The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-17 00:00:00

ettning

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 17, 1845.

The Lords did not sit yesterday.
The Commons met at Twelve.
The Turnpike Acts Bill, the Loan Societies Bill, the
Highway Rates Bill, the Militia Ballot Suspension Bill,
the Unlawful Oaths (Ireland) Bill, and the Land Revenue
Act Amendment Bill were respectively reported.
The Ecclesiastical Patronage (Ireland) Bill passed
through Committee.
The House then went into Committee on the Lunatic
Asylums Bill.
The fifth clause, granting retiring pensions to the
officers was opposed by Mr. T. DUNCOMBE, Mr. WAR-
BURTON, Mr. WAKLEY, and several other Hon. Members,
and supported by Lord ASHLEY and Sir J. GRAHAM.
On a division the numbers were, for the clause, 43;
against it, 3 ; majority in favour of the clause, 40.
The remaining clauses were agreed to, and the report
was ordered to be brought up on Friday.
The Drainage (Ireland) Bill passed through Com-
mittee; and on the motion of the committal of the
Valuation of Lands (Ireland) 8111, the House was
counted out.

In the houses of Lords and Commons, on Tuesday
night, the question of admitting into the English home
market the slave-grown sugars of Porto Rico and of
Cuba, on the same terms as the free-labour grown pro-
duce of Venezuela and the United States, was brought
forward by the Earl of CLARENDON in the Peers—by
Viscount PALMERSTON in the Lower House. Both the
Noble Earl and the Noble Viscount appeared as sponsors
for the case so ingeniously put on behalf of the Spanish
Government by the Duke DE SOTOMAYOR, in the able
state paper we have very recently noticed.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the Noble Earl
and the Noble Viscount (the latter more particularly)
made as much of their case as it was probably suscep-
tible of. But, after a careful and dispassionate review of
the arguments severally adduced by them, we see
nothing to alter, in the main, the opinion we have
already recorded in favour of the Earl of ABERDEEN'S
construction of the real effect of the existing treaties,
;rid his repudiation of the claim advanced by the Duke
of SOTOMAYOR . It is somewhat remarkable that the
sense of each House against the Spanish Minister's ap-
plication was pronounced by a majority, the proportions
of which are almost similar ; the motion in either case
being negatived by about 2 to 1, or 100 per cent. of the
Peers and Members present. The Earl of CLAREN-
DON'S motion, for the admission of Spanish colonial
sugars on the same terms as those granted to the free-
labour sugars of Venezuela and the United States, was
rejected in the Lords by a majority of it (Contents,
14; non•contents, 28) Lord PALMERSTON'S motion, to
the same effect, was lost in the Commons by a majority
of 88. (Ayes, 87; noes, 175.) Lord CLARENDON' con-
tended, indeed, that both the honour and the interests
of this country were involved in the view which the
Government had taken of the application made to it.
He maintained, that by previous treaties prior to that of
Utrecht in 1713, and especially by the terms of this
latter, it was stipulated that the subjects of Great Britain
and of Spain, relatively, should be treated on the footing
of the most favoured nations. Though nothing could be
more explicit than these treaties, the Earl of ABERDEEN
had endeavoured to pervert their meaning, by attempting
to show, that under a treaty executed in the year 1079,
the subjects of either Crown were expressly prohibited
from visiting—and a portion from trading—with the
West Indian possessions of the other. This
Lord CLARENDON considered as futile a pre-
tension, looking to the construction of the
subsequent treaty of Utrecht, practically adopted
by both States, as the distinction attempted to be taken
between " subjects " and " produce " of " the most fa-
voured nations " was untenable, and unworthy of the
British Government. Lord PALMERSTON reminded the
house of Commons how often the Government had been
warned, when they brought forward their fantastic
scheme for limiting the sugars of Venezuela and the
United States to those produced by free labour alone,
that it would soon prove visionary and absurd, for that they
would, as the inevitable consequence of that cunces dun
to States which could by treaty claim to be considered
as the most favoured nations, be speedily compelled to
admit, in virtue of similar claims under like treaties, the
slave-grown sugars of Cuba and Porto Rico. What had
been thus granted to Venezuela and the United State;,
on their reclamations under treaties, could not, the Noble
Viscount insisted, be, in honour, or policy, or consis-
tency, withheld from Spain. To this sort of appeal the
answer of the Earl of ABERDEEN was compatible with
the tenor of his dispatch to the Duke of SOTOMAYOR.
He was (he said) as anxious as Lord CLARENDON could
be to uphold the faithful observance of treaties. The
British Government had violated none, nor would a word
have been heard of this claim of Spain but for the ge-
neral policy of the British Government recently an-
nounced on the sugar question. Nothing had more as-
tonished him than to hear from Lord CLARENDON that
Spain had always observed the faith of ancient treaties.
In the course of Lord ABERDEEN'S experience he had
met with nothing from Spain but constant denials of the
validity of such treaties. The spirit and scope of those
treaties must be determined, not by their letters, but by
the constant practice of both countries in respect of
them. So far from the distinction
_taken by this Govern-
between the " subjects" and the goods or produce of
the most favoured nations being, as Lord CLARENDON
had said, a mere quibble, in recent treaties, concluded
with Venezuela and other States, clauses had been in-
troduced conferring large privileges on " subjects" of
the States negotiated with, where subjects were dealt
with, and their goods and ships. In a w ord, we think
Lard ABERDEEN holds his own in this important
argument ; and we could have wished that Lord CLA-
RENDON had seen reason to declare that Spain had been
refused an indulgence conceded to other States, not
" because (as his Lordship says) she was weak," but
because (as we say) she was faithless. If the treaties
between Spain and Great Britain leave this indulgence
optional at all, or to be decided on a ease of merits, we
should say that the simple fact of its having been ap-
plied for at the instance of such a person as NARVAEZ,
supplied the strongest possible ground for its refusal.
The country which has been base enough to acquiesce
in the results of his treacherous intrigues deserves no
favour at the hands of freemen. But we adhere to the
opinion that, irrespectively of all such considerations,
Spain cannot make out her case on any existing treaty.
Whilst we give the Earl of ABERDEEN full credit for
having demonstrated that his own Government is in the
right, we cannot but direct attention to the bitter and
humiliating truths which Lord PALMERSTON read to that
Government on unveiling its hypocrisy and its incon-
sistency on the sugar question generally. When the
last Government, in 1841, prepared to introduce impor-
tant modifications in these duties with a view to the ex-
tension of the trade, and espcially the relief of the con-
sumer, by making the commodity more cheap in our
own market, it is true, indeed, as the Noble Lord re-
marked, that they were assailed by Sir ROBERT PEEL
and his friends with every species of remonstrance and
misrepresentation. They made that question the field
of a pitched battle. They beat the Whigs upon it, and
trode over their defeated adversaries into power. In
power they soon found themselves obliged to resort to
the very extent—and something beyond it—of remodel-
ling the sugar duties, which had been unsuccessfully
attempted by their predecessors. But they produced
that absurd scheme of Mr. GLADSTONE'S only, which
has so signally failed, and generated these new demands
and pretensions into the bargain. Mr. GLADSTONE
made on Tuesday evening a melancholy rally to fight
for this crotchet ;but it was an utter failure.
The question remains—since sugar, so far from being
permanently cheaper ta the home consumer by reason
of anything that Sir ROBERT and Mr. GLADSTONE have
one penny per lb. for loaf dearer
done, as to be already
in our retail shops (being largely bought up by dealers