POSTSCRIPT.

SATURDAY.

Parliament was occupied last night with two important Colonial sub- jects—the state of the West Indies, and the Australian Government Bill. In the House of Commons, Sir EDWARD BUXTON brought forward his long-announced motion respecting the West Indian Colonies. The de- bate was preceded by the presentation of petitions. The resolution was couched in these terms- " That it is unjust and impolitic to expose the free-grown sugar of the Bri- tish Colonies and Possessions abroad to unrestricted competition with the su- gar of foreign slave-trading countries."

Sir Edward supported this motion by a rapid but impressive review of the joint effect which Negro emancipation, and the opening of the sugar trade by successive m.sasures in 1841, 1844, and 1846, have had on the economic and social state of the West Indies. He showed that although the distress is not actually so great as it was in 1848, —the casual failure of a crop in Cuba having intervened,—still the steady and progressive increase of the trade in Cuba and Brazil is bearing down our own Colo- nies. On the other hand, he reviewed the sacrifices made by this country in the vain effort to put down the slave-trade by force or purchase,—the 400,000/, given to Spain; the 300,G001. to Portugal, with remission of a very great debt ; the 29,000,0001. to the British planters ; the blockade squadron, &c. The materiels of Sir Edward Buxton's speech were not new, but he made the most of them by clear arrangement and compres- sion ; rapidly recalling the well-known facts in order to their true appli- cation by his hearers.

Mr. HUMS enforced Sir Edward's statement with a further exposition of the fact, that in the seventeenth year of emancipation we have not made the slightest advance in the suppression of the slave-trade, but on the contrary have aggravated its miseries : we have ruined our West Indian ' Colonies, sacrificing property estimated at 100,000,0001. in 1832 ; estates are daily going out of cultivation in Demerara and elsewhere ; and the Black population is relapsing into a state of barbarism. Such are the results of our precipitate and unadvised conduct in that direction. Sir Edward Buxton has nothing to propose but to keep up protecting-duties ; although the Anti-Slavery Society have declared that nothing except, the productiveness of free labour can put down the slave-trade. But when measures were proposed for the introduction of Coolies, the

Chinese, or other classes of persons, the Society declared that these measures would not and could not succeed. But why should they not ? Why could not proper precautions be taken to protect the African labourer ? No part of the execution of the law, as between the planters and the labourers, was left to the planters themselves. The Imperial Parliament paid the salaries of magistrates, whose duty it was to see justice done and the law carried out. Why, then, this alarm ? Why should it be said that it would be impossible to permit the introduction of Africans into our Sugar Colonies without re- viving the slave-trade ? The proposition was to bring them from a state of slavery, to prevent them from being destroyed upon the middle passage. He would land them upon our possessions, and apprentice them for two, three, or four years, under a legal bond and form, with their privileges and duties set forth in the indenture, and magistrates to protect them. Mr. Hume concluded by stating, that if Sir Edward Buxton's resolution were adopted he should move the following addition—

"That at the same time, the British Government interposes difficulties that prevent the Colonies from procuring a sufficient supply of free labourers from Africa and other places, that might enable those colonies to compete in the production of sugar with the foreign slave-holding and slave-trading countries."

The motion was supported generally by Mr. WILLIAM Evares, Mr. MANGLES, Mr. GRANTLEY BERKELEY, and Colonel TROMPSON. The Colonel, however, objected to Mr. Hume's suggestion—

He had a total mistrust of anything that went under the name of appren- ticeship. He was Governor of Sierra Leone in 1809 and 1810, and he found that there existed a nominal apprenticeship but real slavery, Negroes being introduced into the colony on the pretence of being made apprentices, when in point of fact it was nothing else than slavery under a now name.

