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175,000, and one year the crop did not exceed 145,000 tons. In proportion to the falling off of the crops, had the price of the article risen. The average difference in the price for the six years before emancipation, and for the twelve years since that event, was ten shillings a cwt. He did not deny, that if slave-grown sugar were admitted into the markets of this country, the country would gain a penny a pound in the price of its sugar; but the country had a right to expect better things from the increased produce of sugar in the East Indies and the Mauritius, and from the restored produce of the West Indies, if the Government would only consent to facilitate the introduction of free labour into the plantations of those colonies, and would continue to the planters the protection which they now enjoyed. After entering into various details in order to establish this proposition, he calculated that the supply of sugar for the next year would amount, not to 280,000 tons, as Lord J. Russell contended, but to 340,000 tons. The greatest consumption ever known in this country did not exceed 246,000 tons, and, that being the case, he considered that, without seeking aid from the slave colonies of other countries, there would be an ample provision for the consumption of Great Britain. He admitted that his calculation was founded on the supposition, that the price of sugar was not materially diminished; for it was quite clear that, if it were diminished six shillings a cwt., as Lord J. Russell anticipated it would be, by the introduction of the Brazilian and Cuban sugar, it would no longer be profitable to cultivate sugar in the East Indies for the

British market. But it was said that the principles of free trade required that we should open our markets to the sugar of the Brazils, in order that the Brazils might open their markets to our manufactures. To this argument he replied, that if we gained a market for our manufactures in the Brazils, we should lose it in the East Indies and in our other colonies, and, moreover, should bring on the natives deeper distress than that which we had already inflicted on them by destroying entirely their manufacturing industry. He then entered upon the revenue part of the question, and observed, that he could not understand how Lord J. Russell arrived at his conclusion, that he should gain 725,000l. more of revenue by his scheme of Sugar Duties than Mr. Goulburn would have been enabled to obtain by his scheme. No more revenue would be derived from British plantation sugar under one scheme than the other. If 20,000 tons of freelabour sugar were to come in under the noble lord's scheme, at 21s. a cwt., they would equally come in under that of Mr. Goulburn's at 19s. 6d. a cwt. Supposing, then, that Lord J. Russell got 1s. 6d. a cwt. more than Mr. Goulburn for his free-labour sugar, he would only get 23,000l. more than Mr. Goulburn in that way. Even supposing that the consumption increased to 280,000 tons, which was 40,000 tons more than our greatest consumption, and that all that increase was made up of slave-grown sugar, he would only obtain 421,000l. of revenue from slave-grown sugar, so that at the utmost Lord J. Russell would not obtain 440,000l. more than Mr. Goulburn. For his own part, he

believed that 23,3331. was all the gain in point of revenue, which Lord J. Russell would derive from his plan for letting into our markets the sugar of Cuba and the Brazils. Such being the fact, he implored his noble friend not to press on a measure so materially affecting the revenue at the present advanced period of the Session. The last time these duties were discussed, the discussion in the committee took up eight nights; and if they were to be discussed at the same length now, or even at a length which their importance deserved, and if at the end of that and the subsequent discussions they should be passed, there would be no Peers in the House of Lords to receive the Bill founded upon them. He then entered upon the last division of his subject, that connected with slavery, on which he said that the question resolved itself into this, Would the people of England have slavery, and sugar two-thirds of a penny a pound cheaper, or would they be content to pay that sum for sugar grown by the hands of free British industry? Were they tired of their past exertions for the emancipation of the slave, or did they repent of the 20,000,000l. which they had paid for it? They were now paying 1,500,000l., and employing forty-five ships of war, and a considerable number of sailors, for the repression of the nefarious and diabolical slave-trade; and would they render themselves supremely ridiculous in the eyes of all the world, by contributing at the same time 1,500,000l. to 2,500,000l. to the profits of the slave-dealers of Cuba and the Brazils, by assenting to these resolutions? He showed, by reference to some horrible and disgusting cruelties inflicted on the

slaves in a ship of a Brazilian planter of the name of Houseca, that there was nothing in the present mode of conducting the slavetrade to reconcile the feelings of Englishmen to it. He also described the wretched condition and treatment of the slaves in Cuba and the Brazils, and then asked the House whether it would consent to ruin the humane planters in the East Indies and in the West Indies, to add to the profits of the inhuman wretches who cultivated sugar in Cuba and the Brazils at a loss of life which it was awful to contemplate? These resolutions would add 181. to the value of each negro in the colonies of Spain and Portugal; and, with such a premium on the importation of slaves, could they doubt that the slave-dealers would send out ship after ship to bring fresh cargoes of human misery to their guilty shores? After an an eloquent peroration, in which he summed up his principal arguments, he concluded by moving,

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That, in the present state of the sugar cultivation in the British East and West Indian possessions, the proposed reduction of duty upon foreign slave-grown sugar is alike unjust and impolitic, as tending to check the advance of production by British free labour, and to give a great additional stimulus to slave labour."

