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

SUGAR DUTIES

(From the Times of Friday, May 7.)
The course which ministers propose this evening to pursue
in favour of slave grown sugar is certainly without a parallel
even in the annals of whig infatuation and perfidy. To ex-
tirpate the practical evils of slavery, the people of this coun-
try consented, at the instigation of the whigs, to make the
enormous sacrifice of twenty millions sterling? and, at
. our national finances have become considerably
~ed in consequence of that arrangement, we are
b. .y told by those same whigs, that in order to make up
the deficit, it is now necessary to ecourage the importation of
slave-grown sugar at a suitable duty, and thus to draw from
the slave produce of foreign colonies the fiscal resources that
may pay for its suppression in our own ! If this be not a
lore flagitious instance of the thimble-rig than any they
t practised, we must protest that we are wholly igno-
rant of that elegant and dexterous art. Whether its low
chicanery, or its grievous injustice, or its loathsome inconsis-
tency be the more revolting and reprehensible, it may be dif-
ficult to say. Of this at least there can be no doubt, that
important parties are deliberately insulted and defraud-
.e proposal—namely, the West India proprietors, the
British philanthropists, and the negro race.
A few years ago, when, naturally apprehensive of the de-
preciation and distress which property often sustains from an
experimental interference with the economy of labour, the
owners of West India estates came forward with great doubts
to assent to the premature termination of negro apprentice-
ship, they did so on a bond fide understanding that every
effort which paternal government could make might be con-
fidently relied on, not only to protect their interest from
farther injury, but to give them a gaatifying proof of the
much-vaunted theory that free labour is really the most pro-
fitable to the proprietor. Since that period, contrary to the
flattering hopes which were held out by the whigs and eman-
cipationists, the value of West India property has been stea-
dily and ruinously declining. The proceeds of many estates
in Jamaica, Antigua, Demerara, and liarbadoes, have hardly
paid the expense of cultivation. All that remained to sus-
tain the disheartened proprietors was the hope of a brighter
future ; and now, after having generously anticipated the
'shes of their country by spontaneously terminating,.the

apprenticeship system, they are to be rewarded only four
years afterwards by seeing their free-grown sugars put out of
the market by the introduction of the slave produce of fo-

reigners. ,
Then how are the whig ministers keeping faith with the
anti-slavery societies, and with that immense proportion of
the British community, who having realised their benevolent
intentions in our own dominions, are now directing their ef-
forts against negro bondage in other quarters of the world.
It cannot be too strongly impressed on the pnblic mind
that the main purpose and inevitable effect of the proposal
which the whigs are this evening to bring forward, is to en-
courage the importation of slave-grown sugars. Now let it
be remembered that " at the period when Wilberforce and
Clarkson began their philanthopic exertions against the slave
trade, and up to the period of its abolition in 1807, the ut-
most extent of the annual importation of slaves into all the
colonies, (English, French, Danish, Dutch, Spanish, and
Portuguese) did not exceed 70,000 ; whereas at the present
moment, the Spanish and Brazilian possessions alone, whose
sugars are now to be relieved from a part of the existing du-
ties, import annually no fewer than 150,000 slaves !" With
these latter States this country has conducted a series of ne-
gotiations, during a long course of years, with a view to the
complete extinction of slavery. The whig government, in
particular, has professed to be indefatigably zealous in this
Christian enterprise. The anti-slavery societies, the whole
community of Quakers, and other dissenting denominations,
lye reposed such confidenee in the honest intentions of the
:stry, that they have latterly left the matter entirely in
own hands ; and when the whigs, on a late occasion,
;ed Prince Albert to preside at the great gathering at Ex-
ball, they seemed to leave the:philanthropic party no-
further to desire. What, then, must be the astonish-
of the country on finding that the wretched impostors
isconduct their affairs are now actually proposing to
put a bounty upon slavery, by encouraging the importation
of its iniquitous produce ? Where are the members of parli-
ament who will venture to support such an enormity, and
yet have the courage to face their dnped and indignant con-

stituents
It is co

ite manifest that the interests of the negro race in
ion command little commiseration from her ma-
jesty s ministers ; but, unless we totally mistake the British
character, it will be far otherwise with our countrymen at
large. That their sympathies on behalf of suffering humanity
will be revived and prosecuted with untiring energy, as well
in regard to Spanish and Brazilian colonies as with reference
to our own, we cannot for a moment doubt : and as it is no-
torious that the condition of the negroes in those quarters is
infinitely worse than it ever was in any part of the English
dominions, we may reasonably infer that the friends of free-
dom will proportionably exert themselves to resist and defeat
whatever may tend to prolong its abominations. As long as
the whigs made no overture for encouraging the system,
little could be done towards its removal or amelioration:
but now when a positive movement is made by them to pro-
mote and reward negro oppression by opening a market for
its produce, it is impossible but that all the nobler virtues of
our countrymen must rise up in righteous displeasure to
frustrate this guilty attempt, and to consign its authors to
to irretrievable infamy.

Pray how will Dr. Lushington, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Pease,
and the anti-slavery orators vote upon this occasion? Let
the echoes of Exeter-hall give us an honest answer !

ABERYSTWITH—TREMENDOUS THUNDER STORM.—This
town and neighbourhood was on Wednesday, the 28th ult.,
visited with one of the most awful thunder storms that has
ever been witnessed by the oldest inhabitants here. It came
• • e.
on abou

,ar in the alternoon, accompanied with lightning
and r 1, and continued with different degrees
rees of intensity,
n on again, and
raged
until 1 -hated. At nine, itcame
greatest violence till eleveTpis gust was
tremec
"The spirit of the storm" was
thet
e h
and th, ,er, lightning, and rain seemed to vie
abroad,
ewith each
t
other, a to which should contribute most to the fu
tempest, while night with her " sable pall" stood over of
ver
warring elements communicating to the whole a sense of al-
most unimaginable gloom and sublimity. The effect of the
rain was everywhere visible the next morning, particularly on
roads where there was a fall, many of which were grooved as
if a sub-soil plough had gone through them. We understand
that a cottage was carried off by the flood, near Llanrhystyd,
while the inmates, with difficulty, saved themselves. Such
was the power of the flood at this place, that a cart was
fairly carried off by it to the sea. Llanilar bridge was con-
siderably damaged, and foot-bridges without number were
swept off. We have not heard of any lives being lost, ex-
cept that of a poor woman near Llangeitho, but whether that
was occasioned by the flood or the lightning, we have not
been able to aacertalne-Cornsarthen Journal.

with thi