The Sun.
London, England, 1832-03-12 00:00:00

.5.4-PIRIT OF Tilt PUBLIC JOURNALS.

this day an important document, to
which tt a names of the principal houses engaged
in the West India trade are attached. That the
distress of our sugar colonies is now rapidly ap-
proaching a crisis, is a position which can hardly be
questioned. That much of that distress has been
caused by a mistaken policy, on the part of the
Government of this country, is a point tilich
can as little he cerstioned. Ws l'isve more
'Jinn once alluded to the additiens to the cost of
peoducing sugar, caused hr various absurd mono
polies. In the last nurract: of the Edinburgh Re: ;etes
the effect of these monopolies on the P1.:7,f3 of articles
indispensible to the colonists, we.: shown in a very
:able mane r, The traders in the document we this
day publish, are muds more correct in accounting
or the distress than Wise in the remedies they stiff-
gest for the distress. We do not believe it possible
by any reduction of duties to inereesse the consump-
tion of sugar so much as to relieve the distress ; and
with regard to the additional bounty on the expor-
tation of refined sugars, this is but an aw& weird way
of employing the evil caused by rsonopoly. The
simple and easy mode of presseeding would be to
free the West Indians fresro the absurd restrir2.:ibbs
of our Colonial system, by which we rends the ex-
pence of cultivation so much higher bin in the posses-
sions of other states. In the document we publish,
reference is made to a memorial of the West Indian
body, dated the I lth July last, for which we have
not space at present. In that memorial a ;eduction
of duty and bounty on exportation are also sug-
gested. "It may be objected i'they say) that this
measure is contrary to the principle of allowing trade
and production to find their own level, and of not
forcing them by bounties. But able principles,
though sound in theory, must be consistently ap•
plied, and be secured in perfect freedom of action in
all their hearings, before they can be absolutely ap.
plied with justice and equity in any of the affairs of
commerce.
" It is unreasonable to expect thet our colonies, with
various restrictions on their to,de for the benefit of the
mother country and its othar dependencies, and with in-
creased cost of labour, arising cut of the abolition of the
slave trade, and various expensive adisations imposed
upon them for the benefit of the slave population, should
he able to raise sugar at so cheap a rate as Cuba and
Brazil, which carry on the slave trade and have a free
intercourse with all the world ; and yet the policy now
pursued by this country forces them into this unequal and
ruinous coin titian.
" There is a general system of protecting duties and
restrictions in favour of the preductions of the soil and of
manufacturing irKlustry of this country. A similar
system ought in justice to be applied to the prmiwctions of
the Colonies; aud, it is respectfully subm'eted, must he
applied, if it be intended to continue their possession to
this country. Since that protection cannot be effectually
given by imposing duties on the importation of foreign
produce, in consequence of the policy pursued by this
country having accumulated in this market a large sur-
plus production beyond 'the consumption, there is, in
truth, no departure from principle in adopting the only
alternative left for attaining the same object, viz.—tht
establishment of a justly-regulated system of encourage.
meat to export its surplus."
The West India merchants attach considerable
importance to the aid given to the cultivators of
Brazil and Cuba by the slave trade. We suspect
that there is much exaggeration on this subject ;
saki well-informed persons have, in fact, assured us
Oat more is attributed to this supposed advantage
than truth warrants. No doubt the importation of
slaves enables the planters of Cuba and Brasil to
extend their cultivation ; but the advantage is the
extent of fertile soil rather than in the cost of the
labour. Most of our colonies are worn out.—
Morning Chronicle.

