In the course of the debate which followed, and which lasted, with only the exception of two intervening Saturdays, from night to night, from the 7th to the 18th of May, upwards of eighty members addressed the House, some of whom spoke at considerable length. Of course, such an unprecedented length of discussion involved much repetition and reproduction of the same arguments. Under these circumstances, it is thought that the nature of the debate will be best conveyed to the reader by presenting a full analysis of the speeches of a few of the leading members on either side, and, as regards the rest, by noticing in detail only two or three of the more prominent features of the controversy. Among these, the defection from the ministerial rank of some of the usual adherents of Whig politics merits attention. The obvious connection of the propositions contained in the Budget, with the threatened alteration in the Corn-laws, drove some of the representatives of the agricultural interests, who generally voted with lord John Russell, into the ranks of his opponents. Thus, on the first night of the debate, Mr. Handley, one of the members for Lincolnshire, and a leading organ of the farming interest, declared that he could not vote with the Ministers, as he regarded the questions of Sugar and Timber as inseparably mixed up with that of Corn. He said, he was astounded at the proposal of Ss. and 4s., a reduction of duty which he believed went even beyond the hopes of the Anti-corn-law League themselves. He would rather have had no protection at all than such a protection as this. Lord Worsley, Mr. G. Heathcote, and Mr. L. Hodges, all friends of the agricul

turists, but of liberal politics, declared the same resolution. On the other hand, Dr. Lushington, a very decided and consistent Whig, avowed his enmity to the Budget on another distinct ground-its tendency to encourage slavery and the slave-trade. He said, that every country had a right to denounce a trade which all Europe had agreed, with one accord, was opposed to the law of justice and humanity-of God and man. There might be difficulty in our finance and in our commerce; but this measure would not relieve it. He had not changed one iota of his opinions. He had opposed, in common with a large majority of the House, the reduction of duty on foreign sugar, when prices were higher and supplies doubtful; he would not think it more fitting to reduce that duty now, when prices were lower and supplies promising. He must oppose the reduction, as tending to increase the slave-trade and slavery, as unjust to the West Indies, as disadvantageous to the East Indies, as injurious to the tropical population, and as unnecessary in itself. He stated, in detail, the present prospects of supply from our own colonies, of which the produce was now rapidly increasing; and he adverted to the enormities of slavery as upheld in Cuba, where the slaves were always worked in gangs of males only, to whom was denied even the necessary refreshment of sleep, and against whom every man's hand was raised, as if the oppressor hated the slave for the very wrong he had done him. This was no free-trade-this was no competition: there could be no competition between the honest manufacturer and the man who robbed on the highway. After a just panegyric on the virtues and

exertions of Mr. John Joseph Gurney, who had recently visited the West Indies, and published the valuable results of his experience there, he read an opinion transmitted to him from that gentleman, in which the necessity of excluding slave-grown sugar was strongly enforced. The effects of the government measure would probably be, that the Brazilians would withdraw capital from cotton to sugar; and thus this country would be rendered dependent for her supplies of cotton on the United States alone. If the question were put to the British people, whether they would prefer to pay a little dearer for their sugar, or to have it cheaper at the cost of human suffering, he believed that they would prefer the former side of the alternative.

Several members in support of the Government addressed themselves with especial reference to Dr. Lushington's argument-none perhaps with more effect than Mr. Grote, whose speech throughout was marked with much ability. He said, "When in former years the mischiefs of slavery, as it existed in our own islands, were forcibly exposed, the conclusions deduced were natural and legitimate, and worthy of the premises laid for them. Parliament said, "Here is a great evil existing, let us interfere and put it down." The generous exertions of those who exposed the evil were rewarded with their proper result -a direct and effective intervention for the purpose of putting down the evil. But when gentlemen denounce the practice of slavery, as it exists in Cuba, in Brazil, or in other foreign countries, what are the practical conclusions which they deduce from their doctrine? Do they propose that we should

formally require the governments. of those countries to abrogate slavery, and that, in the event of refusal, we should fit out armaments to enforce compliance? No person has ever started such a proposition. Do they propose to declare all the products of slavelabour tainted, and to forbid them as abominations, of which it is not permitted under any circumstances to partake, just as certain descriptions of food are peremptorily interdicted in many countries by religious precept? Sir, I do not find that any person proposes this. But, Sir, unless gentlemen are prepared to maintain this proposition, they abandon the moral ground of the question; they can no longer take their stand upon the dignity of a moral and conscientious scruple: they cannot be allowed to reason upon the moral view of the question up to a certain point, and then to turn their backs upon it when they find inconveniences thickening around them: they cannot be allowed to rate the stain arising from slave manipulation at some fixed sum, such as one penny or twopence per pound, and nothing

more.

