The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-28 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

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HOUSE OF LORDS, July 27.
COMMONS INCLOSURE BILL.
On the motion of the Earl of CLARENDON, the
Commons' amendments on this Bill were ordered to be
printed.

RAILWAY BILLS.
Lord Portman and other Noble Lords brought up
reports on several railway Bills, which had been re-
ferred to Select Committees.
METROPOLITAN BUILDINGS ACT.
Lord PORTMAN gave notice that, to-morrow, he
would ask her Majesty's Ministers a question in refer-
ence to this Bill.

SLAVE TRADE.
Lord BROUGHAM (in continuation) said—
The import from the colonies in the West Indies
was 125,000 tons, from all the East India
possessions 80,000 tons, from Manilla and Java
say 20,000, and from the Mauritius 60,000 ;
making about 250,000 tons. But another account was
given ; it came from parties to whom he allowed
little credit in the matter—from the sugar refiners—
who hoped by the present measure to get in sugar at a
low rate, so as to bear a large profit for their own process;
that account made it under the 250,000 tons. But
he took that report with which the late Go-
vernor-Genera/ of India concurred, and that re-
port made it nearer 300,000 than 250,000. He said
it was impossible to over-estimate the capacity for
growing sugar of the possessions in the East Indies and the
Mauritius. If time were given for further inquiry, this
subject would be proved beyond all possibility of doubt.
But they were already proved by a reference to the
amount of imports for the last three or four years. He
now come to another point in which they were all inte-
rested. It might be said by the planters " You are con-
tent to take coffee, but you will not take sugar. You
will allow the poor man to have his little coffee, but you
will not give him the sugar to sweeten it."—(llear,
hear.) He was for the poor man having his sugar as
well as his coffee, but he must have it by lawful means,
though it had been said that stolen sweets were the
sweetest.--(A laugh.) He must not, however, have that
sugar from slave-grown produce, when they could be
supplied from Jamaica, Guiana, Trinidad, and Mauritius,
and above all from the West Indies, who were ready to
meet any demand. He had no right to take advantage
of the argument of an unskilful opponent, or the
clumsy weapons he used. But he would supply him
with an argument. He would give them an answer who
inquired why they should admit the sugar of Brazil
and of Cuba ; why they should receive the slave-grown
coffee of other states as well ? Why, this was one of
the greatest fallacies that had ever been broached, one
of the most pure and indefensible fallacies. If this
were a new reason it would be a different matter. But
even in allowing all the value of that consideration, he
must be bold to say that, with his friend Thomas Clark-
son, he was none of those who were such advocates for
a barren consistency as would induce any man to over-
look the advantages of a change when circumstances
had altered. When he was asked why they admitted
slave-grown cotton, slave-grown coffee, slave-grown to
bacco and sugar from Cuba, he would reply, that
admitting all the reasons of finance, of conscience, and
of what he was quite unwilling to underrate the new
science of political economy, still he was:compelled tos'ay
there was no sufficient reason for the change that was now
proposed. Well did he recollect the efforts of ls'is dear
friend Sir S. Romilly, and his equally dear friend Sir
James Macintosh, whose efforts, now happily successful,
were at that time so fruitlessly directed for introducing
humanity into our system of punishments. Well did
he remember when his friend Sir S. Romilly endeavoured
to appropriate freehold estates for the payment of simple
contract debts; to do away with such anomalies as in-
troducing steaming into bleaching grounds a capital
offence, as well as other measures of a similar kind; how
he was met by Sir William Grant, who threw out his
measure on that occasion, and by Mr. Canning who used
on that debate the much ill-used term of the wisdom
of our ancestors, when, as it is well known, our ancestors
were younger in wisdom than ourselves. Did they say
to him at that time, why bring in a Bill to abolish
this as a capital felony, when there were five and forty
others remaining, or why not, instead of stopping at
touching freehold property, and making it available for
simple contract debts, or why not, instead of taking the
debtor to prison, pass a Bill giving power to the creditor
to take the money of the debtor? If such
arguments had been brought forward he would no doubt
have said " Stop a little, perhaps I will go to that."
That was the worstl,possible answer that could be given
to his argument. But again and again let him tell
those who consider this great question that they were
not then called upon for the puryose of rescinding what
was egtibliahed ; they were not undoing what was
already done. He was not asking them to repeal a law
enabling Brazilian and other slave-grown sugars to come
into this country. He was resisting a law which was
proposed to open this county to the slave produce, and
then they said, " Oh, you admit tobacco! Oh, you
admit copper." Yes! but if he were called upon for the
first time to let in those articles, then would be the time
for questioning his consistency of opinion on the ad-
mission of these articles. But let any man show him a
measure which would have the effect of doubling the
quantity of cotton to be brought into the market,
and he would then oppose that also. The great
increase of the cotton from America had been pro-
duced by a population who had increased in a fair and
natural manner. But from these remarks of his own he
wouldcall attention to the statements of one whose candour
and justice was only equalled by his steady consistency
in his principles, and who could not for an instant be sup-
