Secre-
tary) adds, "under these circumstances, to repress the
foreign slave trade by a marine guard would scarcely be
possible if the whole British navy could be employed
for that purpose: It is an evil which can never be
adequately encountered by any system of mere prohibi-
tion and penalties." Upon the production of the last 1
instructions to cruisers on the coast of Africa, Lord
Clarendon statcd, in the II )ase of Lords, that he hal.
arrived at a similar opinion as to the inefficacy of the
preventive force; and when Lord Palmerston insisted,
in the House of Commons, upon the necessity of main-
Wain the Right of Search Conventions with France, I