The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-28 00:00:00

system of fraud. Those who were engaged in
similar pursuits voted a testimonial, amounting
to between three and four thousand pounds, to
his Noble Friend, and the Noble Duke now
cited as a witness was one of the first subscribers. His
Noble Friend, however, with his usual generosity, re-
fused to receive one farthing of the amount, but sug-
gested that it should be applied to snaking a provision
for the widows and children of those who in a humbler
capacity had lost their lives in administering to the
pleasures of the turf.—(Hear, hear.) To turn, however,
from the Jockey Club—(A laugh)—he had yet to learn
why any public man, if he thought a public document
had been suppressed, should not state so, and give the
grounds of his belief.—(Hear, hear.) It was the right
and duty of a public man to expose any supposed public
delinquency without being charged with having been
guilty of mean personalities.—(Hear, hear.) He would
follow the Noble Earl through his statement. He thought
their Lordships would agree with him that there was
some ground for suspicion. The charge was that syste-
matically, during the last year, the Colonial-office had
been in the practice of supressing documents, and per-
verting documents in their po,session, thereby leading
the House to inferences which the documents themselves
would not warrant. There were two periods last year
upon which it was important that Parliament should be
in possession of the most accurate information. Those
two periods were when the subject of the West Indies
was discussed in Parliament, and also when the Com-
mittee on the subject was sitting ; and it was at those
periods that the charge was made that important docu-
ments were not given which ought to have been given.
The first was a dispatch received from Sir C. Grey on
the 27th of March. The Committee was then on the
point of closing their evidence. On that day the main
question between the Government and West
wwaitshcothneneeatpeadthwyithof legislationthtehe
planters ?of
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ti s
tchoaut n t
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oo
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Indians was discussed, namely, whether the distress
Sir C. Grey sent a report, prepared by the Assembly
of Jamaica, as to the causes of distress, and evidence
to support it, and it was accompanied by a dispatch of
Sir C. Grey, in which he stated the condition of the
colony, and the measures which he thought necessary to
remove the distress. The Committee closed their evi-
dence on the sth of April; and on that day the Under
Secretary was examined before the Committee. It had
been made the subject of observation that no dispatch
had been received on the subject from the Governor of
Jamaica; and not only this document was not then laid
before the Committee, but that important document was
never laid before them—ho meant the dispatch of Sir C.
Grey—although the Committee sat till the 29th of May—
although they continued their sittings until that time.—
(Hear, hear.) And if the question before them was
whether a duty of 20s. on foreign and 10'. on British
sugar should be imposed; and that question was lost in
the Committee by a single vote—(hear, hear)—what
effect in that nicely-balanced Committee would
have been produced, he might ask, if it had been known
that the recommendation of the governor precisely
agreed with that proposition?—(hear, hear.) He did
not believe that document was purposely withheld; he
had no doubt it was intended to be communicated to the
Committee both by the Noble Earl and the Under-Se-
cretary; and knowing the course of business in the Co.
lonial-office. he had no doubt whatever that such was the
case.—(Hear, bear,) On the sth of April the Hon.
Gentleman the Under-Secretary for the Colonies was
called before the Committee, and gave the following
evidence. He is asked—" There is no account of the
state of the island, and in the other cases?" The answer
is, " That is generally comprised in the annual report
called the blue book. The fact is, that we have not re-
ceived it." " Does not the governor write dispatches
to the Colonial-office on the subject of the state of the
island, besides that one particular paper, in the course
of the year ?" " Yes, certainly; but I am not aware of
any dispatches from him of any importance which have
been withheld from this Committee."—(Hear, hear,"
from the Ministerial benches.) He went on to say, in
reply to other questions—" We have received from other
colonies very considerable details as to the state of those
colonies, and as to the prospects of agriculture ; but from
Jamaica I can find nothing of the kind. Until very re-
cently I think there has been no such general dispatch
received. That dispatch is now printing for this Com-
mittee. I ought to add, that the governor has been in
the island a very short time." Now, considering the
character of that dispatch, he could not understaud that
the Hon. Gentleman, instead of answering vaguely that a
" dispatch was received," did not say at once, " within a
few days an important document has been received which
will furnish the fullest information to the Committee on
the subject."—(Hear, hear.) Ho could not understand
how the Hon. Gentleman, five or six days after the dis-
patch had been received. could have led the Committee
to believe that it was not of au important character, and
would not tend to facilitate the investigation of the Com-
mittee.—(Hear, hear.) But there was another part of
the case which tended to throw great suspicion on the
whole of these transactions. Meetings of the Committee
were held on the sth, 9th, 14th, 22d, and 29th of May,
six or seven weeks after the receipt of the dispatch. On
the Bth of May a motion was made in the House of Com-
mons for an Address to the Crown for the production of
the latest dispatches from the West Indies. Now, unless
the business of the Colonial-office was conducted in a
more lax manner than when he was connected with that
department, it was morally impossible, not that the
Noble Earl himself but that his subordinates in office,
when they were collecting .the further dispatches to be
submitted to Parliament, should not have perceived that
this important dispatch, which was intended to be sent,
had not been communicated; and he conceived it equally
impossible that on the discovery of such an omission
instant steps were not taken to repair the error,
and to furnish the document to the Committee before
they came to a decision, and not after.—(Hear.) Though
he gave entire credit, after the speech of the Noble Earl
to the statement that they had not withheld this docu-
ment designedly from the Committee, its having been
withheld formed a reasonable ground of suspicion ; and
the fact that it was not communicated during the long
interval in which the blunder must have been discovered
afforded a strong presumption that the Government were
unwilling to have the document placed in the hands of
the Committee before they came to a decision.—(Hear.
