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

derived at a very small expense, which would enable the
people of this country to use a very. large quantity of it,
and thereby add very much to their comfort and their
happiness. It was argued however, that that should not
be done. He now came to the inquiry, how was it that
the people of this country should be unable to reap the
benefit of their own labour, and of the peculiar advantages
which Providence had granted to various parts of the globe ?
What was itwhich prevented them from obtaining this com-
modity at a cheap rate, and thus increasing their com-
forts ? What was the objection made by his Hon.
Friend ? He gave a description of two classes of per-
sons, whom he portrayed in very glowing terms. He
first described the people of England, and then the peo-
ple of another portion of the globe, whom he would now
designate generally by the term West Indians. He de-
sired the people of this country to contemplate these two
pictures ; and so did he (Mr. Roebuck) desire them to
contemplate them. He described the people of England as
poor and sutlerinr, ; he pointed to them as persons la-
bouring hard to obtain a pitiful subsistence, deprived of
fuel and clothing, of warmth and food ; and he then
pointed to the favoured population of that colony from
whence this article of sugar was to be drawn. The bulk
of the inhabitants of the West Indies were described by
his Hon. Friend as persons who could obtain the
means of subsistence with but little labour, and
who enjoyed the comforts and luxuries of life.
Them he described as being bankrupt in fortune,as being
unable to maintain their position, as striving to maintain
that position which they had so long possessed, by means
of taxing the poor, impoverished people of England, for
the benefit of a similar impoverished and bankrupt class
of absentee proprietors. That was the description which
his Honourable Friend had given. The poor people
of England, who were deprived of the advantages of
climate, were to be ground by a peculiar law, as the
Hon. Gentleman said, for maintaining that class which
the Hon. Gentleman had so well described. Now he
(Mr. Roebuck) had described what those West India
proprietors were. He said they were no proprietors at
all ; those very men who now came forward, were mort-
gaged in their estates.—(" No," from Mr. Bernal.) Nor
Why he would like to know to whom the twenty millions
went? His Hon. Friend complained that theydid not go to
them. He also complained that they were unrepresented.
Why, it was an imposition on the credulity of mankind
to make use of such expressions. Were they not a re-
presented class in comparison to their real importance?
Why, if they were represented according to their im-
portance to the community, the fraction of a Member
would be all they really deserved. His Hon. Friend
said this country had forced the West Indian proprietors
into their present position ; but he (Mr. Roebuck) was
there to dispute that assertion. The West Indian pro-
prietors themselves had fostered and protected that hor-
rible trade—the slave trade. They were, originally, a
band of adventurers, and had themselves established that
trade. The people of England had never fostered it.
He defied his Hon. Friend to answer that assertion.
He (Mr. Roebuck) could trace the slave trade
from Sir John Hawkins downwards, and they would
find it as he had stated ;—That a small band of adven-
turers had taken . possession of an island in the West
Indies, and following the example set them by Spain,
spread that devastating spot and plague over that por-
tion of the world. They had nothing to do with Eng:
land in her collective capacity. The West India pro-
prietors adopted it as individual adventurers, and they
were not now entitled to complain. When the people of
England at last saw the enormity of the mischief, they
interfered. But how did they interfere ? Why they
gave those very proprietors compensation for their large
losses, and yet, in the face of the Imperial Parliament,
his Hon. Friend came forward and said that they were
not adequately compensated.—(Hear, hear.) Could it
be said at that time of day, that it was not ample com-
pensation ? He said that was a most magnificent com-
pensation, given by them in support of the principle of
those philanthropists who could not allow even the
shadow of a claim to rest on the people who
had propounded that principle of liberty. Was
there any man who would tell him that it
was not a magnificent payment? He said that it was
magnificent—that it was exorbitant—that it was an ex-
travagant payment. And if those proprietors had been
compelled to prove their losses, each and every one of
them, they would not have received a tithe of what they
had already received in the shape of compensation. Arid
yet his Hon. Friend turned round and said that they had
not received sufficient compensation, and therefore he
stood between the Hon. Member for Dumfries and the
House. Now he (Mr. Roebuck) contended that if the
motion of the Hon. Member for Dumfries were affirmed,
the result would be that an enormous increase in the
revenue would accrue to the State. He was not stating
a fanciful case. If they were to equalise the duty on
sugar from every quarter of the globe, he said that there
would be a large increase of revenue. Then came the
question, who was it that interfered with the people of
England and their desires? That was the question.
The Hon. Member for Weymouth interfered. He said
" You paid us badly for our slaves, and therefore for all
time to come you have to tax the people of England in
favour of us." Was there common sense in that pro-
posal? His Hon. Friend had described the people of
England as impoverished and wretched; and he de,
scribed the inhabitants of the West Indies as being ex-
ceedingly well clothed, and well fed, and extremely well
housed. That was to say that in the West Indies a
large party of the population, namely, the free blacks,
were extremely happy. That was the description of his
Hon. Friend; and in giving that description he made this
very extraordinary statement:—" We warned you
against this—we told you what would happen, and I
fear it has so happened, and that no revolt has worked
a change." That was the statement of his Hon. Friend
—he feared to contemplate the result of a people's hap-
piness. Were not the people in the West Indies well
clothed, and well fed, and happy? Oh, yes, they were;
but then there were certain persons called the West
India interest, who had been accustomed to a certain
position in society, likely to be reduced from that
position in consequence of these wretches not working.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite complained in the same
manner about the corn-laws.—(Hear, hear.) What,
should it be said that his Hon. Friend could advocate
a free trade in corn, and in the same breath advocate a
restriction in the trade in sugar?

