The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-30 00:00:00

.importance than any other, that he must at once advert
to it, with the view of expressing his great regret at
whst he had heard. It was announced by Government
that they were prepared to take steps of a perfectly
novel character in the history of the commerce of this
country—namely, to put a commercial ban upon great
nations intimately connected with this country by ties
of commerce, by prescribing articles of their growth.
He thought that the veil that had been thrown over all
this was so transparent that they would lose all credit
with foreign nations, and they would consider that the
Government and the House were desecrating the claims
ie humanity which this country had so long possessed.
lie thought they were opening the door to an endless
system of subterfuge and fraudulent trade, and thereby
raising the hostility of many countries to this. He
'rusted, as the question of the sugar duties would now
be most important, it would be introduced at that period
of the session when it could be properly discussed. He
thought the present moment was ill selected for the
purpose of establishing differential duties with respect
to the commodities of certain nations. Added to
this, had they not heard, from the first Minister
of the Crown the other night, that a treaty had been
signed between two of the greatest manufacturing coun-
tries in the world—the United States and the Zollverein
of Germany—the effect of which would be to exclude
British manufactures from the United States? The
Right lion. Gentleman concluded by asking the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer when he would bring on the
sugar duties ?
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said he
should bring them forward on an early day, but he could
not then state when it would be.
Mr. STUART WORTLEY stated his satisfaction at
the statements made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
with respect to the repeal of the duties on wool. The
repeal of the duty would inflict no injury on any inte-
rest in the country.
Mr. P. M. STEWART thought although the pro-
position of the Government was most cautious, the peo-
ple would be most disappointed with the statements of
the Right Hon. Gentleman. He had said they had a
surplus of 2,500,0001. ; and for those who were expect-
ing to be the recipients of his bounty, what had he done?
Why he had begun with bottles, went to vinegar, and
ended with wool ; but why had cotton been forgotten ?
He thought the manufacturers of the country had a
great right to complain of that. Nothing had been said,
and nothing had been done upon it ; and the result
would be, that the greatest dissatisfaction would be ex-
pressed in the country, in consequence of such a slight,
as it was generally felt that that ought to have been
the first article on which the duty should be reduced.
He thought the time had now come when the sugar
duties ought to be considered, and when the colonies of
this country should be put upon the same footing as the
colonies of other countries. The colonies of this coun-
try were crippled, and the most ridiculous regulations
were made in the Colonial-office with respect to the
removal of workmen from one colony to another ; but
his Noble Friend, the late Secretary of State for the Co-
lonies, had introduced some regulations which might be
looked upon as a model for the regulation of labour.
There seemed, however, to be a secret influence in the
Colonial-office against the proper management of the
colonies, for regulations had been made thre that were
most uncalled for, regulations which were anti-colonial ;
in short, there seemed to be a feeling in the Colonial Se-
cretary's office that was hardly to be accounted for.
The first regulation was one that no agreement made
out of a colony should be binding. That was obliged to
be relaxed with regard to European workmen. Another
was, that such agreements should not be binding upon
the blacks, and that, too, was relaxed by the regulation
that in such cases the deed of agreement should be rati-
fied before officers appointed for that purpose. But not
one of these officers had been appointed, and the conse-
quence was, that no labour could be effectually imported
into the colonies. In some of the islands there were
abundant crops, and not enough labourers to gather
them. The regulation of the sugar duties was a subject
forced on the attention of the House, and ought
to be gone into in a different manner.—
(Hear.) But the Government had propounded
this Budget, which was of itself a great disturbing in-
fluence in colonial property, and the whole question
must be discussed. His object in rising was what he
saw he should effect—that of calling up his No-
ble Friend—(a laugh)—and putting him on his mettle
w th regard to the proceedings at the Colonial-office. If
that Noble Lord would take the subject in hand, and
put the Colonies in a fair position with regard to la-
bour, they would not shrink from competition with
any foreign colony whatever. After this was effected,
they might do what they pleased with the sugar duties;
for the colonies would be able to beat the world
in competition, if they only had an open chance
of 'obtaining labour. He hoped the House would agree
with him in thinking that they were entitled in the pre-
sent state of the colonies to have no unnecessary restric-
tions thrown in the way of a free supply of labourers,
who would themselves be benefitted by settling, while
their presence was most necessary to the colonies them-
selves.
Lord STANLEY said that every one must feel
the inconvenience of entering into the whole of this ques-
tion in a discussion on the Budget. But after the ob-
servations of the Right Hon. Gentleman it was impos-
sible that he could remain wholly silent. He was not
sorry, however, that the Right Hon. Gentleman bad given
him the opportunity of entering upon the subject.
There was an entire difference of opinion between him-1
self and the Right Hon. Gentleman on this question,
though he recollected the time when the Right Hon.
