The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-05 00:00:00

of_the PUBLIC jotaticALs..

FEOM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.

STANDARD.—The debate last night in the House of I
Commons upon the sugar duties certainly presents the
Whig-Radical party in no respectable light. The state of
the case is this—the British colonies are untainted by
shivery, but in getting rid of the taint they have become
less productive, and in consequence they cannot supply a
quantity of sugar adequate to the demand of this country.
.The Government being thus required to open new sources of
-supply, faithfully follows up the principle which led to the
abolition of slavery in our own dominions; and proposes to take
the supplemental import, in preference, from countries not
tainted with slavery. The mode in which it is proposed to
gisse.effect to this preference, is to reduce the duty upon sugar
the growth of Java, the Manillas, and China, where slavery
do& not exist, to 345. per-cwt., leaving still a differential
• duty-of 10s. in favour of the British colonies. Lord John
RuasellS: briefed long ago by those persons who have
a present trade with Cuba and the Brazils, which
they could fondly hope to augment instantly by open-
ing our ports to slave sugar—briefed long ago by the greedy
gamblers, who are as indifferent to the future of their country
as they are to the happiness of their contemporary human
beings—Lord John Russell attacked the Ministerial arrange-
ment as false in commercial policy, and as hypocritical in
its• alleged purpose. Now we are willing to meet Lord John
Russell on both grounds ; and we trust to show that
he . blunders in the first, and that the charge of
hypocrisy, which he imputes in the second, recoils most
disgustingly upon himself and his own party. Lord John's
commercial theory is this—that we are always to confine
ourselves, at whatever sacrifice, to the markets of which
we are already in any degree possessed—a good rule enough
for the few who trade in these markets, but
what a doctrine for a great maritime nation Perish
your prospects of an enlarged intercourse with China, or
of the restoration of the commerce of the mighty empire of
India, but nurse in your bosom all the abominations and
-blood of a Cuban and Brazilian traffic, because you may, by
doing so, gain a smartish improvement in the present cot-
ton " trade. Such is the pedlar policy of a IN hi -Radical
political economist ; but such is not the policy by which
Great Britain has grown great—it is by finding new
and wider and more elastic markets, that a country must
permanently enlarge the sphere of her commerce. Would
that all the tropical productions received in this country,
were received from the old world, or from our own American
colonies. The old world is far more densely peopled, and the
elasticity of .trade must always be in proportion to the
density of population. The Brazils and China are both before
us. With either of them we may now open a trade
for sugar. Brazil may have a population of five mil-
lions, of whom not more than two millions wear any clothing
to be spoken cf, the remaining three millions being negro
Biasses in a state of primitive nudity ; China, on the other
hand, has a population of three hundred and fifty millions of
fully clad people. Which of the two affords a prospect of
the better market? Oh, but, it will be said, the Chinese
manufacture for themselves. So did the Indians, we answer,
until they found the British manufactures cheaper and
better. China alone is able to take all our manufactures
twofold, and to pay us in produce that must enable us
to command all the markets of the world. This is a trade
worth looking after, though it does not hold out any promise
to the Cobdens and the Brights, of a grand gambling sweep,
that would place them in a condition to double their
fortunes in a few months—the only thing that a Leaguer
ever dreams of. Lord John's arguments, however, go all
upon the hypothesis, that the produce of sugar throughout
the world, and the demand for sugar, are fixed quantities.
If, says he, you will not consume the slave-made sugar,
others will, and they will discontinue to consume the free-
grown sugar, so that slavery will be just where it was.
But what if we open new markets ?—what if we, by our
demand, cause mere sugar to be grown in Java and
the Manillas, and, above all, in China ; before long,
too, we trust, in our free African colonies? The new mar-
kets will take from us new manufactures ; and they will
either add to the amount of sugar grown, so as effectually
to ruin the trade of the old slave countries, or to compel
these countries to abandon slavery. To this it must
come, if Great Britain steadily pursues the path
that she is pursuing—a path which, besides its being the
path of duty, must conduct her to boundless wealth by the
way. The measure of Ministers, if rightly understood, is in-
deed a measure of really free trade, for it is a measure emanci-
pating our commerce from the trammels of interested exist•
ing relations between a few traders and a few narrow
markets—the worst imaginable monopoly. It is our firm belief
that a total break up .of our American trade, of course still
preserving the trade of our own colonies, would double the
commerce of Great Britain in seven years. We propose,
however, no such daring experiment : we state the proposi-
tion merely in illustration of the opinion, whether right or
wrong, which we hold upon the subject of the Brazil trade.
GLOBE.—Wa are irresistibly reminded of Lady Carolina
Williehnina Amelia Skeggs, and her sister-virtue, in their
scruples about admitting the Vicar of Wakefield's daughters
without the most respectable references (" certi-
ficates of origin," &c.)—" there is a form in these things,
