The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-18 00:00:00

PARLIAMENTARY DIVISIONS

(From the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Commons)
SATURDAY, AUG. 15.
BRITISH POSSESSIONS BILL.
Order for Third Reading read ; Motion made, and Question pro-
Posed, " That the Bill be now read the third time :"—Amendment
proposed, to leave out the word " now," and at the end of the Ques-
tion to add the words " upon this day three months :"--Question
put, " That the word ' now' stand part of the Question." The
House divided:—

MAJORITY-AYES, 47.
Arundel, Earl of Forster, Mathew Pechell, Captain
Berkeley, Captain Greene, Thomas Rich, Henry
Bernal, Ralph Grey, Sir G. Russell, Lord J.
Borthwiek, Peter Hatton, Captain Shell R L.

Bright, John Hawes, B. • Sheridan, R. B.
Brown, W. Hill, Lord M. Tancred, H. W.
Buller, Charles . Hobhouse, Sir John Turner, Edmund
Byng, G. S. Howard, I'. H. Vane, Lord H.
Christie, W. D. Jervis, Sir John Wakley, Thomas
Courtenay, Lord Labouchere, Henry Wilshere, T. W.
Cowper, W. F. Macaulay, T. 11. Wood, Charles
Duncan, George Mettle, Fox Wortley, J. S.
Dundas, Admiral Milnes, R. Monckton Wyse, Thomas
D. 11131.11111. Ileyiel. 711 0rne4.....3759.5r-^•••
Escott, Bickham O'Conor Don
Elwell, Ralph Parker, John

Tufnell, H.
Craig, W. G.

pentinck,Lord G.

MINORITY—NOES, 8.
Rolleston, Colonel TELLERS.
Spooner, Richard
Walsh, Sir J. 8.1 Beresford, Major
Yorke, E. T. Newdegatc, C. N.

Douglas, Sir H.
Gore, Montague
Henley, J. W.

THE SUGAR BILL.
PROTESTS AGAINST THE SECOND READING.

Dissentient,—

1. Because, after the Legislature had nearly half a cen-
tury, and the country above half a century ago, condemned
the African slave-trade as the worst of human crimes, com •
prising almost all others, and as the greatest practical evil
that ever afflicted the world, we cover ourselves with a dis-
grace never to be effaced by adopting a measure whose
avowed object is immediately and largely to increase the
mass of sugar grown in the slave-trading countries, and
which can only be grown by an immediate and large im-
portation of Africans. Consequently, the avowed object of
the measure is the encouragement of the African slave-
trade, as much as murder, and not robbery alone, is the
avowed object of the felon who destroys his neighbour in
order that he may possess his property, by removing him
out of his way.
2. Because it is in vain to disguise from ourselves and
cover over the guilt of slave trading thus iucurred, by
pretending that we do not directly offer any premium for
its encouragement. We as directly partake of that enormous
crime by knowingly and wilfully augmenting the amount of
the traffic which lays waste the villages of Africa, and de-
solates her coasts, as those do whom we brand with the
name of felons, and visit with the pains of felony, for only
letting to hire the ships employed in the traffic, although
they have no more direct participation in the African voyage.
3. Because nothing can be more futile than the defence of
our conduct drawn from a reference to the importation which
is allowed of cotton and other articles, the growth of slave-
dealing countries. If that importation be an encouragement
of slave trading, it was criminal to permit it, and the fact of
our having once been guilty is no excuse for extending and
multiplying our offences. But the great bulk of such com-
merce is notoriously carried on with countries in which
slave tradindhas long ceased to be practised. Moreover,
the chief branch of the importation, that of cotton, was
established nearly a quarter of a century before we our-
selves abolished the slave trade ; and there is the greatest
possible difference between refusing to give up a trade or a
practice of any kind already adopted, and entering for the
first time into a novel career of crimes not yet begun to be
perpetrated.
4. Because the question now under the consideration of
Parliament differs from every other part of the discus-
sion so long carried on respecting the slave trade and
slavery. In all former cases our offence was that we
delayed to abolish a criminal system already, and for
ages, established ; we only refused to do that which was
clearly right. But now we are doing that which is clearly
wrong; and are for the first time beginning, rot continuing,
a slave trade. We are actively creating a slave trade which
does not now exist, and not passively suffering an existing
traffic to go on.
5. Because it is vain to expect that other nations will shut
their eyes to the garb of hypocrisy in which this conduct of
ours clothes all our professions of zeal for the abolition.
When we urge them to join in putting down the execrable
traffic, they will point to our act encouraging it; and, re-
quired by us to abandon the gains which they derive from
conniving at the traffic, they will marvel at our boldness in
expecting such sacrifices from them when we all the while
are encouraging it ourselves for the avowed purposes of
cheapening a luxury that we relish, and adding a small sum
to the mass of our revenue.

6. Because it is altogether preposterous to cite in such a 1
debate the principles of political philosophy, and to call this
a sacrifice to the doctrine of free trade. The highest autho-
rities have long ago proclaimed that in this measure there
are involved no considerations of commercial or financial
policy ; but, as one of the late Ministers said, " the honour
of this country," as another asserted, " the credit and repu-
tation of this country," and as all impartial men who con-
sidered the subject have said, the creating or the prevent-
ing an amount of suffering among peaceful and unoffending
nations, so frightful to contemplate, that no calculator of
profit and loss can be hard-hearted enough to weigh against
it the largest amount of gain, whether commercial or finan-
cial, which could be conceived to result from our legis-
lation.

7. Because, finally, the hurrying through Parliament at
the very close of a long and laborious session, and in the
absence of nearly all its members, a measure of so desperate
a character, and which is connected with other measures
seriously affecting our whole colonial policy, as well as the
trading interests of the mother country, betokens on the
part of its authors an impatience of delay and of full dis-
cussion, only to be explained by the supposition that the ex-
traordinary state of parties at the present moment offers
them the only chance of carrying their measures which
would assuredly have been rejected, as they were five years
ago, as soon as those parties had resumed their wonted po-
sition. BROUGHAM.

Dissentient,—
Because, beside all the other reasons of justice' humanity
and sound policy, which prohibit a measure so directly, so
inevitably tending to the encouragement of the slave trade
it is wholly intolerable, as it is altogether unprecedented, to
hurry through Parliament, at the very close of the session,
and after almost all its members have left town, such im-
portant measures, without the possibility of full discussion,
and without giving the mother country, or the colonies, any
notice of them—measures which at one blow alter the whole
commercial system of the country, and affect in the most
serious manner, and to the greatest extent, the manufac-
turing and trading community of the empire.
ASHBURTON,
BROUGHAM,
DENMAN,
S. OXON (Wilberforce).

AYRSIIIRE Moons.—Grouse shooting commenced' on
the 12th instant. Accounts represent the birds to be strong
and wild. Sir James Boswell killed upwards of twenty brace
on the moors of Boghead, parish of Auchiuleck. 'We have
heard of several other cases in which considerably fewer were
shot, and from all accounts it appears that the game is rather
scarce.