The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-03 00:00:00

Otriening c*"nit4

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 3, 1845.

The House of Lords did not meet yesterday.

The Commons assembled at four o'clock.

On the order of the day being read for bringing up
the report on the Lunatics Asylum and Lunatic Pau-
per Bills.

Mr. T. DUNCOMBZ moved that the report be received
that day six months.

Lord ASHLEY, Mr. F. BARING, Mr. M. GIBSON, and
several other Hon. Members, urged the Hon. Member
for Finsbury to withdraw his motion, which was on a
division rejected by a majority of 102, the number being
for Mr. DuNcomnes motion, 15 ; against it, 117.
Mr. DIVETT presented a petition from a gentleman
named BARRETT, complaining that an action had been
brought against him for evidence which he had given
before the Select Committee on the Medical Bill, and
praying the House to afford him protection. The
petition was ordered to be printed, and to be taken into
consideration to-morrow (this day.)

The House having resolved itself into Committee on
the Field Gardens Bill,

Mr. ROEBUCK expressed his determined hostility to
the measure, and fk r the purpose of defeating it, moved
that the Chairman do leave the chair.

After a long conversation the Committee divided, and
Mr. RoEnucx's proposition was rejected; the numbers
being—for it, 19; against it, 42.
Mr. CIIRTEIS proposed that instead of three persons
being authorised to call a parish meeting, to put this
Bill into operation, six should be necessary. This
amendment was, after a short discussion, agreed to.
Mr. HENLEY moved, that each requisitionist should
be rated at 101., but on a division this was rejected,
the numbers being for Mr. HENLEY'S proposition 17,
against it 26.

The remaining clauses of the Bill were then passed,
and the report was ordered to be brought up this day.
The House afterwards went into Committee on the

Lunatics Asylum and Pauper Lunatics Bill, and 43
clauses were agreed to. The Chairman then reported
progress, and the other orders of the day having been
disposed of, the House adjourned at Two o'clock.

The question touching the claims set up by the
Government of Spain, through their Minister at this
Court, the Duke de SOTOMAYOR, for the admission of
its colonial grown sugars, on terms equally advantageous
with those awarded to the free-labour produce of Vene-
zuela and the United States, is one of a very remarkable
character. It has elicited two memorable state papers
—the one from the Spanish Minister in London, the
other (in reply to it) from the Earl of ABERDEEN, as
Foreign Secretary of her Majesty. The claim advanced
on the part of Spain is to have her Cuba and Porto
Rico sugars admitted—irrespectively altogether of the
consideration of slave or free-labour produce—on
the same terms as those " of the most favoured nations?,
The demand is based on an article in the treaty of
Utrecht, in the year 1713, and the analogy sought to be
established with the recent admissions of Venezuela and
United States' produce, into the British market under
certificates of origin. Now the general proposition into
which the answers of Lord ABERDEEN to the several
arguments with which the Duke of SOTOMA.YOR endea-
vours to justify the pretensions of Spain in this affair,
resolves itself into this : that the obligation on the Go-
vernment of Great Britain, under the treaty referred
to is, that the "subjects " of Spain shall be treated as
the " subjects" of the most favoured nation—not that
Great Britain shall treat the " produce" of Spain as she
shall be accustomed to treat the " produce of the most
favoured nations." This proposition which, on a cur-
sory statement of it may seem to sound as mere special
pleading, is, in fact, a very substantial and well sustained
rebutter to the plea of Spain. The remonstrance of the
Spanish Minister is certainly drawn with equal temper
and ability. But the reply of Lord ABERDEEN does ap-
pear to us, not only a successful but a conclusive reply.

Whether the Duke has not reason on his side, when

(speaking of the reasons assigned for the latitude re-
cently given by the Government to the construction or
force of Conventions in the two instances we have just
cited), he suggests that certain existing but anciEnt
treaties between this country and Spain must have been
forgotten ;we will not undertake to say. Our own im-

pression is, that to this extent the Spanish Minister is
right. The origin and history of Mr. GLADSTONE'S
scheme about these certificated growths, his identifica-
tion with, defeat upon, and retirementa from
office on account of it—always a political
mystery—seems to admit of no more probable
explanation than that, in fact, these anterior treaties to
which the Spanish Duke adverts (those of 1658, 1679,
1689, and 1713) had been forgotten in Downing-street
or at Whitehall. We are bound to concede to Spain a
sort of traditionary credit forgood faith in its observance
of treaties, and we are far from wondering that
the Duke should skilfully bring the merits of
the Spanish Crown in that respect under Lord
ABERDEEN'S notice. And we go further. So far
as the mere letter of the stipulations is concerned, the
Duke proves his case. It is impossible to deny that the
rights of Spanish commerce to the favour we have con-
ceded to that of Venezuela and of the United States, as to
bringing sugar into our home market, are forcibly
put and emphatically illustrated. Even under the
treaty of 1783, which renewed all the conditions affecting
the relations of the two Crowns that were comprised in

that of 1713, the Duke of SOTOMAYOR is justified in
maintaining that these are terms which would include
the present demands of Spain, to the extent in which
they had been allowed before. But here is precisely the
point which Lord ABERDEEN puts in issue ; and we can-
not see how the Spanish Minister is to escape from it.
He demonstrates that whilst the treaties of 1617 and

