The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-25 00:00:00

' the complaint had rather been, that too high wages had been
given on account of the great difficulty of obtaining labour.
If there were any West India gentlemen in the House, who
had the misfortune to possess large estates in the West Indies,
they must have been also surprised to have heard the same
Hon. Gentleman declare that they ought to be in a more
nourishing position now than they were in former times.
Whatever the Hon. Member might th►nk, there was no doubt
but that of late the bills drawn upon West India proprietors
had greatly exceeded in amount the produce of their
estates. But he believed in the present year, from the
information he had received, that the sugar would be s
much more superior to what it had been in former years, that
the planter was likely to derive a profit. The Hon. Member
for Stoke-upon-Trent said the condition of the Weat India
proprietors was becoming worse and worse every day ; and the
best thing they could do, therefore, was to abandon their pro-
tection altogether. Now, he should like to ask the Hon.
Member for Manchester, and the Hon. Member for Stoke-
upon-'frent, what would be the result if such a course were
adopted ? Why Cuba would have a monopoly in the British
mat ket ; and the British colonies, which formed an extensive
market for the manufacturers of this country, would be ruined.
But this was not all; they would hold out an encouragement to
slavery, and all the efforts which had been made for the last
six years to destroy this abominable traffic would be rendered
utterly useless. Now, he would ask Hon. Members
whether it was wise or politic, for the sake of get-
ting sugar a little cheaper, they would destroy so
important an interest as our West India colonies?
Unless they continued a protection to the West India colo-
nies, they would throw a monopoly of the supply of sugar into
the hands of the growers of Cuba and Brasil. It was too bad
to turn round on the West Indies, and say that these colo-
nies had always been a drag upon this country, which, for their
monnpo:y, was obliged to pay two or three millions a-year out
of the packets of the artisans and labouring population untleces
sarily. It would be infinitely better to say, as the Hon. Mem-
ber for Bath had maintained, that it would be to the advantage
of this country if the whole of the West India islands were
blotted from the map of the world. He was certain that was
not the opinion of that House with regard to colonial posses-
sions.—( Hear, hear.) The Hon. Gentleman talked about the
export trade of this country. He ( Sir G. Clerk) wished the
Right Hon. Member would look at the returns annually laid
before them, and see how large a proportion of the fifty-six or
fifty-eight millions of their exports went annually to their co-
lonial possessions—( Hear, hear)—including the East Indies, the
West Indies," and their North American (colonies—
( Hear, hear.) He thought the Honourable Member
would find that one-fifth of their whole exports were
taken by the colonies.—(Bear, hear.) And let them recollect
that this was a trade secured to them—a trade that was not
liable to any interruptions by misunderstandings with foreign
nations, from jealousies on their part, exhibited in the exactions
of foreign tariffs ;—( Hear, hear)—it was a trade carried on by
and with the subjects of this country, and they must recollect
that it was by the possession of that colonial empire that they
were alone enabled to secure that commercial marine which
was the foundation of their magnificent navy, and which
enabled them to keep that navy in such a state of efficiency as
to maintain their maritime supremacy. No nation that had
not the advantage of holding distant possessions would ever be
able to keep up a naval marine on the scale and extent which
made o►tr navy so efficient a defence of the empire. Instead of
the West India colonies being such a drag and incumbrance on
this country as to induce them to wish to see them blotted from
the map of the world, he contended that the loss of them would
be an injury to this country, not confined to the loss of trade
with those islands, to the amount of two or three millions an-
nually, bat that less would strike a blow against their maritime
power and supremacy from which the nation could never recover.
Now, the Hon. Member for Manchester had stated that their
imports from the West Indies had fallen off, and that
their exports to the West Indies had not increased.
