NEWS OF THE WEEK.
TUE discussions in Parliament this week tend to strengthen a growing opinion that England's prosperity is intimately connected with the good or bad government, the welfare or detriment, of her distant dependencies. Colonial subjects force themselves upon the attention of the reluctant Legislature ; and the more closely they are examined, the more evident it becomes, that to neglect the concerns of the Colonies is one of the surest methods of pre- paring loss and vexation for the Mother-country.
Mr. EWART has brought the Sugar question before the House of Commons. He had no difficulty in showing, that besides the twenty millions of capital sunk in purchasing Negro freedom, the people of England are now paying annually the interest of a hun- dred millions more in the shape of an enhanced price of sugar. Who arc to blame ? Not the Planters, nor the Negroes, but the British Government and Legislature, who are only now talking of a remedy winch ought to have been arranged before the passing of the Emancipation Act. Ilad half of the twenty millions been expended in providing the means of introducing free labourers—say 500,000, at 201. each—into the West Indies and Guiana, the other ten millions might have been spared, the planters would have been prosperous, and the consumers in England would not now be paying a higher price for sugar than at any previous time during the last quarter of a century. The privation and the loss nee clearly traceable to ignorant and improvident legislation for the West Indies.
Mr. Ewmer's motion was to reduce the duty on Foreign Sugar from 63s. to 34s. per hundredweight. Ilis aim is laudable—to procure cheap sugar for the English consumers; and he would also discourage slavery, by prefbrring, so far as wishes go, the produce of free labour. But Mr. Ewssicr and his supporters arc not on the right road to their object. The first effect of the proposed reduc- tion of duty would be the introduction of sugar in large quantities for the BraZils—the opening of the greatest market in the world to the produce of slave-labour. Mr. EWART hopes that Siam, Manilla, and other countries of the East, would send free-labour sugar to England : but the Brazilians would always have an immense ad- vantage from their relative nearness to this country, and it is doubtffil to what extent the competition front the East would at any tulle be successfhl. Another near consequence would be the utter ruin of the British West Indies, and the transfer of the sugar- trade of the West to the Slave States of America, and the French and Spanish Colonies. Mr. EWART is too good a political economist. not to expect cheapness from competition ; but he proposes a mea- sure which would drive the slaveholdeifs principal competitor out of the market. It is not only a sentiment of equity that is included in the thir consideration of the new position of West India proprietors. Deprived of their former supply of labour by nets of the imperial Legislature, they are now exerting themselves to procure it frost other quarters : there is conclusive evidence, that with plenty of labour the West Indies could supply the existing demand not only for England, but for all Europe : abundance and cheapness would coexist, and the slave-trade and slavery would be stopped. These fair and not distant prospects would vanish from the sight, were the protection necessary to the success of the experiment of full cultivation by free labour at once withdrawn. Since •Mr. EWART first began to agitate this sugar question, many new theta have come to light, and much experience has been acquired. The opinions of men whose popular sympathies and disapprobation of slavery are as strong, as any, have undergone considerable modification; and it is now seen that the surest means of obtaining cheap sugar, and at the same time abolishing slavery everywhere, is to furnish an abundant supply of free labour
to the West Indies. This NVILS the rational course proposed by Mr. WILLIAM GLADSTONE; who is thus tits a more valuable friend of the Negro than Mr. O'CONNELL and Dr. Lustimerox. Mr. VILLIEns properly reminded these gentlemen of their silence on the subjet of raw•ec:on. produced as well as sugar by slaves; and we never heard of any objection from the sentimenta!
tcriali,ts to the 11,,e of sh,v,.,-grown tobacco, which , d
Government thee:' millions a year. pfatr out the vi, their indignation on sugar; but why it should be sinful to sweeten cone with .11avannah sugar, vet innocent to pun' cigars from Cuba, passes our comprehension.
Lord ,JOHN RussEm. failed in the attempt to allow the emigration of llill Coolies from Bengal to the Mauritius by clauses in the Colonial Passengers Bill; but it is understood that a more compre- hensive measure will be introduced for supplying the West Indies and Guiana as well as the Mauritius with immigrant labour. The diminished supply of sugar, the complaints in this country of the high price, and the jeopardy ill which an important branch of reve- nue is placed, must all stimulate the Government to apply the only remedy ; which we hope will be is time. The Bishop of EXETER seems to have taken up one portion d't\ least of the subject of Colonization with characteristic energy. IW made out a strong case of breach of faith against the Government respecting the New South Wales Land-fund. Lord LsissnowNis spoke from the brief' furnished by the Colonial Office, and which had been held before by his colleagues in the House of Commons. Ministers deny that the revenue derived from the sale of waste lands is applicable in the first instance to the purposes of emigra- tion, and claim it for the " exigencies of the Government." Lord RIPON declares that he never inten led to devote more than 10,000/. a year to emigration' and is alarmed at the idea of expending 120,000?. a year : he fears there might be too many labourers for the Lund,—though the land must be first sold, and the existence of the field for employment thus incontestably proved, bethre the means of procuring labour could be provided. Earl GREY'S Colo- nial Secretary cannot comprehend the simple and beautithl prin- ciple, which Lord JOHN RussELL has more than once proclaimed his acceptance of as the true guide.
"Mr. FITZROY KELLY has obtained leave to introduce a bill to abolish the punishment of death except in rases of treason and actual murder. There are now fourteen (a fa- years ago there were two hundred) crimes for which the punishment of death may be inflicted. Mr. KELLv anticipated the greatest objection to that part of his bill which proposed to spare the lives of persons con- victed of arson, rape, and attempts to murder. Ile argued in fa- vour of the milder treatment of these cases, with much eloquence and ingenuity ; and certainly received no adequate reply. Lord Joins RussELL permitted the 111011SLITC to pass the introductory stage, but intimated that its further progress would be stopped. The Attorney-General tried to coax Mr. KELLY to lay his bill on the shelf till next year : but without success—for Mr. KELLY de- clared he would endeavour to get it enacted this session, and he believed be had a majority.
The Judge of the Admiralty Court will not be allowed to sit in any future Parliament. A proviso to that effect has been added to
his salary-bill; the feeling of the House was-so clearly against the Doctor, iat Lord JOHN RussELL declined a division. Mr. WAnn was ready to exclude all Judges, but not to single out Dr. LUSIIINGTON for exclusion; though, if the rule which admits Judges to seats in the House of ekimmons were good, which it is not, still the Admiralty Judge ought not to represent the Tower Hamlets,— for reasons too obvious and too often stated to need recapitulation. And the objection is peculiarly applicable to 1)r. LIISIIINGTON, a man noted fur vehement partisanship, who, however independent of the Ministry he might re:Illy be, would always be liable to the accusation, if not the suspicion, of administering the law with an eye to electioneering.
