The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-05-18 00:00:00

leas tergiversation ; but knowing well that it carries
condemnation on the face of it, and feeling naturally
sensitive to any allusion regarding so sore a point, he
would argue that no man who had himself possessed,
or even whose father had been the owner of West
India property, has any right to taunt him with it!
" You or your ancestors have been possessed of sugar
estates, and have had them cultivated by slaves"
(this is the potent armour on which he relies)—'

•" and

therefore you have no right- now to be a foe to slavery,
or to tax others with encouraging the system ; whereas
our liberal and disinterested advocacy of emancipation,
once upon a time, gives us the privilege of turning
round and encouraging slavery at pleasure." This,
surely, is most admirable doctrine ; worthy of his lord-
ship's school of ethics, and great talents as a " states-
man !" We conceive it, however; to be a sort of in
quoque, that will not avail in this case. There are two
sorts of inconsistency, (we should like to remind him),
the one of which is honourable and virtuous;the other
neither the one nor the other—there is the honourable
inconsistency of abandoning error, (if it should have
been our lot to fall into it)—and the discreditable in-
consistency of knowingly embracing it, after having
once moved in the right way. It was upon the first of
these that the noble member for Northumberland relied
for gagging Mr. Gladstone in future, or for neutralis-
ing the effect of his powerful speech delivered on the
preceding Monday. We shall give the accusation in
his lordship's words, as we find them in the Times of
Thursday _ _

" He (Viscount Howick) could not regard with any other
feeling than that of disgust those petitions against the plan of
the Government which had been laid on the table of the
house, signed by all those names which he remembered were
attached to every petition and remonstrance against the mea-
sures which at the time were proposed for the benefit of our
own negro population. (Hear, hear.) It was impossible for
him to forget the part taken in the debates of 1833, and who
was before that time the owner of Vried-en-Hoop estate in
Demerara, andthat it was clearly shown that the rate of pro-
duce, per head, upon that estate, and the corresponding mor-
tality among the slaves by whose overworking that produce
was produced, were excessively high. He could not forget

that in three or four years, when there was an enormous pro-
duce of sugar, there was also a diminution in the number of
slaves of 81, being above one-seventh of the whole number.

ear, hear.")

If there was any foundation for this charge--ang
real ground of accusation we believe there was none—
but if there were any,• it is a•charge not against Mr.
W. E. Gladstone, but against his father; and is it not,
we ask, a remarkable proof of Whig paltriness, mean-
ness, and vindictiveness, that an " eminent statesman"
of that school should attempt to screen himself from
the polished shaft which could not fail to hit him, by
bringing forward such an accusation against the father
of an open and honourable opponent, behind his back,
or without notice ? But the noble lord has been
amply punished for his temerity. On Friday night
the member for Newark took an early opportunity of
bringing the case before the house, and we are much
mistaken or the noble lord got quite enough of it on
the occasion. We shall only subjoin two short pas-
sages from Mr. Gladstone's speech : •
" He (Mr. Gladstone) would feel himself highly flattered
if any hon. member of that house could remember the part
which he had taken in the great measure for the abolition of
slavery ; but be would challenge the noble lord to say what
part he meant to allude to. Did the noble lord mean to in-
sinuate that he had opposed the great measure of emancipa-
tion then carried through the house ? Did he mean to say
that he (Mr. Gladstone) had attempted to resist that measure,
and when he found resistance hopeless that he had endea-
voured to embarrass it ? The noble lord could say no such
thing. To these statements, however, referring as they did
solely to himself, he would never have ventured to call the
attention of the house, had not the noble lord thought fit to
allude to others."

