The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-11 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY,7JUNe '1.844.

f
In the House of Lords, last high,some routine
business was advanced.a stage or two.,

The Marquis of LANSDOVf,i2,I6 consequence of the
Report of the Select Counnittee on the IMb-head
Harbour Bill not'being- yet before their Lordships,
postponed till this end of ~the .week,
.his motion re-
specting the Chester; and Holyhead Railwarßill.
Lord MONTENaLE and the 'Earl of WICKLOW
thought these repeated postponements very hard upon
the prcimoters of the Bill, which ought to be allowed

to pegs. . . , • •
The Earl of DALHOUSIE announced it to be the in-
tention of Government, in the event of a direct line of
communication being established between London and
Holyhead, to make a grant fur the improvement of
liolybead Harbour.. . • .
• The Marquis of CLARRICAUDE thought the whole
subjeCtought to be referred to a Select Committee,
„ 13.13fail.thts Bill shoUld be adOpted, in order that its
details ;night be' thoroughly investigated. It was
essential that immediate and efficient provision should
be Made for the formation of a proper harbour at
. Holyhead, and .thaCompany'should be bound to coU-
- atruct a good bridge eicross the lsienal....
Lord IlArrsanu• said the CoMpany intended to
apply to Parliament for leave to build strati. bridge.
Lord BROUGHAM was averse to any departure from

their Lordships' standing orders, in the case of a '
private Bill ; and thought it would be highly credit-
able to the House of Commons if that House of the
Legislature would adopt those orders.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE was also averse
(though friendly to the progress of the Bill) to any
such infraction of the orders of the House.
The Duke of WELLINGTON, after briefly repeating
the stages through which the Bill had passed, said
that the Committee of the Bill, having reported that the
line must be carried over the Menai, which could not
be done by the present bridge, no special instruction
to that Committee was requisite in respect of the
new bridge which must be built.
The Marquis of CLANRICARDE denied that there
was any obligation on the Company, as the Bill now
stood, to build a new bridge at all.

The Bill, ultimately, was read a second time and
ordered to be committed.

The " Law of Libel Amendment " Bill was passed
through a Committee and reported, and their Lord-
ships adjourned. _

In the House of Commons a variety of petitions
were presented for and against the Dissenters' Chapels
Bill—against monopoly at present enjoyed by the
Bank of Ireland, and praying for the adoption in Ire-
land of the Scotch system of banking, &c., &c.
Lord JOHN MANNERS presented a petition, signed
by several Members of the Established Church, for
the convening of the convocation of the clergy.

On the motion of the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHE-
QUER, the second reading of the Bank of England
Charter (Renewal) Bill was postponed till Thursday
next.

Sir J. GRAHAM, in answer to a question from Sir
GEORGE GREY, said it was the intention of Ministers
to proceed with the Committee on the Ecclesiastical
Courts' Bill to-morrow.

Mr. PETER BORTUWICK gave notice of a motion,
to be brought forward at the earliest open day, for the
production of any correspondence between Don
C4aLos and her MAJESTY'S Government in this
country, and Don CARLOS and the Government of
France, having for its object the pacification of Spain.
Mr. VERNON SMITH, Sir 0. GRAHAM, Mr. 'l'.
DUNCOMBE, and Sir R. PEEL, offered several re-
marks on the Irish Registration Bill. Sir ROBERT
declared that her Majesty's. Government were very
anxious to take the sense of the House upon it ; and,
he would to-morrow fix a day for that purpose. He
could not, at pre3ent, resolve the question of another
Hon. Gentleman (Mr. M. J. O'CoNNELL), as to
when the remaining Irish Estimates (two only in
number) coted be brought on for discussion.
Mr. M. GIBSON gave notice of an amendment he
meant to bring forward on the reading of the pre-
amble to the Sugar Duties' Bill, for abolishing all
destructive and differential duties imposed on sugars
of various growths. _ _ _

Sir R. PEEL, in answer• :to a question from Mr.
Baal nwiCK, stated that propositions but of an in-
direct and informal character certainly had reached
the British Government, .with respect to certain pro-
posals of Don CARLOS, touching the Queen of SPAIN.
Their substance was, that.the latter should marry the
son of the former. Although these propositions
had been but indistinctly put, Don CARLOS
in making them had not abandoned for
himself and his son a claim to the throne of Spain.
Our Government had immediately communicated his
propositions to the Government of Spain.