my dear Madam, there is a form !"—when we hear the
veteran Tory Tadpoles and Tapers assuming anti-
slavery proprieties. Why, you old demireps !—one
is tempted to exclaim—where have you caught
up all this exaggerotion ? It is, however, notorious that
the loosest lives are sought to be atoned for by the strait-
est pruderies. The West Indians themselves must feel
how much more securely their interests would have been
founded on the common-sense view of their case which
was taken by Lord John Russell and Mr. Labouchere,
than on the hollow cant put forward by Mr. Goulburn
and. Mr. Gladstone. They must feel those interests
partially sacrificed, while affected to be upheld, and they
Intuit feel what is left of them still 'more seriously compro-
mised for the future, by being placed on ground so preposte-
rously untenable in a commercial sense. If the West Indians
were likely to be the only sufferers, we should compassionate
tdem—but this impdlicy will affect larger interests. The
same frankness, which would have claimed for the West Indians
simply, the consideration their case, demands, and to which, in
their transition-period to a free regimen, it must be deemed
entitled—the same frankness (manifested in Lord John
Russell's speech) would have avoided an unprecedented
innovation in our commercial policy, not the less
offenaive for wearing a most awkward aspect of hy-
pocrisy. For the first time in our commercial history we are
about, it seems, to pretend to draw a distinct line between
the products of different countries, according as we approve
the internal rule under which they are raised. Now this is
a maxim we believe to be totally new in commercial policy;
we are sure it is utterly unsound; and we fear it is likely
to prove deeply perilous. We' have never based our dif•
ferentisl duties on any such moral pretexts. They were
first adopted, not to protect free from slave labour, but to
protect the sieve 1 ibour of our own colonies from the compe-
tition of that of foreigners. Our Goulburns, Tadpoles, Tapers,
and Company, were then strenuous, not for moral distinc-
tions, but simply for monopoly, without its new moral
garnish. And we must say, we wish they had never en-
tered
a field where they are certainly not at home. We will
give them credit for being capital monopolists—but we wish
they would spare us their moral sentiments. We wish they
heel seen the superfluousness of all this artifice to the inte-
rests of their own clients ; and its almost ludicrous incongruity
'with their pleadings, in former times, for the same parties.
What a truly extraordinary access of prudery in the Tadpoles
and Tapers, that they should now set about subjecting slave-
products to fiscal exclusion— they, who formerly had
no other care than securing monopoly to our slave-pro-
ducts ! We have no hesitation in saying that we think
this plea for differential duties by far the most indefensi-
ble that ever has been proprAed. We have a most un-
doubted right, without just ground of offence to any
body, to protect our colonists, as far as can any way
consist with our own well-being, in working out the
experiment which we have imposed upon them. But,
in our judgment, we have no right whatever to take
cognisance of internal regulations in other countries.
As a matter of fact, we never have done so ; we are
not doing so at the present moment, as regards the most
important articles we receive in the course of trade.
We do not propose doing so in future, any more than
in the past, as regards the great bulk of our imports.
Well, what is it then ? what is it but a sheer,
senseless, gratuitous insult to some of our best ens-
tethers—the only ones who have proposed dealing with
us on equal terrns—customers with whom hitherto we
have enjoyed at least equal advantages to those we are told
it is so much our interest to pay dear for preserving in our
colonies—wliat is it but a most uncalled-for insult to Brazilian
and other slave-sugar producers, to launch this express inter-
dict against this one particular product of theirs ! If we
. shrunk sensitively from all slave products, there would not
be this pointed insult to these producers. But the fact of
production by slave-labour is now for the first time a pretext
for different treatment. This marked proceeding is the more
extraordinary, as those who adopt it cannot deny that the
demand for slave-sugars will probably be increased by just
the amount to which we import free. But, then, forsooth,
our hands will be clean of this. We shall free ourselves
from the "opprobrium." Now we say this is hypocrisy. or
nonsense. The encouragement our wants give to slave-
labour may be unfortunate; but it is inevitable. However
• we legislate, it will be given, if we admit foreign sugar at all.
it is puerile, therefore, and most offensive—a most gratuitous
offence to slave-owning customers (whom we don't want to.
quarrel with)—to make any grimace about the matter. It
we must take foreign sugar—to that extent we may lay our
account with encouraging the prevalent mode of producing
i
it. All, therefore, that we have look to s the degree of con-
sideration due to our own colonists ; and that degree of con-
sideration should be afforded openly and above-board. How
much more simple—how much more honest—to have ad-
mitted the impossibility of going to foreign markets for sup-
plies, without stimulating that mode of production, by which
the bulk of those supplies is at present afforded. Directly or
indirectly, if we buy foreign sugars, we cannot help enco9-
. raging slave labour. We must make up our minds to this,
• es we do to wearing slave-cotton, or smoking slave tobacco.
. There is only one thing within our cognizance : the care or
. forbearance due to our colonists. We have no legitimate
. cognisance whatever of the internal regimen of other nations.

