The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-21 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JULY 21, 1846.

The Earl of SHAFTESBURY took his seat on the Wool.
sack at Five o'clock.

On the motion of Lord COLCHESTER, the third reading
of the Glasgow Termini Bill was adjourned till Thurs-
day neat.
Earl Powts, after presenting several petitions against
the consolidation of the sees of St. Asaph and Bangor,
moved the second reading of the St. Asaph and Bangor

The Marquis of LANSDOWNE opposed the motion.

After a discussion in which the Bishops of LONDON
and BANGOR, Earl VIVIAN, Lord STANLEY, Earl GREY,
Lord ELDON, and the Bishop of OXFORD took part,
Earl Powis replied.
Their Lordships then divided, when there appeared—
For the Bill, 38 ; against, 28 ; majority for the second
reading, 10.

The Marquis of LANSDOWNE then said it was not his
intention to give any further opposition to the measure.
Their Lordships then adjourned.

The House met at Four o'clock.

After the transaction of private business,

Mr. F. MAULE, in answer to Dr. BOWRING, explained
the circumstances attending the flogging and subsequent
death of Frederick White, late of the 7th hussars.
The. House having resolved itself into a Committee of
Ways and Means,

Lord JOHN RUSSELL rose to state the course which
the Government proposed to pursue as regards the
Sugar Duties. Had the Government been disposed to
consult their own ease, they would not have wanted
plausible reasons for postponing the consideration of the
question of the Sugar Duties. But the public, which
spent 12,000,000/. a-year in sugar, suffered much from
the increased price of that article ; the revenue also suffered,
and it was most desirable for the interests of trade and
commerce to endeavour to come to some permanent
settlement of the question. The high price of sugar in
this country had long been the subject of complaint, in-
asmuch as it rendered the consumption of sugar impos-
sible to the poorer classes, and at the same time, in con-
sequence of the diminution of supply, diminished the
revenue. The price bad risen, during some
parts of last year, to 7s. above the price calcu-
lated on by the late Chancellor of the Exche-
quer, while the revenue from the sugar duties
had been actually less, by 341,5291. than the amount
estimated by the Right lion. Gentleman; and this en
tirely owing to the deficient supply consequent upon the
supply not having been drawn from a sufficiently exten-
sive area. The Noble Lord then proceeded to state
the prospect of the supply of sugar for the coming year,
which he estimated at 230.000 tons. An increased sup-
ply was necessary, and whence were they to look for
this increased supply? The reduction of duties on free-
labour sugar alone would produce very little effect,
as the quantity of foreign free-labour sugar to be
obtained was of very little importance. Nov, upon
the present consumption, an increase of price of
6s. only would be a tax upon the public of 1,600,0001.,
which would not go to the State. He would propose,
therefore, the admission of other foreign sugars,
to supply the deficiency ; but here they were
met by the objection that the admission
' of foreign sugar would encourage slavery,
and that such consideration should overbalance all
financial and commercial views, and all considerations
of the welfare of the people. But that ar-
gument failed of completeness while they
admitted tobacco, cotton, and other productions of slave
labour ; and therefore they did not even pretend to carry
into effect the humane views which those opposed to
the consumption of slave labour produce entertained.
The members of the Anti-Slavery Committee, however,
were consistent, for they denounced the consumption o
slave- labour cotton as most immoral ; and yet if it were
proposed before we would admit American cotton
wool to call upon the United States to solve the tre-
mendous problem of slavery it would be considered
as absolute insanity. The same argument ap-
plied to copper ore, and various other articles,
The 'policy of excluding slave-labour sugar would be
therefore incomplete; but, more than that, they were
obliged to admit slave states, with which they had trea-
ties of reciprocity, to compete with free labour
states in the market. They had besides been obliged to
refuse to Spain the benefits of the commercial treaties
concluded with her, and that on principles not
very honourable to a great nation. He could
not help thinking that the principle contended for
by Spain was contained in the treaty of Utrecht. It
was certainly unfortunate that in their pursuit
of humanity they should be forced to evade
the obligations of treaties. But there was a
II further defect in these attempts to exclude
slave-labour sugar. The merchants sent this sugar to
other markets, and thence obtained supplies which they
might dispose of in the English market ; and thus
obtain English manufactures for the supply of the slave
employers thus they foiled to prevent the slave-
owner !Tom getting iirnarbet for bis produce. For these
reasons be. held that the ground which had been
hitherto taken" was not tenable, and that pro-
ceeding upon the principle which they had adopted with
regard to other commodities, they must admit the sugar
of the world to the markets of the United King-
dom. He must admit, • however, that there
were reasons forbidding that immediate equalisation
The West India body most justly urged the great change
produced by the emancipation of their slaves, and the
lossestheoyf hadthis sustainedcoonty r into consequence, and
inter-
ferencee,anodhtthalihg
asupply of free labour, as reasons against this immediate
equalization ; and these reasons were entitled to
great consideration. There were likewise finan-
cial reasons against any sudden and ab-
rupt change. Ile should, therefore, propose a
complete withdrawal of the present prohibitory
duty on slave-labour sugar, and then a very
sligt alteration from year to xear, until the duties
shobld be equalised. He would propose, at once, to
reduce the duty on all foreign Muscovado sugar to 21s.
per cwt., to be diminished from sth July 1847, to sth July
1848, to 20s. ; from sth July, 1849, to 18s. 6d.; from 1850,
to 17s. ; from 1851, to 15s. 6d.; and that from the sth July,
1852, the duty on all sugars, foreign and colonial, should
be 14s. The reduction of a clayed and refined sugar
would be in similar proportion, and would be diminished
likewise from year to year. The %Vest Indians
complained of the interference of the Government in
preventing the immigration of Hill Coolies. Now he
proposed that the Coolies should have permission to emi-
grate on certain conditions. He also proposed to
diminish the differential duties on rum from Is. 6d: to
Is. The West Indians also asked that molasses
should be permitted to be used in breweries and
distilleries, but there were such practical difficulties in
the way of acceding to that request that he could not
comply with it. He also proposed to enable the colonists
to procure the provisions and timber in the cheapest market
and to do away with differential duties in favour of Bri-
tish produce imported into the colonies. The whole
system of protection was vicious; that system bad been +

