The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-25 00:00:00

eltoovins

LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1846.

By a majority of eighty-three, in a House of merely
one hundred and fifty-nine, Lord G. BENTINCICS
Amendment, that the continuance of the existing
duties upon sugar be for eleven months instead of
one, was yesterdc.y evening defeated. Although the
discussion which arose out of that amendment was
superficially insignificant, we may nevertheless derive
such deductions from the tone in which it was con-
ducted as are in the highest degree acceptable, and
not in the very lowest degree significant. There was
a brevity of opposition and a quietude of expression
about the Noble Lord the Member for Lynn, and a
feeble reflex of those characteristics about his abettor,

Sir ROBERT H. INGLIS, which induce us to antici*
pate an agreeable moderation in the attitude to be
assumed by the Protectionists. Hitherto they have
been manceuvering in a blaze of intense light
or in a gloom of unnatural shadow ; they
have revelled, as it were, in a species of Parlia-
mentary chiar'oscuro—their distortions have been
only the more apparent from the exaggerated
lustre of their diction ; their deformities
have only been more manifest from the meretricious
decorations by which they were bedizened. Now,
however, we are gratified to observe among them in-
dications that theiare becoming conscious of their
blunder, and that they henceforth purpuse to speak in
moderation, to asperse in moderation, and to protest
in moderation. Such are evidently the intentions of
their principal leaders; and although those intentions
may be occasionally frustrated by the enthusiasm of
some fanatical cadet, we shall cordially anticipate their
fulfilment until we observe a total alteration in their
tactics.

On Monday evening the question will be defini-
tively submitted to the consideration of our legis-
lators, and when we reflect upon the impossibility of
maintaining the present system of differential duties
longer in operation, the rapid approach of
that critical moment cannot but afford an
universal satisfaction. Not only are the con-
sumers of sugar anxious for a speedy and per-
manent settlement of the question, but even
those most interested in the prosperity of our colonial
possessions, the importers and the merchants them-
selves, are equally desirous of such a settlement of
the matter. They feel that some alteration of the
importation duties must take place, and they long to
know what that alteration will be. It is preposterous
for Lord GEORGE BENTINCK to haggle about
the produce of a mere segment of our
colonies, and to insist upon settling whether 60,000,
or 46,000 tons are imported from the Mauritius ;
the great fact is—and there is no gainsaying it—that
the cultivators of our colonial sugar-cane are unable
to satisfy the demands of the mother country, that the
annual importation of sugar has been gradually de-
creasing since 1840! Since that year the individual
consumption of sugar throng bout the kingdom has dimi-
nished nearly twenty-four per cent. Such facts there is
no means of vanquishing. The Protectionists perceive
this ; they also perceive their own false position as
casilling debaters, and they are therefore affording us
every token of a more subdued behaviour in future.
We may consequently anticipate no very pro-
tracted discussions upon the sugar question, but may
look for a rational and satisfactory close of the pre-
sent session somewhere towards the termination of
August. And while we may congratulate Parlia-
ment upon the arrival of this periodical hiatus of re-
laxation, we may in solemn truth congratulate the
country upon the character of the great session which
will then have been brought to a happy conclusion.
What has commenced with the attainment of one ex-
traordinary commercial boon promises to close with
the realisation of another. We have already ob-
tained a free access to the most necessary and the
most nutritious article of food in creation ; we
have every prospect of receiving every facility for the
purchase of another, neither so necessary nor so nu-
tritious as corn, we will grant, hut which is
nevertheless, in our artificial state of society, abso-
lutely requisite to ensure the comfort and the
sobriety of the poorer classes. With no sugar to
sweeten his tea, or to render his coffee palatable, is
there not a lure to the labouring man in the well-
flavoured beverages of the beer-shop and the gin-
palace ? An easier access to this single article of
consumption would, we are most fully persuaded,
promote to no inconsiderable extent the temperance
of our industrial population. Hence it is that we
are anxious to perceive a reduction in the duties upon
tobacco, since that sober means of excitement forms a
beneficent substitute for the intoxicating effects of
beer, brandy, and other fermented liquors. By such a
reduction in tobacco, not only might the morals of
the community be improved, but the revenue likewise
he materially benefited. It is in these apparently
trivial modifications of our import duties that the
sagacity of a wise Government frequently
consists. The reduction of a few shillings
per hundredweight in a given article tends
not unfrequently to elevate the moral condition of a
whole nation. The obliteration of a cipher may
sometimes advance civilisation by half a century.
Such are the si►nple solutions of some of the most ab-
struse problems of legislation ! Such are the minute
strings which move the colossal machinery of an empire !

