The Sun.
London, England, 1845-06-14 00:00:00

QL'-tirnin lei-n 3

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1845.

The House of Lords met at Five o'clock.

The Earl of ABERDEEN brought down a message
from her MAJESTY, recommending their Lordships to
concur with her in making a provision for Sir HENRY
POTTINGER, by settling on him 1,5001. a year for life,
which message was :ordered to be taken into considera-
tion on Monday.

A long conversation then ensued on the subject of the
differences between the Rev. Mr. MACRESET and the
Bishop of CASHEL ; after which,
Thtz Marquis of ,CLANRICARDE brought forward the
subject of the Irish policy of the Government. This
gave rise to a discussion, which, however, led to no re-
sult, and their Lordships adjourned at Nine o'clock.
The Speaker took the chair at Four o'clock.
Sir R. PEEL brought down a Message from her MA-
JESTY, recommending the House to make a provision of
1,500/. a year for Sir H. POTTINGER, which was ordered
to be taken into consideration on Monday next.

Sir JAMES GRAHAM moved that the House do resolve
itself into Committee, in order to vote the grant for the
new colleges in Ireland.
The motion was opposed by Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN,
and a lengthened discussion followed, bat the Hon.
Member ultimately withdrew his opposition, when the
House went into Committee of Supply, and Sir JAMES
GRAHAM proposed that the sum of 100,0001. for the esta-
blishment, and 21,0001. for the endowment of the acade-
mical institutions in Ireland should be granted from the
Consolidated Fund, and which, after a brief debate, was
agreed to.
Sir W. H. BARRON then brought under the considera-
tion of the House the state of the Fisheries in Ireland,
which led to a lengthened conversation. At its ter-
mination the House went int., ca.a
mince Estimates, when several sums were voted for the
public service, and the House adjourned at a Quarter
past One o'clock.

The question put by Mr. LABOUCIIERE in the House of
Commons to Sir ROBERT PEEL, relative to Spanish
slave-grown sugar, and the reply of the Right }lon. Ba-
ronet, open up questions of the first importance, not to
the commercial interest only, but to the whole of our in-
dustrious population. The Spanish Government, it ap-
pears, claims under the"treaty of Utrecht, and we believe
also of subsequent treaties, the right of importing into
the United Kingdom the sugars of Cuba and
Porto Rico at the most favoured rate of duty.
There is no doubt at all that the application had been
made, for it was admitted by Sir ROBERT PEEL, and we
are inclined to think there is as little doubt of the fact
that such treaties are in existence. The Minister did
not attempt to deny it—he merely said that no answer
had yet been given to the application. When these
treaties were made the feeling which prevails among
certain classes in this country against slave-
grown sugar was not in existence. All
the sugar imported at those periods from British co-
lonies was produced by the labour of slaves—the
slave trade itself was carried on by Liverpool, Bris-
tol, and other sea-ports, to an enormous extent, and
it never could enter into the head of any Minister to
propose to Spain that sugar of this kind should be
made an exception, when it was admitted from our
own colonies as a matter of course, and without one word
being uttered against it by the only party who took
an interest in the question—the abolitionists of the
slave trade. Even WILBERFORCE, with all his philan-
thropy, and all his generous enthusiasm in the sacred
cause, hesitated long before he would pass the limit
which he had prescribed to himself—the simple abolition
of the slave trade ; and it was not till many years after
the conclusion of treaties with slave-holding states that
the noble, the vast, and ultimately the successful, scheme
was proposed for the complete emancipation of our
slave population. But there is another fact which
strengthens our view of the question at issue. Slave-
grown sugar has within these few months been admitted
into this country from Venezuela and New Orleans—
the former essentially a Spanish colony—in virtue
of ancient treaties. It amounts then to all but a
certainty that Cuba and Porto Rico were not made
exceptions, and the answer of Sir ROBERT PEEL
implies as much ; for had any doubt on the subject
existed in his mind, he could not, with any propriety,
have concealed the circumstance. When we consider
the vast quantities of sugar raised in these colonies, such
a fact is of the most vital importance merely in a trading
point of view, without taking into account the
West Icdia interest, the revenue, and the good
of the public at large. On the last ground
we hail this prospect of relief to our hard-working popu-
lation with unfeigned satisfaction. The refusal of this
country to admit sugar raised by slaves would not, in
the slightest degree, abate slavery ; and why should
Englishmen alone suffer, and suffer, too, in an attempt
which never can be realised ?

The second reading of the Poor-law Amendment
(Scotland) Bill—though we could have wished that it
had passed through that stage with a less manifestation
of opposition—forms, in our opinion, an important epoch
in the social history of modern Scotland. The Lord
Advocate has really, in no respect, exaggerated the
extreme bodily sufferings, the terrible privations, the
domestic misery of paupers, especially such as are aged
and impotent in that country ; and surely, if the facts
established a case but of one-half of the intensity of that
exhibited in the fearful pictures traced by the Learned
Lord, the responsibility of the Imperial Legislature for
having so long permitted so vast an evil to remain with-
out a remedy—if the extent of the destitution pervading
so large a portion of North Britain was known in
official quarters—the remissness of such authorities in
not having before brought the matter under legislative
consideration, seems all but unpardonable. If the know-
ledge of such destitution had not, previously to the Lord
Advocate's moving in the matter, yet reached these
areprto a
1 as
withhold
official departments, that fact tells seriously against
the vigilance as well as the efficiency with which they
alstegroferodo.dißesut,tin either case, we think it hard
tn ih
ahl nnoici in: thee r LoforrdhaAvidnvoc;thteowtehveer meedtard
il of
grappled at last with a state of thinggs disgraceful to thy;
Government, and dangerous to the vital interests of any
nation in which it is suffered to exist.
Because w
appreciate the magnitude of the suffering to be m*e
gated, 'and of the destitution to be providedfloti;
we cannot concur in the unsparing cuasure directed'
by some of our Contemporaries against the
first organised attempt to accomplish objects so wise and
duties-Rs imperative. The very circumstance that he
opens a path which his predecessors ought never to have