THE WEST INDIES.

HL Deb 27 June 1848 vol 99 cc1243-88

EARL GREY

My Lords, in pursuance of the notice which I have given, I rise for the purpose of moving— That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty to request that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to order that there be laid before this House, Copies of Extracts of any recent Correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Governors of the Sugar-growing Colonies, as to the Distress now existing in those Colonies. My Lords, the greater part of the despatches which I propose to call for, are included in papers which have already been laid on the table of the other House of Parliament. Your Lordships are probably, most of you, aware that it is reported, but I hope not correctly reported, that certain remarks have recently been made in the other House of Parliament in the course of a debate relating to the production of these papers. It is stated that I, as Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, have, in concert with my hon. Friend Mr. Hawes, the Under Secretary of State for the same department, endeavoured to mislead that Committee to which had been confided by the other House of Parliament the task of investigating the important question of the distress of the West India colonies. It is stated that we have deliberately concerted to keep back papers relating to the West Indies which favour the opinions of those who attribute the distress prevailing in those colonies to the Act of 1846, while every paper which could tend to lead to a contrary conclusion has been carefully selected and communicated to the Committee. I am sure that your Lordships will agree with me in thinking this a charge of so serious a nature, and one involving imputations so utterly disgraceful, that if it could be maintained, not only should I be utterly unworthy to continue to hold the station which I now hold in Her Majesty's Councils, but it would be the duty of your Lordships and of the other House of Parliament, by some formal and solemn proceeding, to mark your sense of such gross misconduct on the part of one honoured by the confidence of the Crown. My Lords, I say the offence is no less serious than this; because, what does it amount to?—Wilfully deceiving a Committee of Parliament by garbling the evidence which is brought before it. My Lords, to my extreme astonishment I am told—and it is absolutely impossible I could believe it if I had not been told—that a distinction is to be drawn upon this subject between that which is a personal imputation upon me, and an imputation upon me in my political capacity. I am sure your Lordships will agree with me in thinking that in a matter of this kind no such distinction can for a moment be allowed. And I am indeed astonished that any one, looking forward himself to hold office under the Crown, can really and seriously pretend that a Minister of the Crown, guilty of deceiving Parliament, or of an attempt to deceive Parliament, is not culpable personally for a crime and an offence far more serious and far more disgraceful than that of a poor man who, perhaps under the pressure of distress, commits some petty pecuniary fraud. In my opinion the offence of a Minister of the Crown so conducting himself is infinitely more disgraceful and more serious than that of any such petty criminal who may be compelled to stand at the bar of the Old Bailey. So I at least regard it; and I do hope and trust that it is not true that any Gentleman, looking forward himself to hold office under the Crown, could for a moment have suggested even the shadow of any such distinction existing as that which I have stated. But if it be a charge of this serious nature, I am sure your Lordships will concur with me in thinking that it is one which it is my imperative duty to lose not one moment I can help in bringing under your consideration, and of refuting, as I trust I shall refute it, in a manner that will defy all contradiction. My Lords, this charge I understand, has been founded upon what has occurred with reference to three despatches—one being a despatch received from Sir Charles Grey, dated the 21st of February last, and received at the Colonial Office on the 27th of March. It is complained that this despatch was wilfully kept back from the Committee, while the enclosure in this despatch was laid before it. Another despatch was one received from Sir Henry Light, late Governor of British Guiana; and the third despatch was one received from Lord Harris, the Governor of Trinidad. Now, with respect to Sir Charles Grey's despatch, I at once admit to your Lordships that it is one which, ought to have been laid before the Committee; it is one which I fully intended should have been laid before it; and up to a recent period I never suspected that it had not been laid before the Committee. My Lords, I wish to show the evidence upon which I so state the facts; but before doing so it will make my statement more clear and intelligible, if I explain the ordinary course of business in the Colonial Office. The arrangement which has existed for many years—and I may observe, in passing, that it is an arrangement without which, or without some arrangement similar, it would be absolutely impossible for the great mass of papers that come under the consideration of that department to be disposed of; but the arrangement which has existed for many years is this—when a despatch arrives it is taken to that division of the Colonial Office to which it belongs, where it is opened and registered, and if there be any former