The Sun.
London, England, 1832-04-18 00:00:00

' stead of being promoted to higher rank, tlae
press bids fair to be superseded in its actual
functions. The nation will be her own mover.
The Parliament, instead of the journalist body,
will be the focus to concentrate, and afterwards
to disperse, the lights of opinion which pour in
from the various points of the community ; and
instead or the press, or its members, deriving
increased influence from the establishment of this
great Reform law, they must infallibly surren-
der to a more direct and natural trustee that
which, happily for the people, they have hereto-
fore been compelled to exercise, from the ac-
knowledged incapacity of the Ho use of Commons
to express and enforce the genuine wishes of
those whose representative it was not. Away,
then, with such vulgar and ungenerous taunts
against the press of England. Let us hear no
more of its managers being governed by a sordid
and corrupt ambition. By the nature of its
functions, and the first law of its prosperity, the
press must be national or it will be nothing. A
knavish journal is at once detected, like any
other rogue who robs by day-light. An idle or
imbecile has no better chance. Talents and in-
tegrity are essential to the performance of its
most common duties. How much assiduity,
toil, and patience, none but those who have fairly
grappled with the business of daily journalists
can conceive. The journalist and the borough-
monger are the only orders of society who bid
fair to be swamped by Reform. Which of them,
as a whole, for on both sides there are excep-
tions,—which, we pray, has braved the sacrifices
they anticipate with most of manly and devoted
virtue ? Times.

The West India petition was presented last
night in the House of Lords, bythe Earl of Hare-
wood, and, with the consent of Ministers, a Select
Committee for inquiry was afterwards appointed,
on the motion of his Lordship. The subject
divides itself into two branches : the causes of
the distress of the colonies, and the measures
adopted and announced for the protection of the
slaves. With respect to the former, it may be
said to be one attended with little difficulty. The
distress of the colonies is caused by the excess of
the supply of sugar beyond the consumption of
the country, and the inability to produce it as
cheap as in Cuba, Brazil,&c. by which means the
price obtained for the sugar exported (which de-
termines the price in Britain), does not remu-
nerate the planter. Various modes of relief have
been suggested : One mode was alluded to by a
gentleman at the late meeting—a bounty on the
sugar exported, to enable the planters to com-
pete with the foreign producer, at the expense of
the people of Great Britain. This plan the pub-
lic will not submit to. Another mode of
relief is, to lower the duty both on sugar
and the commodities chiefly consumed with
sugar, as tea, &c., whereby the consump-
tion might be made equal to the supply. Another
mode is, to relieve the planter from the monopolies
which render it impossible to cultivate as cheaply
as foreigners. With regard to the slaves, there
is unquestionably great difficulty. We deem slavery
utterly unsusceptible of amelioration. It is ad-
mitted, we believe, that in the colonies of the
least civilized nations of Europe, the slaves are
the best treated. Mr. Palsgrave, in his recently-
published work on the Rise and Progress of the
English Commonwealth, has some profound re-
marks on this subject. Speaking of the Themes,
the Servi of Domesday, he observes, " that, like
the negro slate, he was a part of the live stock
of the land, ranking in use and value with the
beasts of the plough ; and it is to be apprehended
that the civil institutions of the Anglo-Saxons
afforded but slight protection even for his ex-
istence." But he adds, "It is not likely, how-
ever, that in practice the Saxon emulated the
domestic tyranny of the Romans. Tacitus
notices the mildness with which the slaves
of the Germans were treated ; and the
cruelty even of the Tartar towards his enemy
ceases when that enemy becomes his thrall ; the
guilt of slavery is always increased by the greedy
avarice of civilization." They, therefore, who
suppose that it is possible to introduce amelio-
ration to any extent through the masters, deceive
themselves lamentably. We can understand Lord
Suffield when he states, " The mere fact that the
condition of slavery prevailed in the West India
colonies—that one set of men held another set
of men under control as a property, as if these
latter set of men had been brutes, was quite
sufficient to convince him, and those who viewed
the matter as he did, that tyranny and cruelty of
all kinds prevailed in such a state of society.

