"Jacob Omnium " has come out this week with a
striking pamphlet on the text "Le Cheap Sugar the triumph of Free Trade?" It is in the form of a" Second Letter" to Lord John Russell; the Letter occupying only 24 pages, but followed by a very curious Appendix of 40 pages. In this brochure, Jacob puts forth an easy strength in statistics and analysis, equal to his former displays of humorous statement and pictu- resque description. A main purpose of the pamphlet is to expose the official tampering with evidence—amounting in effect to something little short of fraud—in the conduct of the Sugar debates some months ago. Jacob victimizes Lord Grey and Mr. Hawes, Mr. James Wilson and Sir Charles Wood; making this charitable excuse for the last-
" The most charitable supposition to make, by way of accounting for Sir C. Wood's statement:, is, what actually was the case, that he was entirely ignorant of the subject, and merely spoke from a brief prepared for him by the clerks in the Colonial Office, in the absence of any other member of the Government better acquainted with the matter; for Lord John Russell was at that time unwell, Mr. Hawes in abeyance, and Mr. Labouchere too scrupulous to condescend to make the requisite misrepresentations." How Lord Grey fares in the hands of Jacob, may be seen from the fol- lowing extract-
" I am aware of all the lofty sentiments which may be successfully paraded in Parliament in defence of very shuffling work, and of the obloquy which may and probably will be cast on me by your supporters, for daring to point out what ap- pears to me unpardonable dishonesty.* But on this question depends not only a great portion of my own fortune, but also the fortunes of many of my relations and friends, of men far more de- serving than myself, who, to my knowledge, have been working earnestly and manfully for years in unhealthy climates to insure a provision for their families; who having invested their capital on 'the security of the national faith of Great Britain and Ireland, pledged in the most solemn form in which such an engage- ment was ever made,1 have been one day baffled in their honest aim, because the 'no slavery' and the am I not your brother' cry suited your Lordship's political friends, and who are now consigned by you to hopeless beggary, because cheap slave-grown sugar' is a more popular slogan amongst the politicians of the Manchester school.
"I allude, may Lord, to the unfair manner in which the late Sugar debates were conducted; to the unfounded assertions which were made by men who, if they knew no better, had at least no excuse for their ignorance; to the un- worthy evidence on which the Ministers based their case; to the unimpeachable evidence which they suppressed. • "It is not possible that the line of conduct adopted in the last debate by the Ministers of the Crown can be justified by any recognized rule of right and wrong.
"The noble Secretary for the Colonies, after declaring in the commencement of his speech, that he meant to deal with the question before the House with the utmost candour,' produced a despatch from a gentleman whom he had a.p- pointed to the government of one of the most densely populated of our colonial possessions. He pronounced that despatch to be a most able and admiral-le docu- ment, and said that every line of it deserved the attention of Parliament.' "He then read from it such sentences as established the case he was at- tempting to make; but entirely omitted to state that its writer's conclusions, formed on the spot, were entirely different from his Lordship's, and that they pronounced free labour, even in populous Antigua, to be unable, for obvious reasons, to compete with the forced and unrequited toil of the slave. "No other person at that time had access to that despatch. I ask you, my Lord, (and if you will cast your eyes over the titlepage of this pamphlet, you will admit that I have a right to test Lord Grey by the gauge with which he measures others,) what would be thought of a gentleman who had acted thus in private life? 1 know full well that my credit in the City would be sadly shaken if I were shown to be thus capable of mutilating the sentiments of other men to esta- blish my own views, and so making them appear to share opinions from which I knew they entirely dissented. "I have too high an opinion of Lord Grey's integrity to think that he has wittingly been guilty of the acts of which I complain. I am rather inclined to believe that his Lordship is afflicted with a sort of moral strabismus, which in- voluntarily but invariably averts the vision of his mind's eye from all evidence, no matter how worthy, which contradicts his own preformed opinions, whilst its morbid retina eagerly grasps and magnifies the importance of the trashiest testi- mony which may chance to corroborate his views. It is this deplorable infirmity which renders his Lordship's acknowledged talents comparatively valueless to the country, and has hitherto made him a dangerous patron and an impracticable ally.
"Surely it is not too much to insist, before an important question, involving the best interests of humanity, the ruin of thousands, and the annihilation of many millions of property, be finally decided upon by the Legislature of this coun- try, that every source from which information on the subject can be derived should be fairly and freely laid open to all concerned on either side; that no official evasions, no withholding or garbling of documents, should be permitted; and that before a Cabinet Minister gives to evidence that weight which it most inevitably acquire by the fact of its being brought forward and dwelt upon by a high officer ot the Crown, he should take reasonable precautions to ascertain that it is trustworthy and true."
Mr. Hawes flits across the scene more lightly; thanks to his absence from the House of Commons-
" Before the Christmas holydaya, Mr. Hume moved for the publication of the despatches of Lord Harris, Governor of Trinidad, to Earl Grey. They were not, however, laid on the table of the House of Commons until the 4th of February, five minutes after the debate on Lord George Bentinclfs motion for a Committee had been concluded. Consequently, although the Ministers well knew what they contained, they preserved a strict silence as to their contents, and the supporters of the West Indian interests had no means of referring to them.
" The Under-Secretary for the Colonies, when questioned before Lord George Beotinck's Committee as to the reason why these important documents had been withheld, answered thus--
" Quee. 16,572. 'All that I have to say upon the subject Is this—that the despatches which were moved for were prepared for Parliament, and ready to be laid on the table; Unjust before the meeting of Parliament Stash despatches of very great importance came, and a great effort was made to print them in time to deliver them with the others ; but a delay arose over which we had no control at all ; and that was the only cause of their being delivered the day but one after the meeting of Parliament.'
• "1 beg leave to state that I use the word ' dishonesty ' In precisely the same sense U Lord Grey used the word 'pettifogging '—a Parliamentary one." 7 Despatch by Lord Glenelg, Secretary fbr the Colonies, 12th October 1835. "The fact of despatches which had not been moved for not being ready scarcely seems even a fair Whig reason for the non-delivery of other despatches' which had been moved for, and were ready: but on referring to the Parliamen1 tary papers in question, No. 62 of the present session, it appears that when de- livered they contained no despatch which is not noted as having been received by the Colonial Office more than a month before Parliament met; and, therefore, the 'despatches of great importance, which came just before the meeting of Par- liament,' alluded to above, are certainly not included therein. "Yet we further find that Mr. Herman Merivale, a month afterwards, on the 8th of March, in furnishing Lord George BentinckSi Committee with copies of all the despatches of any importance received from the Governors of her Majesty's Colonies in the West. Indies or the Mauritius, refers the Committee to Parliamen- tary Papers, No. 62, of the present session, for all the despatches which had been received up to that date from Trinidad, which related to the present state or cultivation of sugar or coffee in those possessions, or contained representations of the distressed state of the planters.' What then can have become of the impor- tant despatches to which Mr. Hawes attributes the delay?"
Previous page