correspondence relating to it is placed with it. It is then forwarded, in succession, first, to the permanent Under Secretary of State for the Colonial Department; from him it passes to the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State; and, lastly, it comes to the Secretary of State himself. Each of those whom the despatch reaches makes such a minute upon it as upon examination he may think fit to append. It is desired that those minutes should, as much as possible, contain suggestions of what, in the opinion of each individual through whose hands it passes, ought to be done with regard to that despatch; so that all the ordinary business of the office may be disposed of by the Secretary of State himself by simply signifying his approval or otherwise of those suggestions. That being the ordinary course of proceeding, this particular despatch of Sir Charles Grey's arrived at the Colonial Office on the 27th of March. It was opened by the gentleman whose duty it was to open it—Mr. Cox; and this is his minute, addressed to Mr. Taylor, the senior of his department:— This is the report for a copy of which the Committee on West India Distress have asked. I would observe, in passing, that the Committee on Sugar and Coffee Planting had, some time before, asked for a copy of the report, by a Committee of the House of Assembly of Jamaica, upon the expense attending the cultivation of sugar in that colony. At that time we had received no report of the Committee of the House of Assembly. Subsequently a copy of the report was received, but without any evidence or any despatch from the Governor of Jamaica. That report had been ordered to be communicated to the Committee of the House of Commons; but a mere report, without any evidence, was comparatively an unimportant document. It was the evidence attached to that report which was of the greatest interest and consequence. When, therefore, this despatch reached Mr. Cox, he made this minute:— We had a copy of the document in the Vote" of the House of Assembly. It was to be sent to the Committee to-day. Would it not be better to send, instead, a copy of this despatch, which is important, with the report and evidence which we have got now for the first time? There are two copies. If so, it is desirable to send it to-day. This bears Mr. Cox's initials, and is dated the 27th of March. The next minute was written by Mr. Elliot, to whom Mr. Cox addressed the despatch; and Mr. Elliot says— I agree that this despatch ought to be given at the same time with the report and evidence to which it refers. This is also dated the 27th of March, and bears Mr. Elliot's initials. The despatch was then addressed to Mr. Hawes on the same day—the 27th of March—who wrote on it "I agree." Then comes my minute. I wrote, "This may be laid before the Committee;" and I also suggested that the despatch would require to be answered with some care. There were some more important points adverted to—for my minute was rather long—and it was dated the 30th of March. Now, my Lords, of course, having made that minute, and directed the despatch and report to be laid before the Committee of the House of Commons, I never doubted but that that minute would be attended to. Your Lordships must know that it is physically impossible that the Secretary of State for the Colonies can look personally into the manner in which his orders are carried out. The multitude of despatches which are continually coming in and going out would render it utterly impossible. All through the progress of this inquiry, I never by any accident have seen any of the copies which were called for, and which were laid before the Committee. I have given directions in pursuance of the orders of the two Houses of Parliament, and I have always expected them to be complied with. I have invariably and implicitly trusted that those orders would be carried out; and I must say that the character of the gentleman whose duty it was in that department to see those orders obeyed, fully justified me in that confidence. But, undoubtedly, a mistake in this case has occurred—a mistake which it is not difficult to explain. At the same time, I am bound to say—because I should be sorry if I were to advance one single word beyond that which I was capable of proving—that when I state to your Lordships my perfect recollection of the impression which was made on me at the time, I am, after consulting with the gentlemen of the Colonial Department, confirmed in the belief that I can explain how that mistake occurred. Tour Lordships will observe that my minute is dated three days after that of Mr. Hawes; and you will also observe that my minute contains a long direction as to the manner in which the despatch was to be answered. Now, as I could not give those directions until I had read the report of the Committee of the House of Assembly, and as that was a somewhat lengthy document, and as the mail was going out within three days, I gave verbal instructions at the time that there being two copies of the printed report, one of them should be sent at once to the Committee; and I said that I would forward the despatch as soon as I had done with it. As to the despatch, I find it was sent to mo on the 28th of March. The minute of Mr. Hawes was dated the 27th, but as he only receives and peruses papers late at night, the probability is that I did not receive the despatch till the following morning. Well, having received both the despatch and the report, and having directed a copy of the report to be sent to the Committee, on the 30th of March I wrote the minute