Debates ants 1prouttsings in giarliainent.

REASSEMBLING OF PARLIAMENT. THE WEST INDIES.

Both Houses of Parliament met on Thursday, for the first time after the Christmas recess.

In the House of Commons, the evening was occupied for the most part with a discussion on Lord George Bentinek'e motion for inquiry into the West India case.

First, however, three petitions were presented,—the petition of the Standing Committee of West India Planters and Merchants, embodying views which have already been stated in our pages; one from the mer- chants, &o. of Greenock, against restraints on immigration and the employ- ment of labour; and a third from merchants and others in Jamaica, pray- ing for the removal of burdens, for a fall supply of African labour, an al- teration of the Navigation-laws, and an assimilation of the duties on Co- lonial rum to those paid by the British distiller.

Lord GEORGE Beeruic$ moved as follows, supporting the motion in a speech of great length- " That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the present condition and prospects of the interests connected with and dependent on sugar and coffee planting m her Majesty's East and West Indian possessions and the Mauritius; and to consider whether any and what measures can be adopted by Parliament for their relief."

Lord George first defined his own position. His personal wish, as he was aware that his motion would be unopposed by her Majesty's Ministers, was to make no statement to the House: the observations he should make were offered only in deference to what he believed to be the general desire of the House and of the parties at large interested in the question. It had been represented to him by the Colonial interest that the planters were in extremist and that whilst re- dress Tni limier discussion by the Committee that great interest would perish. Fru inotion,.'„il, indeed, been termed pusillanimous. It was, however, for him- self to consiner what was his power to obtain any substantial relief by a direct vote of the House. In July 1846, only five gentlemen connected with the West or the East India interests had voted with him in a minority of 130 against the majority of 265, who then negatived the protection now sought: he thought, therefore, that the West Indian interests had no right to blame him on the pre sent occasion. Ile,,had no reason to suppose that the minority had been con- verted into a majority; 'but,io justify inquiry, he pointed to the extremity of the West Indies, to the failure of fifty great houses in this country with habilities exceeding 6,300,0001., and to the change in the public feeling on the subject of slavery and slave-trading—at the last general election not a word was said on the subject--those who were omnipotent in 1832 were powerless in 1847. In pro- penile his inquiry, he wished it to be distinctly understood, that he neither pre- cluded himself nor wished to preclude any others, if a substantial measure for immediate and effectual relief should be brought forward, from lending their support to any such proposal. He hoped that he should be able, through the instrumentality of a Committee of inquiry, to prevail upon the House to its policy with regard to this great question. He did not seek to enforce the distinction between slave-grown and free-grown sugar, because that attempt would be followed by the overthrow of the Government; which he did not desire.

Alluding to the petition from Jamaica, Lord George declared that he could not agree with the demand for the repeal of the Navigation-laws; and he entered into a long statement of the rates of freight, to show that the West Indians suffer no injury from those laws. With respect to the differential duty on spirits, he ht that the British distiller would need its maintenance. He was not indis-

to give every facility for immigration, but doubted whether it would do much good. The state of Barbados, as densely peopled as China, shows that in- creased numbers will not suffice. He agreed with Mr. Illerivale, the new Under-Secretary for the Colonies, that free-labour never can successfully compete with slave-labour. At the highest estimate, the cost of maintaining a slave in the West Indies was 50s. a year: in Jamaica, a free labourer is paid half-a-dollar a day, for six or seven hours' work; and he can scarcely be to work four or five days in the week. In Cuba, the slave is made to work sixteen or even twenty hours a day ; the driver armed with whip, cutlass, and dagger, and attended by blood-hounds. That is the kind of slavery which we are stimulating by the ad- mission of slave-grown sugar into this country. However, there is no objection to immigration. Sir Charles Metcalfe declared, in 1840, that the fertile soil of Jamaica could provide for any multitude without diminishing the comforts of the existing population; and similar reports were made from other colonies. But the cost of immigration is too great for the planters to bear, especially with the obliga- tion to send back the immigrants at the end of five years. He did not know why

there should be this delicacy about removing an. African, a Cooly, or Chinaman, when he is only transferred from one hot &mete to another; and no such de- licacy is shown to the British soldier, who is bound to remain ten years in an ne. coegeeial climete,

Lord George turned to the case of theaese Indies—invited by Parliament to exert themselves in producing free-labour sum; contending that the faith of Parliament was as much pledged to them to enable them to repay themselves for the outlay of that capital as ft was pledged to repay the Fundholdee the debt that was due to him.

