The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-11 00:00:00

IRISH SECRETARYSHIP.

Colonel PFIICEVAL wished to A( a question of the
Noble Lora, which he should have asked yesterday
had not the House so suddenly adjourned. He begged
to ask- whether a Chief Secretary had been appointed
or was soon to be appointed for Ireland. There were
several important matters in the House, and there were to
be more, respecting Ireland, which it was utterly impos
Bible could be properly attended to, unless that office were
filled up. Not only would business be thus delayed, and
they long detained in town, but the interests of Ireland
would materially suffer, as indeed it had already suffered.
It was, therefore, of great importance to this House that
an official person should be in the House to give them such
information as might he required. None of those changes
which were meditated could he effected without the pre—
sence of such a functionary; and if his appointment were
delayed, they would be compelled to delay their measures
to a late period of the year. He complained that on the
Church Rate Committee, out of thirty-eight Members,
there were only two Irish Members. He had himself
many communications from the county which be had the
honour to represent, which papers be (Colonel Perceval)
ought to have laid before the Chief Secretary for Ireland ;
and under these circumstances he considered it his bounden
duty to his constituents to repeat the question of which he
bad given notice.
Lord ALT HORP said that there could be no doubt of
the importance of this office being filled up as soon as
possible. He could, however, only state to the Hon.
Gentleman that hitherto great difficulty bad occurred in
filling up this office, and it was not at present in his
power to state when it would be filled up.
FACTORIES BILL.
Lord ASHLEY wished to know whether the Noble
Lord opposite intended to lay the paper be had asked for,

( PRICE 7D.

relating to the condition of children labouring in factories,
on the table of the House, and when.
Mr. LAMB said the papers would be laid on the table
as soon as possible.
SOAP DUTIES.
LENNARI) inquired whether those persons who
had a stock of soap on hand would have any allowance
made them in consequence of the withdrawal of the draw-
back, on the alteration of the tax upon that commodity?

Lord ALTHORP replied in the negative.
Mr. W. WHITMORE said that upon referring to the
order book, he found that next Friday there was no ques-
tion before the House that would interfere with his motion
relating to the corn laws, and he should therefore bring it
positively forward on that day.
Sir T. FRENIANTLE observed that the returns he
had moved for relating to both English and foreign corn
had not been laid on the table.

THE DUTCH EMBARGO.
On the order of the day being moved for the House
to go into a Committee or Supply,
Mr. Alderman THOMPSON rose to call the attention
of the House to the state of our foreign relations, parti-
cularly with the King of the Netherlands, with especial
reference to the injurious consequences w'lich the orders
of November and December last had inflicted on the
commercial interests of the country. He contended
that the nation had also sustained heavy imputations
on its honour, in consequence of its conduct in this
matter. It used to be in other times the policy of Eng•
land to uphold the small States against the oppression of the
most powerful, but be must confess that in the politics of
the present day an opposite course had been adopted.
They had seised the ships of the Dutch which were in the
harbour for the last six months, and they were sternly
capturing the Dutch merchantmen on the high seas. It
was supposed that these measures of coercion were
used for the purpose of compelling the King of Holland
to surrender Antwerp into the hands of the Belgians,
but although that bad taken place five months ago the
same system still was pursued, and on what account it was
impossible for any of the parties concerned to
ascertain. Some were disposed to attribute it to one
cause, and some to another. Some that it arose out of the
question regarding the dues to be paid by the King of
Holland for navigating the Scheldt; while others
attributed it to another cause.—(Hear, hear.) He
hoped, however, that whatever the cause might be
of the existing state of our relations with 1101.
land, the Noble Lord, the Secretary of State for
Foreicn Affairs, would give some definite explanation to
the House on the present occasion. It was a most
unparalleled state of things. An embargo had been placed
on all trade between this country and Holland now for six
months, and yet no progress was made in the settlement of
the question. It was said these measures were necessary
towards the peace of Europe but if the King of Holland
had acted on the same principle that this country had
adopted, it would most likely have led to war. The
King of Holland, however, had adopted to his
honour a different line of policy, and not only
did he allow the British ships in his ports
to repair to this country, but when others were
thrown on the shores of Holland, they were allowed to be
repaired, and had their stores recruited. In order to
show to the House the extent of the loss which the
country had sustained, he would state the amount of the
tonnage employed in the trade between this country and
Holland. He had now a petition containing facts on this
subject from South Shields. He had one also from Sun-
derland, and he understood that the Hon. Member for
Newcastle had one from that important town. He then
made the following statement of the number and tonnage
of ships which cleared out for ports in Holland from the
port of South Shields, in the year ending sth January,
1832 :—Number of British ships, 321 ; tonnage of
British ships, 54,661 ; number of foreign ships, 78 ;
tonnage of foreign ships, 7,160. Not one of the 321
vessels, which had at that period been employed in that
trade, could now be employed, or they must seek for
other channels. He had himself recently seen 340 vessels