But the Hon. Member had taken a year of great
colonial prosperity, and compared it with a year
of remarkable depression. They had legislated till the
consequences of that legislation had been that the produce of the
West India Islands had fallen eff from 200,000 tons of sugar an-
nually to 100,000 tons; and it could not be but the exports of
this country to those colonies must have fallen off also. On the
pi inciples the Hon. Gentlemen opposite themselves held, the
colonies could only give for the exports of this country
the articles they themselves produced; and if the pro-
duce of the West Indies had diminished one half, it
was only remarkable that the exports of our manufactured
goods consumed there had not fallen off in a much larger pro-
portion.—( Hear, hear.) But he (Sir G. Clerk) trusted that,
in proportion as the West Indies improved in condition, and
were better supplied with labour, or the emancipated negroes
themselves applied more diligently and regularly to the cultiva-
tion of the estates, they should see a great increase in the pro-
duce of those islands, and as a consequence, an improvement in
the export of manufactures from this country. The same
causes had operated against the introduction of machinery into
the colonies to the same extent that would have taken place
under other circumstances. The Hon. Gentleman opposite
had said that the West Indian proprietors had no inclination to
improve the process of sugar making, so as to reduce the ex-
pense of the manufacture ; he said that no attempt had been
made to introduce machinery, and he would have induced them
to believe that the steam-engine had never been heard of ; but
he (Sir G. Clerk) rather thought that as long as thirty years
ago machinery was extensively used in the West Indies—
( Hear, bear)—and he had visited a very extensive manufac-
tory on the ether side of Westminster-bridge, in which there
was not only ore, but a whole establishment full of steam-
engines prepared for the West Indian market.—( Hear, hear).
There was a total want of capital in the islands—( Hear, hear)
—and that fact must have a considerable influence on their con-
dition. Yet he believed, though the Hon. Member for Dum-
fries had spoken of their beimg in a state of lethargy—caused
by monopoly and a want of competition—that many of the
West India proprietors, notwithstanding their estates
did not pay their outgoings, were, out of their capi-
tal, sending out every ►mprovement that could be
made, in, he might almost call it, the forlorn hope
that, in time, those improvements might lead to a revival
of prosperity. He wished the Hon. Member for Manchester,
who seemed so familiar with Mr. Porter's book, would look
at what that gentleman stated with respect to the adoption of
improvements, and he would find that there was hardly any
branch of the manufacture for which patents were taken out in
this country, that were not adopted by persons anxious to im-
prove their estates. They might not have that overflow of
capital which, it seemed, oppressed Manchester and Liverpool
so much that it had gone over to the West Indies, and, as the
Hon. Member had stated, had constructed a line of railway
between Spanish Town and Kingston ; but that line only
extended a distance of ten or twelve miles, so that the outlay
of money had not been so considerable. The colonists
had not invested money in that line, but per-
haps they thought their capital might be better
employed in enlarging and extending the cultivation of their
sugar, and the produce of the cane. The Hon. Member fur
Cumberland, the Hon. 11Ien►ber for Dumfries, and the Hon.
Member for Stoke-upon-Trent, had gone into a discussion of
the plan which it was the intention of his Right Hon. Friend
the Chancellor of the Exchequer to submit, as soon as the
House should agree to the motion for going into a Committee
of Supply. But, in the first place, he thought it extremely
unfair to attempt to discuss detached portions of that plan,
until his Right Hon. Friend should have had the opportunity
of stating it fully, and showing the bearing and dependence of
one part of that plan upon the other. He would not endeavour
to anticipate any of those details, by answering any of the argu-
ments of the Hon. Meinbera for Stoke-upon-Trent and Dumfries ;
nor would it he fair to go into the discussion) as the Noble Lord
the Member for the City of London had given notice for Wed-
nesday) during that Noble Lord's absence, arid the absence of
many of the Hon. Members by whom the Noble Lord was
supported.
Mr. HAWES (pointing to the vacant places in the vicinity
of the Treasury bench)—They are absent too.—( Hear. )

Mr. G. CLERK had no doubt the absent gentlemen were
very ably represented by the Hon. Member for Lambeth—
(Hear, hear, and a laugh)—but he thought he would agree
with him that, in the absence of the Noble Lord the
Member for the City of London, it would be very
improper to anticipate any part of the discussion on
the two important points with respect to which the
Noble Lord had put a notice on the books for Wednesday.