" As to the Orders in Council, he did most sincerely
thank the Government for having made that attempt to
ameliorate the condition of the slaves, and ultimately to
annihilate the state of slavery. The colonial Legislatures
had for a length of time defeated all attempts of this de-
scription, but he hoped that at length we bad a Govern-
ment sincerely disposed to ameliorate the condition of the
slaves, and to extinguish the condition of slavery, and he
trusted that they would not much longer suffer their at-
tempts to be defeated."

We say we can understand his Lordship, for
he avows that his object is to put an end to
slavery. But then the 'West India colonists do
not wish an end to be put to slavery, and they
must hate all attempts to diminish their power
over the slaves, and to add to the power of the
slaves to extort their freedom. Notwithstand-
ing the testimony borne by the Archbishop of
Canterbury to the readiness of the planters to
second the views of the Church with regard to
schools and churches, we confess we doubt the
fact. The planters must, from the very nature
of things, be jealous of the growth of intelligence
among the blacks; and we firmly believe that
the Baptists are hated by the planters so very
cordially, merely because they are in earnest
with the blacks. We think with Lord Gode-
rich, that the inquiry will in all probability add
to the existing irritation. Mr. Canning's senti-
ments were quoted. Mr. Canning evidently
was not in earnest. He wished to amuse the
colonists. The present Government have been
honest, and hence the difficulties in which they
have involved themselves.—Morn. Chronicle.

The anti-reformers are evidently chop-fallen
since the morning of the second reading. We
are not surprised- at this. By the second read-
ing they know that the three great principles
have received the sanction of the Upper House,
which, besides the other important considerations
involved in the question, has now to consult its
own consistency in its future proceedings. It
was to this regard for its own character that
Lord Lyndhurst so pointedly alluded in that
memorable debate, when he assured their Lord-
ships, from what he knew of the House, that if
the Bill were to be read a second time, nothing
could prevent it from becoming the law of the
land. Well, now the Bill has been read a se-
cond time, and we are happy to agree with Lord
Lyndhurst in thinking that nothing can prevent
it from becoming the law of the land. In saying
so we do not shut our eyes to the fact that there
are many amongst the opponents of the Bill who,
regardless of the obligation in which the House
is pledged, would gladly avail themselves of any
trick to get rid of it, by a side-wind, in the