Mr. G. then quoted the charge preferred by Viscoun
Howick, as we have given it above. He then said :

" Now, he asked the house whether that was not a charge
of the very gravest description, and shether it was not one
which no man ought to presume to make unless he were pre-
pared to verify it by proof ? The charge, as he (Mr. Glad-
stone) understood it, consisted in this, that there was great
mortality on the estate, and that the mortality was traceable
to the overproduction of sugar. That, the noble lord said,

was clearly shown; but he (Mr. Gladstone) denied that

was ever shown. It was asserted by the noble lord, but not
shown. In 1833 the noble lord, after making a similar alle.
gation, gave notice of a motion fora return, exhibiting that

mortality which took place upon the estate in question, and
nothing else. He (Mr. Gladstone) said, he should object to
its production, because there was a great deal of other evi-

dente absolutely necessary to sustain the proposition of the
noble lord, which he proposed entirely to omit. When the
motion was brought forward Lord Spencer recommended
the noble lord to withdraw it. The noble lord did so, and

thereby abandoned his investigation ; and yet the noble lord
now said that these points were clearly proved. The noble
lord had therefore stated that to be the case which was not

Le case, and his attempt to show which he himself aban

doned."

For the remainder of Mr. Gladstone's satisfactor

and eloquent defence both of himself and parent, we
must refer to the debates ; for our purpose we have
said and quoted, we think, quite enough to show how
aburd in principle, and unsupported in point of fact,
was Viscount Howick's unjust attack.
The London Standard has passed a high eulogium
on Mr. Gladstone's speech, but riot higher than we
think it deserves. " Mr. Gladstone's speech," he says,
" was admirable in substance, and manner; and it was
" a useful speech. Few men have less reason than the
" honourable member for Newark to dread the closest
" scrutiny of a father's life ; few men have so much
" reason to be proud of the parent whose name he
" bears. But the principle is the same, whether a
" man should have such a father as Mr. Gladstone, or
" be unfortunately the son of Mr. Hume, or Mr.
" Daniel O'Connell. The pretended, or real Jelin-
" quencies of the father will never by one of manly or
" gentlemanlike feelings be reproached to the unoffend-
" ing son in discharge of a public duty."
I Had the member for Newark been so disposed, he
might have gone further, in our opinion, and vindicated
the great body of West Indian proprietors, by jibbeting
such conduct as that of which Viscount Howick and
his associates stand convicted. For, having such
adversaries to deal with, is it any wonder that this pro-
prietory should, at a former day, have been slow to
take their word on any point relating to the effect and
consequences of emancipation, or the measure of jus-
tice that the proprietory should experience at their
hands ? It would seem that the planters well knew
their men, and had good reason to distrust all their
promises and declamation. The first act of the drama
exhibits them to us, indeed, as prodigious philanthro-
pists—men in whose eyes no sacrifice appeared too
great for the attainment of so great an object as negro
emancipation ; but in the second, we behold them the
eager partisans of free trade in slave-grown sugar, and,
consequently, the most effectual promoters of slavery
and its horrors in other countries. And what is their
reply when charged with this double iniquity ? As to
slavery, it is—oh, "we have no power over the slavery
of independent states ;" or, " we cannot afford to dis-
courage it by paying an extra price for the free-labour
sugar of our own colonies ;" or, " we want revenue ;"
or, finally, "we carry on a trade already in slave-cul-
tivated articles ; and it is mere prudery not to extend
it to sugar"—when we want it. Such are their puerile
defences touching the vital point of slavery. To the
West Indian proprietors their only answer is—" we
have given liberty to your slaves, and, with free labour,
you are now quite able to compete with the labour of
slaves"—an answer in which we can much more
easily discern insult and mockery, than justice or truth.
What the West Indians complain of is, want of la-
bourers. You have emancipated their slaves, but have
you given them free labourers—effective labourers in
their room ? If not, how can they compete with slave-
labour, or any other sort of labour ? But time has
been remedying the evil, and will at length, we should
hope, completely obviate it; provided that, in the in-
terim, no new disaster be thrown in the way. Justice
to the slave, therefore, and justice to our fellow-
subjects, demand that this iniquitous scheme of the
Whigs should be rejected—and rejected we trust it
• will have been, before these lines have been committed
to press.

Much speculation is indulged in by our metropolitan
contemporaries as to the intentions of ministers after
the result of the present protracted debate is ascer-
tained. One of them, whose anticipations are usually
well grounded, asserts that Lords Melbourne, Lans-
downe, and Palmerstone are all opposed to a dissolu-
tion, as well as Sir John Ilobhouse, who expects a
peerage. We are informed that the Sandwich election
has produced a considerable impression on the Queen,
and that reflection has rendered her far less disposed