Under the circumstances, therefore, he had no right whatever
to go into any answer to the statements of the Hon. Gentle-
men opposite on the present occasion, as they related to the
dc'ails of his Right Hon. Friend's plan, more especially the
speech of the Hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent, whose ob-
servations went minutely into those details, which could he
discussed with advantage only when regularly before the
House. He would not trespass any further on the patience of
the House. He had endeavoured to show that it had been the
policy which this country had ever acted on, and which, he
trusted, it would always continue to act on, to give a fair
amount of protection to the domestic industry of the nation.—
( Hear.) However Hon. Gentlemen opposite might cry out
against protection and the principles on which it was based,
however they might select some extreme case, and ask them
if they would attempt the cultivation, for instance, of the tea
plant, or some other production to which their soil and climate
were not adapted, by giving the growers of it the protection
of high duties on the foreign import of it ; however they
might take such an extreme case, they must look at each
by itself, and then he thought that in the policy of his Right
Hon. Friend the head of her Majesty's Government, though
he was prepared to maintain the protective principle, he had
carefully looked into the amount of duty charged on every
article of general use, with the view of affording every relaxa-
tion of those duties which would give the articles at the lowest
and cheapest price to the consumers, without injury to the
trade of the country. He was perfectly convinced that the
sudden withdrawal of the fair amount of protection would do
as much injury as the continuance of the working
of any of the old and exploded systems of monopoly which
existed a century ago, for the purpose of bolstering up any
branch of manufacture. He could only say, in conclusion,
that he believed, when the plan of his Right Hon. Friend the
Chancellor of the Exchequer was produced, he would submit
a proposition that would have the effect of securing to the
people of this country sugar, at a much cheaper rate than
they had ever been able to purchase it at, for the last twenty
or thirty years, and that this would be done without the
slightest injustice to the producer of sugar, either in their
West Indian Colonies, or East Indian possessions. He be-
lieved on the other hand. that the increased consumption in
this country, which would be the necessary consequence of this
reduction in price, would give a fresh stimulus and energy to
the West Indian proprietors and that they might calculate
on an increased production in the colonies, which he hoped
would be brought back to the state they were In ten or twelve
years ago, and that they would again be able to supply the
whole of the sugar consumed by the people of this country, to
the amount of 500,000 cwts. Under these circumstances they
might see the time when the islands would regain their
ancient prosperity, and to the satisfaction of the Hon. Member
for Manchester, they might see the exports of this country
increase from 2,000,0001. to upwards of 4,000,0001., at the
same time that a great relief would be given to the consumer
of sugar in this country by placing it within the reach of the
poorest labourer in the country, at a price infinitely below that
at which he had ever been able to purchase it during the last
twenty or thirty years. The supply that would be secured
of this article, now become almost a prime necessary of life,
would, he hoped, be ample enough to equal the most sanguine
expectations of the Honourable Member for Manchester.
He looked upon this as the permanent effect of the
measures her Majesty's Government were bringing for-
ward. Now, let them look at the practical result of the reso-
lution of the Hon. Gentleman opposite.—(Mr. M. Gibson
here made some observation across the table.) What would
be the practical result of that motion ? It would be to rouse
the feeling of the public of this country against the West
India proprietors on this question, and to expose them to a
popular odium on account of having upheld a system of slavery
which ceased to exist many years ago. He thought this rather
unfair; those proprietors had had to submit to changes which
had exposed them to severe losses, in many cases to an extent
of which the gentlemen who heard him could not be aware.
In every question brought forward connected wills this sub-
ject, they were held up to public odium, and they were
now told they were about to have their whole property con-
fiscated ! Under these circumstances, he hoped the House
would not support the motion of the Hon. Member for Man-
chester, but would agree with the original resolution for going
into a Committee of Ways and Means.
Mr. C. P. VILLIERS said he was rather amused at the
test the Right Hon. Baronet, who had just sat down, had ap-
plied to his Hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-upon-Trent, in
order to satisfy himself and the House of the propriety and
justico of his opinions. This test was—to go down to his con-
stituents—(" Hear, hear," and laughter. )—to go down to his
constituents, and ask them whether they approved of his doe-
-4 trines of free trade or not.—(" Hear, hear," and a laugh. )
Well, if they were to decide the soundness of the doctrines of