Member entertained a very different opinion himself on
the subject--(Mr. I'. M. Stewart—" Never!")—but with
that, of course, he had nothing. to do. He was very
happy to be enabled to say that, in his judgment, so far
from the Budget acting as a discouragement to the West
Indian colonies, with regard to tampering with the
sugar duties, he thought the statement of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer was well qualified
and calculated to reassure the colonies with respect
to the steadiness of the intentions of the Govern-
ment in the principle on which they meant to deal
with the question of colonial protection. Throughout
all the discussions that had taken place, the Govern-
ment did not so much contend for colonial protection as
they had contended for the protection of free grown
sugar over that produced by slave labour. It had been
asserted by several Hon. Gentlemen, that they now for
the first time placed upon record a resolution declaratory
of the distinction between slave-raised and free-grown
sugar; the Government was not prepared to give the
colonies more than the protection of a fair differential
duty in favour of free labour produce, against thatwhich
might fairly enter into competition with them, as
being also raised by free labour. But the Government
was prepared at all risks to maintain a positive
distinction and difference in favour of the produce of free
labour, against that of slave labour,—against that raised
by a system which was encouragement to the slave
trade and slavery. He trusted that this resolution, for
the first time announced ,would show the colonies that they
had to compete at once, though not on unfavourable
terms, with a limited amount of produce which was raised
by free labour, but that at the same time it was the in-
tention of the Government to protect them against those
who had the advantage over them, which was obtained
from the unrighteous source of slavery, and
which it was the intention of the Govern-
ment by every means to discourage and put down.
The Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. P. M. Stewart) told
the Committee that the foolish regulations of the Colonial-
office alone prevented the colonies from competing with
every part of the world. He told them that the Noble
Lord (Lord J. Russell) who preceded him (Lord
Stanley) in the Colonial-office—and of whose labours he
always spoke with the highest respect—that respect due
to his talents and his character—had laid down for the
West Indies a series of regulations which, were " model
regulations," as to the importation of labour into the
colonies. The Right Hon. Gentleman certainly
could not have read those regulations, for
every step that had been taken by the
Colonial-office since the retirement of that
Noble Lord from it, had been directed to the removal
of restrictions, the reduction of impediments, and giving
facilities to the intercourse between the West Indian
colonies and Africa. He would defy the Right Hon.
Gentleman to point out a single district of Africa, to
the intercourse of which with the West Indies' the dif-
ficidties had been increased, or as to which the facilities
of that intercourse had not been enlarged, since he (Lord
Stanley) succeeded to the Colonial-office. He took no
credit for this ; but he must say, it was not fair to talk
of the regulations of the Colonial-office having impeded
this importation and intercourse, when their course
had. been to reduce the restrictions and increase
the facilities given by the regulations. But these regu-
lations with respect to the Coast of Africa—whre
were they all ? He must beg the attention of the
Right Hon. Gentlemen ; he had chosen to make a sud-
den attack upon him, and he must beg him to listen to
his answer.—(Hear, hear.) The Right Hon. Gentle-
man talked of the restrictions of the immigration of the
Hill Coolies from India—restrictions imposed by whom?
Not by him.—(Hear, hear.) He thought that last year,
and the year before, he (Lord Stanley) was somewhat
suddenly attacked by the Hon. Member below the Right
Hon. Gentleman, for having done away with some of
the restrictions to the emigration of these Coolies—not to
a British colony, and which emigration had been absolutely
prohibited by the Government, whose model regulations
the Right Hon. Gentleman was so prepared to vaunt.
The emigration of those Coolies was narrowly watched
and bitterly attacked by the Hon. Gentleman on the
other side ; it was himself who worked the first step to-
wards removing the restrictions on the emigration of the
Coolies ; he know what reasonable apprehensions there
were of the abuses that might arise from this emigra-
tion, and .he referred the subject to the Governor-
General of India, to say whether the same
emigration might be permitted to the West
Indies that was permitted to the Mauritius, and
facilities for which had been afforded by the
present Government for the first time. But he also
talked of the impediments to the emigration of Chinese
labourers; was that owing to the late Government of
model regulations, or to that invisible influence at the
Colonial-office which it was stated thwarted and over-
threw these improvements? It was in the present year
that permission was given to import immigrants from
China, not Chinese themselves, but labourers from
Singapore and the neighbouring districts, under special
regulations, into the "West Indies. For the first time
in the present year, then, the restrictions
to the emigration of Coolies had been re-
moved and yet the Right Hon. Gentleman
turned round and charged them with preventing the im-
portation of free labour into the West Indian colonies,
and by that means stinting the natural capacities of these
colonies. The Right Hon. Member spoke as if restric-
tions on the importation of free labour to the West In-
dies from any part of the world were in existence. There
was no law that he knew of, except in India, which pre-
vented any one going to the West Indian colonies, ex-
cept the restrictions against these people making
agreements at a distance, when they could not
tell the value of their labour, and which
agreements might, being made for a long term,