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

racteristic of the Noble Lord by whom this charge had
ben made in the other House that he never entered on
the discussion of any great public measure without im-
puting vile and disgraceful motives to those to whom he
was opposed.—(Hear, hear) That Noble Lord seemed
to imagine that he (Earl Grey) had the desire, in some
inexplicable way, to depress and damage the West
India colonies, by any means, fair or foul. Would
it not have been perfectly possible to discuss
the question whether or not protection against foreign
sugar was really a benefit to the colonies and the
mother country without entering into this further dis-
cit;sion—whether he, as Secretary of State, and those
who were associated with him in office, were endeavour-
ing to support a policy which they knew would be
ruinous to the West India colonies, and inconsistent with
all fairness to the colonists?—(Hear, hear.) He pro-
tested against this system of always viewing with suspi-
cion the motives of others.—(Hear, hear.) He must
own he had heard with deep regret, and with an altera-
tion of the opinion he had hitherto entertained of the
tairnesa of the Noble Lord opposite (Lord Stanley),
which he feared he could never entertain again—(Loud
cheers)—he had heard with deep regret that Noble
Lord take up the view of his political ally on this sub-
ject, and speak with all that ingenuity which belonged
to him, with all the ability and energy which invariably
characterised all he said in that House, and with all the
practised art of the rhost able advocate, for the purpose
of attaching to him (Earl Grey) what he could not call
less than an intentional prevarication.—(Hear.) Thai
the Noble Lord should have taken such pains to bring
home to him that charge was to him most deeply painful.
—(Hear.) The Noble Lord had also adopted what he
(Earl Grey) most utterly repudiated—the distinction
between the personal and official conduct of a man hold-
ing a high situation.—(Hear, hear.) He might say
these were charges against a Minister, but they were
els° charges against a man.—(Cheers.) He firmly be-
lieved, from the little experience he had had of public
life, that any one who would shrink from so acting
would also shrink from making such accusations.—
(Hear, hear.) He was surprised that the Noble Lord
(Stanley) should have adopted so ungenerous and so
utterly imperfect a view of what was reported to have
fallen from his Noble Friend Lord John Russell on the
occasion referred to. He utterly denied that his Noble
Friend had made any such charge or representation with
regard to the pursuits of the turf.—(Hear, hear.) It
would indeed have been strange for the Noble Lord, with
one of his nearest and dearest relations connected with
that branch of national amusement, to have thrown any
ungenerous censure on those noblemen and gentlemen
who were so engaged. The Noble Lord had done no
such thing.—(Cheers.) Every one knew that the pur-
suit of racing when adopted from the love of the amuse-
!
tnent, and from fondness for the noble animals by which
that sport was carried on, was an amusement perfectly
, innocent, and one that contributed to some very impor-
tant national interests. But was it not notorious that
there were on the turf, not only those who pursued the
amusement in an honourable and manly way as a sport,
but others who made it a sort of calling—a profession
the Noble Lord (J. Russell) had called it—in the vilest
Tirit of gambling and in the love of gain—men who con-
sidered that fair which in any other walk of life would
be utterly disgraceful—who talked coolly of what was
very much like picking pockets, betting against
horses which they knew could not possibly start—and
who were in the habit of " paying for information,"
which meant bribing the servants of trainer's and others
to obtain the secrets of their masters' stables?—(Cheers.)
All his Noble Friend had said or intended to say was,
that the Noble Lord (G. Bentinck) having been necessa-
rily brought into contact with persons like these, having
'levoted a great deal of his time, ingenuity, perseverance,
and ability, in detecting the frauds committed by such
persons, had contracted a habit of looking with suspi-
cion at the conduct of men who did not deserve it, and of
regarding them in the same light as those whose practices
and conduct he had been in the habit of investigating
and exposing—that he had contracted habits like those
of the police, who, being continually on the track of
crime, imagined it where it did not exist.—((;heers and
laughter.) That was a perfectly fair, legitimate, and
just argument. But if his Noble Friend had been be-
euiled by the heat of argument into going somewhat be-
yond the strict line of discretion, he was not only en-
titled to the warmest gratitude from himself (Earl
Grey), he was also entitled to the admiration of their
Lordships, for when he himself was attacked, he stood
Almost alone for the unexampled patience, temper, and
forbearance with which he invariably met the most diffi-
cult attacks, and no man ever saw him betrayed into
unnecessary heat—(Hear, hear)—if he ever was be-
trayed into indiscretion, it was the indignation of a ge-
terous mind at an attack directed against an absent
friend.—(Cheers.) He was surprised that the Noble Lord
(Stanley), whom he used to think capable of high and
generous feelings, should not have taken his view of the
conduct of Lord J. Russell, but should have represented
what he had said in the most invidious light, and have
striven to swell the cry most unjustly raised against
him. Such a coarse was wholly unworthy of the Noble
Lord. After what had fallen from the Noble Lord, he
(Lord Grey) felt he must be content to throw himself
on their Lordships' indulgence; for he confessed he did
not feel himself equal, as an advocate, to grapple with
the Noble Lord in regard to the inferences which he had
ingeniously drawn from scattered passages in a variety
of papers, and from a skilful comparison of dates. He
had not the memory to follow the Noble Lord through
those details. Naturally the question was one not a
little agitating to his feelings; and he did not feel him-
self capable of unravelling that ingenious web of so-
phistry which the Noble Lord had woven, as he could do
had he the time necessary for the task. For skilful as
the Noble Lord was in that art of " dressing up a case
'or Parliament," he never showed that skill in a more
'minent degree than he had done in driving home the
poisoned arrow discharged by another.—(Cheers.) He
would notice two or three points on which the Noble
Lord had dealt. First, with regard to the Trinidad
papers; they were moved for in November, but not being
ready before the House adjourned they were presented
on the very first day after the recess. He had before
lira the votes of the House of Commons, which showed
!hat that was the case.

