The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-28 00:00:00

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OVT47 EL A Tro iv W rITH I- "

(Front the Dail?, News.)
Mr. Roebuck proposes this evening to ask the
House of Ceturooirs to do a very sensible thing--
appoint a Committee to inquire into and report on
our relations with the Einpiro of Brazil. He will,
of course, be told that such a step is unusual and
an interference with the functions and responsibility
of the Queen's Government. But the circumstances
of the case are al •o unusual, and the policy of the
Queen's Government is at variance with the inte-
rests and hazardous to the commerce Of the country.
If, then, Mr. Roebuck can establish these two
.propositions—as we think he very easily may—no
formal or technical reasons ought to prevent an in-
quest being held on a subject which affects both
the honour and the welfare of England.
What are the re'ations between. England and
Brazil ? Nothing VI be better than the relations
between British subjects and Brazilian citizens.
Noshing in peace can be worse than the relations
between the British and Brazilian Governments.
Between the former there exists a lerge, valuable,
and increasing direct commerce ; and in England
the balances of trade between Brazil and all other
nations are settled to our advantage. It is no
exaggeration to assert that the pecuniary interest
which Englishmen have in Brazil is seldom less
than fifteen millions st- rling. Brazilian ports are
filled with English commercial houses and ship-
ping ; Brazilian railways are bsing made with
English capital and English skill ; in English
shipyards the rapidly increasing Brazilian navy
is being 'built ; Rio de 'Tallier° is about to be
lighted with g.is by an English Company ; the
cleat monumental works of that and other Bra-
zilian cities are direc.ed by English intelligence ;
in short, the trading, industrial, . and pecuniary
dealings between the two countries are of the
large •t and best descriptions ; and hitherto we
have maintained.our superiority over the United
Siates and Germany in Brazil.
The relations between the two Governments are
deplorably bad, and threaten very seriouly to dis-
turb and diminish the good re atiouship existing
between the people of the tiro countries. We have
no Treaty of Amity and Friendship between the two
Crowns ; we have uo Treaty ..f Commerce ; we have
not between the two Governments a srngle obliga-
tion or stipulation of any sort or kin I, save and
except one—the first article of the Slave Trade
C nvention of 1826, all 'he ocher articles having
been terminated ; and about the construction and
m ailing of that article the two Governments have
a., c 'mpli-te y disigree I, that, while England has
used it to in vane tire t-rritor ial wat-rs and to ai tack
the forts of Brazil, the Br azilian Government has
protested to the word against the violence to
which it has been subject under what it deems
the misconstruction of the true meaning. Nay,
wore, th- Brazilian Government is resolved that,
uut 1 the English statute, which was passed in 1845,
to carry out the English view of that article, is re-
pealed, it will enter into no compact whatever with
this country. The English Government, on the
contrary, adlvres with exaggerated and mischievous
tenacity to a at itute which nothing hut the strongest
necessity ceuldever justify, and which goocrfaith as
well as policy now requires the repeal of.
We say good faith requires the repeal of 8 and 9
Vic., cap. 122, arid we proceel to prove the asser-
tion. In procuring its enactment 'the Brazilian
Government were expressly informed :
"Her Majesty's Government are far from wish-
ing this mode of adjudicating vessels to be perina-
new..

