The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-25 00:00:00

lytnin_c

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 25, 1845.

The Lords met at Five o'clock.
Earl BATHURST brought up the report of the Select
Committee on the Dublin and Galway Railway Bill.
They reported that the most systematic frauds had been
had recourse to, to procure the requisite number of signa-
tures to the subscription contract, and they had decided
not to inquire further into the Bill, without directions
from the House.
The Earl of BESBOROUGH then gave notice that be
should, to-morrow (this day), move that the Bill be no
further proceeded with.
Lord BROUGHAM then recurred to the question of pri-
vilege, to which he had adverted on Tuesday evening,
and said, that after the explanation of Mr. FRENCH.
the preceding evening, he had no desire to trouble their
Lordships further in the matter, reserving to himself the
right of proceeding criminally, if he thought fit, against
the Times and Morning Chronicle, which last paper had
published the offensive speech, and had also offensively
commented on his conduct.
After a few words from the Earl of Wicxtow, the
matter dropped.
Lord CABIOYB brought up the report of the Committee
on the Runcorn Railway Bill, finding the preamble
not proved.
In answer to Lord MONTEACLE,
The Duke of WELLINGTON said that some measure
was in contemplation to alter the present mode of swear-
ing witnesses before Railway Committees.
Lord CAMPBELL suggested that Committees of the
House of Commons ought to have the power of examining
witnesses on oath.
Lord BROUGHAM moved a resolution that an address
be presented to her MAJESTY, praying that she would
be gracieusly pleased to give directions that the new
Houses of Parliament might be ready by the beginning
of next session.
The motion, which was supported by Lord CAMP-
BELL and the Earl of WIcKLow, and opposed by Lord
WHARNCLIFFE, the Duke of WELLINGTON, and Lord
SUDELEY, was lost, on a division, by a majority of 24,
there being—contests, 16—non-contents, 40.
Lord WHAuNcLIFFE moved the second reading of the
Lunatic Asylum Bill.

The Duke of RICHMOND opposed the motion, and pro•
posed that the Bill should be referred to a Select Com

mittee.
The LORD CHANCELLOR said that a clause in the
Bill had passed through the House of Commons by mis-
take, and therefore it would be better not to proceed
further with the Bill.

A message from the Commons was here announced,
requesting their Lordships to expunge the clause in
question.

A long conversation followed as to the course to be
pursued in such a case, and it was ultimately arranged
that the second reading should not be proceeded with,
but that a new Bill, identical with the present one, with
the exception of the clause in question, should be in-
troduced and read a first time. This was accordingly
done, and the second reading was fixed to-morrow (this
day.)
On the motion of Lord STANLEY, the Commons En-
closure Bill was read a second time and ordered to be
committed on Monday.
The Colleges (Ireland) Bill was read a third time and
passed.

Several other Bills were forwarded a stage, and their
Lordships adjourned.
The Commons met at twelve o'clock.
The Coal Duty Bill was read a third time. On the
motion that the Bill do pass,

Sir JAMES DUKE moved a clause authorizing the pay-
ment of a drawback on coal carried in barges to the
west of Staines.

The clause was opposed by the Government, and lost
on a division, the numbers being for the clause 24,
against it 37.
Mr. HUMS proposed the omission of the clause im-
posing the penny duty. This motion was likewise lost
on a division,
_the numbers being, for the motion, 24 ;
against it 41.

The Bill was then passed, after an energetic protest
on the part of Mr. HUME, against the consideration of
measures such as this Bill at the morning sittings.
The Small Debts Bill (No. 3) was reported.
The Church Building Acts Amendment Bill passed
through Committee.

Mr. B. DENISON moved that it be an instruction to
the Committee upon Group X of Railway Bills, that
they have.power to divide the London and York Rail-
way Bill into two or more Bills, if they think fit.
Viscount COURTENAT explained the course which
had been adopted by the Committee, and which
had rendered this motion necessary.
Mr. P. M. STEWART remarked on the irregularity
of the proceedings of the Committee.
After a few words from the SPEAKER, also com-
menting on the irregularity of the proceedings of the
Citmmittee, the motion was agreed to.
The Stock-in-Trade Bill was read a second time.
Upon the motion that the House should go into Com-
mittee on the Brazilian Slave Trade Bill,
Mr. M. GIBSON called upon the Government to hesi-
tate ere they passed a measure calculated to involve the
country in a war.
Sir R. PEEL defended the measure, and, after some
discussion, the House went into Committee on the Bill.