Mr. DUNCOMBE last night moved for a Select
Committee, to inquire into the charges contained in
the petition of EDWARD BAKER, late a warden of the
Milbank Penitentiary, in which situation he had con-
tinued from the month of September, 1842, until
April, 1846. The petitioner preferred serious
complaints against the Governor of that prison,
alleging that great abuses existed both in the
management of affairs, and as regarded cruelty and
oppression towards the prisoners. It will be recol-
lected that Sir PETER LAURIE, some time since, pub-
lished a pamphlet under the singular, but expressive,
title of " Killing no Murder," in which the results
of the system adopted in that prisuri as to the in-
sanity, deaths, or pardons on medical grounds, of
the prisoners, and also the state and condition
of the convicts who have been removed to the hulks
after undergoing the discipline sanctioned therein, is
fully set forth and commented on. The worthy
Alderman ascribes the frightful consequences to the
"separate system," which he asserts to be injurious
to the minds of the prisoners, dangerous to their
bodily health, demoralising in its effects, and
burdensome to the country from its great
cost. If any of the above are really the
consequences of the system, it is high time that
it should be abolished, and that some better and
more humane plan should be adopted in its place.
The extraordinary data on which his argument is
founded cannot be controverted, for they are taken
from statistical details contained in the reports of
the Inspectors of Prisons ; and from the very
large proportion of the cases of insanity, so much
greater than that which is found to occur in other
prisons, and also from the extraordinary number of
suicides and attempted suicides, which werementioned
by Mr. DUNCOMBE last night, it is perfectly manifest
that there is a screw loose somewhere, that there is
something either in the system itself, or in the mode of
its administration, which requires a strict investigation
and an immediate remedy. We, therefore, regret the
decision of the House in refusing the Committee
asked for. We cannot accede to the argument urged,
that to appoint a Committee of the House would be
at once to condemn the Governor. We know nothing
of Captain GROVES, and we award him that which is
the privilege of every Englishman—viz., that he is to
b e supposed innocent, until his guilt is proved, and
in proportion to the weight and magnitude of the
charges, so much the greater should be our reluct-
ance to give credence to the statements ; but surely
this is not to be carried to the extent of refusing all
investigation until full and ample proof be given.
If this was the case the labours of such a Committee
might well be dispensed with, the condemnation would
be contained in its appointment, and the House would,
like the inexorable Rhadamanthus, first punish and
then inquire into the complaints. We do not go
the length of saying that the House ought, on every
trivial charge, to subject the accused to the trouble
and annoyance of entering into his defence; but
when there is a degree of probability, a verisimili-
tude, in the charges, when they are brought forward
by a man of unimpeached character, who,
from his situation, has opportunities of know-
ing their truth, and when such a person pledges
himself to prove their accuracy before
a Committee, we think that a sufficient ground at
least is laid for a full inquiry and investigation, the
granting of which could not be supposed to militate
in any degree against the person or persons charged.
And such an inquiry must be far more satis-
factory to all parties, if conducted before a tribunal
which cannot be suspected of any partiality, and the
proceedings of which are open to the public, than
any private investigation by prison inspectors, no
matter how respectable they may be, more particu-
larly when it is alleged that those inspectors are in a
certain degree under the influence of the party
against whom the accusations are made.

No charge whatever has been made against the
character or motives of the petitioner; he held for
more than three years and a half a responsible
office in the prison, which he alleges that he was