1713 secure to thesubjects of Spain and England recipro-
cally, each from the Government of the other the same
privileges as were then enjoyed by the most favoured
nations ; there were, in respect of the trade of the West
India colonies of either Monarchy, no favoured foreign
nations. By a reference to the language of the very
article in the treaty of 1670, on which the Duke most
confidently relies, the Earl of ABERDEEN, with
equal diplomatic tact, and more historical accuracy,
clearly proves that it was the darling object of each of
the two Sovereigns, at, the very date of the instrument,
to guard scrupulously against, and sternly to prohibit,
the subjects of the other from visiting that part of his
dominions. Other stipulations were concurrently in
force that expressly excepted them from the scope of
any " privileges" accorded to foreign subjects in rela-
tion to any other countries. These West Indian pos-
sessions Lord ABERDEEN, therefore, insists, never came
within the spirit or meaning of any of these treaties.
The force of this reasoning is much enhanced by the
facts—First, that in 1814, at the close of the war, it

was stipulated, that in the event of the Spanish colonies
in America being opened to foreign trade, that of Great
Britain should be on the footing of the most favoured
nation. But it is an admitted fact between both parties
that, up to that time, Spain had not opened her colonial
trade. How does the Duke of SOTOMAYOR escape from
the necessary inference to be deduced from the circum-
stance of Spain, in 1814, not having fulfilled, on her own
part, those conditions, in virtue of which alone she can
exact from us the execution of our contract according to
her interpretation? He brings forward the decree of the
Spanish Government in 1824, declaring (when she had
no longer any power to restrain them) that the
Spanish colonies in America were open to all nations.
But in the result of their political struggles with the
mother country they had in the meantime thrown off the
yoke, as Lord ABERDEEN, with more truth than deli-
cacy, terms it, of Spain. Mr. CANNING, in 1822, having
called " his new world into existence," had executed
treaties with them as independent States. If, therefore,
there had previously existed, either in letter or spirit, a
boner fide compact upon this point between the two
Crowns, Spain had torn the seal from the bond. She
had no longer that to give which she had stipulated
in its recital to bestow. This seems to us the short
justification of that conduct in the British Go-

vernment, which his Lordship has ably vindicated. The
Foreign Secretary rather hints at than enters into
other considerations to be alleged for the favour shown
to the sugar of Venezuela and the United States, over
those of Porto Rico and Cuba. Though given under
treaty by anticipation only, it might have been intended
as an inducement to the former States to abolish slave-

trading. In any case, Lord ABERDEEN has clearly fe

he imperative necessity of establishing our own cha.

racier for good faith and honour in respect of these ne.

gotiations, and has done justice to the great duty
which it devolved upon him to discharge.

On many occasions we have had to call the attention
of our readers to the flagrant enormity of the dispropor-
tion between the legalised costs decreed against offenders
over whom the Magistrates exercise summary jurisdic-
tion, and the amount of damages foucd against or fine
levied upon the same parties. But the cases we have
hitherto adduced on such occasions are comparatively
trivial in the character of their vexatiousness, and the
disparity of the penalty to the offence, when put side by
side with that which we noticed in our paper of yester-
day. A poor man was charged on Wednesday last, be-
fore the Magistrates of the Egham division of the
County of Surrey, with having cut down grass of the
value of four farthings, on the edge of a ditch upon the
farm of one LANE. The man, ROSE, was convicted of
having committed damage to the extent of four far-
things—no doubt an exceedingly heinous offence, and
far be it from us to palliate it. If a penny saved
be a' penny gained, according to the assurance of
the old proverb, a penny insidiously purloined from the
sacred purlieus of a man's ditch, must be at least the
square of four pennies ; and that is a large allowance.
But what was the sum of the costs actually decreed
against this formidable agrarian felon who had, out of
an overweening affection for his donkey, we presume,
clandestinely, but in a moment of reckless sympathy,
cut down a part of the valuable growing crop which
adorned and gave importance to the brink of a fosse ?
Some 150 times the amount of the assessed damage.
Thirteen shillings and sixpence was the modest demand,
en nomine expensarum, of the enlightened bench, conse-
quent on damages assessed of the amount of one penny.
Within the memory of most living men, we believe that
the price of hay has not risen to such a price as it was
fetching in the Spring, 71. a load. Supposing that the
present season promised no better grass crop than that
of last year, and that this rustic plunderer had cut down,
that is if he could, so much of the matchless bordering of
this inviolable ditch-bank as would have amounted to the
equivalent, dried, of a truss of hay ; the Egham bench
having ordered him to pay 4s. for the " damages," ought
to have sentenced him, on their own rules of proportion,
to 150 times four shillings as costs—say 30/. sterlivg.
This may seem very absurd to uninformed people, who
have never learned to believe with the earlier sages
among onr legal commentators, " that the law is the
perfection of common sense." But to talk, after this,
of agricultural protection ? What is the necessity for
it ? Any speculative farmer who has surrounded his
homestead, like some retired burgomaster in the suburbs
of Leyden, or a rich Landdrost in his canal-encircled
domain in Batavia, with a ditch of banks as verdant as
its waters, may realise upon a few roods of land a more
profitable return than other men can derive in these
times from ten well cultivated acres. Let him only
leave his gates open o' nights, so that whether " at early
dawn or on dewy eve," these wayfaring interlopers may
test the quality of the neglected herbage on the borders