The whole of the clauses were agreed to, and the
House resumed.

Several Bills were then advanced a stage, and the
other orders of the day having been disposed of, the
House adjourned at Half-past One o'clock.

In the debate of Tuesday last, in the House of Cum.
mons, on Mr. EWART's motion, there were some points
mooted of remarkable importance to the interests of the
general body of consumers in this country and to those
of the industrial community more especially. Mr.
EWART declared, on moving for the total repeal of the
duties on butter and cheese, that in the course of last
year only 20,000 cwt. of butter were destroyed, which
might have been previously disposed of with great ad-
vantage to the poor, but for the duties levied upon its
importation, which would not have allowed the im-
porters any adequate profit on the sale. We are to
imagine, from what transpired in the coarse of the dis-
cussion, that this enormous quantity of one of the most
indispensable articles of food was destroyed in bond.
Thus, no less than 2,240,000 lbs. of this commodity were,
so to speak, wilfully sacrificed, instead of being placed
within the reach of the poor, and the owners, the im-
porters, must have sustained a loss, assuming the value
at only 4d. per lb., of 37,3331. Imagine this value dis-
tributed among 1,000,000 poor families, for a fortnight's
supply of this nutritious article at the rate of upwards of
one pound each per week, and contrast that measure of
relief with this useless destruction of such a mass of it.
May we not be permitted to doubt whether the case is
not stronger for Mr. EWART's motion to repeal the
duties whose mischievous operation is thus to contribute
to revenue a precarious, though, indeed, an extensive
contribution, at the cost of these wholesale sacrifices,
occasionally, of a chief article of our subsistence ?
Here is another signal evidence of the partial, oppres-
sive, cruel operation of our fiscal system on the hard-
working poor. Because, the wages of their labour are
necessarily scanty, you unnecessarily increase the cost
of those indispensable articles of food which they must
purchase for the support of themselves and their families.
There can be ne doubt in the mind of any reasonable
man that the principle on which Mr. EWART'S motion
proceeded was based on the broadest and most simple
foundations. It was right in theory ; because the
theory of taxation spares necessaries, in order to fasten
on superfluities and luxuries. By an obvious analogy
the sound policy which withholds an impost on the food
of the subject, should withhold it also from the raw ma-
terial of a home manufacture. Mr. EWART'S motion
was justified, practically, by the irrefragable fact we
have just noticed of the destruction of 20,000 cwt.. of
a commodity which, pending a state of the market that
would have enabled the importers to sell, after paying
the duty, at a profit, it had, from its perishable nature,
become necessary to destroy.
If one could separate the consideration of the dis-
tressing consequences to the poorer classes of our
swarming, and, we fear, underfed population, that result
from the self-convicted absurdity of such imposts, there
would be something absolutely ludicrous in the official
solemnity of Mr. Gouustrax and the pompous compla-
cency of Sir R. FEEL, exhibited in their respective re-