_
At the close of a conversation of some interest, in
which Sir R. PEEL, LOrd PALMERSTON, and Lord J.
MANNERS took part, Mr. BORTHWICR said that, after
all which hail passed, he should continue on the book
the terms of his motion on the subject.
On the motion for the House resolving itself into a
Committee on the Sugar Duties' Bill,

Mr. JAMES contended that the Bill had not been
sufficiently discussed on the second reading, for the
due information of the House upon its effects and
tendencies. As one of " those unfortunate beings
called West India planters," the Hon. Gentleman en-
tered upon a history of the hardships to which that body
had been subjected, at the inequitable manner in
which their property had been treated by successive
Governments, in their desire to give effect to the rash
projects of free traders and ulstart abolitionists. He
vuu
hopeless.

Mr. EWART vindicated the policy which had been
pursued in respect to what his Hon. Friend called the
"rash projects" which he (Mr. EWART) had advo-
cated. The Honourable Gentleman concluded by
moving, as an amendment, the abolition of the diffe-
rential duties, or the equalising all duties on imported
sugars, without reference to the country where they
have been produced.
Mr. M. GrusoN supported the amendment.
Mr. llumn and Mr. LABOUCHERE, though friendly
to its principle, entreated the Hope and Learned
Gentleman nut to press his amendment at present.
Mr. VILLIERS and Mr. BRIGHT supported the
aMendment, and insisted that Government ought
boldly to assign the reasons upon which they pro-
posed to confer this invidious favour on the Wt..;
India interest—for such it was meant to be—of pro-
tecting their sugars by such a scheme of duties ?
Mr. P. M. STEWART and Mr. GLADSTONE vindi-
cated the claims of the West India interest and the
policy of the Government in regard to them.

Mr. Conn Ear, in an able and argumentative speech,
supported the amendment.
Mr. BERNAL, Lord Viscount SANDON, Mr. WAR-
Birro:pr, and Mr. MACLEAN, having severally ad-
dressed the House, the Committee divided, and the
amendment was lost. Ayes, SG ; noes, 259. Ma-
jority, 203.
The Bill then went into Committee, pro Anal.
After which, a great amount of other business on the
paper for the night was proceeded with, and at One
o'clock, there not being forty Members present, the
House adjourned.

It ought to surprise no one if the infection of
slavery—so long as that degraded condition of exist-
ence is permitted among any civilised and Christian
nations—should be found still to pollute their most
frieadly intercourse .with doubts and jealousies, fears,
and suspicions. Perplexity and misgiving are the
symptoms which bespeak the presence of this infection ;
and the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER'S new
scheme of sugar duties is the test which' has detected
them. This scheme, our readers are aware, comprises
two resolutions ; whereof, the first provides that
!Trim and after the 10th November next there
shall be charged on brown, Muscovado, or
clayed sugar, " certified to be" the growth of China,
Java, or Manilla, or of any other foreign country,
the sugar of which her MAJESTY in Council 4)1111
have declared to be admissible, "as not being the pro-
duce of slave labour, per the hundred-weight, 1/.145.,
together with an additional 'duty of 51. per centum on
that rate." The second authorises her MAJESTY, from
and after same date, to give effect, by Order in
Condi, to the 'provisions of any treaty now in force
which binds her. MAJESTY to admit sugars the pro.
duce of a foreign country "at the same duties
are imposed on sugar 'the prodUce of
the:, most favoured countries." As to foreign-
grown sugars, this altered and much dimi-
nished duty is assuredly equivalent to a large re-
duction of price ; ,and everybody must concede to the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER the truth of his
state.ment--4 that sugar has almost become a neces-
sary of life in this country; that at all events it is
essential* to the health and comfort of a large portion
of the people—and that it is, therefore, expedient
that' an ample supply of this commodity should be
kept, up." It must also be allowed, that whereas the
maintenance of this ample supply was formerly se-
cured by legislative measures, from time to time
passed for that purpose, 'previously to the, emanci-
pation of the negroes in 1834—that emancipation
has since so crippled it that the supply
has become 'altogether inadequate, even in. those very
West Indian islands and colonies of ours, which used
to produce 40 much more anger than was equal to the
consumption of these kingdoms, thatwehaadraonwntuh forally
a' surplus of about one-third of the year's
6iportation to foreign States, 'after fully providing
for our home market, Thus, 'we had the further
benefit of keeping the prices of sugar here oriii level
with those it commanded in the foreign markets, into
which our surplus importation had been annually
poured. But, with the consequences of emancipation,
this
,productiveness declined, and prices advanced
here ; 'notwithstanding that, in the interval, an.
ticipating the diminished crops which, in the
beginning of ' such an experiment, • free labour
was likely to raise, Parliamerit -largely
approximated, by an extensive redaction of the

