The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-11 00:00:00

EVENING, APRIL 11, 1851.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

cHOUSE OF LORDS, April 10.
The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat upon tin Woo;
sack at Five o'clock.

MUTINY BILLS.

Oa the motion of the Duke of WELLINGTON the
Mutiny Bill and the Marine Mutiny Bill were respec-
tively read a third time and passed.

APPRENTICES AND SERVANTS BILL.

On the motion of the Earl of CARLISLE this Bi
was passed through Committee.

into the Germanic Confederation of the n on-German ter-
ritories possessed by those Courts, and the guarantee of
that Confederation for such possessions (including Austrian
and Prussian Poland, Austrian Italy, Hungary, and the
Free City of Cracow, &e.); whether any notification had
been made to these Courts of her Majesty's intention to
insist upon the maintenance of those stipulations of the
Treaty of Vienna, by which such an encroachment
upon the integrity of Germany and the liberties of
Europe is guarded against; and whether the Noble Lord
would lay on the table of the House the correspondence
on those subjects?
Lord PALMERSTON said a communication was
made to the Government some time ago with respect
to the intention on the part of Prussia and
Austria to propose the incorporation of territories
not hitherto belonging to the Germanic Confederation.
The House was aware that, by article 53 of the Treaty
of Vienna, it was stated that the Germanic Confederation
should consist of certain Sovereigns and Sovereign
Princes, and that the Confederation was to belong to the
t he Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia for such of
their possessions or all their possessions which belonged
to the ancient German Confederation. According to
that stipulation part of Wallachia, Hungary, Croatia,
and Dalmatia, were not included in the Germanic Con-
federation. The following article of the treaty dis-
tinctly stated that the object of the Confederation was
the maintenance of the internal and external safety of
Germany, and the inviolability of the states belonging
to the Confederation. Therefore, when her Majesty's
Government heard that it was the intention to incorpo-
rate these states, they were of opinion that that intention
could not be carried into effect under the treaty, un-
less with the consent of all those Powers who
were parties to the treaty, and in accordance
with that opinion the Government did not
follow the example of France, as the Hon. and Learned
Gentleman stated, but anticipated the example of France,
and as early as the 3d of December last made a remon•
strance with Prussia and Austria on the subject. They
protested in a formal manner against the incor-
poration of those states, and renewed their re-
monstrances, not only at Vienna and Berlin, but
to each and all of the states, composing the
Germanic Confederation. But knowing, as they must
all do, in the first place the great value which Austria
and Prussia have always attached to the Treaty
of Vienna and to tho strictness with which those
Governments ought in principle to obey their
engagements, and seeing, moreover, the great import-
ance it was, especially to those two powers,
that the Treaty of Viena, by which so many of the states
of Europe held their present possessions, should be re-
spected, he could not himself entertain a doubt, that in
the result that treaty would be obeyed, and that those
intentions, which seemed to have been hastily and lightly
adopted, probably without sufficient attention to the
stipulations which were contravened, would not be per.
tasted in or carried into effect.—(Hear.)

Mr. ANSTEY wished to know whether the Noble
Lord would have any objection to lay the papers before
the House.
Lord PALMERSTON said he was sure the House
would agree with him, that it would be inconvenient
and injurious to the public service to lay the papers on
the table with regard to a pending negotiation.—(Hear.)
SHIPWRECKS—RETURN FROM LLOYDS'.

Mr. HUME moved for a return, from Lloyds' books,
of all collisions, accidents, and wrecks of vessels, distin-
guishing, in columns, the sailing from steam-vessels, and
specifying the nature of each collision, accident, or wreck,
and the number of lives lost by each, in each year, since
the Ist day of January, 1847, to the 31st day of Decem-
ber, 1850.