So long as gentlemen encourage the introduction of slavegrown cotton and slave-grown tobacco, I say that I am only following their example when I treat this question as one of prudence and public convenience, and not of any peremptory moral obligation." Had the exclusive system checked the spread of slavery, Mr. Grote asked, in Cuba and Brazil ?

We shall select the speeches of lord Stanley and sir Robert Peel, as affording the best general compendium of the arguments urged against the measure, while those of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and viscount Palmerston on the

other side, with the analysis which we have already given of lord John Russell's opening address, will sufficiently explain the grounds relied on by its supporters.

Lord Stanley said, it was alleged on the other side, that a great principle was now for the first time brought to the test-that of freetrade, and that every one was agreed upon this principle; but the fact was, that free-trade, that is, trade unfettered with restriction or protection, had been advocated by no member except Mr. Grote. On the contrary, the Ministers had announced that their principle was one of protection, not of freetrade. Ön Corn, on Timber, and on Sugar, protecting duties were proposed. He did not find fault with protection; but let not the Ministers, who acted upon it, profess to be the pure and perfect champions of free-trade. He agreed with them, that the true rule was protection, as opposed to prohibition; but the amount of protection in each particular case must be a question, not of principle, but of varying circumstances. The same rule could not be applied to the agriculturist and to the manufacturer, the capital of the former being so much less moveable and so much less independent of seasons; and sugar was one of those descriptions of agricultural produce, with respect to which the application of the rule was matter of peculiar difficulty. But admitting the general principle as applicable both to agriculture and manufactures, if it was necessary to foster a manufacture in its infancy by protection, it was especially necessary, in the present case of the sugar trade. Lord Stanley then entered fully into details, exhibiting the probable

abundance of the future supplies of sugar from our own colonies, and the excess of those supplies beyond any probable amount of British consumption. The treatment of this question was matter of the greatest importance with reference to the course which foreign nations would take with regard to the great experiment of emancipation. Mr. O'Connell, who, he had heard with the greatest surprise, was prepared to support the measures of the Government, had given notice of a motion in committee for excluding such foreign sugar as was produced by slave-labour. The objection to that motion was its impossibility. It was in the very teeth of our treaty with Brazil. Lord Stanley then cited a speech of Mr. O'Connell, made in opposition to a plan proposed by Mr. Ewart last year, precisely similar to the present. The Government, too, had then opposed that plan, when the prices of sugar were high, but now, when the consumer had been relieved by prices unusually low, the same scheme was revived and brought in by themselves. He was not disposed to go the extreme length of saying that this country ought to exclude every species of slavegrown produce. Such an exclusion would in truth be impractic able. But he would not consent to a measure which went to throw away all the fruits of the great and costly experiment now in progress. It was urged, that our refining trade admitted sugar to be imported for refinement and reexportation. But our refining did not add one pound to the quantity of sugar grown in Brazil. We were therein the mere carriers of that sugar which foreign nations would equally have consumed.

Then as to cotton and coffee: his answer was, that wherever you could substitute the cultivation of cotton and coffee, though reared by slaves, for the cultivation of sugar, the slave would be a gainer by the comparative lightness of the labour required for the former articles. A pleasing picture had been drawn of the present state of our negro population. To what was this owing? Solely to the consumption by this country of their staple article of production. Was this a state of things into which the noble lord ought to break? He said nothing of the hundreds of millions permanently invested in machinery and land he said nothing of the 20,000,000l. paid by this country, or of the ruin to which it would subject our fellow-countrymen in the West Indies; but he would ask them, when they saw the negro acquiring habits of honest industry, stimulated to labour by the wages offered-when they saw an increasing population, and when they knew that all this flourishing condition was owing solely to the consumption by this country of their staple article of productionhe would ask them, if this was the moment to choose for the destruction of their incipient prosperity? Was this the moment to choose for the introduction of a new competition in the shape of slavegrown sugar, depriving the negro of those wages which, while they amply repaid him for his labour, were the means of stimulating him to laborious exertion?