• duty on sugar the growth of the East Indies, the
price of that sugar to the price of sugar imported
from our West Indian possessions. Still, the whole
supply of sugar received into this country has
proved insufficient, and the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER therefore is no doubt justified in his
anxiety to supply the vacuum (we should have called it
" deficit"), by admitting sugar the growth of foreign
colonies, on such terms as may enable the English
consumer to obtain an adequate supply (at prices not
so much dearer than those paid in all other European
markets, as he is at present subjected to) of this im-
portant article. The great qualification which it has
been the Right Hon. Gentleman's endeavour to secure,
is—that such sugar shall he the produce of free labour.
Believing ourselves, with Lord J. RUSSELL and Mr•
EWART, that it is not possible to exclude altogether
slave-grown sugar from a market once opened to the
produce of foreign colonies—(on the principle, that►
were the United States, for example, to supply us with
50,000 cwt. of " certified free-labour grown" sugars,
they would replace that amount by importing, or by
raising, for their own consumption, so much of slave-
grown sugar) ;—still we do think that the CHANCEL-
LOR of the EXCHEQUER'S proposition is an advance in
the right course. 'We shall not be accused (we trust)
of estimating lightly the crime, the suicidal impolicy
of slavery. It is an outrage on human nature, and its
first and most sacred rights, against which we shall
ever solemnly and indignantly protest, wherever and
under whatever circumstances we may encounter it.
But the application of slave labour to the cultivation of
sugar is an usage so long established, so widely
diffused, so unremittingly persisted in by various
nations that it were romantic to hope, by any mere
fiscal devices—any mere tariff of discriminating or
differential duties—to put it down. We fear that
that happy and most desirable consummation must be
left to the influences of civilisation and the operation
of time. We fear that our satisfaction at the results
of our own efforts at its extinction—noble and mu-
nificent as they have been—must now be limited to
the proud consciousness of having discharged our own
duty, at sacrifices costly enough to attest the national
sincerity.
Since the commodity, then, will continue to be
raised, in defiance of our own legal restrictions, in
other countries whose practices we cannot control—
since the quantity raised in our own colonies, under
the restrictions against all slave labour imposed by
our own Legislature, is obviously inadequate to the
supply of these kingdoms—and since the article itself
is either a necessary of life, or a luxury almost indis-
pensable to the comforts of all classes—surely the
CHANCELLOR Of the EXCHEQUER is justified in a pro-
position for reducing the duties on its foreign pro-
duce, where grown by free labour, and in thus pro-
viding for the adequate supply of our own markets.
It is curious, however, and instructive moreover,
to observe at how serious a sacrifice of principle this
apparently simple operation must be performed. Mr.
EWART'S proposition amounted, as the CHANCELLOR
of the EXCHEQUER stated, to the discontinuance of
any distinction of duty whatever, between English
colonial and foreign sugars, imported for the supply
of the British consumers. But this would be too ex-
tensive a jump for free trade, it seems, to be permitted
to take at. once ! And yet, if the CHANCELLOR'S
modified application of Mr. EWART'S principle be
good, the principle itself, unmodified, must be better ?
But Mr. MILES is prepared to show, not only that such
principle could not be adopted coincidently
with the longer existence of our West Indian inte-
rest and its relations, but that the protecting duty of
10s. per cwt., still- retained by the CHANCELLOR in
their favour, is altogether insufficient ; and that, if
the foreign sugars are to be admitted at 345., our.
own sugars should come in at a reduced duty of 205.,
to insure them a more equitable preference or priority
of the home market. Mr. GOULBURN and Sir Ro-
BERT PEEL, intimating their decided opposition
to any such reduction, yet broadly admit that
the resolutions of the former, in favour of foreign
sugars, are calculated to work;.a great, but
an unavoidable hardship, on the British West
Indian interest. Finally, Lord J. RUSSELL happily
enforces the folly of persevering in any such futile
attempts to discriminate between foreign slave-
st wet bug-az-, Luau lisle %u Mlgur Llie pluuut...c va
free labour. He is sarcastically sceptical about the
genuineness of American "certificates." lie appre-
hends that the Right Hon. Gentleman's scheme could
only be carried into practical execution by converting
Custom-house officers into office-bearers of Dissenting
congregations, or tide-waiters into waiters on PRO-
VIDENCE. And the House concurs, apparently, in
the justice of his Lordship's reasoning, though it re-
jects his amendment. 'We ourselves may think that
the Noble Lord was tempted to handle his subject with
somewhat too much of levity ; but he did his bidding
very ably; and we can make large allowances for his
-vigorous perception of the absurdities into which the
trammels of our colonial policy are continually
plunging us. But the resulting truth is, we must be
content to take, thankfully, the portion of good which
the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER can spare us in
this matter ; and we honestly believe that he would
have given more, but for the disabilities under which
any statesman labours who has to deal with interests
—however important to the empire, as one of its in-
tegral bodies—that have once been tainted in their
elements and relations with the guilt of slavery.

