The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-18 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY. JULY 18, 1845.

The Lords met at Five.

The Earl of BESBOROUGH brought up the report of
the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the alle-
gations made against th© Dublin and Galway Railway
Company. The Committee reported that the Company
had allotted shares without ascertaining the respecta-
bility of the applicants. The Dublin and Galway Rail-
way Bill was subsequently read a second time.
The Mutu tl Surrender of Criminals Bill (France and
the United States) was read a third time and passed.
The other Bills on the table were forwarded a stage,
and the House adjourned.

The Commons met at Twelve.
The Earl of LINCOLN moved the third reading of the
Commens Enclosure Bill.

The Bill was opposed by Col. SIBTHORP and Mr.
SHARMAN CRAWFORD, who divided on the motion that
the Bill do pass, but who stood alone in the opposition,
the numbers being for the Bill, 48 ; against it, 0 ; the
two opponents of the Bill being the tuners, ani having
no voters to count.

The Drainage of Lands Bill passed through Com
mittee.

The Lunatic Asylums Bill was read a third time and
passed, after the insvrtion of a clause, made by Mr. H.
BERKELEY, and the withdrawal of the 6th clause.

The Fisheries (Ireland) Bill passed through Corn
mittee.

At the Five o'clock sitting, Sir R. PEEL e:tpressed his
willingness to devote Monday to the discussion of Mr.
C. BULLER'S motion on the subject of New Zealand.
The Death by Accident Compensation Bill was read
a second time.

Mr. licLromnr stated that the Bay of Islands, where
the recent disasters had occurred in New Zealand, was a
settlement under the supervision of the Church Mis-
sionary Society, and was 400 miles distant from the
settlement of the New Zealand Company. '
Sir IL PEEL then moved the second reading of the
Bill for removing the Civil Disabilities of the Jew#,
petitions in favour of which had been presented from
various parties in the course of the evening.
The motion was opposed by Mr. PLUMPTRE, and sup-
ported by Lord Joarr RUSSELL and other Hon. Members.

After a short discussion, the Bill was read a second
time and ordered to be committed.

The House then went into Committee upon the Poor-
law Amendment (Scotland) Bill, and the whole of the
clauses were agreed to.
Sir J. GRAHAM then moved the third reading of the
Bills of Exchange Bill, which, after some slight opposi-
tion on the part of Mr. WIRLIAMS and other Hon.
Members, was read a third time and passed.
The Bail in Error Bill and the Lunatic Asylum Bill
were also read a third time and passed ; and, the other
orders of the day having been disposed of, the House
adjourned.

In the Houses of Lords and Commons, on Tuesday
night, the question of admitting into the English home
market the slave-grown sugars of Porto Rico and of
Cuba, on the same terms as the free-labour grown pro-
duce of Venezuela and the United States, was brought
forward by the Earl of CLARENDON in the Peers—by
Viscount PALMERSTON in the Lower House. Both the
Noble Earl and the Noble Viscount appeared as sponsors
for the case so ingeniously put on behalf of the Spanish
Government by the Duke DE SOTOMAYOR, in the able
state paper we have very recently noticed.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the Noble Earl
and the Noble Viscount (the latter more particularly)
made as much of their case as it was probably suscep-
tible of. But, after a careful and dispassionate review ot
the arguments severally adduced by them, we see
noshing to alter, in the main, the opinion we have
already recorded in favour of the Earl of ABERDEEN'S
construction of the real effect of the existing treaties,

cnd his repudiation of the. claim advanced by the Duke
of SOTOMAYOIt It is somewhat remarkable that the
sense of each House against the Spanish Minister's ap-
plication was pronounced by a majority, the proportions
of which are almost similar ; the motion in either case
being negatived by about 2 to 1, or 100 per cent. of the
Peers and Members present. The Earl of CLAREN-
DON'S motion, for the admission of Spanish colonial
sugars on the same terms as those granted to the free-
labour sugars of Venezuela and the United States, was
rejected in the Lords by a majority of 14. (Contents,
14; non-contents, 28.) Lord PALMERSTON'S motion, to

