The Sun.
London, England, 1850-05-31 00:00:00

LONDON,

taking a census of the population, but be was unable to
state at what period.
MZTROPOLITAN INTERMENTS BILL.
Lord DUDLEY STUART wished to appeal to the
Right Hon. Baronet the Home Secretary with regard
to the Interments Bill. Could the Right Hon. Baronet,
under all the circumstances of the case, find it con-
sistent to proceed with` this Bill on Monday? Last
Monday ,the House went into Committee pro forma
to enable the Right Hon. Baronet to introduce certain
amendments. Those amendments had neither been
printed nor circulated till this morning, and to his know-
ledge there were many Hon. Members who had not seen
the amended Bill up to that moment, and he therefore
put it to the Right Hon. Baronet whether it was right
to proceed with this important Bill till Honourable
Members had had an'opportunity of consultingjtheir con-
stituents upon it.—(Hear, hear.)
Sir DE LACY EVANS made a similar appeal to the
Right Hon. Baronet.
Sir GEORGE GREY did not think his Noble Friend
had made a reasonable request. The Bill had been
committed pro forma, with the view of introducing
certain alterations, which were yesterday printed and
circulated, and which principally related to the
principle of compensation that ought to be afforded to
parties who might be injured by the operation of the
Bill. He therefore could not consent to delay the fur-
ther progress of the Bill, but if there was any clause
which the Noble Lord wished to have postponed for the
purpose of consulting his constituents upon it, he would
readily assent to that course.—(Hear, hear.)
Sir B. HALL said those amendments were really of
the most vital importance; and the Bill itself would be
the groundwork of similar Bills throughout the king-
dom, and it must therefore be carefully watched. He
concurred in the application to postpone the measure.
THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION BILL.
Mr. HORSMAN gave notice that on Monday
next he would ask the Noble Lord at the
head of the Government if he could fix a day for the
second reading of the Ecclesiastical Bill. On a former
occasion be (Mr. Horsman) remembered that delay, in
proceeding with this measure was asked, because of its
being in the House of Lords,' and now delay was urged
because of its being out of the House of Lords.
EVICTIONS IN IRELAND.
Mr. P. SCROPE asked the Home Secretary whether
the Government had taken the opinion of the law officers
of the Crown as to the legality of the wholesale evic-
tions, going on in Ireland ? He (Mr. Scrope) would
I continue to repeat his question every week during the
session, and so long as those convictions continued.
Sir G. GREY saidithat the Honourable, Gentleman
had given him (Sir George Grey) no notice of his
question, and, therefore, he Should postpone his answer
mail the next occasion on which the Hon. Gentleman re-
peated his question.
SLAVE GROWN SUGAR.

