§ MR. J. WILSON, in pursuance of a notice, begged to ask the right hon. Secretary for the Colonies what course he intended to pursue in relation to his notice upon the subject of the Sugar Duties, now standing on the paper as a dropped notice? Great anxiety had been occasioned out of doors on this subject, and it would be very desirable to have a full explanation as to the course which the Government intended taking.
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONSir, I will in a very few words answer the question which has been put to me by the hon. Gentleman relating to the Motion now standing on the paper in my name as a dropped notice. Sir, I felt it to be my duty, as, a 1037 Member of the Opposition, to press upon Her Majesty's Ministers what I believed to be the disastrous effects of their own acts. I refer to the Act of 1846, modified by the subsequent Act of 1848, regulating the duties on Sugar. Sir, as a Member of Her Majesty's present Government, which is in an acknowledged minority in this House, I conceive it to be no less my duty to take whatever course I may think best for the promotion of the object we have in view; and we do not think that it would tend to the relief of West Indian distress if we were, during the present Session, to press forward views and plans against which there are recorded majorities on several occasions during the present Parliament. Sir, we further think that there is nothing in the question of the Sugar Duties sufficiently special or sufficiently exceptional to justify us in making it an exception to that intention on the part of Her Majesty's Government, which has been announced in another place by my noble Friend the Prime Minister, that intention being not unnecessarily to press upon Parliament during the present Session those controverted questions of policy which we think it best to reserve for the judgment of another Parliament. Sir, for these reasons it is not my intention to bring forward during the present Session the Motion to which the hon. Member for Westbury has alluded. But, Sir, I must beg leave to add one word more. The opinions which I have repeatedly expressed in this House upon the Acts of Parliament regulating the duties on Sugar, whether in relation to their effects upon the British Colonies, or in relation to their effects on the great question of slavery and the Slave Trade, have undergone no change whatever. On the contrary, I am now receiving, almost daily, the most painful proofs of the distress which has existed in the British Colonies; but, without being at all indifferent to that distress, we have determined that those questions, like others of the same nature, ought to be kept for the consideration of a future Parliament, reserving distinctly to ourselves the right hereafter to deal with this question, if we shall be in a position so to do—to deal with this question in such a manner as we shall consider to be required by the justice of the case, and by a due regard to the interests of all classes of Her Majesty's subjects.
§ MR. J. WILSONmight then understand that it was the intention of the Government not to interfere in any way with the 1038 reduction of the duty on Sugar, which would conic into operation on the 5th of July next?
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid it was not.