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in the East and West Indies, and from the transfer to them of the Ordnance of Ireland.

Mr. Canning confined himself to refuting some insinuations of Mr. Hume, that the office was a sinecure, which had been given to lord Beresford from parliamentary influence. He showed, that the duke of Wellington had offered it first to lord Hopetoun, and

next, to lord Hill; and that, both of these officers having declined it as too laborious, his Grace had next tendered it to lord Beresford as another of his companions in

arms.

Some of Mr. Hume's friends recommended to him to withdraw the motion: but this Mr. Canning would not permit. It was rejected by 200 Noes to 73 Ayes.

CHAP. VIII.

Newfoundland and Cape Breton-New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land-Proposed Equalization of the Duties on Eust-Indian and West-Indian Sugar Mr. Buxton's Motion on Slavery The Reso lutions proposed by Government on that subject-Lord Bathurst's Circular-Alarm in the West-Indian Colonies-Proceedings in Jamaica and Barbadoes-Insurrection in Demerara: its Origin, Progress, and Suppression: trials of the Conspirators: trial of the Missionary Smith-Condition of the New Settlements at the Cape of Good Hope.

REAT and apparently not

made, in the present session, of abuses in the administration of justice in Newfoundland. A motion for inquiry, which the minis ters resisted on the ground that they were preparing a bill to remedy the evils complained of, was lost by a majority of 42 to 27. Some of the inhabitants of Cape Breton petitioned against the late union of that island with Nova Scotia, as injurious to their rights and privileges.

New South Wales, and Van Diemen's Land attracted a considerable share of the attention of government: and an act was passed establishing courts, and making other regulations for the administration of justice, in those remote settlements.

These subjects, however, excited little interest, when compared with the discussion of some great questions on the state of our dominions in the East and West Indies and the relations subsisting between them and Great Britain.

Sugars imported from the East Indies were subject to an extra

duty, in one instance, of 10s. per

that which was payable upon sugars brought from the West Indies. On the 3rd of March, a petition was presented to the Commons from a great body of merchants, agents and ship-owners interested in the East-Indian trade, and resident in London, prayinga just classification of

East-Indian sugars according to their qualities, and an equalization of the duties on them with the duties imposed on West-Indian sugars. The grounds on which the justice and expediency of this alteration were defended were, that, however proper it might have been to have given the West-Indian colonies an advantage in the British market, when they were excluded by law from carrying their produce directly into the other great markets of the world, yet, now that parliament had removed the restrictions which confined their trade to the mother country, and had, by the acts 3rd Geo.4th, cap. 44 and 45, extended their commercial intercourse with the United States of America, with independent Spanish America, and the con

tinent of Europe, the East-Indian trade, the British empire in India, and the people of the united kingdom, ought to be relieved from the burthen of the protecting duty that, when the protecting duty was granted with a view of securing a preference in the home market to the West-Indian planters, the main argument employed in defence of the measure was, their being excluded from foreign markets (with the exception of ports south of Cape Finisterre, under certain regulations); and consequently since the range of the world had been afforded them for the sale of their produce, and the purchase of their supplies, that preference should cease-that, continuing to the West-Indians the virtual monopoly of the home market, whilst their sugars are allowed to enter into direct competition with East-Indian sugars in foreign markets, confers an undue advantage on the former, at the expense of the latter-that the retention of the protecting duty was an injury to the people of the united kingdom, by its obvious tendency to enhance the price of sugar, an article of such general use amongst all classes of the community; and would also prove injurious to the revenue, by narrowing the consumption that it was further highly injurious to the merchants, manufacturers, and ship-owners, engaged in the trade between this country and India, by crippling their means of successfully prosecuting their commerce--and that the use of sugar, as a dead weight to ships returning from India, was essential to the existence of the trade with that country.

It was likewise asserted, that the demand for British manufac

tures on the part of our Indian population had greatly increased; that its further increase was limited chiefly by the difficulty of procuring returns; and that the privation of so material an article as sugar was one of the chief causes of this difficulty, and tended decidedly to check the increase of what promised to become one of the most valuable branches of British commercethat the protecting duty, moreover, inflicted a serious injury on the great body of the people of Hindostan, who were entitled as British subjects to a fair participation in the home market, and who possessed this further claim, that they provided for their own protection and civil government; and, instead of proving a burthen to the united kingdom,increased its wealth and added to its resources-that in estimating the comparative impor tance of the two branches of British commerce, thus brought into competition, the immense difference in the population of the East and West Indies should not be overlooked; as the trade with the East Indies was to meet the growing demand of a population of one hundred millions, whilst that with our West-Indian colonies was confined to a population of seven or eight hundred thousand-that the opposers of the protecting duty asked for no exclusive favour, preference, or protection, but required only to be placed upon an equal footing with the West-Indians, both in the amount of duties, and in the clas sification of qualities; so that, if British India could produce cheaper sugar, her numerous population, placed under British protection, might not be deprived of the best means of exercising their industry, or forced to divert their trade to foreign countries; and that the

united kingdom might not lose the inestimable advantage of the exchange of its manufactures for the productions of India.