Mr. BERNAL dissented. -
Mr. ROEBUCK continued—Oh, yes; but his Hon.
Friend advocated a fixed duty, which was always to be
fluctuating—which was to be regulated by the aspect of
the political sky, being Bs. to-day, and perhaps is. to-
morrow. The sugar trade was protected by his Hon.
Friend, and the corn trade by the Right Hon. Gentleman
the Member for Kent (Sir E. Knatchbull). Were they
to legislate with respect to the trade in sugar, so as to
maintain the West India proprietors in that society
which they had so long adorned ?—(Hear, hear, ironi-
cally from Mr. Bernal.) " Hear, hear"—this was, no
doubt, a sharp shaft ; but if he had drawn his bow and
pointed it at the Right Hon. Gentleman, the Member
for Kent, his Hon. Friend would have said " Hear, hear,"
in a different tone.—(Cheers.) He (Mr. Roebuck)
hoped that the doctrine of free-trade would be consi-
dered without reference to these distinctions.(Hear,
hear.) The great principle of buying in the cheapest
and selling in the dearest market ought to be taken as
the motto in all -commercial transactions, and
it ought not to be crossed by partial and
petty personal considerations.—(Cheers.) He looked
upon the question of sugar as a question far greater in
importance than the question of eorn. He believed that
if they had a free trade in sugar, that an immense in-
crease in the importation of that article would take
place in one day, and in return for that importation the
manufacturers of this country would send the produce
of their industry in payment for it. Why should the
West Indies be favoured any more than any other part
of the globe ? In the West Indies revolts and blood-
shed had been of frequent occurrence, ever since they
had been attached to this country ; while they had been
an enormous expense to England. The West Indies
were a load upon us ; and if a sudden gust could sweep
these islands from the face of the earth, England would
not lose one jot of her strength—not one penny of her
wealth—not a single instrument of her power would be
diminished by the sudden disappearance of these islands
from the face of the globe. Ile could not conclude with-
out expressing his surprise at the extravagant attempts
which had been made to draw a distinction between the
produce that was slave grown and that which was not.
How ridiculous were these distinctions, when it was im-
possible for any man to think for one moment of the ar-
ticles of cotton and coffee without considering that those
were the produce of the slavery-upholding country of
America. These distinctions were mere slanders, falsa
and fleeting, and raised for the purpose of deeeiving the
people of England. The great principle of free trade
would be found, by extending commercial salvation to
every portion of the globe, and by uniting together the
various portions of the habitable globe in the great bond
of interest, to be the means of spreading happiness and
amity all over the world.
Lord SANDON would not have taken any part
in the debate at the present stage of the question had it
not been for the language which had been
held by the Hon. and Learned Gentleman. It
he could be convinced that the view which the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman took of the importance of these
colonies to the prosperity of the empire was correct,
although he could not agree with him as to the justice
of the course which he proposed, yet he might be con-
vinced of its expediency; but when he looked to the pre-
sent circumstances of the world when he saw a system
of restriction gradually growing up around us, and that
the more nations advanced in the freedom of their poli-
tical institutions the more averse they seemed to be
to the establishment of freedom of commerce, he
could not consider these West Indian colonies, which
consumed British manufactures of the annual value of
three millions, in which there could be no hostile tariffs,
the inhabitants of which spoke our own language, pro-
fessed our own religion, and were of our own blood, as
of no value. They had been told of the importance of
the trade with the Brazils. Why, the exports of Bri-
tish manufactures to the West Indies were of infinitely
greater value than the exports to the Brazils; and what
reason was there why they should be neglected because
they were part of the British empire? This was not a.
question regarding a few West India proprietors only.
Had they forgotten the importance of the West India
colonies to the revenue, to the commerce, and to the
shipping interest of the country. Looking only to the
interests of the proprietors, they should recollect that
there had been a time when they received for the West
India estates upwards of 3,000,000/. annually, which was
spent in this country. Was that so small a contribution
to the wealth of the country as to be considered of no
value ? Both the enemies and the friends of this country
had at that time considered them of great value and im-
portance. They bad been told a great deal about
free trade. Now, all the writers on free trade ad-
mitted that colonies had a claim to have their
produce admitted at a discriminating duty wherever
the mother• country imposed upon them peculiar
burdens. ltpw, it mattered not whether that pecu-
liar burden were a tax or a restriction of labour. No
doubt the compensation of 20,000,0001. was a magnifi-
cent sum for this country to give, but it did not compen-
sate those who had to receive it. Many of those who