The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-08-18 00:00:00

Vadiament.

HOUSE OF LORDS.—MONDAY•
Several petitions were presented against the Poor Re-

moval Bill.
The Earl of Sr. GERMANS laid upon the table a report
of a select committee appointed to inquire into the facts
alleged by the Liverpool, Ormskirk, and Preston Railway

Company

SUGAR DUTIES CONTINUANCE BILL (NO

LorcieTARENMON moved the first reading of this bill,
and hoped that their lordships would, in accordance with
the usual practice, permit the bill to be read a first time.
The principles of the present bill had been sanctioned by
the policy of the government and legislature during the
last four years. Parliament had ceased to legislate for
particular interests, and the system of protection, or
rather non-protection, might be looked upon as for ever
abolished. He would, therefore, content himself by ex-
pressing‘his confidence, that as their lordships had de-
clared ultimately to withdraw protection from British
agriculture, they should not refuse to adopt the same
policy towards the colonies, and consequently not reject
the principle of the corn•law measure which a few weeks
ago received the sanction of their lordships. He then
entered at length into an explanation of the grounds
which had induced the government to bring forward the
present measure. There was still an advantage preserved
to the colonists ; and the slave-trade could not be made
worse than it was at present, and might be made much
better.

Lord STANLEY protested against both the principle
and details of the bill, and denied that they ought to pass
it to preserve their consistency because they had repealed
the corn-law, in imitation of the House of Commons,
which would go down to posterity as the " rapid conver-
sion parliament". He admitted the importance of a set-
tlement of the question ; but such a settlement should
bear upon the face of it evidence of having been calmly
and deliberately arrived at, which this measure did not.
His lordship then recapitulated the proceedings of the
legislatur,e upon this question during the past five years,
and entered at length into arguments against the measure
as being oppressive and unjust to the colonists, and tend-
ing to add to the horrors and the activity of the slave
trade. He concluded by moving that the bill be read a
second time that day two months; but should not divide
the house.

Lard DENMAN, still cherishing a strong abhorrence of
the slave 'trade, was averse to any measure which sought
to obtain economical and fiscal advantages at the expense
of the negro, and the risk of ensuring the permanent de-
gradatiomuf Africa. He thought they were now about
to interfere with a great experiment, the object of which
was the elevation of the human race, by extinguishing
the greatest curse which ever afflicted humanity. It was
to be dreaded that, under the operation of this bill, slave
labour would, for many years, drive free labour out of
the market. Before they adopted this great innovation,
they were bound to look at all its consequences. Free
trade in corn did not necessarily involve free trade in
sugar, for the occupation of the foreign farmer was an
innocent one, while the produce of sugar by slave labour
involved a murderous traffic, much human misery, and a
great sacrifice of human life.

- The Marquis of LANSDOWNE urged that our great
sacrifices of men and money on the coast of Africa, in
order to suppress the slave trade, had proved an utter
failure, arid defended the measure on the ground that it
was absuro to saddle ourselves with burthens, by refusing
foreign stave-labour sugar, when we imported largely
slave-labour cotton, copper, tobacco, &c.
Lord ASHBURTON opposed the bill as tending to pro-
mote slavery, and as uncalled-for and ruinous to the
colonial proprietor.

Lord Ikin.NTEAdLE replied ; and, after a song address
from Lord BROUGHAM against the measure, which was
replied to: by Lord GREY, the bill was read a first time
without a division, and ordered to be read a second time
on Wednesday.