These arguments were enforced by the influence of those who were connected with the East Indies: they were, on the contrary, violently resisted by the West-Indian interest, who regarded the proposed equalization as pregnant with their ruin. And it must be confessed, that this measure, whatever may be its intrinsic merits, was brought forward at a most unseasonable moment. The West-Indian proprietors and planters were involved in deep embarrassments, which might yet rise to a still greater height: was it at such a crisis that we ought to adopt a change of policy, which could not fail to augment the present difficulties of a large and important branch of the community, who were already greatly depressed? Surely prudence recommended to wait till they were in their ordinary state of prosperity, before we adopted a course which might operate to their disadvantage.

On the 22nd of May, Mr. Whitmore moved for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the duties payable on East and West Indian sugar. In support of his motion he showed, that the trade between Europe and India, from the earliest periods down to the day on which it had been rendered open, had always been of the same description. Drugs, spices, and silks, were imported into Europe from India, and bullion was invariably exported in return for them from Europe into India. The opening of the trade with India had, however, created a most extraordinary revolution; for the consequence had been, that a

mart had been discovered for British manufactures, on which nobody could have calculated, before it was actually found to exist. The exports of woollen goods from Europe to India amounted in 1815 to 183,430l.; in 1822 they amounted to 1,421,6491. But the most extraordinary circumstance was, the change that had occurred in the cotton trade between India and this country. Formerly we had imported certain cotton goods from India; now we were actually supplying the natives with those articles at a lower price than that for which they could afford to manufacture them. In 1815, the export of cotton goods to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope amounted to 109,480.: in the year 1822, they had increased to 1,120,3251. Reflecting on the distance at which we were from that country, and the low price at which labour could be obtained in it, he considered the fact of our being enabled to import the raw material into this country, to change it into a manufactured article, to export it back again to India, and then to sell it at a lower price than that at which the natives could afford to sell it in their own markets, to be one of the most extraordinary triumphs of skill and industry that had ever been recorded in the annals of commercial enterprise. We had thus annihilated, at least in the neighbourhood of the presidencies, the trade which had existed there from the earliest periods. That event might prove to be either a blessing or a curse. It would prove a blessing, if parliament should enable the natives of India to employ, in another channel, the industry which it had diverted from its former objects; but it would prove a curse indeed,

if, after destroying their manufactures, we should be guilty of an act of such gross injustice, as to refuse to take from them such articles of commerce as their industry enabled them to produce. Our commerce with Hindostan was as yet only in its infancy. There was no assignable limit to it, if we would only permit our merchants to take from India those articles which she was enabled to produce. But great as was the avidity of the natives to purchase English goods, they would be incapacitated from doing so, if they were not allowed to give their own articles in exchange for them, and Consequently our commerce with them would not only not be increased, but would not even be enabled to continue in that successful state to which it had arrived. In former times there was a great importation of bullion into India, in return for the drugs and spices which she sent to Europe. Now, that importation had in a great degree ceased: and without staying to inquire what would be the effect of withdrawing more bullion from India, it must be ob vious to every man, that as India did not produce bullion, all trade with it must be stopped, if it were not permitted to export its own produce. He therefore contended, that, as far as our empire in India was concerned, we were bound, by not only a sense of justice, but of individual interest, to abolish the restrictions with which the importation of East-Indian sugars into the home market was at present fettered. He then proceeded to consider the question with regard to the interests of the West-Indian islands. It had been said, that the present timewas exceedingly adverse to the motion; for that it was hard

to bring it forward at a moment when the West-Indian interests were suffering so much distress. He lamented that distress as much as any man, but it was necessary here to look a little at the cause of the evil its cause was not the competition of East-Indian sugar, nor its cure the more rigid enforcement of the monopoly enjoyed by West-Indian sugar. By one mode only could the distress be relieved,

by a general change of the whole system in the West Indies. As long as slavery existed, as long as the poor lands were made to produce sugar, as long as freights continued so high in consequence of overcharge, so long would the West Indies be distressed. The great grievance was the slavesystem, which increased so largely the cost of production.

The West-Indian planters, he added, seemed to assert, that they had a right-nay a chartered right

to the continuance of these protecting duties. In vain did he look for this charter amid acts of parliament and grants of the Crown. But though he could not find this charter, he found, by the search for it, a fact that was scarcely less important-namely, that the duties on East-Indian sugar had sometimes been the same as those on WestIndian sugar, nay, that they had sometimes even been less. Previously to 1803, the duties on EastIndian sugar were ad valorem duties, and though generally higher, were, whenever the price of sugar was considerably depressed, really lower than the duties on West-Indian sugar. Mr. Whitmore then gave an historical detail of the various measures, by which the West-Indian planters had obtained the imposition of extra duties of 10s. and 15s. on East-Indian sugar, and con

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