in the port of Sunderland, lying totally unemployed, and
with no prospect of being employed, because there is now
no prospect of profitable employment, pr even with such
as would afford a fair remuneration. ' The number of
ships from British ports which entered the port of Rot-
terdam in 1832, was 1,200. He bad not beers able to
obtain the official returns of the shipping for the last year,
because the official accounts had not yet been laid on the
table of the House ; at least he bad not been able to exa-
mine them. He would therefore next give a statement
of the number and tonnage of the shipping of the United
Kingdom, engaged in the trade with Holland, in the
year ending the sth January, 1832, and of foreign ships in
the same trade :--Number of British vessels, 1,617 ; ton-
nage of ditto 179,488 ; number of foreign vessels, '784 ;
tonnage of ditt086,461. The British vessels were double
the foreign. Every one of these were now idle. The
amount of British manufactures, and of foreign and co-

lonial produce, imported by British vessels into Holland
was 4,631,0001. Looking also at the state of the rela-
tions of this country with Portugal, which also takes
away a profitable and important branch of the trade of
this country, Ministers ought deeply to have considered
the matter before they bad taken a step which must lead
the shipping interest into further difficulties; for we find,
that if we take the trade of Portugal along with that of
Holland, on an average of three years, it will be found
that 2,000 ships have been thrown out of employment—
having 220,000 tons burden ; and at a time when the
shipping interest is, from other circumstances, in a state
of the most trying difficulty. He knew that the trade of
London during the last year had exhibited a great falling
off, and he did not believe that it had been transferred to
other ports; at least, he knew it had not been transferred
to Liverpool. Having made this statement, the House
would see what a vast injury had been inflicted upon our
own trade, rather than on that of Holland ; for the
ship-owners of Holland had taken measures which almost
nullified, with respect to them, the object of our Govern-
ment. A large proportion of the merchant vessels of
Holland, which were adapted to various trades, had been
transferred to the subjects of neutral powers.—(Heir,
hear, bear.) Hanover, and other flags (the names of some
of which had never been heard of before) were used for
that purpose ; and the owners of the ships received a profit
of from 20 to 30 per cent. on the freight. The Hon.
Alderman here read a letter from Rotterdam, dated 18th
of April, and addressed to a great commercial house in
London, showing the manner in which our Order in Coun-
cil had been evaded. But the injury which our trade had
suffered was not confined to Europe. When the news ar-
rived in South America, and in the ports of the United
States, that our Government had laid an embargo on
Dutch vessels, British ships could no longer obtain invest.
mews from the South and North American merchants ;
they considering it manifest that the embargo was preli-
minary to war, and preferred to send their goods by neu-
tral vessels. After some time the alarm abated ; but even
then neutral vessels obtained five-eighths of a penny freight,
while English vessels could obtain only four-eighths of a
penny freight ; the difference of the insurance being the
cause of the inequality. The effect on our trade in the
East had also been considerable. There were Dutch men
of war at Trincomalee ; and great alarm was felt lest
English ships should be detained at Batavia, as a matter
of retaliation, when it was known there that Dutch ships
had been detained in the ports of England. The value of
the Dutch property seized in English ports was estimated
at 350,0001. or 400,0001. ; the greater part of which be-
longed to English capitalists ; and more than two-thirds of
which had been insured in England. Some part of the pro-
perty alleged to be Dutch, actually belonged to neutrals.
Application had been made for its release, which, however,
was not obtained until after great delay and expense. In one
case, in which the cargo was worth only 3,000/. theexpenses
of the application, of the dock charges, &c., bad amounted
to no less than 2671. Se. 6d. The first Order in Coun-
cil, of the 6th of November, had been followed up by
another, admitting the release of perishable
Iles.article
Great difficulties had, however, resulted from the d
rence of opinion which existed, whether certain articles
were perishable or not. The Hon. Alderman stated se-
veral cases of this description. One was that of a vessel
for Rotterdam from Smyrna, laden principally with fruit
She was captured and sent into Gibraltar, where she was
ordered to be released on the ground of her having a pc
rishable cargo. Of course she proceeded on her voyage in
full confidence; but when she arrived in the English
Channel, she was again seized ; and although she had the
certificate of her release at Gibraltar, the application fur
her release in this country was refused. Another vessel
having a ,perishable cargo was detained for six weeks,
by which time the cargo had perished, but no indemnifi-
cationallthese was
mattersallowed.
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he could not conceive the existence at the present moment oi.