Lord STANLEY—What I stated was, that those
papers were not laid before Parliament until the debate
to which they referred had commenced, and were not
printed for the use of Members till near its conclusion.
Earl GREY repeated that on the very day that Par-
liament re-assembled, being the earliest practicable day,
they were laid o❑ the table of the House, and though he
could not speak positively from memory he believed
they had been delivered printed to Members within a
day or two.—(Cheers.) The next point was the use he
had made of a dispatch of Governor Higginson. He
had used the dispatch to support the view he took, a
view which nothing had occurred to shake. He con-
sidered the statements of governors of colonies of ex-
treme value when relating to matters of fact, but when
relating to opinions, of very little value.—(Hear, hear.)
He considered that the Government in this country,
caking a much more enlarged view of causes and ef-
fects, and not biassed by the spectacle of great distress
immediately around them, were capable of draw-
ing sounder conclusions from the facts stated
than those actually on the spot. That dispatch
gad been communicated to the Committee of
the other House, he believed, among the very
first papers that the Committee had called for after the
recess. With regard to Jamaica, the Noble Lord laid
very great stress on the keeping back of a dispatch
received ore the 22r1 of October from Sir Charles Grey.
['hat dispatch stated only what was perfectly notorious,
the existence of great distress in the island, and the
opinion of the governor that a change in the duties was
neoessary.—(Hear, hear, from Lord Stanley.) About
that there could be no secret ; for Sir C. Grey had
expressed the same opinion in opening the colonial
legislature, and his speech had appeared in almost every
newspaper in England and in the colony ; so that
it would have been quite childish to think of concealing
that.—(Hear, hear.) The last point to which he
would allude was the Jamaica memorial. He had
quoted that document merely to prove certain facts
which he thought material ; and if the report of his
speech which the Noble Lord had quoted were correct,
it showed tbat the memorial was one which had been
presented to him by the planters of Jamaica, com-
plaining of great distress ; and whatever might have been
the value of the document in his eyes, his argument
was that the complaining parties had admitted facts
.vhich, iu his mind, led to a conclusion with regard to
the future different from the one at which they had
themselves arrived. The facts stated demonstratively
led to this conclusion—that in a part of the island of
Jamaica a very considerable change in society had taken
place, and that there was springing up a class of resident
planters, lessees of the estates, who were carrying on the
cultivation. That fact only he had quoted; he had not
gone into their particulars about the distress, because
the whole tenor of his argument was that there un-
doubtedly existed heavy and grievous distress; but he
had endavoured to show that there were causes in ope-
ration which would lead to an improvement. He was
perfectly aware that the memorialists said they could
not carry on their cultivation another year; he
adopted their testimony as to facts, but he did not
adept their opinions. He no more took for grunted all
they said about the possibility of cultivating sugar in Ja-
maica than he had taken for granted what had been said
by the Noble Lord opposite and the farmers of this
country as to the possibility of carrying on the cultiva-
tion of wheat in England.—(Cheers and laughter.) In
that case, his own interest as a proprietor of the soil
being strongly involved, be had taken the liberty of
forming his own judgment as to the cultivation of land
in this country ; and he had done the same with regard
to Jamaica.—(Hear, hear.) If the whole memorial
were read, it more strongly supported the argument he
had addressed to the House, than did the particular
passage he had quoted. Be that as it might, the inten-
tion of taking any unfair advantage was absolutely ne-
gatived by the tact of the memorial, with the other
papers, being included in those laid before the
Com-
mittee at a very early stage of its proceedings.—(Hear,
hear.) He would not enter further into these topics;
and had it not been that what had fallen from him had
been distorted, he should not have entered into them at
all, but should have acquiesced in the advice given by
the Noble Lord (Brougham) opposite.
Lord STANLEY said that with regard to the effect
which his statement had produced on the feelings of the
Noble Earl (Grey) towards himself, much as he might
regret it, he must submit to it as a consequence of per-
forming what he believed to be a duty. The debate had
not been of his seeking; he had not desired the raising
of this or any other question; and the " ingenious
tissue," which the Noble Earl said he had woven, had
not been volunteered by himself, but had arisen from
following strictly the line taken by the Noble Earl, and
by referring to all those cases to which the Noble Earl
referred—not to show that the Noble Earl had been
guilty of any suppression, but to show that, looking at
particular documents not brought before the public, and
looking at the particular time at which they ought to
have been brought forward, there was fair and reason-
, able ground for parties to believe that some improper