In July last, Mr. Hawes described Mauritius as being in a state of most flourishing prosperity: since that, out of six great firms in the Mauritius trade, but one remained standing: the liabilities of those that had fallen are estimated at 2,996,0001; Misdeters have been obliged to advance 450,0001. on sugar, to enable the colony to go on, and to supply rice from India for the food of the labourers. That fact showed how utterly Ministers had been in the dark re- specting the true state of her Majesty's Colonial possessions, and would alone justify inquiry.

He wanted the inquiry also as a bridge of retreat for Ministers and the Free- traders. He would not hint to them that it should be a bridge such as acted as a guide to a certain preposition in Euclid. They wanted no bridge for the block- heads who had predicted all the evils that had occurred; they must have a bridge for the men of brains—which the honourable Member for the West Riding of Yorkshire and his friends might be permitted to pass over, but certainly not with colours flying or drums beating and guns firing, the bands playing " See the con- quering hero comes," or the tune of " Ccear de Lion," with which the honourable gentleman was, he believed, greeted abroad: but they might be permitted to pass over with arms reversed and with muted dims, muttering perhaps between their teeth, " If our cause is of God, it will live; but if not, it must perish." Their cause was not of God, and therefore it must perish. To make out the failure of the recent measures as measures of free trade, Lord George plunged into an immense mass of statistical details. Against cheap sugar he set off the failure of our great merchants for more than 6,300,00014 asked how free trade had benefited Lancashire, now in so miserable a state—whether it had fulfilled the promise of opening the trade of Brazil? Comparing the sixteen months before with the sixteen months after the admission of slave-grown sugar, there has been a gross decrease in the production of cotton goods to the amount of 1,339,244 pounds, an increase of 168,082 pounds: taking into account the enhanced price of raw cotton, the balance remaining for wages and profits had declined by 1,871,0031. Lord George assailed the system for suppressing the slave-trade; calculating, with an immense array of figures, that from first to last it has cost this country 100,000,0001. He proposed a substitute for the ineffective blockade of Africa. They would never put down the slave-trade so long as it depended upon block- ading 10,260 miles of coast. He would, as Captain Pilkington recommended, strike a blow at the head and not at the hand. He would not send an army to destroy every individual hornet, but go to the hornet's nest at once, and smother that nest of the slave-trade which now existed in Cuba. He had read in the Times an extract from an United States paper, in which it was stated, that if the United States did not possess herself of Cuba, Great Britain would; and that England had a greater claim by a hundredfold to Cuba than the United States had to Mexico, because a sum of 45,000,0001. was due to British subjects upon Spanish Bonds, and Cuba was hypothecated for the payment of that debt. Sir CHARLF9 Woon—" But would you seize the Brazils as well?" Lord GEORGE BBtrreeca—The case of Cuba stood upon its own merits, and upon the debt of 45,000,000/. That is the course which should be taken to put an end to slavery and the slave-trade. Sir CHARLES WOOD, though not opposing the appointment of the Com- mittee, guarded himself against the supposition that Government meant to recede from the course which they had chosen in 1846; and thought that he should be showing most kindness to the West Indians by stating dis- tinctly what the views and intentions of Government are.

Sir Charles declined to follow his "noble friend" through many of those topics which he had presented to the House; especially as he thought that no sound in- ferences with regard to the future could be drawn from the state of trade during the last twelve months. The extraordinary fall in the price of sugar, for example, he regarded as transitory, because he thought it owing to the generally disastrous state of commerce during the autumn. As great a fall was to be found in the prices of other articles—in indigo 25 per cent, in rice 26, in sago 51, and in tea 48 per cent. The houses in the Mauritius trade had fallen from causes totally independent of the price of sugar ; and in like manner the West Indies had suf- fered from the failure of the West India Bank.

As to the grievances of the West Indies, Sir Charles contended that they had been much exaggerated; resting his case iartly on a pamphlet entitled Ministers and the Sugar-Duties. The curtailment of the apprenticeship, he said, had worked well; the anticipation formed in 1844, that there would be a large increase in the production of free-labour sugar, had not been confirmed; and the distinc- tion between free-labour and slave-labour sugar had proved to be incompatible with treaties. As the question of slavery had to be omitted from consideration, they were led to consider solely whether there should be protection or no protec- tion. The proposal of the West Indians was to fix the differential duty at ltis. per hundredweight, or 101 per ton; the avowed object being to enhance the price by that amount. Last year the consumption of sugar amounted to 290,000 tons; the proposed enhancement of price, therefore, would be equivalent to a tax of 2,900,0001., or say in round numbers 3,000,0001. On the other hand, diminished protection has benefited the revenue, which has risen from 3,743,3621. in 1844"tr 4,596,6961 in 1847, despite thegreat distress. Her Majesty's Ministers hold that duties should be imposed with reference, revenue alone. Government intended to propose such an alteration in the Navigation-laws as would completely pat an end to any discontent springing from that source. He should be happy to extend the use of molasses to brewers; but he thought that it would not be practicable, as molasses could not, like sugar, be made to bear an amount of duty equal to that on malt: but the experience of the past year had shown that there was no diffi- culty in admitting molasses into distilleries; he proposed, therefore, to introduce a bill, immediately, authorizing the admission of molasses into distilleries upon terms such as those on which sugar had been heretofore admitted. Cane-juice might be admitted on payment of an equivalent duty, but he understood that that would be prohibitory. With respect to immigration, a statement which he held in his band showed that it had been extensive and beneficial. The details to which he referred were as follows.

