The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-04-14 00:00:00

HOUSE OF LORDS.-FiUDAY.

Lord MELBOURNE deferred the second reading of the
Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Bill till 4th May.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE said that he should move
the second reading of the Tithe Commutation Act Amend-
ment Bill on Monday.
The Archbishop of CANTERBURY (after Lord Melbourne
had said that her Majesty would not, certainly, be advised
on the subject of the Clergy Reserves Bill until after the
judges' answers to the questions propounded to them had
been received,) deferred, for the present, the motion of which
he had given notice for Monday, to move an address to the
Queen not to give the royal assent to the act " for the sale
of' the clergy reserves, and for the distribution of the pro-
ceeds thereof." _ _

The Duke of WELLINGTON, Lord ELLENBOROUGH, &C.,
urged his grace not to press discussion on the subject at
present.
The Earl of ABERDEEN instituted inquiry of Lord Mel-
bourne regarding an order in council, just issued, for " repri-
sals " upon China ; but, as the subject was more fully ex-
plained in the commfms, we refer to the commons' summary
thereon.
On the report of the " Printed Papers" Bill, Lord DEN-
MAN, it will be seen, moved various amendments.
Adjourned till Saturday.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.—FRIDAY.
After the presentation of many petitions on various sub-
jects, Mr. ORD presented a new panel for the trial of the
Cambridge election petition.
Mr. FRESHFIELD instituted inquiry regarding " the divi-
sion" of Friday morning.
Mr. MAXWELL stated that on Monday he should move
for a return of the number of Roman catholic bishops or
priests receiving grants of public money in the colonies, the
dates at which those grants commenced, and the authority
under which they were made.
Mr. O'CONNELL added, that on this motion he should.
move that the return be extended to Protestants of all de-
nominations, and also a return of the relative numbers of the
members of the different sects.
Colonel SIBTHORP intimated that on Monday he should
move that the returns relating to commissions issued since
1838, and for which he moved on the 27th of February last,
be laid before the house forthwith. He found that returns
of a much mote voluminous nature, moved for since that
period, had been laid before the house, and therefore he
thought he was justified in his proposed course.
On motion of Sir G. CLERIC, a new writ was ordered for
Elginshire in the room of the Hon F. W. Grant, who had
vacated by accepting the stewardship of the Chiltern Hun-
dreds.
Lord HOTHAM asked Mr. Hume to explain the course he
wished to take with respect to a notice of his relating to
Judges of the Admiralty.
Mr. HUME answered that he intended his motion should
only apply to future judges.
Lord HOTHAM intimated that in such case he should take
an early opportunity of moving that after the dissolution of
the present parliament no judge of the Amiralty be allowed
to sit in the house.
Sir R. H. INGLIS asked for information in reference to a
large iron steamer lately taken into her Majesty's dockyard
of Portsmouth, and refitted there, as there was a mystery
connected with her destination, and there was a strong im-
pression that it was an illicit one.
Mr. M. O'FERRALL answered it was true that a vessel of
the description mentioned had been refitted in the,dockyard
of Portsmouth, but he believed there was nothing illicit in
the objects of its destination.
Lord J. RUSSELL, in answer to inquiry from Mr. Poking-
ton, intimated the intention of taking the further proceeding
on the " Union" of the Canadas Bill on Monday, it being
desirable to have the opinion of the house thereon.
Mr. lIERRIEs asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer
whether he could name the day when he would submit his
financial statement (the " Budget") to the house.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said that he had
hoped to be able to name the day before the holidays, but he
found that he could not do so until the Monday after the
holydays.
Sir R.. PEEL asked whether there was any foundation for
the report generally circulated, that an order in council had
been issued for reprisals, in respect of China?
Lord J. Russraa. answered that there had been an order
in council for reprisals.
Sir R. PEEL inquired whether it was intended to make any
formal communication on the subject to Parliament ?

Lord J. RUSSELL said, not at present.
Sir R. PEEL.—Is it intended to issue letters of marque ?
Lord J. RUSSELL said that he was not prepared to answer
the question at that moment, but in a subsequent part of the
sitting, his lordship said that he wished to state the character
of the order ;—it was not to sanction the issuing of letters of
marque, but to establish a court that-would have the power
of condemning vessels seized by her Majesty's ships of war.
His lordship added, in answer to further inquiries, that the
date of the order in council was Friday last ; and that a copy
of it should be produced by Monday.
The remaining business having been disposed of, the House
adjourned till Saturday, at half-past three.

