The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-02-11 00:00:00

HOUSE OF LORDS.—TursDAY

Lord BROUGHAM presanted a petition from a conference,
lately held at Edinburgh, of the ministers and elders of the
various dissenting congregations throughout Scotland, pray-
ing for a total repeal of the corn laws. They were opposed
both to the sliding scale of Sir Robert Peel, and the fixed
duty of Lord John Russell, passing an equal condemnation
upon all projects for taxing food, as being against the
principles of religion, contrary to the precepts of morality,

and injurious to the best interests of society. He (Lord
Brougham) entirely differed from the petitioners on the two
' "-rounds of their objection, but be thought there was a
•_suth in the assertion, that the best interests of
society required the repeal of those laws.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE called the attention of the
house to the petition he had presented on a former occasion
from the woollen-manufacturers of the west of England,
stating that it was the opinion of the petitioners that there
was now a considerable failure in the woollen trade, and that
the restrictions upon provisions had reduced and neutralised
trade, and pauperised the working classes. These evils•were
produced by partial legislation, and more especially, they
stated, by reason of the corn and provision laws. The pe-
tition further stated, that all restrictions and prohibitory
duties on provisions were most prejudicial to the interests of
all classes of the community, and that all duties intended
for the protection of British manufactures should berepealed.
His lordship proceeded to comment at some length on the

great deal o

of the corn laws

Lord' ASHBURTON said he could not permit such state-
ments as those made by the petitioners without entering his
protest against the conclusions to which they had come.
He entertained no doubt whatever of the existence of great
distress prevailing amongst the woollen manufacturers ; but
he doubted whether there was not some exaggeration in the
that the number of looms which had been em-
loyed in the particular district Lad fallen off one half. if
this were, however so, it was pretty clear that such a declen-
sion must be owing to something more than the petitioners
had described. The principle against which he had entered
his protest was this, that distress experienced in any one
branch of trade, or even in agriculture itself, however impor-
tant that interest, or however great the number of persons
whose labour was absorbed in that pursuit, was no reason,
and should be no reason, to induce the ministry of the period
to propose, or the legislature to adopt, propositions which
t and shake the whole commercial system of the

wouldu

Lord CLIFFORD Of CHUDLEIGH again brought forward
the claims of the Portuguese government of Goa to appoint
Roman Catholic priests in certain districts of India, and asked
if any reply had been received by the Board of Control to the
letter of Lord Ellenborough, written on the 4th of October
last, to the governor-general of India on the subject'
Lord FITZGERALD said that no communication had been
received until the arrival of the Indian mail, on the receipt
of which he learned that a private communication from Mr.
Blackburn to Lord Auckland was contained in the papers
received by the governor-general; that communication he
had been given to understand was considered as anything but
satisfactory by the person through whom it had been commu-
nicated.

Lord CLIFFORD said the difficulty arose from the diffe-
rence in the laws of the two presidencies, as to who was a
priest qualified to officiate in spiritual matters.
Their lordships then adjourned until Thursday.

HOUSE OF COMMONS—TUESDAY.
Lord PALMERSTON asked a question relative to the treaty

suppression of the slave trade, recently agreed to by
great European powers. There had been a confe-
rence at the Foreign-office, in December, 1838, respecting
this matter, and he had to observe, that though at the treaty
of Vienna England stood almost alone in her efforts to put
yet in December, 1838, France
s England, and by both conjointly
►d after

a end to the

some correspondence towards the end of last summer, the
matter stood thus—the treaty had been agreed to by the other
three great powers, and matters of form only remained to be

settled. He now wished to know if any material alteration
had been made in that treaty, and whether it had been yet
ratified, and whether such ratifications had been received and
exchanged.

