The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-25 00:00:00

Ina/Win Aitit.

LONDON, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1845.

The House of Lords sat at Five o'clock.

Among the petitions presented were several from
different parts of Scotland, deprecating any alteration
in the Scottish system of currency.
After a short conversation on the present method
of rating property to local assessments.
Lord CAMPBELL laid a Bill on the table for abolish-
ing deodands. The Noble Lord entered into a long
and learned explanation of the present state of the
law on this subject, which he characterised as foolish
and absurd, and a clog upon the administration of
justice.

The LORD CHANCELLOR did not oppose the intro-
duction of the Bill, but as it concerned the revenues
of the Crown, the consent of the Crown would be
necessary to be obtained before passing the measure;
and as it was a Bill which referred to money, he
doubted whether it ought not to be introduced first
into the other House of Parliament.

Lord CAstrnELL replied, and the Bill was laid on
;he table.

The Earl of DALHOUSIE laid on the table the re-
port of the Railway Committee of the Board of Trade,
with respect to the Manchester and Leeds and other
railways, which gave rise to a short conversation on
the subject of the manner in which the Committee
performed their functions. After which their Lord-
ships adjourned.
The House of Commons met at Four o'clock.
Several Railway Bills were introduced, and various
petitions presented.
The Committee on the Dartmouth Election Petition
was fixed for the 3d of March.

Among the notices of motion was one by Mr.
J. BARCLAY, for the allowance to all manufacturers
of glass of a drawback for the stock on hand.
The CHANCELLOR Of the EXCHEQUER, in answer to
Mr. WODEHOUSE, s' ated that it was not the intention
of the Government to make any difference as far as
the sugar duties were concerned, between persons
who bonded sugar in warehouses, and those who, in
consequence of not having the facilities of bonding
were obliged to keep large stocks on hand. The
Right Hon. Gentleman stated in a subsequent part of
the evening, that he would say on Wednesday what
course he intended to take as to fixing a day when the
alterations were to be carried into effect.
On the order of the day for the House going into
a Committee of Ways and Means on the subject of
the sugar duties,
Mr. MILNER GIBSON moved, as an amendment,
the following resolution :—" That no arrangement
of the sugar duties will be satisfactory and per-
manent which does not involve an equalisation
of duty on foreign and colonial sugar." He
quoted the resolution of Lord SANDON in 1843,
as a precedent for proposing an abstract
resolution on this subject, and then proceeded to
show the impolicy and injustice of imposing taxation
on the community, not for the benefit of the Ex-
chequer, but for that of certain favoured individuals,
and denied that any of our colonial sugar producers
had a just claim to a differential duty. With regard
to the complaint of the deficiency of labour in the
West Indies, that might be remedied by the intro-
duction of machinery, and by giving the labourers an
interest in their work.
Mr. EWART seconded the motion.
Mr. JAMES, as a West India proprietor, felt grate-
ful to the Government for their proposition, and
opposed the resolution as tending to encourage the
slave trade.

Mr. RICARDO supported the resolution. There
were nineteen different sorts of sugar, and he would
defy the Government to define accurately what those
differences were. How for instance would they di:2-
tinguish between clayed and unclayed sugar? Much
greater sacrifices had been made by the English con-
sumer than by the West Indian proprietor, and the
latter had no claim to protection.
Sir G. CLERK admitted that protection might be
carried too far, but taking into consideration the
peculiar circutnstances of the West Indian proprietors,
he thought they were fully entitled to the protection
which it was proposed to give them. The Right Hon.
Gentleman then went into a lengthened defence of the
policy of our colonial system—attributed the present
depressed state of the West Indian interest to the
total want of capital in the islands—and concluded
by taunting the supporters of the motion with the
absence of the leaders of the Whig party.
Mr. VILLIERS asked, as the high price of labour
had been given as a reason for continuing protection
to West India sugar, why it was continued to sugar
from the East Indies, where the price of labour

was twopence a day ? and why, if the discounte-
nancing of slavery was the ground for continuing
protection, any difference was made_between Java or
Manilla and British colonial sugar ? He denied that
the distress of the West Indies had been caused by
the abolition of slavery.
Mr. W. MILES defended the Wrest India interest.
Lord Howicx, in an argumentative speech, re-
plete with statistical details, supported the motion.
The House was subsequently addressed by Mr.
GLADSTONE, Mr. COBDEN, Mr. CARDWELL, and Mr.
BRIGHT, after which a division took place, and
Mr. M. GinsoN's amendment was rejected by a
majority of 127, the numbers being for the amend-
ment 84, against it 211.
The House adjourned at a Quarter to One o'clock.

We have been so often under great obligations to
Mr. HUME for his useful and persevering labours in
bringing within the knowledge, and within the reach
of the public at large, the most important documents
and returns that can illustrate the domestic, financial,
and foreign administration of the affairs of this em-
pire, that we are less surprised than gratified by the
recent promulgation of a paper (No. 49, of the pre.
sent session—House of Commons), entitled " Colo-
nies, Population, Trade, &c." which is docketed with
the Honourable Member's name. It is impossible to
peruse this return without very strong convictions of
the immense responsibilities that attach to the ex-
tended influence, authority, commerce, and wealth
that are derived to the mother country through its
colonial dominions. The return, to which we now
allude, sets forth in terms of the order of the House,
" the date at which each colony or foreign possession
of the British Crown was captured, ceded, or settled,
the number of population, and whether having legis-
lative assemblies, or governed by orders of the Queen
in Council ; stating, also, value of exports and
imports, number and tonnage of vessels entered in-
wards and cleared outwards in each colony, in the
year 1842." If " DAVID " HUME could have ar-
rived, by any process of anticipation, at the
interesting results which, about a century
after his time, were to be promulgated to
the world in this paper, through the instrumentality
of his namesake, the great historian's generous, though
unsuccessful apology for the STUART Sovereigns
would have derived no inconsiderable aid and force
from a recapitulation of some of these dates of colo-
nial settlements. This remark derives additional
importance, perhaps, from the fact that a sufficient de-
gree of credit has never been conceded to the successor
of ELIZABETH for the sagacity and forecast with
which he examined, discussed, and even projected
great schemes of trans-atlantic colonization. His
ideas on this national question were in some respects,
it wouldlbe easy to show, far beyond the lights which
most of his contemporaries, whether princes or
subjects, had yet acquired. On matters of this
kind, moreover, JAMES was inspired with a
and a courage in en-
and difficulties that
constancy of purpose,
countering discouragements
strongly contrasted with the general irresolution,
timidity, and feebleness of his cbaracter. Almost the
last hours of his life—or certainly the last days of his
existence—were devoted, in the privacy of his closet at