HOUSE OF LORDS.—SATURDAY.
The printed papers bill was read a third time and passed.
Lord ELLENBOROUGH stated that, after Easter, he should
move the appointment of a select committee to consider what
regulations it would be expedient to adopt respecting the
publications of that house.
After the presentation of some petitions, and the advance-
ment of some bills; their lordships adjourned.

THE WEST INDIES.

IMMIGRATION INTO BRITISH GUIANA.
(From the Berbice Advertiser of Feb. 3.)
By the mail which arrived on Thursday afternoon, we re-
ceived, in addition to our usual English and Island files,
some numbers of the Liverpool STANDARD and Mail, con-
taining some very important articles on the state of the Bri-
tish West Indies generally, and of British Guiana particu-
larly : with most of their sentiments we quite agree, although
there are a few things from which we must claim the right to
dissent.
Blind and infatuated must the mind be that Would hesitate
to declare that the planters, as a body, have not much to
complain of at this present time ; and equally blind and in-
fatuated must the mind he that cannot see much of the evil
which our proprietary body are, at this time, the subject of,
resulting from their own misguided policy, both as it respects
the process of agricultural management, and also in the spirit
of their colonial policy. It will not be disputed, that with
the proprietary body belongs the direction of the agricultu-
ral process ; and we think it will be admitted, that they have
the key of the legislature also.
We quite agree with the Liverpool journalists, that the
British West Indian planters have much to complain of, at
this time, as a body. Crowned heads and elected parliaments
long fostered the system of negro slavery in the colonies. It
was a part of their system. They not only sanctioned, but
nursed it; and however much it may be a foul blot on our
national character, yet it must be admitted that, whilst the
nation encouraged its merchants and capitalists to launch
forth their millions into the colonies, which reflected such
great wealth back again upon the mother country, to the ad-
vancement of its magnificence. power, and glory, it is bound
to secure to the proprietary body security for its property,
and justice to the utmost, as far as any human legislative
enactments can secure it. But has the government of Great
Britain done that ? Every one acouainted with the nature
of West Indian property, whose cranium is not cursed with
the organ of fanaticism, will pronounce at once no. That it
has not done justice to the planters as a body, and therefore
it has not done justice to the nation and to the world, we
will attempt to evince in our remarks.
We are highly pleased to find that the representatives of
the West Indies are about to approach the government with
their grievances. We wish them much success, and hope
they will maintain a firm position ; which is the only way
likely to produce success. But it may be asked, what will
form the burden of their complaint ? It will be answered at
once, the want of labourers to till the ground : it will be the
old story, give us immigration on an extensive scale, or our
properties will retrograde into their pristine rudeness, and
the capital vested in them will be lost. In addition to which,
they may urge every motive of humanity and good policy.
The words of Sir J. C. Smyth might be employed with great
emphasis :—" The capitalist and labourer, for ages to come,
will find profitable employment in this important colony,"
for the importation of great numbers of labourers would
promote " the happiness and comfort of the human race,
and much diminish misery." If ever man uttered the words
of truth and soberness, it was Sir James, when he expressed
himself in this manner. The representatives might urge his
words in favour of the great work of immigration, which
alone, we are sure, are sufficient to operate on the govern-
ment.
To urge the necessity of an importation of capital with the
present number of labourers, would he futile, because there
is a great amount of capital already in the colony, ready to be
vested in agriculture, if labourers could but be had at any
thing like reasonable terms. Labourers who are dragging
out a miserable, half starved, ill-paid life, in other parts of
the empire, would find profitable employment here.
We are not sanguine in our expectations, of much real good
resulting from the importation of field labourers from high
latitudes. There are thousands of clever mechanics in Great
Britain, who would better their circumstances much, no
doubt, by coming to this country ; who, together with do-
mestic servants, not being exposed to the broiling sun and
the drenching rains, might enjoy a fair share of health, with
advantages and an independence which other countries do
not afford.
The planters, as a body, are at this time much agitated.
They have received a compensation from the British nation
for their slaves, it is true ; but have they been properly at-
tended to ? We think they might show the government that
they have not. They vested great capital in the colonies, on
the good faith of the British nation, which is as much bound
to protect the agriculturist here from the want of labourers