broken in upon and nearly destroyed, and he thought
that Members mild hardly be enabled to reconcile their
constituents to the-maintenance of protection in this in-
stance, and to forcing the farmer, now exposed to com-
petition, to pay a dearer rate for his sugar than he ought
to pay. According to the statement of the late Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, there was every probability of
a financial deficiency in the year 1847.48, and it
was, therefore, extremely desirable to increase the
income of the country, more especially if it be
done without increasing the burdens of the
people. With regard to the supply, not more
than from 8,000 to 10,000 tons of the foreign sugar now
in bond would be admissible on account of the navigation
laws. Taking the whole revenue to be derived from
sugar, according to his plan, during the next year
at 4,2oo,oool.—being 725,509/. more than the revenue
which would arise under the present system—this would
at once turn the apprehended deficiency into a surplus.
If the proposed duties should pass in Committee, he
should propose to make the settlement a permanent
one by introducing a Bill making the duties permanent;
and would propose some other source of revenue to be
made the subject of an annual vote instead of the
sugar duties, so as not to depart from the
great constitutional principle of making a great part of
the revenue dependant upon an annual vote of the House.
He believed that the time was come when it was neces-
sary to alter our colonial system, to relax restrictions, and
to open the colonies to the spirit of commercial enterprise.
If this were done, the connexion between the colonies
and the mother country would be one of mutual benefit,
inasmuch as both would flourish the more from the re•
moval of useless restrictions. The Noble Lord
concluded by proposing a resolution for the
temporary continnanze of the present duties for
one month, at the same time laying on the table the
resolution which he should propose for the permanent
settlement of the question, to which, if the House should
agree, her Majesty's Ministers, however short might be
their term of office, would not have administered the
affairs of the nation in vain.
Mr. GOULBURN would not go into the discussion until
he had considered the plan proposed. The Right Hon.
Gentleman having put some questions as to the details
of the plan,
Lord JOHN RUSSELL said that he did not propose to
alter the navigation laws at all.
Lord G. BENTINCIC would support the motion for a
temporary renewal of the duties; but the protectionist
party would not support any measure for taking from
the East and West Indian interests the protection
which they at present enjoyed.
After a desultory debate,
The CHAIRMAN put the resolution, which was carried,
and ordered to be reported on Wednesday next.

The House afterwards went into a Committee o
Supply ; several sums were voted, and the House ad.
journed at Two o'clock.