He felt deeply for the distress of our manufacturing districts, but it would be well for the Government to pause, before they closed, for the sake of a new vent in Brazil, that great colo

nial market which had hitherto afforded so large an outlet for British commodities, and that other fresh and unlimited market which was now opening itself in the valley of the Ganges. The unsettled state of our foreign relations was enough to account in a great measure, for the temporary prevalence of commercial distress. He, however, did not despair of the finances of the country under a good and prudent Administration. In the extraordinary expenses occasioned by foreign transactions, and in the reduction of the Postoffice Revenue, he could trace the whole amount of the deficiency to be provideed for. He quoted the Liverpool Price Current, of 11th May, 1841, which stated, that after the first panic caused by the announcement of the ministerial project had subsided, the market was become calmer from the conviction that no such measure could be carried. Finally, lord Stanley vigorously denounced the scheme as the last act of expiring desperation on the part of the falling Government.

"It had been said, that whatever might be the result of the immediate proposition, the seed was sown which would produce its fruit in due time. He feared that the seed was sown which would produce a bitter fruit; and deeply regretted that at the moment when the Government felt themselves tottering to their fall-when the financial difficulties of the country, to say the least of them, were most serious-when he would not say county by county, but borough by borough, they saw their hold upon the country gradually slipping away from them(Great cheering) that at that moment, when the common con

sent of the country proclaimed, whatever might be the opinion of honourable gentlemen opposite, that they could no longer hold the reins of office, as they had long since ceased to hold the reins of power(Renewed cheering)-he regretted, he said, that this should be the time chosen by Government for throwing loose upon the country a crude and undigested scheme, involving the most extensive financial regulations, deeply affecting every interest in the country, paralysing for the time all speculations in trade and all activity in commerce; and this under the full conviction that it was impossible they would be able to carry the project into effect." (Great cheering.)

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that the arguments of the Opposition on the Sugar question were inconsistent with each other. The measure could not both ruin the West Indies, and fail to yield revenue. The price which this measure would secure to the British colonist was one which had been exceeded only twice in the whole of the last twenty years. It had been said that the measure would not yield the anticipated revenue. He contended that it would: for when the colonial sugar should rise to a certain point, the foreign sugar would come into competition with it, and so prevent the price from rising to such a height as would check consumption and while consumption should be maintained to the extent which he contemplated, a revenue might be relied on, which from his data he took at 700,000l. It was proved by the evidence given before the Committee on Import-duties, that when the price rose beyond 60s. per hogshead, the consumption was check

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ed, but at 58s. or 59s. the consumption was interminable; and by this measure the Government took security on behalf of the poorer classes that the price should not rise beyond this consumption level. If the colonies and the East Indies could supply the sugar at this moderate price, the foreigners would not get in; but if they were unable to furnish the requisite amount at the reasonable rate, the foreigner would enter and redress the balance. It was true that the supplies of colonial sugar were now plentiful, but that was the very reason for selecting this as the time to introduce a change, because in such a state of the stock it would fall with no sudden hardship on the colonists. Mr. Huskisson had proposed a plan of this kind to the Cabinet of his time, and they had acceded to its principle, though from collateral circumstances the measure was not then brought forward. The principle having been so sanctioned by the Tory party, with what grace did they now seek to ride into power, by raising the cry of humanity, and contending that it was contrary to principle to let in slave-grown sugar under any circumstances? The measure referred to was not a trifling one

not one that could have passed without consideration. There was no truer principle than that of Mr. Huskisson, that if you wish to improve a trade, you must subject it to some competition. With respect to the encouragement of slavery, it was to be remembered, that if you sell your goods to a slave-owner, you equally encourage slavery, whether you take sugar in exchange, or any other article; for the other article which he pays you, must