The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-17 00:00:00

doing he intimated most expressly that his opinion
on the question remained wholly unchanged. Evidence
was taken on this subject before the Select Committee
of sugar and coffee planting, and a gentleman who has
a merit which is rare in this matter—that of being en-
tirely impartial—(Hear)—at the same time that he is a
gentleman of great information and experience—I niea-
Mr. John Wood, the chairman of the Board of Exci,.,o_
tignt (11‘lf
forth hag
(Hear, hear)—was amongst those who were ex,v,ined.
lie said that it was not for him to calculate wiet the
hearing all the statements that had bN,r,
dif-
ferential duty ought to be, but he addect, Pant if,
made on both
sides, and judging from his own exv,i,rir after
favour of some par-
nee in such mat-
ters,(t ocular hea n scaleauthorityo werep opinion
calledioofn
ad hn uda t
n, s
been
t e. oehenit
soar
.eht, au:
oration
(Hear hear.) After
übeystioansgeonftltehmisano
cha-
racter, I do not tli',ok that we could propose that any
larger duty than 4d, should be imposed.—(Rear.) At
least, I feel, acting according to our own
notions of what is due to the interests of
the home consumer, and of what is dee to hu-
manity and justice, that being placed in a difficult
situation towards the West India proprietors, and the
proprietors of other parts of the empire, it would be very
unfair, where they had a case of equality, to say we could
not listen to them on account of the interests existing in
this country. There is one qnestion connected with
these reductions of the duty, which will, I believe, make
it necessary for us to call back the permission granted
some short time ago to use sugar in breweries. Accord-
ing to the scale proposed by my Right Hon. Friend with
regard to the introduction of sugar into breweries, there
was no advantage given to the use of sugar over malt in
breweries; but with a reduced duty of 10s., there would
be an obvious advantage given to its use. To place them
upon an equality with regard to the vexatious imposi-
tions upon the business of the brewer, in the supervision
of about forty thousand different establishments, I be-
lieve it will be necessary, unless we find that some other
proposal should obviate the difficulty, to withdraw
the permission for the use of sugar in breweries.
which is established by Act of Parliament. With regard
to distilleries, I do not think any change can be made.
The drawback, of course, will be diminished in exact

proportion to the change that is contemplated. I be-
lieve I have now given a general outline of the measures
we propose to adopt, and the changes we propose to
make. I trust the House will bear in mind, in any pro-
position they have to consider upon the subject, whether
the proposition of the Government or of any other party,
that the principles of the two Acts to which I have re-
ferred ought to be kept steadily in view.—(Hear, hear.)
No inducement to assist the West Indian proprietors, in
order to have a larger production from our colonies,
ought to induce us, in any way, to impair the principle
of the great Act for the abolition of slavery, which it is
the honour of this country and of this House to have
placed upon the statute-book.—(Hear, hear, from the
Opposition benches.) I say that, not, of course, with
reference to the sugar duties, but with reference to the
introduction of labourers into the West Indies, for I
assure the Right Hon. Gentleman that I have heard a
plan by which the purchase of negroes upon the coast
of Africa would be considered a meritorious act to be
sanctioned by the Parliament of this country. Against
any such proposition or measure I should most strenu-
ously object.—(Hear, hear.) But I think, next to the
importance of preserving the principle •of the Abolition
Act, is the necessity of keeping steadily in view the
great purpose of the Act of 1846, namely, the allowing
the consumer in this country to have his sugar as cheap
as it can be obtained consistently with the necessary
maintenance of the revenue.—(Hear, hear.) In what I
have proposed I have not departed from that principle ;
and I shall very much lament if the House this year, at
a time when great distress prevails among the people of
this country, and when we think it necessary to main-
tain no less an amount of taxation than the country has
sustained in former years, for the sake of any interest,
should consent to increase the price of a great article of
consumption, and thereby injure the consumers in this
country.—(Hear, hear.) I have now stated what the
proposition of the Government is, and I think it will be
far more convenient if gentlemen will allow me to circu-
late, which I hope to do in the course of to-morrow, the
scale I propose as an altered scale, before any discussion,
and with that view I shall propose that the House will,
on Monday next, resolve itself into a Committee upon
the Act of 1846. I shall conclude by moving that the
Act 9th and loth Victoria, c. 6e, be tiew read.
The question having been put,
Sir R. H. INGLIS said that he could not have believed
it possible, if the experiments had not been made, that a
statement could be made on such a subject without one
passing reference to that which he believed to be the
deep-seated feeling of the people of this country.—( Hear,
hear.) The question was not whether the people of this
country had cheap sugar or not, but whether it should
be stained with the blood of thousands.—(Hear, hear.)
It was true the First Minister of the Crown expressed
his desire to preserve intact the Act of 1834; but did he
preserve equally intact the Act of 1807 ?—(Hear, hear.)
It was not enough that England should be herself free
from carrying on the slave trade in her own ships. Was
it not equally criminal and sinful on her part if wilfully,
and with eyes open, they did that which must encourage
the slave trade in other countries ? (Hear, hear.) He
wished for cheap sugar and cheap anything; but
there were better things in heaven and earth
than mere cheapness. It was proved before the two
Committees which sat on this subject that every pound
of sugar which was introduced cheaply into this
country tended to bring back that guilt which
years ago they thought it their duty to blot out of their
consciences. They were virtually returning to that
guilty system. He forgot the hostility of the West
Indian body to the Act of abolition, and was of opinion
that they should not bear the expense of our humanity.
