HL Deb 15 September 1831 vol 7 cc48-9
Viscount Strangford

was inclined to follow the advice of the noble Viscount (Melbourne); but still he thought it important to ask the noble Lord at the head of the Board of Trade, whether any steps had been taken towards setting aside an Ordinance of the Neapolitan government, requiring quarantine to be performed by British vessels on account of the cholera morbus. That Ordinance purported to be founded on certain information, that the cholera morbus had broken out in the north-west of Ireland, and the consequence was, that vessels of the United Kingdom were subjected to a quarantine of forty days in the Neapolitan dominions. This was a very great inconvenience to the British trade; and he had further to add, that the quarantine was more strict at Palermo than even at Naples, for there they actually took the sugars—an article not very likely to carry infection—out of the casks, and passed the casks through salt water. The fact was, that the government of the two Sicilies farmed out the quarantine dues, and so it became the interest of the farmers of these revenues to find out as many pretences for quarantine as they possibly could, and they disregarded the British clean bills of health. Since he was on his legs he would shortly again call the attention of the Government to the subject of the Wine Duties bill, as no attention whatever had been paid to what he had before stated on that subject. But, however mortifying that might be, he would persist in bringing the subject under the consideration of the House. He would assure his Majesty's Ministers, that a much stronger feeling prevailed on this subject abroad than in that House; and, however his conduct might be censured for making the remark, he would say, that those who were concerned in importing wine, however much they might desire Reform, were heartily sick of liberalism in trade.

Lord Auckland

, in reply to the noble Viscount's question, said, that the strongest representations had been made on the subject by the Board of Trade. After the information of these proceedings had reached this country, not a day was lost in making representations to the Court of Naples, and in sending correct information on the subject, both to the Neapolitan government, and to the other Powers with whom the same misapprehension had prevailed. As to the Wine Duties, if the noble Lord would give notice of a motion on the subject, the proper attention would be paid to it.

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