Committee. But those who would be willing
to make such a sacrifice of their order, to their
own individual opinions and interests, cannot,
we should think, constitute a majority even of
anti-Reformers, because it argues a reckless-
ness of character, as well as of consequences,
which ought not to be rashly im-
puted to any set of men. Our confidence,
however, in the success of the Bill, is founded
chiefly upon this consideration, that the party
who so honourably surrendered their own wishes
to the wishes of the people at large, must see the
necessity of persevering in the course which they
have begun, with a view to the public tranquil-
lity. Lords Harrowby and Wharncliffe, and all
those who take the same view of the subject,
must see that a defeat under the present circum-
stances would be felt as an aggravated calamity
by the nation. It is, therefore, impossible to
suppose that these Noble Lords can contemplate
any propositions to which Lord Grey would be
obliged to object ; and as for the attempts that
may be made from the other quarter, the same
power which defeated them once can defeat them
again. That this is the opinion of the Anti-
Reformers themselves may be inferred from the
panic observable in their ranks since the defeat of
Saturday morning. Even the protest of the
Duke of Wellington is more in the nature of a
forlorn hope to favour their retreat, than an at-
tempt to rally their forces. A protest is the last
resort of disappointment. It is an expedient by
which those who have lost every chance of car-
rying their principles into operation leave a re-
cord of their existence on the Journals—and
sorry should we be to refuse his Grace the bar-
ren satisfaction, which is, at the same time, a
consolation and a proof of his failure.—Morn-
ing Herald.
When his Majesty's Ministers came to the
determination of imposing laws upon what are
called the Crown Colonies, they seem to have
been unaware of the doubtful nature of the
authority under which they were acting, and
they should, therefore, have used the greatest
caution in the exercise of it ; but when they
j further, in the plenitude of their legislative am-
bition, determined to force the same arbitrary
decrees upon Jamaica, Barbados, and the other
ancient dependencies of Great Britain, whose
rights and privileges are guaranteed by a special
Act of Parliament, as well as by the spirit of the
Constitution, they ought to have seen, before it
was too late, that they were trenching upon the
most dangerousgrounds; and that some hundred
thousand British subjects would not patiently
submit to be taxed, by the arbitrary ordinance
of a Minister, in violation of their charters. It
has been very justly observed that the right of
the Crown to legislate for conquered colonies
which have not yet been brought within the pale
of the Constitution is of a very vague and ano-
malous nature, and therefore liable to great abuse.
There cannot be a stronger instance of this, and
of the absolute necessity for submitting every
legislative enactment to the full consideration of
Parliament before it passes into a law, than the
crude and impracticable Order in Council of the
2d November last, which has already created so
much mischief in the colonies. Amongst the
other provisions of this ruinous decree,
those which confer extraordinary powers upon
certain persons to be sent out from his
country, to be quartered, with enormous salaries,
upon the already over-burdened colonists, under
the denomination of Protectors and Assistant
Protectors of Slaves, seem particularly oppres-
sive and truly vexatious. By the 11th, 12th,
and 13th clauses the slaves may not only absent
themselves from their work at any time, under
the pretence of resorting to the Protector, but
he or his assistants may, at any hour of the day
or night, '6 from time to time, as often as they or
any of them may see occasion, enter into and
upon any estate or plantation, cultivated either
wholly or in part by the labour of slaves, or
into any hut or house wholly inhabited by
slaves, for the purpose of communicating with
such slaves, and may continue thereupon or
therein so long as may be requisite !" And if
any person or persons shall by force, menace, or
intimidation, or other unlawful means, oppose or
obstruct such intrusion or intercourse, he shall
be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour, and be
punished accordingly ! No wonder that the
House of Assembly of Jamaica should have de-
clared that they " will never consent to fix an
unmerited stigma on their constituents, by sanc-
tioning the introduction of spies into the bosom
of society, under the name of a Protector of
Slaves;" nor submit to the humiliating and unjust
conclusion that their magistracy are incapable of
discharging honestly and efficiently the duties
imposed upon them. " Such an anomaly was
never before heard of, in a country having its own
laws and legislature, as the introduction of
officers from a distant kingdom to keep watch
upon the inhabitants, to pry into their actions,
and to put thereon whatever construction they
please, or rather the construction that may best
please the persons that appoint them." Upon
any frivolous complaint the Protector or his
assistants may summon before them any person
however respectable ; may proceed against them
in absence ; summon such witnesses as they may
think proper ; issue his warrant against them if
they refuse to attend, and commit them to gaol if
they refuse to be sworn, &c. In short, his
powers altogether are such that an ignorant or
malicious person may throw a whole commuity
into a state of the greatest distress and confusion.
IVlanagers of estates are to receive annually a
book from the Protector, in which they are to
insert, under a penalty, all punishments of what-
ever nature inflicted during the year, and for the
slightest omission they may be severely fined.
Slaves are not to marry without a license from
the Protector. In short, there is scarcely a single
domestic or public transaction in which the Pro-
tector may not meddle. He is even authorised
to interfere with the medical practitioners; and
no medical man, however high may be his ac-
quirements, dare decline to explain and account
for the nature of his practice ; or, "if any such
medical practitioner shall refuse, neglect, or
omit to do or perform any matter or thing"
which such medical practitioner is required to
do, or "in or about the keeping such journal
as aforesaid, or in or about the medical treat-
noofu rains m
suchy en t , osrl
atveern; o rsaurcyh relaxationn oe
rf
labourtreat-
ment,
e n t
is. liable to a very heavy penalty. The
consequencethat
tthemanagers moaftrhs of these oppressive
estateshave
in m
a ry
is,r
instances declared they can no longer continue in
charge of them. Respectable medical men ac-
tually decline attendance upon properties where
they are liable to such surveillance, and all
parties state that a rigid enforcement of the pro-
visions of this iniquitous Order would be equi-
valent to the entire forfeiture of colonial estates !
The West India colonists have repeatedly de-
manded and entreated that a rigid inquiry should
be instituted into the actual state and condition
of the negroes ; and they confidently affirm that,
if witnesses are examined upon oath, such hives-