" They will be ready, so soon as any measures of
the Brazilian Government shall enable them to do
so, to repeat the bill now about to be brought for-
ward ; but whilst the present scat e of things continuo,
and until either the slave trade of Brazil shall have
entirely ceased, or the Brazilian Government
sh ill have entered into an arrangement with Great
Britain jointlr to carry into exi-cution the declared
intend.. ns of the parties to the Convention of 1826,
that course will not be open to them."
Here an obligation was voluntarily incurred to
repeal the Act iu one of two cases :—either when
the slave trade shall have ceased without a new
treaty ; or when a new treaty shall have been con-
cluded before the cessation of the trade. Now, it
is a fact, beyond all controversy or doubt, that the
African slave trade with Brazil has " entirely
,ceased." The Brazilian Mini-ter has stated, with-
out contradiction, in a d ,cumetit laid before Par-
ameut, that during the last five years only twenty-
six Africans have been illicitly introduced into
Brazil ; and so completely does the information of
the British Government accord with this statement,
that in July last Lord Palmerston told the House
of Commons " the slave trade in Brazil may be
conside, ed to be extinct." One of the cases con-
templated by the British Government as a sufficieit
motive for the, rep,-a1 of the Act has, therefore,
occurred. But both Lords Palmerston and Claren-
don refuse to fulfil the obligation Lord Aberdeen
assumed on the part of the British Crown in 1845.
These Ministers may, i will perhaps be sug-
gested, require the additional security of a new
treaty before repealing the statute.• If so, it is
apparent from the slave .trade papers laid before
Parliament that, proceeding in the negotiation on
the basis of its repeal, the Brazi iau Government
has always been willing to negotiate such a treaty.
But the Briteh Government wit; not consent to
negotiation as betwe n two independent Sta.es ;
it ins sts on Brazil signing, without discussion
or negotiation, the pr ject of a tie aty which it
presents thaebbovernment. This was the course
pursued in 1847, when Lord Howden pre-
senttd all ready for signature a treaty which
the Imperial Government, out of a sense of
its own d guity, refused tin that account to
sign. In 1853 the late Brazilian Mini-ter at this
Court presented a project based ou Lord Him'.
den's treaty, with some modifications intended
chiefly t protect the coasting trade of the Empire,
which had al.:Tref severe,y and unjustly from the
proceedings of our cruisers. Lord Clarendon sum-
marily rejected it, and replaced it by a, counter pro-
ject of his owl. This Drat% Lord Clarendon in-
folim,d the Brazilian Minister—we quote his own
languag .—" was our ultimatum, on which we
could not consent to any medification." Of the
character of this draft the public may judge when
we state that by its twelfth article it was proposed
to esrabl‘sh a mixed commission in Brazil, to in-
quire into the legal status of all slaves imported
into the Empire subsequently to 1831. To such
a proposition the Brazilian Minister could only
reply :
"Une telle stipulation non seulement serait
contraire aux droits de souverainte du Bresil, main
elle causerait la ruine de I', mpire ; she le boule-
verserait completement, et l'exposerait a des con-
vulsious qui pourraieut aboutir i la disparition du
Bresil de la lis.e des nations civilisees."
And so the negotiations—if negotiation such pro-
ceedings can be calle,l—terminated. But surely the
responsibility of their failure rests on the Govern-
ment, which proposed as an "ultimatum which it
could not consent to modify," a stipulation so out-
rageous as this.
In truth the policy of Lord Palmerston .towards
Brazil is quite inexplicable. In 1850 Brazil enacted
laws making the slave trade piracy ; and in a de-
spatch, dated 10th March, 1851, LOrd Palmerston
forwarded four printed copies of these laws to the
*Spanieh Government, expressing his high admira-
tion i.f them, and urging the Spanish Government
to adopt them as models for its legislation. In
July, 1856, Lord Palmerston admietrel the suffici-
ency of these laws, and the vigour with which they
had been carried out, by to ling the House of Com-
mons that the slave trade in Brazil was "extinct."
And yet, to improve our relatiens with Brazil, he
will neither propose the repeal of 8 and 9 Viet., c.
122, nor enter into serious negotiations with Brazil
fur a new Slave Trade Trt aty.
Surely it is a subject well worthy of the curiosity
of the House of Commons "to know the reason
why."

BIRTHS.

OF A BON.

On the 22d inst., at Clifton, the Lady Isabella C. Grant.
On the 25 h inst., at 16, Norfolk-square, Hyde-park,
the wife of Francis James, Esq.