The Chancellor of the Exchequer followed Lord George Bentinck through each of the three heads into which he had divided the subject. After dwelling on the importance of providing an adequate supply of sugar, which, from a luxury, had become a necessary article of sustenance to the people of this country, he proceeded to show that the demand for sugar was now greater, and the

rise in its price was higher, than it was when the late Government was induced to let foreign free-labour sugar come into competition with sugar the produce of our own possessions, and to contend that the same considerations which had induced the late Government to let in foreign free-labour sugar should induce the present Government to let in slave-labour sugar also. The consumption of the last year had exceeded that of the preceding year by 36,000 tons. The price was higher now by 4s. a cwt. than it was in June 1845. The supply of sugar had also failed us ; for whereas Mr. Gladstone had estimated the supply of free-labour sugar for the year at 20,000 tons, it had been under 4,000 tons, and the whole supply for the last five quarters did not exceed 4,130 tons. Having thus shown that the measures of the late Government to procure an adequate supply of sugar had failed, he proceeded to demonstrate that the estimated supply of sugar for the next year, which had been developed to the House by Lord George Bentinck, was grossly exaggerated, and more particularly that portion of it which was to come from the East Indies. The actual consumption of sugar last year was 252,000 tons, and it would have been larger had it not been checked by an inadequate supply. He believed that it would be still larger this year, and to insure its increase it was necessary to take measures to reduce the price of the article. So far was he from thinking that the duty of 21s. on foreign sugar was too low, that he thought it, if any thing, too high; and he had only fixed it at its present amount in order to give time to the colonial interest to meet the changes now proposed. Last year

the increase in consumption, with a deficient supply, was 43,000 tons, and he thought that he might safely anticipate an increase to a similar amount in the next year, when the sugar of Cuba and the Brazils would be open to us. Having shown that Lord George Bentinck's estimate of the supply of sugar was greater, and of the consumption less, than that on which we had a right to calculate, he proceeded to examine his observations on the revenue to be derived from the new scheme of Sugar Duties, and in so doing entered into a detailed view of the income and expenditure of the country. He observed that Mr. Goulburn had only left him a surplus of 70,000l., and expressed his fears that before the end of the Session he should be obliged to bring forward several supplementary estimates. He hoped to reinforce the revenue by this measure; and such reinforcement was not only desirable, but was absolutely indispensable; for he calculated that at the end of the year there would be a deficiency of 350,000l., owing to the increased expenditure which we should be compelled to make, on various heads which he enumerated in detail, and which he considered to be necessary to the safety of the state and the maintenance of our own honour and credit. If the increase in the consumption of sugar should amount to 20,000 tons, then the revenue from sugar would amount to 4,195,000l.; and if it should amount to 30,000 tons, as he trusted that it would, the revenue from sugar would amount to 4,405,0007., and in either case the deficiency which he anticipated would be more than covered. He then replied to the arguments of Lord George Bentinck on the last of

the three heads into which he had divided the subject. He wondered how those who used slave-grown cotton, slave-grown coffee, slaveextracted copper, and slave-grown tobacco, could say that by negativing these resolutions they would be discouraging slavery and the slave-trade. He charged the noble lord with having laid down principles on that subject which he could not carry into effect, and with seeking to deprive the people of England of an article which was all but a necessary of life, for the sake of carrying out a visionary scheme of impracticable humanity. In conclusion, he expressed a confident hope that the results of the change now proposed would not be injurious to the West Indian interests, whilst he was certain that it would be productive of great benefit to the merchant, the manufacturer, and the shipowner, and, above all, the labouring population of Great Britain. Sir R. Inglis thought the House indebted to Lord George Bentinck for proposing this amendment, and for supporting it by a speech full of facts, in which every fact was an argument. During the whole of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's reply, he could not help fancying that time and space had been annihilated, and that he was listening, in May 1847, to the speech of a Minister apologizing for a deficiency of 350,000l. which he found in his budget, and declining to tell the House whether he would make up that deficiency by the transactions of legitimate commerce, or by the blood of the tortured slave. For his own part, he would not willingly increase the amount of human suffering, and yet, if he voted in favour of these resolutions, he should feel that he was preventing the working out of a wholesome experiment; VOL. LXXXVIII.

that he was precipitating the miseries of Africa; and that he was causing an amount of deeper suffering than the House would willingly listen to.