the same effect, was lost in the Commons by a majority
of 88. (Ayes, 87; noes, 175.) Lord CLARENDON CDR-

tended, indeed, that both the honour and the interests
of this country were involved in the view which the
Government had taken of the application made to it,
He maintained, that by previous treaties prior to that of
Utrecht in 1713, and especially by the terms of this
latter, it was stipulated that the subjects of Great Britain
and of Spain, relatively, should be treated on the footing
of the most favoured nations. Though nothing could be
more explicit than these treaties, the Earl of ABERDEEN
had endeavoured to pervert their meaning, by attempting
to show, that under a treaty executed in the year 1679,
the subjects of either Crown were expressly prohibited
from visiting—and a portion from trading—with the
West Indian possessions of the other. This
Lord CLARENDON considered as futile a pre-
tension, looking to the construction of the
subsequent treaty of Utrecht, practically adopted
by both States, as the distinction attempted to be taken
between " subjects " and " produce "..of " the most fa-
voured nations " was untenable, and unworthy of the
British Government. Lord PALMERSTON reminded the
House of Commons how often the Government had been
warned, when they brought forward their fantastic
scheme for limiting the sugars of Venezuela and the
United States to those produced by free labour alone,
that it would soon prove visionary and absurd, for that they
would, as the inevitable consequence of that conces-ion
to States which could by treaty claim to be considered
as the most favoured nations, be speedily compelled to
admit, in virtue of similar claims under like treaties, the
slave-grown sugars of Cuba and Porto Rico. What had
been thus granted to Venezuela and the United States,
on their reclamations under treaties, could not, the Noble
Viscount insisted, he, in honour, or policy, or consis-
tency, withheld from Spain. To this sort of appeal the
answer of the Eirl of ABERDEEN was compatible with
the tenor of his dispatch to the Duke of SOTOMAYOR.
He was (he said) as anxious as Lord CLARENDON could
be to uphold the faithful observance of treaties. The
Brith.h. Government had violated nope, ri,,r would a word
have been heard of this claim of Spain but for the ge-
neral policy of the British Government recently an-
nounced on the sugar question. Nothing had more as-

tonished him than to hear from Lord CLARENDON that
Spain had always observt d the faith of ancient treaties.
In the course of Lord ABERDEEN'S experience he had
met with nothing from Spain but constant denials of the
validity of such treaties. The spirit and scope of those
treaties must be determined; not by their letters, but by
the constant practice of both countries in respect of
them. So far from the distinction taken by this Govern-
between the " subjects " and the goods or produce of
the most favoured nations being, as Lord CLARENDON
had said, a mere quibble, in recent treaties, concluded
with Venezuela and other States, clauses had been in-
troduced conferring large privileges on subjects" of
the States negotiated with, where subjects were dealt
with, and their goods and ships. In a word, we think
Lard ABERDEEN holds his own in this important
argument ; and we could have wished that Lord CLA-
RENDON bad seen reason to declare that Spain had been
refused an indulgence conceded to other States, not
" because (as his Lordship says) she was weak," but
because (as we say) she was faithless. If the treaties
between Spain and Great Britain leave this indulgence
optional at all, or to be decided on a case of merits, we
should say that the simple fact of its having been ap-
plied for at the instance of such a person,
as NARVAEZ,
supplied the strongest possible ground for its refusal.
The country which has been base enough to acquiesce
in the results of his treacherous intrigues deserves no
favour at the hands of freemen. But we adhere to the
opinion that, irrespectively of all such considerations,
Spain cannot make out her case on any existing treaty.
Whilst we give the Earl of ABERDEEN full credit for
having demonstrated that his own Government is in the
right, we cannot but direct attention to the bitter and
humiliating truths which Lord PALMERSTON read to that
Government on unveiling its hypocrisy and its incon-
sistency on the sugar question generally. When the
last Government, in 1841, prepared to introduce impor-
tant modifications in these duties with a view to the ex-