Mr. JAMES WELSON took up the position, that the question cannot be approached as an exclusively West Indian question ; since they must not leave out of consideration the island of Mauritius, which grows 60,000 tons of sugar per annum, or the East Indies, which export 75,000 tons per annum, and are gradually becoming sugar-growing countries. He met the gloomy prophecies regarding the West Indies by a re- ference to experience. The most important witnesses before the Select Committee on Ceylon said, that if Parliament did not retrace its Free-trade steps, and raise the duty on coffee from 2d. to 4d. per pound, Ceylon would become "a barren waste" : it has not become " a barren waste" ; the improved cultivation has so greatly extended the produce of the count7, that the 2d. duty has become a dead letter. Mau- ritius- was to become a desolate wilderness " : the fact is, that the ave- rage annual production of sugar has increased from 34,000 tons in the three years ending 1846 to 50,000 tone in the three subsequent years, and the growing crop is estimated at 60,000 tons. Even in the West Indies the average production of the three years ending 1846 has increased from 127,000 tons to 148,000 tons in the next three years, and the production of the present year, it is estimated, will amount to between 135,000 and 140,000 tons. Mr. Wilson imputed the distress to bad systems of cultiva- tion. Excluding the Cuba hurricane year of 1845, the average production of Cuba and Porto Rico, for three years ending 1846, was 250,000 tons per annum ; for the three next years, 300,000 tons per annum. In Brazil the increase has been from 97,000 tons to 108,000 tons. Comparing these results, the increase in Cuba and Porto Rico was 20 per cent, the increase in Brazil was 11 per cent, while the increase in the British Possessions was 20 per cent. It cannot be said, then, that free trade has injured the Sugar Colonies. In 1810 the consumption of sugar was nearly as great as in 1840, and it remained almost at the fixed quantity of 190,000 tons from 1830 to 1844. On these data Mr. Wilson contended, that to aban- don free trade would be to check the production of sugar, and to confess that the experiment of slave-emancipation has failed.

Mr. E H. STANLEY delivered a maiden speech of great readiness and ability, fortified, no doubt, by the sense of practical information gathered in his tour in the West Indies. He began, however, by criticizing the objection of Ministerialists to a reversal of policy ; the fact being that the party had been in the habit of bringing forward motions, session after session, to reverse the decisions of the House ; and motions also which the authors had no intention of carrying. He cited the authority of Mr. Deacon Hume, as a Free-trader, and of Colonel Reid, Lieutenant-Go- vernor of Barbados, as experienced in the colony where the labour ques- tion is least urgent, to establish his position that the free labour of the West Indies needs to be nursed by protection. He thought the African squadron would continue to be as vain for its purpose as Bonaparte's European blockade. He expressed an opinion that emigrant labour cannot be obtained as cheaply as slave labour, except by reducing the emigrants to the condition of slaves. He warned the House to take care what it was doing. He must tell them, that from Canada to Jamaica, from the St. Lawrence to the Essequibo, there was in the minds of thinking men one predominant and all-prevailing feeling—let who would call it unnatural—a growing dis- belief in the attachment and a distrust in the policy of the Mother-country. (Loud cheers from the Opposition.) It was believed that their interests would be sacrificed to any real or imaginary considerations of party policy. Let there be no half measures ; let Parhament do at once, do openly, do avowedly, do in the face of the world, what they are not ashamed to do at all. Let them, if they would call this a harmless traffic—designate slavery a glorious institution handed down from our fathers—apologize to Cuba and &azil for all the wanton and unmeaning injuries our squadron has inflicted upon a pursuit of theirs, with which we would never attempt to interfere again : but let us not mock with professions of sympathy those whom our policy could not but ruin, or stand forward at one and the same time as the supporters of liberalvinstatutions at home and yet the enemies of freedom abroad. (Loud cheers.)

Mr. FluTr could not abandon the national policy of free trade, and could draw no distinction between sugar and cotton or tobacco : but the West Indian Colonies have a right to every consideration, if not to direct compensation,—including a more rational method of dealing with the suppression of the slave-trade.

