The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-05-11 00:00:00

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-FRIDAY

Mr. O'CONNELL gave notice that he would move in the
committee on the sugar duties that no reduction of duty
should take place on slave-grown sugar.
Sir R. INGLis hoped (in answer to a question from Mr.
O'Connell) to be able, on the 18th instant, to call the atten-
tion of the house to the subject of church extension.
Mr. E. Gladstone, Mr. A. Chapman, Mr. Lockhart, Mr.
Creswell, Captain Mathew, Dr. Lushington, Lord Stanley,
Mr. Crawford, Mr. Aglionhy, and Lord Viscount Powers-
court, severally presented petitions against the Chancellor of
the Exchequer's proposed reduction of the restrictive duties
on foreign sugar, as being calculated to operate as a premium
on the employment of slave-labour in raising that produce,
from the Island of St. Vincent ; from the Society of Ship-
owners in London ? from Glasgow ; from merchants and
others of Liverpool? from 1,000 planters and others, mem-
bers of the Colonial Society of London ; from the Committee
of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society ; from
several Westilndia merchants and planters resident in Glas-
gow ; from merchants of the City of London interested in
the Mauritius ; from Wigan ; and from Bath.

Mr. Thornely, Mr. La-bouehere, Mr. George Wood, Mr.
Clay and Mr. Brotherton presented petitions in favour of
the ministerial propositions for the alteration of the duties,
from Wolverhampton ; from the American Chamber of Com-
merce in Liverpool ; from Kendal ; from all the firms en-
gaged in the sugar refining trade of London ; and from
Ashton-under-Lyne.
Sir R. PEEL read, from an abstract prepared by himself,
the substance of a petition which he presented against these
duties from upwards of GOO merchants, planters, and others
interested in the West India trade. The petitioners were of
the highest respectability, and set forth the various grounds
of their objections to, and alarm at, the proposition in
question.
Lord J. RUSSELL announced the intention of the govern-
ment with respect to the corn-laws. He would propose that
a fixed duty should be imposed on the importation of foreign
corn ; of Ss. on wheat,lon rye 55., on barley 4s. 6d., and on
oats 3s. 4d.

The noble lord then moved that the house should resolve
itself into a committee of Ways and Means, and entered into
a lengthened statement of the financial measures proposed by
the Government. He denied that the plan proposed by his
right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been
adopted at the spur of the moment. Even before the com-
mencement of the session of Parliament Ministers felt the
necessity of proposing some plan with a view to meet the fi-
nancial difficulties of the country. In accordance with the
resolution they had adopted, the house would recollect that
as far back as the 11th of March he had announced that the
Cabinet were unanimous as to the necessity of revising our
commercial policy. As an additional proof that their mea-
sures were not hastily adopted, the noble lord stated that he
had received from the Governor-General of Canada replies
to the letters in which they had communicated to him the
changes they contemplated. The measures which had led to
our increased expenditure, in support of our foreign policy,
had been sanctioned by the house, and the house was there-
fore bound to :supply any deficiency in the public revenue
occasioned thereby. They might, it was true, curtail their
naval and military force, so as to bring the expenditure of the
country within 'its income; but, in the present posture of
affairs, he believed the house would think with him that such
a course was unadvisable. In preference, then, to resorting
to direct taxation, they had come to the conclusion that it
was better to supply the defalcation in the revenue by re-
sorting to a diminution of protecting duties, rather than to
laying additional burdens on the people. With respect to
the fixed duty which he intended to propose on corn, he was
of opinion that its effect would be, to keep the price of wheat
steadily at from 50s to 60s. With respect to the sugar duties,
the object was to give a substantial protection in the room of
an absolute prohibition. The bill for the abolition of the
slave trade had been most successful in its results, and the
condition of the negroes had been wonderfully improved.
There was no reason, therefore, for sacrificing our distressed
manufacturing population in order to benefit those with whom
the operatives of Bolton and Manchester would be happy to
change places. The noble lord referred to the increased
habits of temperance exhibited by the people, and said that
the high price of sugar was calculated to impede those habits.
It might be said that the price would be kept down by the
supply hereafter from India, but he was by no means dis-
posed to substitute an East for a West Indian monopoly.
The noble lord then contended that it would be futile to at-
tempt refusing admission to slave-grown produce. Brazilian
coffee was notoriously imported into this country by being
first shipped to the Cape of Good Hope. This was certainly
an evasion of the law, but the trade had now grown to be of
so much importance that it might be dangerous to put it
down. The West India planters imported slave-grown sugar
for their own use that they might send the whole of their own
to obtain high prices in this country. The motion of Lord
Sandon be characterised as a party movement, under the
semblance of feelings of humanity, and contended that the
whigs had been always the party foremost in the cause of
abolition of slavery. If the house should adopt the proposal
made by the Government, he thought they might look for-
ward with confidence for great commercial prosperity—other-
wise the house must incur the responsibility of their rejection.
Lord SANDON disclaimed the idea of wholly preventing
the consumption of slave-grown sugar, but the real question
before them was, whether they would give direct engourage-
ment to the slave trade, and endanger the success of their
exertions for abolishing slavery all over the world. In other
words, whether, because of a trifling pecuniary pressure,
arising from circumstances not likely to occur again, they
should stultifiy all that had heretofore been accomplished to-
wards the abolition of slavery ? If the proposal of the go-
vernment were agreed to, it would be Cuba, and not Brazil,
which would reap the benefit ; and in Cuba there was no
hope of bringingabont a mitigation of the evils of slavery.
Even in ap.fiehoamaal point of view, the result of the plan was,
in his o
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which parliament and the country have made for the sacrifices