On the motion for the reading of the order of the day,
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said
that on a former occasion the Hon. Gentleman who had
a motion on the subject of slave grown sugar on the
paper had postponed it at the request of the Government
on the understanding that a Government night should
be given up to him, he hoped the House would agree
that the orders of the day should be postponed until the
Hon. Gentleman's motion had been disposed of.
Sir E. BUXTON then rose,' add' after
presenting nu-
merous petitions from Glasgow, the Island of Grenada,
St. Vincent, Belfast, Southampton, and other places,
proceeded to move, that it is unjust and impolitic to ex-
pose the free grown sugar of the British colonies and
possessions abroad to unrestricted competition with the
sugar of foreign slave-trading countries. He said he
came forward with great diffidence, and with a great
feeling of inefficiency, to bring forward such a great and
important question as this before the House of Comment,
but feeling as he did that this question was of great import-
ance to the West Indies, it seemed to him of still greater
importance to the interests of humanity, he had there-
fore ventured to throw himself upon the kindness of the
House of Commons. He must say, in beginning, that
be brought forward this motion in no spirit of hostility
to her Majesty's Government. If he were to turn to the
men who had done the most to promote tLe interests
of humanity, so far as the slave trade was con-
cerned, he should certainly turn to those gentlemen
who occupied the seat below. He must return thanks
to them for what they had done at various times and in
various ways to put down and to prevent the extension
of the slave trade. It was his intention not to bring
forward this matter as a matter of trade, though he was
well aware of the great importance of this question to
the West Indian colonies. He would shortly enter into
the condition because the question of the West Indies
was so connected with the question of the slave trade
that it was impossible to separate the two. But his
object was to consider this question as a question of high
principle rather than as a principle of trade.
It was in 1846 that the measure was introduced by her
Majesty's Government, against which he now directed
his chief complaints. The effect of that Act was in some
degree mitigated, at least for the time being, by the
measure which was subsequently passed by the Govern-
ment in 1848. No one would deny that in that year,
when the late Lord George Bentinck was the
chairman of a Committee on the importation of foreign
sugar, the greatest distress existed in the West Indies.
lo did not mean to pay,that the same amount of distress
now existed in those colonies, because, as he had said, it
had been much mitigated by the Act of 1848, but he be-
lieved that the accounts of the great prosperity which
now existed, were far from being true; and belied no
doubt that when the duties on our colonial sugar were
brought down to the level of those on foreign and slave-
grown sugar, the same distress which existed in 1848
would exist again. In BritishiGuiana, where the
soil was equal to any in the world, thel value
of property was very much reduced in value; the estate
of the bishop, which cost 30,000 dollars, was soli a
short time back for little more than a third of that sum
That showed that very little permanent prosperity was
anticipated in British Guiana from the Act of 1848
In the West Indies, he learnt from a communication
which he had received, that owing to the low prices of
sugar, a great number of estates were now out of culti-
vation. Great stress bad been laid upon the Act of
1846 as improving the condition of the West Indies, and
whereas if any improvement had taken place,
it was to be attributed to the Act of 1848.
Let them turn for a moment to the condition of Cuba.
They found that the exports of sugar from Cuba had
increased from 145,000 tons in 1840 to 270,000 tons in
1850, and the increase was likely to continue increas-
ing. True, the number of slaves in Cuba bad
altogether diminished, but while the production of
sugar had increased the growth of coffee had been
greatly reduced, in fact the production had fallen from
24,000 to 10,000 tons, and the result had been that
38,000 slaves had been transferred from the culti-
vation of coffee to the cultivation of sugar. He
need not enter into the state of the Brazils, but
ho might observe, in passing, that there also the
quantity of sugar exported had considerably increased
and there also a great degree of prosperity also pre-
vailed amongst the planters. Indeed, the Emperor of
Brazils, in making his speech to the Cortes, informed
them that the empire was greatly in want of labour,
thereby showing, that notwithstanding the increased
export of sugar, notwithstanding the great degree of
prosperity which the empire still enjoyed, the growers
were nevertheless desirous of fnrther extending 'their
cultivation. It was, however, not on account of- the
West Indies that he made this motion, but on behalf of
the great cause of humanity.—(Hear, hear.) In
1815 we gave instruction to the Duke of Wellington,
by which he went abroad; and at that time he proposed
that a convention should be made with the different states
of Europe, stipulating that we should prohibit the im-
portation of the produce grown in countries where the
African slave trade was still carded on—not only in our
own country but into all the countries of Europe which
should enter into the treaty. At that time we gave 300,000/.
to Portugal, and 400,0001. to Spain, to induce them to
put down the slave trade. It was quite unnecessary to
remind the House that we gave 20,000,0001. in 1833 in
order that slavery should be extinguished in oar own
colonies. He thought every one would acknowledge,
that if there was any principle which this country had
maintained during the present century, at home and
abroad, in our treaties with foreign powers, and
in our domestic concerns, it was, that having
cgorneauttraions.d
Be.L
hoped once for all abolished the slave trade in
our
own colonies, we would do all that in us lay as -a
Christiannatitohna,t tothpeuttiimtedowwonuldin
noethveerr
An
f
o 6 occasion,
hhee a rt .r) e m
come when this country would give up that great princi-
ple.—(Hear,
n
Aomrehriiesancosulanvteryowwh
nerensahide
roen.
•membered • that God was just. lie (Sir E. Buxton)
thought that we might tremble in
this country
i
that we should see the day when we should
give up the great principle that the slave trays was to be
opposed by every means which was likely to be effective.
He was told that if we kept out sugar we would also
keep out cotton and tobacco from this country.
He saw no reason why he should not make an
attempt to put down sugar, which was one crime
because, unfortunatey, we were so involved that
we could not avoid introducing slave-grown cotton.
The plan which was adopted by the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman opposite (Sir R. Peel) to keep out slave grown
sugar was a wise one, and he fur- one should
have been glad to see it carried out fur-
ther than it had been. If it were said
that it was imposible to return to that plan, he
would be rather disposed lo increase than to decrease
the duties on foreign grown sugar.—(Hear.) 'Let the
House reflect upon the consequences of the present
system, the miseries of every slave who was engaged in
the cultivation, from his first seizure in Africa to his
life of toil and misery across the Atlantic. There might
be some difference of opinion as to _ the maw

nowstrtt e oef
ilt the
er.
T slaves,he but
Hon.into t
Gentleman hat qu on h w
then
ene
proceededotid n
l o
read the sentiments of Mr, Wilberforce in his letter to
his constitutuents in 1807. Ho thought that the most
miserable condition to which a man could be condemned
Ives that of a slave on a sugar estate in the island of Cuba.
If they placed our colonists in free competition with
the producers of slave grown sugar, they must make up
their minds that they were creating at the same
time the greatest amount of suffering, misery,
and degradation, which could belong to any
eivilizcd condition, and not only would that
be the case, for they would also put a stop to tho pro-
gress of civilization in Africa, that part of the world to
to which
rtihe
ly,
directed. He
noef
arndinissiitot,ndartichsataintdwoatshaers
greathad
desideratum to give the people a cheap supply of sugar,
but they should take car© that in obtaining that end
the did not give rise to a greater evil than what might
be produced by the dearness el: thi t partieulor commo-
dity. He was quite satisfied that thepeople of this country
would willingly and gladly forego any advantage that
they might derive from cheap sugar, if the /louse took
upon itself to ma ntain a high principle on the ground of
humanity and justice, and he believed that it might cal-
culate oa the support of the great majority of the people,
if it NO the courage to pass such a measure as that