hear.) And it added to that suspicion when they found
that the same thing occurred with regard to documents
from other colonies. There was a dispatch from the
Governor of Demerara, which inclosed several docu-
ments relative to the distress of the colony, and declar-
ing that it was impossible for the planters to compete
with slave labour. But one, and only one, of those do-
cuments was sent to the Committee, and that a statement
of a stipendiary magistrate charging the planters with
gross apathy and negligence.—(Hear, hear.) It was
strange that this should have been the only document
sent to the Committee, and at a time, too, when they
were about coming to a decision, and when it might
have some influence on that decision. He believed that
the Hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary expressed his
regret that the dispatch was not communicated, and that
in his opinion it ought to be communicated. But the
Noble Earl took upon himself the entire responsibility of
not communicating, and said that he was right in with-
holding it. He would now go to a third dispatch of the
4th of September, and another of the 18tb, from Lord
Harris, the governor of Trinidad. At the commence-
ment of the session the Hon. Member for Montrose
moved for the production of papers connected with
the West Indies, and particularly with regard to
Trinidad ; and it was singular that till the discussion on
his Noble Friend's motion had begun and been nearly
brought to a close those dispatches, which would have
been material in the discussion, had not been placed in
the hands of Members. This might have been a case
of inadvertence or pardonable omission; but when he
read the language of Lord Harris he thought the
House would be of opinion that those dispatches ought
to hare been laid before the Committee. The dispatch
of the 18th of September was received the '22d of Oc-
tober, 1847, and Lord Harris says in it—" The distress
is excessive, it is increasing daily; there is an unprece
dented stagnation of business; the present crop will be
abandoned from the want of the means to pay fox the
necessary labour; the chief cause of this is that the
prices received for sugar this year will not repay the
cost of production." He then expresses his conviction
that the colony would relapse into a state of barbarism
if more than ordinary relief was not afforded.—(Hear,
hear.) Another dispatch was received in September
from Sir C. Grey, the Governor of Jamaica, in which he
says—" I think it my duty to mention that the low prices
of sugar in London, without any corresponding reduction
of the duties, threaten with ruin many plantations." This
document and the document from Trinidad were in the
hands of Government in October, and yet it was not laid
before Parliament till the 28th of March. With this
dispatch from Jamaica in the possession of the Govern.
went, he was surprised at the conduct of an honourable,
high-minded, and sincere man—one who would be the
last in the world to disguise, conceal, or palliate any
fact whatever—ho alluded to the Right lion. Gentleman
the President of the Board of Trade—with regard to a
question put to him by Mr. Goulburn, respecting the
receipt of dispatches from Jamaica. That Bight Hon.
Gentleman said that no dispatch had been received
giving any general account of the state of Jamaica, but
if any such document should be received it would be
communicated by the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
Here, therefore, was another point which afforded ground
wretch u
who
for strong suspicion with regard to the motives of Go-
vernment in putting by these documents. The Noble
. Earl opposite would forgive him if he used a homely
simile in illustration of the position of the Colonial-office.
_lle. Noble Earl said that if he were guilty of the charges
m
against
washi m
ever h e
placedwould
ab
te
the b
morea
r oft criminalhe 0 than any
He hoped,
therefore, that the Noble Lord would not con-
sider it offensive if Bailey.
illustration.be went to the same locality for his
Suppose the Noble Earl, or himself, or any
of their Lordships, had been charged with passing coun-
terfeit money—as it was
sLossible that any of them might
pass a bad half-crown. _nohumanr aany
ofb eing theirwLoourldds suspect Lordships,
s
the Noble Earl, or himself,
wilfully committing such an act; but if it turnedp 'ouot
that, after having passed. one bad half-crown, the same
individual proceeded to pass half a dozen other bad half-
crowns, and that a dozen more were found in his pocket,
that would very much alter the appearance of the whole
transaction, and that which at first had but the appear-
ance of guilt, would be a conclusive proof of the guilty
knowledge.—(Hear and laughter.) What he had hereto.
fore said applied only to the Colonial-office—what he was
now about to say had a personal application to the Noble
Earl. Oa the 7th Feb. he (Lord Stanley) felt it to be his
duty to call the attention of the House to the state of the
West Indies, and he stated that the persons whose peti-
tion he was then presenting attributed their distress to
British legislation, and particularly to the Act of 1846.
In reply to his statement the Noble Earl said that even
admitting the distress to be true, it was not to be attri-
buted to the Act of 1846, but to other causes, amongst
which he particularly specified the wasteful and extra-
vagant management of the plantations and the preva-
lence of absenteeism. The Noble Lord adverted to a
document which he then held in his band, which he
justly styled "an able and admirable dispatch " from