RAILWAY BILLS in PARLIAMENT.
The following is an account of the length, cost, and other
• particulars of. the principal lines of railway now before Par-
liament :
• Asturost, .STALSBRIDGE, AND LIVEBPOOL JUNCTION.—
.. Length,, 67 miles; estimated cost, 150,0001.—The expected
incolue is 13,336 L 10a. 11d., and the estimated annual expen-
-diture 40 per pent. upon the receipts.
BLAen.nutot AND PnEsTon.—Length, miles and 59 chains ;
estimated cost, 120,0001.—The anticipated total gross income
is 17,666/. lls., and the annual expenditure 7,155/.
BRIGHTON AND CHICHESTER —Length, 224 miles; esti-
mated cost, 285,0001.—The Brighton Company have agreed
. to lease the line for ten years, from its completion, at a rent
of 12,000/. a year—being 4 per cent. upon the estimate, di-
viding the net profits equally between the Proprietors of the
two Conapanies.
• BRICHITON AND 1-LisTiNGs —Length, 324 miles; estimated
agreed ,
cost, 475,000/.—The Brighton Company . have to gull_
rantee 4 per cent. to the Shareltolders in
.this line, upon the
. capital, for ten years next after time. opening together with
a moiety of the profits which may be realised beyond
such
per centage. estim. ated cost,
DUBLIN AND ClSHEL.—Length, 123 miles;
1,000,0001.—This is the first division of a lin.e of railway d
room Dublin to the south and west of Ireland. The propose
is from Dublin to Cashel, with a branch to Athy and Carlow.
d
The estimated income is 182,0001.; and the annual expen
1.
tura, at 40 per cent., 73,0001.
' an UNlON.—Lenth, 16 miles 74 chains estimated
cost,EAsTrc 200,000/.—The estimgated income is 25,363/. 19s. Id.,
and the cost of working the line 40 per cent. on the traffic
receipts.
EDINBURGH, LEITH, AND GRANTON.—LerigtII, 2 miles and
1 furlong ; estimated cost, 73,400/.
Eraom AND CROYDON.—Length, 8 miles and 680 yards ;
estimated cost, 170,6091.—A branch from the•Croydon Rail-
way, intended to be constructed by that Company, and to be
worked by the atmospheric principle. The Committee of
' the House of Commons have recommended it in preteren.ce
to tha branch proposed by the South-Western Company to
• Epsom.

Epsox Am) SoUTn-WESTEM—Length, 5 miles ; estimated
cost, 60,000/.—A. branch from the Kingston Station of the
South-Western Railway, by which Company it is proposed
to be constructed.
GAIINKIRK, GLASGOW, Aain COATBETOGE.—Length, 2
ones and 5 furlongs ; estimated cost, 100,000/,—The eastern
extension proposed by this branch will Wed, a connectio4