Looking to the present measure apart from moral causes,
he thought it ridiculous as a measure of relief to the
West Indian bodv.—(Hear, hear.)
Sir J. PAKINGTON should not enter into anything
like an extended comment on the debate they had just
heard. He believed it would be more convenient to dis-
cuss the subject generally hereafter. But he could not
but express the very great pain and disappointment he
felt at the course that had been adopted. It was with
groat pain that he had observed the extraordinary
omission just referred to, and it was with great dis-
appointment that he had heard from the Noble Lord a
statement so little likely to be satisfactory to the suffer-
ing merchants of our West India colonies. He was:quite
prepared to consider the interests of the consumer at
home, but he was not prepared to do injustice to the
merchant abroad. He was not prepared to follow
the Noble Lord in his statement relative to the sup-
ply of sugar from the West Indies, but, ho believed,
there was no year on record in which that supply was
not equal to the consumption of Great Britain. He be-
lieved this course of legislation was a virtual departure
from the principle of the great Act of 1834. When the
proper time arrived he should be prepared to move an
amendment, the objects of which would be to uphold the
report of the Committee, and to give relief to our suffer-
ing colonies.
Mr. BERNAL did not wish to go into a discussion
upon the subject, but as a Member independent of all
parties upon this question, he wished now to repeat that
nothing would ever prevent his recording, over and over
again, his opinion that his West India fellow-subjects
were fully entitled to import into this country the pro-
duce of their growth free of all duty whatsoever. He
only farther wished to recommend that the packet should
be detained until the whole debate upon this subject had
been taken.
Mr. BARKLY could not say he had heard the Noble
Lord's announcement with disappointment, because he
had never been sanguine that the present Government
was likely to do much for the benefit of the West India
colonies. He believed that this measure would con-
summate their ruin. When the authors of the Bill of
1846 came down within two years with a measure of
amendment there could be very little doubt that that
Bill was a decided failure. They ought now to apply
themselves not to prop up that system, but to some
remedy for the evil it had done. Could the Noble Lord
show a single benefit that would accrue to any one from
the alteration he contemplated ? Did he think it would
benefit the consumer, by ensuring him a cheap and re-
gular supply? He wished Members before they came
down to that House would read the evidence taken be-
fore the Committee.—(" Hear," from Lord J. Russell.)
He was sure, if they did, they would very much alter
their views upon the subject.
Mr. BRIGHT rose to protest against the doctrine
that all the distress of this empire was centered in the
West India colonies.—(Loud ironical cheers from the
opposition.) He was glad Gentlemen opposite acknow-
ledged at last the fact that all their sympathies were not
to be directed to one class. He protested against the
%Vest India colonists coming to this country to be re-
lieved from their distress at the expense of the mother
country. If they took Ireland, or the counties of York
and Lancaster, he believed they would find far greater
claims to relief than any that could be presented from
the West Indies. In the manufacturing districts great
distress had occurred within the last two years.—(Hear.)
He believed he might say that within that period one
half the capital of those districts had been lost.—(Re-
newed ironical cheers.) He understood those cheers ;
but let him ask, suppose the manufacturers were to come
to that house, and, pleading their losses, were to demand
that a legislative enactment should be passed to raise
the price of all manufactured articles in this country
and the West Indies, did they suppose that the
West Indians and all other classes of people
would not complain ?—(Hear, hear.) But perhaps
they would say that the distress in the West Indies was
caused by legislative interference. He did not believe
it. 'When did their distress commence? Some people
said two years ago—some people said as far back as
the Bmancipation Act. At the period of the Emanci-
pation Act they had voted to them a sum of twenty mil-
lions. The interest on that was about 800,000x+ a year.
Why, he believed all the exports to the West Indies
prior to the passing of that Act only amounted in value
to about five millions per annum, and if their profit on
that trading was taken at fifteen per cent., they would
find that they ought now to be receiving from the eman-
cipation money alone nearly 70,0001. a year more than
they received by their previous trading. His belief was,
that protection had ruined the West Indies, by limiting
the attention of the colonists almost entirely to sugar
cultivation. If that protection were taken away,
there were a hundred articles which might become
a subject of traffic between this country and her
colonies. The 500,0001. the Noble Lord talked about
would not be, in his opinion, worth fivepence to the
West Indies. The emigration from Africa would most
likely produce elements of discord into the West Indies,
which at present were not foreseen. He thought the
money was so much thrown away, except in the experi-
ence the expenditure would secure. The proposal made
faa
ry erer
wiserm mate-
one, of 1846.
the Government taken their stand on the
rbiyalthhheeG,
houvterhnemtehnotawghast nitowt,
e were not, in his
opinion, making much way a
—(Hear, hear.) Gentlemen opposite d
oiunldhihsaovpeibnei.oerni,
was no necessity for the —Ol, givewiatrhnmtheehtcotuontry, awnay twheitrhe