Kingdom and the colonies. He would not then enter
into the question as to whether any reduction, or what,
could be made in the expenditure of the Government of
the United Kingdom; but he was of opinion that a very
considerable reduction might be made in our colonial ex-
penditure.—(Hear, hear.) In order to sustain his posi-
tion it would be necessary for him to state the expendi-
tare of the United Kingdom with respect to her colonies;
but he regretted to say that he could not procure returns
for a later year than up to the date of 1846. The Noble
Lord at the head of the Woods and Forests knew how
hard it was to obtain accounts and returns of that de-
scription. Since the year 1846 some reductions had been
made in that expenditure, bat he believed they would be
found to be very inconsiderable when compared to what
might be made.—(Hear.) The expenditure of the colonies
in 1846, then, it appeared, had amounted to 3,500,000/.
The civil expenditure had been 500,000/. ; and the
military, including ordnance and commissariat charges,
about 3,000,000/. It appeared that the military ix.penditure had increased very rapidly of late years ; for
the amount in 1846 was 1,200,000/. more than it had
been in 1832-33. But the amount he had stated did not
by any means cover the military expenditure of the
colonies; for that was only the sum paid for actual teili-
tary service then being performed. There was besides a
large sum to be paid for services already rendered in the
colonies, which must prove a perpetual amount of dead
weight. Taking into account the whole military expen-
diture of the country at 6,600,0004 for effective service
and 2,000,000/ for non- eff ctive, he was entitled to de-
duct 5 -11ths of that 2,000,0001.. and set down The amount
of the dead weight at 1,000,0001, which being added to
3.000,0001., made the colonial expenditure 4,000,0004
He was entitled, moreover, to add a further sum f, ,r extra
troops to afford relief to the troops serving in the colo-
nies.—(Hear, hear.) In bringing forward a motion for
the income-tax Sir Robert Peel had said th 4 " the
main expenditure of the army was caused by the extent
of our colonial dependencies. To. have those depen-
dencies, and to make no relief for the troops serving
in them, would be inconsistent with humanity as weal
as effective service. This country had thirty-five
battalions of forces, not for the purpose of restraining
its population, but to carry out a system of relief; for
our rule was for the army, five years at home and ten
years in the colonies." The meaning of Sir Robert
Peel's speech was, that you must renew the income-tax
because you cannot reduce your expenditure. We must
afford relief to the troops in our colonies. It appeared
also from what the Right Hon. Secretary at War had
said a few nights ago that for every two regiments which
we had abroad we should have one at home. Thus, sup-
posing there were 30,000 troops on service abroad, we
were bound to have 15,000 at home to relieve them.—
(Hear.) He believed ho did not over-estimate the mili-
tary cost of our colonies when he took it at 4,000,000/.
a-year. That amounted to a sum of 9s. in the pound on
our exports to the colonies, and exceeded the whole of
the local revenues of the colonies by 600,000/. He felt
persuaded that a considerable reduction might be effected
in that expenditure. At the present moment the number
of troops in our colonies amounted to not less than 44,000
men, exclusive of the reinforcements which had just been
sent to the Cape of Good Hope. Now the only effectual
method of reducing the colonial expenditure would
be to diminish that excessive force. A consi-
derable portion of the troops were employed in the
defence of those military stations which we held in
various quarters of the world. In those stations we had,
in the year 1847, not less than 16,700 men who were
maintained at a cost of 710,0001. a year. This country
desired to be the first naval power in the world—to en-
joy the dominion of the seas for purposes of internal se-
curity, and for the protection of her commerce; and it
was, therefore, assumed to be necessary that she should
occupy strongly-fortified positions in various quarters of
the globe. But he believed it would be admitted that
those military stations should be as few as possible; and
should be so selected that they might bo maintained with
the least possible expense. They should, in fact, be
small isolated spots. It would not be good policy on the
part of this country to take military possession of vast
islands, or of large portions of continents, or to attempt
to defend an extensive coast or a long line of frontier.
That attempt had been made in South Africa with the
most costly and disastrous results. He feared that if we
were to persevere in that policy, the British empire, while
it extended its extremities would paralyse its centre, and
would ultimately perish of exhaustion. There were, in
his opinion, but eight or nine stations which it was
desirable that we should occupy as military posts
namely, Gibraltar and Malta, in the Mediterranean ;
Bermuda, in the Mid Atlantic; Halifax, commanding
the coast of North America; Barbados-s, among the
West India Islands; the peninsular extremity of South
Africa, on the route to India; the Mauritius, in the
same quarter; Singapore, at the entrance of the Chinese
seas; and perhaps he might add Hong Kong, in the
same seas. He readily admitted that the charge of
maintaining the troops in these stations ought to devolve
upon the mother country. The general rule in that
matter was that troops required fur Imperial purposes
ought to be paid for out of the Imperial Exchequer, and
that troops required for colonial purposes ought to be
paid for by the colonists; but in order to carry out
that principle it would be necessary to extend to the
colonies the principle of local self-government. Ever
since New England had been discovered it had been the
policy of this country to plant her distant possessions
with other Englands, and it was manifestly her interest,
and ought to be her ambition, that those her children
occupying what had previously been the uninhabited
portions of the earth's surface, should carry with them
to their new homes the laws, the institutions, and the
feelings of Englishmen that they should there
become energetic, capable, and willing to aid their
parent in times of need, and not weak, puling
infants, ever crying to their mother for assist-
ance, and exhausting her purse. If our cote-
ides were attacked during a war in which the whole
empire was involved, the mother country ought, no
doubt, mainly to bear the expense of deleneing the colo-
nies in such a case; but even then, he believed that the
colonies, if well governed, would readily contribute their
fair portion towards meeting the expense of such a war.
But, in the case of a war with frontier tribes, the ques-
tion arose whether the expenses of a war of that descrip-
tion ought to be borne by the local Government in
each colony, or whether a portion of those expenses
ought to be defrayed by the Imperial Government.
Now, it appeared to him that the answer to that question
depended entirely on the nature of the Government es-
tablished in the colony. If the inhabitants of the colony
enjoyed local self-government, then he said that they
should be held responsible for the cost of such a war,
and that no portion of it should be defrayed by the Im-
perial Government. He believed that if that principle
were adopted the local Government would take good
care not rashly to engage in such a war—(Hear, hear)—
and that,' when engaged in it, they would take good care
to bring it to a termination as speedily as possible, and
at the least possible expense. But that, unfortunately,
was not the case when the Imperial Government had to
defray the expenses of the war, because there were many
persons in every colony who had a direct sinister inte-
rest in increasing the amount of the Imperial expendi-
ture. The people and the Government of this country
had no means of controlling that expenditure, nor
even of becoming acquainted with the mode in which
their money had been spent. He believed that
no Member of that House had any notion how
2,000,000/. bad been expended in the late Kafir
war ; and Sir H. Pottinger had stated in a dispatch
to Lord Grey, that it would be impossible to convey
any idea of the fraud, peculation, and confusion which
had prevailed during that war. Generally speaking the
House knew nothing whatever about those matters until
two or three years atter the money had been expended,
and then they were told that measures would be taken
to prevent the recurrence of such expenditure in future.
The House was easily satisfied with such a statement,
and nothing more was heard upon the subject until they
were again furnished with a similar Bill.—(Hear, hear.)
It appeared to him to be of the utmost importance that
we should not, if possible, be rendered liable for any bill
on account of such a war, because a Bill of the kind
would always be sure to be a most extortionate one. If
in any particular case it should be deemed expedient
that this country should conies to the assistance of a
colony possessing representative institutions, it appeared
to him that by far the best and most economical mode of
so doing would be to give the colonists a round sum of
money, and then let them employ that money in the
manner they might deem most advisable. But it the
inhabitants of a colony had not the management of their
own affairs, if they were governed directly by the
Colonia-office, then the Imperial Government would
be responsible for the management and the
expense of any war in which the colony might
be involved. Then, again, troops might be required
in a colony in order to preserve internal peace and
tranquillity. Now, if those troops were necessary for
the purpose of suppressing riots and insurrections, it was
evident that the riots and insurrections must be the re