Number of Skives in 1829. Free Labourers imported into the following Colonies to 1846 :

• Slaves. Labourers.

28,000 Ifanritins f 63,000 Free. 23,000 Liberated Africans.

322,000 Jamaica r 8,500 Free.

1 3,000 Liberated Africans. 90,000 British Guiana { 33,850 Free. 6,180 Liberated Africans.

24,000 Trinidad 5 17,788 Free.

3,181 Liberated Africans.

It is found, however, that the present system of immigration does not answer; and he prop posed a change. He knew that there was a risk in allowing the practice of taking Negroes from Africa; that if parties were permitted to buy Negroes for slaves, and to bring them from Africa upon the pretext of their being made free labourers in the West Indies, the permission would offer a direct encouragement to a renewal of all the horrors of the slave-trade. With this conviction, provision must be made that if natives were brought from Africa to the West Indies, it should be with their own free will, though the Government were not disposed to throw any fresh obstruction in the way of the importation of free labour; and they were prepared to advance a stun of moseTnot exceeding 200,0001. for that arpose. Another source consisted in the liberated Africans. At prment the cast of these liberated Negroes was defrayed by the colonists; but the Govern- ment were prepared to cast upon this country the cost of conveying these Negroes to the West Indies. Bat the great body of these Negroes were set free at Sierra Leone; and he believed the transferring them to the West Indies would be not only beneficial to these colonies, but beneficial to the Negroes themselves, and to the colony of Sierra Leone itself.

Another measure of relief would be to postpone the repayment of the hurricane lean for five years- and a new loan would be made to Tobago, as a relief on ac- count of the last hurricane.

Reeding various extracts, from the memorial of the Jamaica House of Assem- bly.and other documents, Sir Charles contended that there was vast room for agricultural improvements in the West Indies; and if proper exertions were made, he did not despair of seeing those colonies eestored to a state of comparative

. Rotuma:ix gave Government credit for the openness of their decla- ration; but thought that if the West Indies could have no other measures of relief ehan those suggested by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, they must be prepared for the result—entire and irreparable rain.

Mr. Huram and Mr. ELLICE also made light of the promised measures; tat urged. Lord George to withdraw his motion and leave the whole of the responsibility on Government. On the motion of Mr. Jams Window, the debate was adjourned.

EDIANCIAL STATEMENT. In reply to Mr. HUME, Lord JOHN RUSSELL said that he could not precisely say whether Monday the 14th or Friday the 18th meld be the day for making the financial statement; but he would state the lay as soon as it was made positive.

NATIONAL DEFENCES. Lord Joint RUSSELL signified that he would take the opportunity of making the financial statement also to make a statement of what had been done by former Governments and the present Government in the way of national defences.

SALE OF ENCUMBEIIED ESTATES IN IRELAND. It is announced by the Premier, that in a few days a bill will be brought into the House of Lords on this subject.

Several NOTICES OF MOTIONS, on subjects not calling for specific detail, were given on Thursday. Sir WILLIAM SOMERVILLE, on the 11th January, moves for leave to bring in a bill to amend the law of landlord and tenant in Ireland. Mr. WYLD, on an early day, to call attention to the infraction of treaties by the Dutch in the Indian Archipelago. Sir JOHN PAKINGTON, on the 17th instant, for leave to introduce a bill against bribery at elections.

MAGISTRATE Law. The ATTORNEY-GENERAL has introduced four im- portant bills on this subject. Two of the bills codify the present magistrate law in cases, tried out of session, of indictable offences, and of summary conviction. A third regulates the holding of General and Petty Sessions; putting an end to the present system of holding court at public-houses, and authorizing the Secre- tary of State to concur in the framing of a uniform scale of sessions-fees throughout all England. A fourth codifies the present law to protect magistrates acting in their duty. The Attorney-General said he should allow a session to in- tervene before going into Committee on these bills, in order that they might be adly exanainined. The bills, not being of any political importance, would be un- Interesting to the House, and would not be carried without the assistance of Mem- bers conversant with the subject.