Sir It. PEEL said he had no difficulty in confirming the
accuracy of the statements made by the noble lord. The
had been signed by the five powers subsequent to the
ssion of the present government to office, but he must
hat though there had been some alterations in the treaty,
were none that could be deemed important. The rati-

fications had not yet been exchanged, but the time for ex-
changing them would not expire until the 20th of this month.
In the meantime, however, some of them had been received.
Lord STANLEY obtained leave to bring in a bill to amend
the 6th Geo. IV., c. 88, for making provision for the salaries
of certain bishops and other ecclesiastical dignitaries and
ministers in the diocese of Jamaica, Barbadoes, and the Lee-
ward Islands, and to enable her Majesty to separate such
diocese. The Noble lord said that the proposed changes and
separation of the diocese would lead to no incresse of expense.
Mr. GLADSTONE having moved that the house should re-
solve ' -" "

self into a committee of the whole house upon our
colonial duties. stated the course which government meant
to propose with respect to them. His measure, with the
exception of a few alterations, was the same as that the right
hon. gentleman (Mr. Labouchere) had brought forward the
last session of parliament. The right hon. gentleman en-
tered into a lengthened statement, to show that the high re-
strictive duties on the importation of articles into our West
India colonies were unnecessary, and then proceeded to state
the alterations he proposed to effect. The first resolution he
would submit to the committee was, that it was expedient to
repeal all existing duties on imports into the West Indies
and our British North American colonies ; secondly, that
new duties should be established in their room ; thirdly, that
those duties should be in addition to any duties levied by the
colonial legislatures; fourthly, that there should be an ex-
emption in favour of all articles required for the use of the
British fisheries ; sixthly, that the produce of the channel
islands should be placed on the same footing as that which
was strictly British produce, and be admitted free of duty ;
end, lastly, that all measures upon the subject of these duties
should be consolidated. He should propose that wood should

be admitted into the West Indies free of duty ; for the tax
on wood was indirectly a tax upon the consumer in this coun-
try. He did not propose to abolish altogether the duty on
provisions, and it would be seen by the schedule, that he pro-
posed that after a fixed day there should be a duty imposed
on the importation of wheat and flour of 3s. per quarter, of
2s. per cwt. on salt fish, and of 4s. a barrel on pickled fish.
He proposed a duty of Bs. per cwt. on butter, and ss. per
cwt. on cheese. With respect to coffee, cocoa, molasses, and
unrefined sugar, he proposed to re-enact the same duties as
at present. On tea, unless imported direct from China or
from the British dominions, he proposed to place a duty of
one penny per lb. He should leave the duty on foreign spi-
rits as it now stood ; but on British spirits he proposed to
abolish all duty. With respect to refined sugar, he proposed
that there should he an ad valorem duty on that of British
manufacture of ten per cent., and on foreign of twenty per
cent. He also proposed an ad valorem duty of seven per
cent. on wine, bottled or not, on manufactured cotton, slik,
linen, woollen, glass, paper, soap, cordage, oakum, pitch,
tar, turpentine, &c. ; while on oil, blubber, &c., he proposed
to remove all existing prohibitions, and impose an ad valorem
duty of seventeen per cent. The hon. gentleman moved his
resolutions without intending to press them to a discussion
until a future opportunity,
Mr. L.suouca ERR said he had listened to the speech of
the hon. gentleman with unalloyed satisfaction, because he
was proceeding upon the same principles which he (Mr. L.)
had laid down in the course of last session, and any assist-
ance he could give him in carrying his propositions into
effect would be most cheerfully afforded. Any alterations
which had been made by the hon. gentleman in his own bill
of last year, were, he believed, improvements; and as right
hon. gentlemen opposite saw reason to adopt the views of the
late government in this respect, he hoped that having done
justice to the
.colomes, they would now do justice to Great
Britain, by reducing the duties which consumers at Amine
,nropelled to pay. _

PALMER hoped the government would pause be-
idopted the measure of the late government. He
remark because the measure now brought forward
as one of those measures which turned the late ministry out

of office.
Lord J. RUSSELLpIaced
hoped that no duties would be on
flour and wheat passing from the United States into Canada,
for any such duties would, he feared, materially interrupt the
growing prosperity of
.Canada-
Sir C. DOUGLAS said that

.liany hon. members on the go-
liouse had during last session supported
it measure when produced by the late government.
t'Esm, entreated that the
,house would draw in
f the future course of the government from the
lie had formerly stated that, notWith-
i differences with the late government on other
, yet upon this one they should have his support, on
'minds of policy and of justice to our colonies. This
-fore no new policy adopted by the government ; but
say that he would take the earliest
ffovernment, when he
010 house would

inures,

ailed in

be sore

Mr. G

1 leis colleag.ues
adopting their

moved for leave to bring in a bill
of!ailways, The object he had in

Lter protection of the public from accidents
for this purp,se he proposed to have more
of inspection of new railways, and power
heir opening if necessary. He also proposed

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