to keep up the cultivation, andfrom the competition of foreign
and slave-grown produce, as it is to protect the property
vested in English agriculture from competition with Russia
and other countries. If Great Britain had not the means of
redressing the grievances under which so respectable and im-
portant a part of the empire are suffering, and through whose
enterprising spirit its national wealth has been so much aug-
mented, then there would not be those reasons for com-
plaint which now fill every mouth with murmur, and every
mind with distrust : but she has the power within herself;
she has millions of individuals, whose circumstances would
be infinitely bettered by immigrating to these shores. Whilst,
then, the British Isles are pouring forth such prodigious
swarms of emigrants, and emigration is fostered by the go-
vernment to any soil but that of the luxuriant ailuvion of
Guiana, the government withholding immigrants from this
country is the agent of pecuniary loss to the capitalists as a
body : it is the curse of the country, and is, too, doubly re-
prehensible when viewed with its concomitants. No doubt
the value of West India property is at this moment very
great; but it is equally, beyond a doubt, sinking, and will
continue to sink, without a considerable increase to our la-
bouring population. Is it not unjust, then, to withhold im-
migration from us, when we consider, too, that thereby a
curse is inflicted on the colony ? Had we labourers to culti-
vate our soil and to drain our swamps, so that the putrefac-
tion of rank weeds, and the stagnation of waters, might not
poison the air, how much it would contribute to the healthful
state of the colony ! No doubt it might be made as healthy
as any country within the tropics. Who can help lamenting
over the mistaken policy of the world, which has allowed the
fairest blessing of nature to bloom its smiles for centuries on
this country, inviting, by a thousand calls, the skill and in-
dustry of man, without responding to a voice so loud, so
cheering, and so promising? We do' not lament that the
monstrosities of slavery are put an end to, but we do lament
to see our trenches choking up, our cane pieces neglected,
and our once flourishing plantations falling back to their ori-
ginal state. Witness the East and Corentyne Coasts, which
once spread their golden drapery before a smiling sun. Whilst
Great Britain was bound, on the one hand, by every sacred
principle, to put an end to the evils of slavery, it is also bound,
at least, not to put any impediments in the way of our agri-
culture, much less should it positively act as it has, to the
injury alike of itself and her colonies.
When the Spaniards hit upon the plan of supplying the
place of the Haytian aborigines, whom they had worked
down in working their gold mines, by negroes from Africa,
it was under the pretence of civilizing and christianizing
them ; and great numbers were baptized. How far it was
" an outward sign of an inward and spiritual grace," does
not appear. England and other European nations, excited
by the wealth which the Spaniards got from the 'West, took
up the trade also, of exporting great numbers of negroes
from Africa to the West Indies ; but it was with the fair un-
derstanding, at first, that they should be treated very
humanely, whilst one great object proposed by this trade,
was the civilization and conversion of the Hamite race. But
as soon as the great profits of this rapidly degenerating trade
began to flow into the national coffers, the nation winked
at the means by which it was acquired, though Queen Eliza-
beth, who was very fruitful in the qualms of conscience, had
great misgivings on this subject, too. Thus it grew and
strengthened with years, until it was acknowledged as a part
of the law of the land. Now, the same reason prevails now,
as in the days gone by. We want labourers : the Africans
are a race well adapted to our object : they are in a state of
savage wildness, exposed to all the evils consequent upon
ignorance and idolatry. A scheme of emigration for them
would deliver them from the evils of savage barbarity, and a
humane scheme of immigration for them to our shores
would create a reciprocal blessing on the importers and the
imported, whilst England would have the glory of furthering
alike the cause of civilization and industry : British interest
and Christianity. These observations will apply also to India.
England ought to attend as judiciously to the colonizing of
her colonies as to her own domestic policy. We hope she
will look well to this. We beseech the British public, for it
is to them, and not to a batch of bungling indifferent place
keepers that we are to look. We say then to the English
nation, let the cries of barbarity, let the human gore spilt in
savage wars on Africa's deserts rouse you, let the horrors of
Indian infanticide, the iaolatry of the funeral pile, the pesti-
lence, starvation, and miseries of the teeming millions of In-
dia, bleeding beneath the delusions of idolatry, animate
you to call upon the Government to do what every principle
of national interest and glory should prompt them to : which
is, to open up a free system of immigration to those coun-
tries, whose inhabitants would thereby so much better their
circumstances and advance British interest.