posed to be warped by any kind of bias of reasoning, or,
by party or personal considerations, against any mea-
sures proposed by the present Government. He alluded
to the Lord Chief Justice of England, and he confessed
when he reflected upon the high character of that great
magistrate, and the pure and the spotless life, profession-
ally, politically, and individually, and to the proud
situation which he had always held in the eyes of his
countrymen, and above all when he recollected that he
could be labouring under no bias of political feeling
against the measure introduced by his own political
friends, he had the greatest reason to allow the
greatest weight to his opinions on the subject. When he
(Lord Brougham) was talking to his Lordship—and he
had his authority for stating it, grieving as he did that
he could not himself be personally in that House.
Lord LYNDHURST—Where is he ?
Lord BROUGHAM—Oh, he is too far from this.
He is at Holyhead. Lord Brougham then con-
tinued—When they were talking of a Govern-
ment to be formed on the expulsion of Peel, they
agreed that they could not go to the country with a
great and liberal measure at that time. (His Lordship
then read from a letter of Lord Denman's.) His Lord-
ship (the Lord Chief Justiee) said that they had forgot
that a liberal Government would be very popular if they
proposed-to restore the slave trade. They acted upon the
principle of doing evil that good might come ; they gave
a free passage from Africa to the Brazils for life—
(Laughter)—and they added the free liberty of the lash.
—(Hear, hear.) Why, argument in such a case was
nothing. They should ascertain what was the right,
and whether they could reconcile it with their duty to do
a wilful and deliberate wrong—a wrong committed by
England, too, which affected to exercise a moral
influence on the rest of the world. They argue "We
cannot do all good, and therefore we are free to encour-
age some evil."—(Hear, hear.) As a great experiment
was to be tried between free-trade and slave-grown sugar,
he was convinced that it would be decidedly in
favour of the latter. Slave labour was cheaper
forty years- ago, because it was always cheaper to buy
than to breed, and now the experiment could never
be tried on equal terms. Tho slave-trade could not be
put down, and common sense had agreed that the de
sire to do so should be termed fanaticism. Frequent
changes of Government were assuredly evil, but what
was this to be compared with the suffering inflicted by
the success of ten slavers. But it was not the success of
ten slavers that could enable these markets to cope with
the products of the slave countries. Not less than 20
slavers would require to be successfully delivered, for
20,000 additional slaves would be required to supply
sugars for the English markets. He also read another
expression of opinion from Lord Denman, in which he
wondered what Mr. Fox would have said if he had
thought that those who had done their utmost to abolish
the trade would be engaged afterwards in promoting it and
giving a new stimulus to it, for the purpose of trying a
new experiment in political economy? The withdrawal
of protection, continued the Lord Chief Justice, from
our own countrymen in Jamaica would be an injustice,
both to black and white. Ile (Lord Brougham) begged
to remind them that sugar was the article which more
than any other encouraged the slave trade. Cotton and
coffee went but a small way in the encouragement of
slavery. He grieved to know that slavery was part and
parcel of the institutions of a country which called itself
the freest in the world. That, however, was their
affair, and slavery being a status established in
that country, he had no right to interfere with it.
He said the question of slavery was not before him now,
it was the question of the slave trade.—(Hear. bear.)
In increasing the quantity of sugar produced in Cuba
and the Brazils, they encouraged not slavery but the
slave trade, and that was the gravamen of his charge—
the ground of his argument. He said he would not in-
flict the sorrow and the pain, and almost agony on their
Lordships, partaking in it as he did himself, by moaning
to their recollection the source of that exeorabletriarffirec.,
founded iu fraud, pillage, rapine—the hunting of men,
the treatment of them as wild beasts, crowding them on
shipboard, and afterwards using them like so many
sponsible beings. But suppose he should remind them
of but one circumstance in that traffic one circumstance
of which, had he " the tongue of nien and of angels,"
he could not do such justice to it as the bare recital—as
the poet says, could he " warble in sweetest strains that
ever seraph sang." The death of a friend, his being con-
signed to his grave in all nations--but more espe-
c
n ial
otly
so in uncivilised nations, who, if they saw
largely, and felt not so long, yet
felt mare deeply than those who, civilised, had
more to divert their ideas—these men where almost
frantic if visited with any affliction of Providence,—as
the death of a brother, a wife, or a child ; these uncul-
tivated men, themselves, when on board of ship, if
one of their relatives was to be consigned to the deep,
celebrated the occasion with revelry and unlimited joy ;
because they found their relative was released from his
sufferings, and an end had been put to his miseries. The
guilt of these innumerable horrors—these inhuman
crimes—did not rest with the captain cad his crew ; but
fell also on those who sent them to Leon and Pernam-
buco for their cargo of ill-fated beings. They ditj this
by opening their markets to this infereel prnditce,
it was known to, them that the gorroswlatvheso;f
Cuba—that it was proeured by the
and, therefore, they were the abettors of this villainous
traffic. Th_.'2,l7 unnerstood, too, how these poor natives
of Africa were treated, Tlley had had letters on the
subject from the various authorities. They had a letter
too frpm the consul at :'.ernansibuqo to LOW A.ber-