In the proposition made overnight by Lord Joust
RUSSELL for the gradual reduction of duties upon
slave-grown sugar, and the ulterior equalisation of ell
duties upon that article, whether slave-grown or
free-grown, foreign or colonial, we recognise the
commencement of a wholesome competition in com-
mercial reform between himself and his predecessor.
That -proposition may be simply given as follows :
—That while the existing duties of 14s. on colonial
sugar be continued as it is without any alteration,
the present duties of 233. 4,1. on foreign
free-labour sugar shall be immediately re-
duced to 21s. ; that that reduction shall apply
without distinction to foreign sugars generally,
whether the produce of slavery or not; and that, in
addition to this arrangement, the duty of 21s. shall
be reduced periodically until the equalisation at the
termination of five years of all duties both foreign
and colonial. This gradual reduction, according to
Lord Jous RUSSELL'S plan, is to proceed in the sub-
joined gradation :
From sth July, 1846, to sth July, 1847
1847 1848
1848 ... 1849 ...... 18s. 6d.
1849 1850
1850 lßsl
After 1851 l4s.
Two circumstances are especially observable in
the Premier's explanatory address, namely, the
brevity of its details, and the simplicity of its lan-
guage. As the vehicles for the introduction of this
comprehensive relaxation in restrictive imposts, WI.
consider those two features of his harangue as by no
means unimportant, and likewise as most ap-
propriate to the occasion. With reference
to the reasons for the proposal of this
measure, they unquestionably required no very
elaborate exposition ; the supply of the com-
modity in question was proved to be inferior to the
demand—the importation charges were shown topress
very heavily upon the population of this country—
while the revenue derivable from this iniquitous and
gratuitous species of taxation tumbled not into the na-
tional exchequer, but into the pockets of individuals.
Nor were those the solitary reasons to be adduced for
the substitution of a more enlightened and more
honourable system in lieu of the one now in
operation—there were others capable of being 'enu-
merated as plentiful as blackberries, and some of
these we have already ourselves particularised.
With reference again to the arguments ad-
vanced against the necessity of any alteration
whatever in the mode at present adopted for levying
duties upon various descriptions of sugar, the Premier
was somewhat more explicit, but at the same time
treated them with that cursory condensation of logic
which is generally opposed to a shallow antagonist.
Those, indeed, who pronounce themselves in
favour of the continuance of the differential duties
cannot even assume to themselves the credit of ad-
vancing any even sophistical pleas for the perpetuation
of their favourite system. Their arguments have not
even the negative merit of being sophisms ; and con-
sequently the answers given to those arguments by
Lord JOHN RUSSELL were conclusive, without calling
for any peculiar effort of reason or any
remarkable display of intellectual ingenuity. As to
the equalisation of all duties upon foreign and colo-
nial sugar being considered pernicious, as an infringe-
ment upon the so-called protective system hitherto
adopted towards our colonies, that is a chimera which
has been pronounced such by the genius of British
legislation. The age, and the greatest statesmen of
the age, have declared the freedom of all commercial
intercourse, without exception, to be the only real
and profitable protection which can or ought to be
conferred upon the human family : and a writer in the
Edinburgh Review has happily specified the working
of the pseudo-protection on our colonial possessions as a
balance of profit and loss, which when reduced to
its elements stands thug :—" I make a gain by doing
you an injury, and, in compensation, I permit you to
make a similar gain by doing me a similar injury!"
Well may the reviewer continue that such an arrange-
ment seems like "an attempt to embody the lex
talionis in mercantile transactions !" So generally are
these truths now recognised, that the Premier
scarcely devoted even a casual allusion to them, and
we presume that the " deniers of these truths" will
content themselves with that simple expression of
dissent uttered overnight by Lord GEORGE Bna-
TINCK, conscious that any oratorical enforcement of
their very antiquated opinions would be only liable
to render them supremely and personally ridiculous.
It was only with the philanthropic cant which has
unfortunately been employed as an offensive and de-
fensive weapon against any alteration in the existing
plan Lord J. RUSSELL had in reality eny necessity
to deal, and upon the flimsy and shameful character of
which philanthropic cant we yesterday took occasion
to dilate. The Premier very felicitously pointed out
that most significant fact in connexion with this outcry
utnhiaatr3t,heenodustcorfyt
hwe
saes
Yee'
onlya g ai nraisethed
p‘saitl
er on niatgsen
suited
ds ltahveepr
would-be charity-mongers ; that there was a violent
storm against the importation of slave-grown sugar,
while tobacco, and copper, and cotton, and various
other articles, the produce of slave industry, were
permitted to enter our markets without a dissentient
voice being heard. Then again, with equal
felicity, the Noble Lord exposed the inefficient
and hypocritical character of this compact, to refuse
the purchase of slave-grown sugar, under the pre-
tence of discouraging slavery, by explaining the
mode in which the restrictions of that compact
are obviated—the slave-grown sugar being disposed of
in Hamburgb, or Petersburgh, or elsewhere, and thence
introduced without obstruction into our English
markets ! May not that slave-grown sugar be ren-
dered accessible to our insular purchasers with infi-
nitely snore facility, by being colonialised, instead of
being passed through the continental markets—by
being carried first to the Cape of Good Hope, instead
of to Ilamburgh? There are a thousand means of
evading these unnatural restrictions, and that they
are evaded is notorious. Why, therefore, maintain so