suit of bad government, and for the consequences of that
bad government he would hold the governing body re-
sponsible. If, therefore, the colonists had the manage-
ment of their affairs placed in their own hands, he
would compel them to pay the cost of troops employed
in such a service; and if, on the other hand, they did
not enjoy self-government, he thought the mother
country ought to bear the charge. In the case of the
war in Canada, this country, which, by the misgovern-
ment of the authorities by which it was representee l, had
been responsible for that war, had been compelled to
pay its expenses; and that very circumstance had con-
vinced us of the policy of extending self-government to
Canada for the future. He confidently believed that
the occurrence of a now Kafir war, and the expenses to
which it would give rise, would open our eyes to the
wisdom of pursuing a similar policy at the Cape of
Good Hope. He contended, therefore, first,theaatune(oi
troops ought to ba maintained at the expense of
the United Kingdom in a colony properly so
after it had obtained representative institutions,
yp, rethseartva if preservation ofinternal
Imperial
Governmentpeac
either for a war with savage tribes on its frontier,
or for
sectohnedl
e were
ands
en-
gaged eeu-
rity in a war with a foreign Power, the expense of the
troops placed to defend the colony ought to be defrayed
by the Imperial Government; and, lastly, L : ecr
that for cer-
tain Imperial purposes it was deemed expedient to gar-
rison certain military etatioes, the expense of those gar-
risons ought to be defrayed by the Imperial Govern-
ment. Ho would next pa:;s to a review of our different
colonies, and endeavour to ascertain how far reductions
might be effected in the expenditure in each particular
instance. .Ele would begin with the North American
colonies. In the year 1834-35 a Committee of that
House had recommended that the utmost economy should
be aclvted in every branch of our military expenditure.
At that period, however, the number of our troops in
the North American colonies bad amounted to only

5,369 men, maintained at an annual expense to this
country of 337,0001. Since that period a very great in-
crease had been made in the military force in these
colonies, with a corresponding increase in the effective
military expenditure of the United Kingdom, on account
of them. In 1846-7 the military force in these colonies
bad amounted to 9,743 men, and the effietive expen-