plies to Mr. EWART'S speech. The former gentleman,
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, resisted the motion for
going into Committee, on high and enlightened axioms of
sound policy, indeed I He could not allow such a reduc-
tion of the revenue as the affirmation of the motion
would lead to " at this late season of the year," for " to
do so would involve the country in considerable diffi-
culty." Why there was nothing in Mr. EwART'S pro-
position to prevent the Right Hon. Chancellor from ex-
acting a pledge, if it was thought necessary, that any
recommendation of the Committee should be subject to
an instruction that it was not to take effect until after a
specific date to be named. And as to the possible " diffi-
culty" in which it might involve the country (that is, the
Treasury Chambers, No. 10, Downing-street), does the
Right Hon. Gentleman allow nothing on the other side
of the account for the millions of his fellow-subjects who
are already, and have long been, involved in almost hope-
less and absolute difficulties by these and other such
grinding imposts on articles of indispensable consump-
tion ? " When he considered that, in one year, the duty,
amounted to 347,3001., he could not accede to the propo-
sition of the Hon. Gentleman." But if he will extend
this process of consideration to the fact that this annual
amount of 347,0001. is levied on the poor, the very poor,
at the rate of 20 per cent. on their butter, and 50 per cent
on their cheese, can he satisfy his own mind as a finan-
cier, or his own feelings as a Christian, that he is justi-
fied in keeping up a duty so unfair, so onerous, and
(as we have seen) so destructive of property ? The
Right Hon. Gentleman may depend upon it that to re-
place the present rate by one of a very light nature,
would, in the first year of the experiment, pour into his
exchequer a larger revenue than any he now draws under
the existing duty, seeing that the pressure of this latter
compels the utter sacrifice of 20,000 cwt. of the commo-
dity taxed in a single year. We adhere, however, to
Mr. EWART'S as the better and wiser course, namely, the
absolute repeal of all duty on this important article.
It wa+vith reason that Mr. GIBSON complained, when
offering himself to discuss the question as one of taxa-
tion simply, that the Government invariably argued it
as a fiscal one. This is strictly true. You cannot get
the members of a Government, whose first, and last, and
universal principle of action is identified with their tena-
city of office, to take up these subject!, on large andcom-
prehensive views. The present Cum.:m.l.on of the EXCHE-
QUER is a person who cannot imagine revenue realised
through other channels, or otherwise directed, than accord-
ing to a scheme previouslysanctioned by the Cabinet. He
is, withal, deeply imbued with the common-place love of
revenue for its own sake, irrespective of all considera-
tions attaching to the sources or the mode of its collec-
tion. He is the sort of Minister who, if Parliament had
determined to purchase the Holy Land with a view to
some great religious purpose, would mar the solemnity
of the transaction by ostentatiously parading the five
per cent. discount he would have taken care to realise
on the transaction from the SULTAUN, and the Pacha
of STRIA. This item of 347,000/. is in his " Ways and
Means," no doubt, for next year ; and a deputation
of the Nine Muses, with the ghost of ADAM Sate H at
their head, would vainly essay all the powers of elo-
quence and persuasion, harmony and political economy,
on the intractable Member for Cambridge University,
to withdraw this glittering item from his next financial
statement. Sir R. PEEL, we perceive, put a question to
Mr. EWART which we are impelled to repeat. "How
could Mr. EWART expect that her MAJESTY'S Govern-
ment could possibly accede to his proposition ?"
How, indeed 1 He had already had experience of the
strength and constancy of their prejudices ; their
inflexibility—in error. For the rest Sir ROBERT'S
speech was the most dull and prosing imaginable. For
the " one hundred and fiftieth night this season" (as
the play bills have it), he went through the tedious story
of what he calls his surplus of 3,000,0004 (as usual,
sinking all allusion to the Property-tax, which produces
it), and schooled Mr. EWART on the standing subjects of
"lateness of the session," "derangement of the revenue,',
and " inconsistency." As to the first, what choice had
the Ministers left Mr. EWART as to the timing of his
motion ? Between their reckless sacrifices of the public
time and business in the dogged defence of their petulant
colleague, Lord STANLEY, and Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S
abortive perseverance in attempting to force Bills through
the House of Commons which had been previously repu-
diated by the voice and feeling of the whole nation, they
had left no other open period for the raising of this
question. Mr. EWART considered the wants of a
vast section of the people quite as important to be looked
to as the Ministerialconvenience ; and so the matter was
brought under the notice of the House. Then as to the "de-
rangement of the revenue," the Premier appears perfectly
oblivious of the many and grave objections that have
been taken to his appropriation of the surplus ever since
the introduction of his last Budget. It is no just ground
of complaint, therefore, against Mr. EwART, who stre-
nuously objected to that scheme; that his proposition of
last night, if affirmed and carried out into execution,
would derange its details. Of course it would. But,
had they not been open to the objection of not including
the repeal or modification he calls for of the duty on but-
ter, &c., he would nut have proposed now to derange
them. The last charge of inconsistency, strange to say,
does come with a good grace from Sir R. PEEL. This
paradox is readily explained. He might charge any lion.
Member with inconsistency who is himself so devoted a
slave to consistency, that having for years past enor
mously taxed the " bread" of the people, he stoutly per.
sists in taxing their butter also.