IMMIGRATION INTO THE WEST INDIES.

(From the Jamaica Standard of Feb. 15.)

We observe by the town papers, that a Mr. Watt, agent
for the Messrs. Mitchel, has lately arrived in the New Phoenix
at St. Ann's Bay, with 140 Irish emigrants, which he is re-
ported to have selected with great care, from a neighbourhood
where both himself and his family are well known. The
people are described to be of a superior description for their
humble sphere of life, and give every promise of turning out
an acquisition to the several properties upon which they have
been located. Only keep rum from them—tnat bane of
nine-tenths of all the emigrants who have ever yet come to
this country—and we have little doubt of their success—none
whatever, indeed, either as regards their comfort or their
health, if they will only abstain from intemperance and prove
moderately industrious. For this purpose, we have often
thought, that were employers to encourage a taste for sweets,
among their newly-arrived peasantry, by sharing out sugar
Made into " beverage," instead of the too often deleterious
mixture of new rum and water with which they are supplied,
a habit of temperance might thereby be instilled into them,
which would prove in the end not less advantageous to the
master, than morally as well as physically beneficial to the
labourers themselves. In the cider counties of England, it
is a practice almost universal, to allow a certain quantity of
that liquor per diem, to each person, at something less than
its equivalent in money wages, and the result has always
proved, with the most useful.effects • why then, should not a
similar custom be adopted among the sugar parishes of Ja-
maica, where the juice of the cane, (more especially when it
is flavoured with that of the lemon, which is to be found in
abundance in almost every pasture or hedge-row) is certainly
much more nourishing as well as palateable, than any new-
made cider that we ever saw. The country negrocs, gene-
rally, are a temperate race,—and why f from no other cause
than that from their very childhood they have been in the
habit of using the cane juice as their only beverage, in special
encouragement of which, the old system, with all its faults,
allowed a pint of the same per day, to every person on the
estate during crop, a practice neither discontinued nor taken
into any account under the more liberal agreements of the
new. It is a fact, we believe, of almost universal application,
that wherever a taste for sweets is imbibed, there is little or
no relish or desire for the stronger stimulants, a truth which
we would advise all those having the management of immi-
grants to bear in mind.

...
The absolute necessity of immigration to an island so scan-
tily supplied with inhabitants, and so fruitful as Jamaica,—
if anything like industry among the labourers or prosperity
to the planters is desired leasubject which has long occu-
pied the attention of our
publicw readers; but, like many other mat-
ters in which theal has been concerned, it has
unfortunately been much more discussed than acted upon.
Not so, however, with the people of other colonies. In
Trinidad and Demerara, for instance,—the two colonies next
to Jamaica in extent, as well asinotrultivated lands,—the
strongest efforts are being made, b by public co-operation
and private interest, to effect this desirable purpose ;
several cargoes
conse-
quently we find in the former the arrival
lately announced, one of which we observe is composed of
American emigrants, and another of German.e By a return
of labour performed by some of the former, duringttl the first
two weeks of their arrival, it would appear
accomplished from two to three " tasks " per
they each
of youngp rintlants,"
weeding
diem, in
" weeding" canes,—the " first weeding
which also included " moulding," being divided into
of 3,600 superficial feet ; while for the " third w
ratoons" the task was 6,100 feet. The price paid, we%rnr ofy
also observe, was " four bits, with an allowance for eacha
task of half a pound of fish, and two gills of rum, or its equi-
valent,—say, in all, five bits per task. So that these la-
bourers were earning from 3s. 9d. to ss. 6d. sterling per day,
and thus, it is said, encouraging the other labourers upon
the property, " from sheer shame," to perform " double"
their usual task ! —a fact which gives the Trinidad Standard
a very good opportunity of referring to the old Aldermanbury
assertion, that the labourers, both in the time of slavery and
the apprenticeship, were much overworked ; but which could
scarcely have been the case, certainly, if now it is found that
they themelves can very easily accomplish twice the quell,