Lord Sandon observed, that when Sir Robert Peel introduced into the tariff a discrimination between free-labour and slave-grown sugar, he had entered his protest against it, because he thought the discrimination was a mere fallacy. He had then stated, that when you once opened your market to foreign sugar, you opened it practically to slave-grown sugar. He had been fortified in that statement subsequently, by the advice of the most experienced merchants, and he therefore could not concur in the opinion of Lord George Bentinck, that whoever supported these resolutions was encouraging slavery and the slave-trade.

Our present sys

tem produced irritation and jealousy in Spain and Brazil, and, instead of being a discouragement to the sugar-growers of those countries, was only a discouragement to the British merchant and shipowner. Lord George Bentinck had recommended the Government to take time for the consideration of this question. Now he thought that it was better for all parties that it should be settled at once, and in the mode now proposed by Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Grantley Berkeley contended that, with an adequate supply of labour, the West Indies could send to England again, as they had sent before, an adequate supply of sugar. He, therefore, recommended the Government to promote the immigration of free labourers into the West Indian Colonies, rather than encourage the importation of slavegrown sugar into Great Britain.

Sir J. Hogg observed, that when [N]

he seconded the resolution of Lord Sandon, in 1841, which led to the dissolution of the last Parliament, he wished to give the people of England an adequate supply of cheap sugar, and to discourage slave-grown sugar; but the question which he had now to consider was, whether his anticipations in 1841 had been realized, and whether the measures which he had then supported had produced the results which he then contemplated. He was obliged to confess that the measure then introduced had not afforded an adequate supply of sugar, and that some other measures were indispensably necessary. As one well acquainted with the condition of India, he must inform the House that Lord George Bentinck had been guilty of great but unintentional exaggeration respecting the supply of sugar to be expected from the East Indies, and that his anticipations had been equally erroneous, both as to the quantity and as to the price of the sugar likely to be produced there. The East Indians wanted no protection to their sugar, but undoubtedly they would take it if it was offered to them. He should certainly support these resolutions, though he could have wished that the West Indian proprietors had two or three years to make their arrangements, before they came into competition with slave-labour sugar. It was melancholy to contemplate the necessity of depriving the whole of the poor population of these Islands of a cheap supply of such a necessary article of life as sugar. Every body knew that all we had done for so many years to stop the slave-trade had been splendid failures, and no greater proof of it could be afforded than this, that Cuba, which now cultivated sugar

by slave-labour, imported sugar for its own consumption not more than thirty years ago.

Mr. G. W. Hope had voted, like Sir J. Hogg, in favour of Lord Sandon's resolution in 1841, but had not seen, like Sir J. Hogg, any reasons for changing the opinions which he then expressed. He considered that these resolu tions would inevitably promote the extension of slavery and the slavetrade.

Sir Robert Peel observed, that Lord George Bentinck was perfectly correct in stating that he had announced at the commencement of the Session a measure for the introduction of foreign sugar, very different from that proposed by Lord John Russell. That measure would have given greater encouragement than the present resolutions to the admission of freelabour sugar, and would have continued the exclusion of slave-labour

sugar.

He had always felt that this question of admitting slavelabour sugar was excepted from the category of free-trade. He thought that this country stood in a special relation to the West Indian colonies. We had emancipated their slaves, and had given them an apparently magnificent compensation for the sacrifice of their property. Whether it was an adequate compensation was a matter of doubt; but, be that as it might, it placed this country in a position of some difficulty with respect to the West Indies. He had, therefore, been of opinion that considerable time ought to have been allowed to the West Indies before they were called on to compete with slave-labour sugar, and in that opinion he was confirmed by the dictum of Mr. Deacon Hume. We had also constituted ourselves the police of the

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