We have published a letter from several owners of
Spanish bonds, which we are unwilling should pass too
readily out of observation, simply on the ground of its
alluding to that which is matter of notorious and inces-
sant complaint. Our correspondents are desirous that
the iatervention of the Legislature and the Government
should be exercised to compel the payment of their
coupons or dividends. It is unfortunately quite needless
to enter into any recapitulation of the long series of dis-
graceful violations of the public faith of Spain, and com-
promises of the personal honour, as well as moral
character of the Ministers composing her Governments,
which have followed in quick succession upon the ad-
vances of British capital made within the last twenty
years, with a view to the maintenance of her public
establishments, and upon her own incessantly-asserted
pretext of upholding her national credit. In modern
kistory it would be difficult to find a parallel to the
generous enthusiasm, the undoubting confidence with
which the monied community of Great Britain came
forward to assist Spain in the regeneration of her po-
litical institutions. They did so mainly on the imagined
guarantee they should realise in the grateful fidelity
to their engagements of a people for whom and
with whom our ewn soldiers and sailors had so often
fought and bled, in contending against the common
enemy of the liberties of Europe. On her part, Spain
was not back ward in binding herself by the most solemn
obligations, and under public acts and conventions of
the most stringent character, to the faithful discharge of

the pecuniary liabilities she had thus contracted by
reason of the confidence reposed in her by the monied

interest, as it is called, of that nation which had been her
faithful ally and her victorious champion. It seems as if
FERDINAND VII. on his deathbed had bequeathed to

;he nation, together with a disputed succession to his

hrone and a civil war, the infamous legacy of his own
utter faithlessness, his self-convicted and shameless
falsehood, his reckless ingratitude, and his open repudia-
tion of honesty and honour. A more profligate con-
spiracy to defraud and pillage foreign capitalists was
never concocted than the whole scheme under which the
various operations of the Spanish finance administration
were conducted in the greater part of the period we
have mentioned for raising money in London upon
Spanish bonds and " securities," as they were called,
surely in bitter mockery. Millions of English capital
have thus been abstracted, never to be returned. Mer-
chants, bankers, brokers, traders, whose names stood
high upon every exchange in Europe, prior to their con-
nexion with the Spanish funds, have been driven from
station, influence, wealth, respectability, and over.
whelmed in hopeless ruin by the wholesale bankruptcy
of Spanish honour, wherever a contract was to be ful-
filled, or a promise to pay to be redeemed. What were
the pleas which Spain recorded in the face of Europe in
extenuation of this degeneracyof her faith— thisabandon-
ment of her integrity—this contempt for truth? These:—
The derangement of her natural resources ; the poverty
of her people ; the decay of the trade, the stagnation of
her colonial commerce ; the political distractions by
which she was consumed ; the destruction of all con-
fidence between the various classes of her people ; and
the consequent unproductiveness of her revenue. But
all these pleas have been falsified by the abundant
supplies which her profligate Governments have succes-
sively obtained from taxation for all the multiplied pur-
poses of domestic intrigue—court factions—foreign
agencies-- secret service—the corruptions, the venality,
the vengeance of Camarillas—the personal luxury and
the private and official establishments of the royal widow
of " the worst of kings." Was an army to be ckbalicht d?
A " Regent" to be supplanted by the same blow that
was to upset a Constitution? Was a minion of royalty
to befited—a populace to be intoxicated with brutalisic.g
shows and pageants—a Minister 0r princii,les too iin-
practicable for the atmosphere of Madrid to be ousted?
When and where, in the last thirty years, was. ttione
wanting to the authorities of Spain for any such pur-
poses? No service was starved in Spain—exc.:la that
of the public: no cause permitted t languish for want
of money—except that of the country: no petitions to
the throne to remain unredressed—but those of the