From this point the debate proceeded with diminished interest, and

without variation in the tenour of the arguments advanced. Sir Joan PAXINGTON spoke for the motion. The CHANCEII.OR of the EXCHEQUER opposed it, with a duplicate of Mr. Wilson's speech. Mr. GLADSTONE

furnished a good exposition of the manner in which, after the undue pam- pering of slave-emancipation, reaction has taken place in the condi- tion of the Negro, and the scale of Negro comforts is now below what it was in the time of slavery. Mr. Gladstone would not reverse the recent policy; but be content with arresting the downward progress of the sugar- duty scale under the act of 1846. Lord Earatariarox criticized previous speakers ; advised better modes of cultivation in the West Indies ; and insisted that the suppression of the slave-trade is making progress by the help of fresh negotiations with the native chiefs ! On a division, the numbers were—for the motion, 234; against it, 275; Ministerial majority, [only] 41 ; a result announced with loud cheers from the Opposition.

In the House of Lords, Earl GREY moved the second reading of the Australian Colonies Government Bill ; overruling the wish of Earl Fin- e:I:mem to postpone the second reading on account of the excessively thin attendance. A considerable portion of Lord Grey's speech consisted of an historical and statistical account of the origin, rise, and present state of the Australian Colonies. He then explained the bill, and touched upon objections to some particular parts,—the single Chamber, the District Councils, &c. • relying much on the expression of opinion in the Colonial prey favourable to the single Chamber. The provision inserted by the Commons forbidding a diminution of emolument in the case of the Judges he cordially applauded ; glad to find 'Parliament recognizing the principle which the Government had maintained against the Combined Court in British Guiana and the House of Assembly in Jamacia. But he thought the Crown and Government ought to insist upon extending that principle to all, public servants who had accepted employment under a different system. The most important provision of the act he described as that authorizing the institution of a General Assembly for the Austra- lian Colonies ; believing that if the voluntary Congress, for which Frank- lin provided rules in 1754, had been recognized and sanctioned by the Im- perial Government, it would have prevented the ulterior separation of the American Colonies. In his conclusion, he had a passing fling at " these

great sticklers for self-government" who wish to force upon the Colonies their own " peculiar crotchets."

The second reading of the bill was unopposed ; but the measure was not =criticized, the Peers who spoke dealing closely with particular points. Earl FITZWILLIAN condemned the adoption of a single Chamber hire that of New South Wales ; "of the successful establishment of which they bad not another example in the civilized world " : the point ought to be reconsidered. Lord Morrreaena announced his intentiointo move an amendment to establish in each colony of New South Wales and Victoria a Legislative Council and a Representative Assembly ; and he desiderated an express provision that the Constituent Assembly should be debarred from establishing a single Assembly based on a pure Democratic principle. Lord WODEHOUSE condemned the departure from old expe- rience, in not establishing two Chambers ; and the disregard of Colonial wishes, in persisting with the District Councils. Lord STANLEY had found the fusion of two Chambers in Newfoundland tend to stop bickering, which had run to an extreme extent before ; but after the infancy of a colony, if there were materials, he would wish a double Chamber.

He was not prepared to trust the single Chamber of New South Wales, elected under a system which excluded the influence of the wealthiest sad best-educated inhabitants of the colony, with the power of altering the con- stitution as proposed by the present bill. The part of the scheme to which he entertained the strongest objection, was the novel, unnecessary, and if unnecessary mischievous, introduction of the machinery of a Federal Government. It was proposed also that the Crown, or in other words the Minister of the day, should have the power of i sanctionig or rejecting the alterations of constitutions which the Colonies

might suggest : but he would transfer that power to Parliament .

Earlier in the evening, the Earl of Lucex moved the second reading of a bill to reenact an act of the 54th George III. which gave to Irish land- lords the .power of distraining on growing crops for rent; needed to pre- vent the depredations by dishonest tenants, with which the papers teem. The Marquis of LANSDOWNE suffered the second reading to pass, but gave no pledge as to details. Read a second time. The Earl of HARROWBY moved the Committee on the Sunday Trading Prevention Bill. •It was sharply canvassed by Lord Biennium and the Earl of ELLINBOEOUGH, but passed that stage.