We publish a letter bearing the signature of
" Justus," because it comes from a respectable
quarter, because it pleads to have been called forth
by our animadversions on Lord Grey's procrastina-
ting policy with regard to the creation of Peers, and
because it offers a convenient opportunity of adding
a few words more upon the same important sub-
ject. Our correspondent affirms that there has ex-
isted no " emergency" to justify, what he calls, our
" attacks" upon Lord Grey, and asks why Lord
Grey should be con pdled to submit " to the dictum
of Philo-Radical,' " and to originate a dangerous
precedent, if, by means less hazardous, and within
Lord Grey's own power, he still hopes to carry the
present rreasure of Reform." ! To all
this we answer, that "Justus" appears to raise to
an extraordinary height hi standard of the degree of
public danger which is requisite to form an "emer-
gency." If the letter did not assume Whig co-
lours, we should suspect the writer of it to be no
better than a Tory of the common stamp; for the bur-
den of the song with their whole party is neither more
nor less than that the creation of Peers at this moment
cannot be justified by any existing necessity, Now
'suppose that we believe the loss of the Bill to be
inevitable if Peers be not crested, is not that belief
a moral justification of all the earnestness we have
shown upon the question, were our language ten
times stronger than it has been? But we contend
That it is an unwarrantable, however usual, trick, for
Tory enemies of Reform to disguise themselves and
their sentiments in the Reform livery, and to offer
au hypocritical defence of Lord Grey, the intended
purpose of which is no other than to trepan his
Lordship's wavering judgment, leading him to a de-
cision such as none but Tories can desire, and by
which no cause hut that of the old oligarchic inter-
est can profit. Of course, according to the Anti-
reform principle, the triumph which would be secured
to the Bill by a reinforcement to the Reform Peerage
constitutes the real ground on which (whatever may
be the pretext) rs..ch a measure is exclaimed against
by the party to which it is indeed manifest that
" Justus" in his heart belongs, and therefore every
fresh paroxysm of dismay or violence exhibited
by that faction against the creation of Peers, ought
to be, with a shrewd statesman, an additional
motive for adopting it. If there be danger in the
precedent of a large creation of Peers, it implies the
danger also of some other occasion, whereon the
majority of the House Peers is to be in direct hos-
tility with the bulk of the British nation. A crea-
tion for the purpose of bringing the Peers into har-
mony with the House of Commons and the people
can surely not constitute a precedent for one, the
object of which would be to obtain a majority of
Peers adverse to the Commons and to the consti-
tuent body. Such a measure, adopted with the
latter view, would be followed by an immediate im-
peachment—a consequence which it would now, on
the Reform question, be somewhat chimerical to
entertain. But, it is asked, why press Lord Grey
to make Peers, " it" his Lordship hopes to carry
the Bill by any means less hazardous? What the
contingency here referred to means, we are at a loss
to conjecture. It is indeed, as we have already
stated, quite natural for Tory intriguers to insinuate
such imposible chances, as blinds to the vision of
imbecile or cowardly Reformer,. But for a professed
Whig and advocate of the Bill to pretend that he
can doubt the necessity of creating Peers, knowing,
what is notorious to all the world, that there is now
at least as strong a majority against the best
clauses of the Bill as there was last year against
the second reading, we pronounce to be either down-
right childishness or treachery the basest and most
unpardonable. Nor is it to the risk of defeat in the
committee only that the measure stands exposed by
these monstrous delays. Look. .;it the composition
of the Anti-reform par ty,and read with attention the
periodical prints which express their sentiments,
more especially the last number of the Quarterly Re.
riew. There exists, it is plain two subdivisions of
Toryism. One set will make no shadow of com-
promise. They will not admit theprinciple of the
measure. They are for meeting the enemy on his
march, and giving him an early overthrow. A se-
cond subdivision, at the head of which is Lord Har-
rowlly.,i4.o)leivluck and more skill than their fel-
lowsepropow42 acquiesce in the second reading,
to let the, invi4eroceupy his cantonment', and then
?tit him up in detail—in other words, destroy the
Bill by inches. We have hitherto proceeded on the
assumption that the more wily of these two bands
would prevail upon the more resolute to concur

with it, and to tolerate tZ.Is rscctd reading of
the Bill. But how if it should not be so ? How,
if the Duke of Wellington, for instance, should
have replied to Lord Harrowby (report says
he has done so), " I will have none cf your second
- readings, nor any of your piecemeal skirmishing;
instead of recognik7ing the principle of this odious
measure, arc; endeavouring afterwards to neutralize
my tivn act, by a wretched resistance on t'.'h.:;.:lauses,
I call upon you, my Lord, ate.'„7-c:-.r supporters, to
join with me andrnri.-. i:-; an attack upon it at the
very threshriA. See if we be not strong enough to
•
throwe it out at once." Now let the public consider,
for one moment : if Lord Harrowby, finding the
Duke and his friends inflexible, tliculd himself give
in and join them on the secorrd reading,-----what in
the name of Heater will then be'Corne of lord
Grey, and his " discreet," and " t'epperate," and
" mild," and "safe" speculations P 'the Bill is then
disposed of. What may happen to the Ministry no-
body, in that ta:se, will care a single farthing,—they '
will have fallen. and most righteously, into t'.':e bot-
tomless pit. But on Lord Crtie---.77, own (or his ad-
vocate's) favourite doct.:ine, that the necessity for a
creation " awe `'lle proved,"—that is to say, that the
Govern't,ent must be actually beaten on the clauses
cf the Bill, before any effectual measure shell be
resorted to,—we have already said that snob talk is
utter madness ;one ether slgnAl defeat in the House
of Lords will be a taLtmity which nothing can repair.
The country horn end to end, will be confounded by
it. the House of Lords itself, already too exten-
sively biassed against the oireatlon, will imbibe a
deeper and broader stain of Toryism. Nothing,
then, short e a creation of a hundred Peers, if e-ven
that, w'ill suffice to restore the As,embly to its
wholesome colour. So that by waiting until the
" necessity shall he proved;'--that is, until the mis-
chief shall have been completed,—the remedy will
have become, to all good purposes, impracticable.
How difrerently would the Duke of Wellington have
acted, had he been a reforming Minister, backed by
a reforming King and pet.:le, and with only a bo-
roughmonger o.;.,lt'oSition to resist him ! flow lightly
would thsa new convert to Catholic emancipation,
won carried that Bill with the history of his own
life haunting him every hour,—how lightly would
he have taken these squeamish and qualmy terrors
of Lord Grey ! For ourselves we have but done
our duty. The question for the country is Reform
or Revolution : for Lord Grey himself it is only in-
famy or eternal honour. For the sake of England,
may Heaven direct his enicel.—Timex.