The Banner of Ulster contains the following re-
marks, in reference to the Government Landlord and
Tenant Commission :--" This Commission are not to
report, it is now understood, during the current ses-
sion. The question which most deeply interests the
tenantry of Ireland is to be left over for another year,
and perhaps indefinitely postponed. The remon-
strances of the press were successful in compelling
the shadow of inquiry, but the shadow refuses to be
embodied in any palpable shape, at least for twelve
months, and the investigations of the press must be
recommenced. The report is delayed on account, it
is said, of the importance attached to the subject,
and the anxiety of the Commissioners to avoid
rash recommendations. The importance of the
matter cannot be doubted, and the anxiety
to recommend no course without due consideration is
highly laudable ; but the loss by delay should not be
forgotten. People want to know whether they are
really placed in favourable or unfavourable circum-
stances. The majority of the farmers are perfectly
confident that an improvement could be made, but
then they want to know whether it will be effected."
When this important Commission, from which so
much has been, and still continues to be, expected, was
first issued, it was concluded as a matter of course,
that no time world be lost by the Commissioners in
putting the public into possession of the result of their
inquiries ; and now, it appears, that no report is to be
issued for the space of twelve months—a rnostinjurious
delay, considering the present excited state of Ireland.
The very importance of the question is the hest reason
why no dilatoriness should be manifested by the Com-
missioners. It is not expected of them that they
should issue their report with railway speed, but
surely there is no good cause why they should delay
it for the space of one entire year. The truth is,
Government in this, as in every other question con-
nected with Ireland, seem unwilling or afraid to show
anything like activity or decision. They are in
earnest only in coercion, and shrink with the utmost
sensitiveness from the adoption of any step that wears
a conciliatory aspect. They have no hesitation in
putting down the monster meetings and sending Mr.
O'CONNELL to prison, but they cannot find it in their
hearts to apply a remedy to the admitted grievances
which caused those meetings, and have been the means
of arming the Liberator—despite his incarceration—
with all but sovereign authority. The session is now
more than half over; the House will probably rise
about the beginning of August, in order that the
amusements of the sporting gentlemen may not be
interfered with ; and what, let us ask, has been done—
what will be done for the benefit of the sister coun-
try ? The answer is soon given—nothing—abso-
lutely nothing ! The Registration Bill—such as it
is—is abandoned, or on the eve of abandonment ; the
result of the inquiries of the Landlord-and-Tenant
Commission will be an Elensinian mystery for the
protracted space of twelve months, during which
period agrarian disturbances will of course con-
tinue in their old spirit; and as for that colossal
nuisance the Irish Church Establishment, "it needs
no ghost from the grave"—as HAMLET says—to
assure us that it will be permitted to exist in all its
present enormity. When such is the policy—say,
rather, the no-policy—pursued by the PEEL Cabinet
towards the sister country, can we wonder that the
repeal agitation progresses; that the indomitable