of the answer to be returned to that despatch; and I do not think it will be said that any great delay took place, when it is known that on the 30th of March I wrote the minute giving instructions what reply should be made to this despatch. My Lords, strictly in the ordinary course the gentleman who is the senior of the West India division of the Colonial Office (Mr. Taylor) prepared a draught of the answer, and at once forwarded it to me. That was on the 1st of April. When that draught reached me I did not inquire whether the despatch had already been copied and sent to the Committee. It since appears that it had not been sent; because the copying of it had been postponed until the draught of the answer should have been returned by me. But it happened that when the draught reached me it required a little more correction and deliberation than would admit of my returning it on the 1st of April; therefore, thinking that the despatch had already been copied and communicated to the Committee of the House of Commons, I put by the draught (the despatch requiring to be answered with some care), as I was anxious that the answer should not be copied until I had given it more mature consideration. I therefore put by the despatch for two or three days, and it appears to have passed from me on the 4th of April, when it went back to the division of the office to which it belonged. The report which the despatch enclosed having been already sent to the Committee, it certainly does not seem to be an unpardonable oversight that the despatch which ought to have accompanied it was not sent at the time. I believe the mistake arose in this way—I knew that it was of no use to send a single copy of the report which was enclosed in the despatch to the Committee; it was necessary that each Member of the Committee should have a copy, and therefore, it was sent to be printed. I sent the report on the 28th, in order that time might be saved by printing it, and I thought that when the despatch should be sent two or three days after, it would, in consequence of its being much shorter, be ready for delivery at the same time with the report. This undoubtedly is, to a certain degree, a conjectural explanation of the delay, but at the same time it is an explanation on the correctness of which I have the surest reliance; and, if so, I must say, not only for myself, but for the gentlemen employed in the department, that we are not justly liable to imputation for a mistake of this kind; more especially when I state to your Lordships that there were called for, in the course of this inquiry, by the House of Commons and the Committee, 308 despatches, and with respect to miscellaneous questions 295 other despatches, making a total 1630 printed folio pages, which had to be furnished by the department over which I preside, to the order of the Committee of the House of Commons. Under the pressure of business to that amount, I think that in common fairness it must be admitted that a mistake of this kind was not a very unnatural occurrence. But, whether the mistake occurred precisely in the manner in which I have stated, or not, this, at all events I can state, and to this I pledge my honour, that it was a mistake—that I and Mr. Hawes both firmly believed that the despatch had been communicated to the Committee. I say, my Lords, you cannot doubt that, unless you believe, what, indeed, I am told, has been suggested, that these minutes have been concocted since the subject was noticed in the House of Commons; that is to say—for upon these matters I think plain speaking is best—that Mr. Cox, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Elliot, Mr. Hawes, and myself have concurred in deceiving the House of Commons by a deliberate act of forgery. Upon that charge I will say no more than this—that I hardly know which is the more worthy to be despised, the man who, not entertaining that suspicion could express it; or the mind so lost to every generous feeling as to be capable of conceiving it. Another complaint is, that a despatch of Sir H. Light, received on the 24th of April, was not laid before the Committee, but that a short extract from it was communicated to them. I have no hesitation in saying that it was by my direction that the despatch was kept back, and the extract only given. I did not think it necessary that the despatch should be communicated to the Committee, for reasons which your Lordships may or may not deem insufficient, but which to my mind appear to be conclusive. On the 24th of April the Committee was supposed to have some considerable time before they closed their inquiry, and at that stage of the proceedings it was deemed much more convenient that whatever further information might be received from the colonies should be contained in the collection of papers which it was proposed to present to the House, unless, indeed, any of the documents happened to contain some new matter of peculiar importance. On looking at the enclosure of Governor Light's despatch, I perceived that it contained some rather curious matter bearing upon the subject of the Committee's inquiry, and therefore I directed that the extract containing the matter should be taken down to them; but the despatch itself I did not send, for it had only an indirect and very general bearing on the question the subject of inquiry; it contained statistical information, chiefly, no doubt, of an interesting character, but having little or nothing to do with the subject which the Assembly were assembled to consider. It is said that I suppressed the despatch, because it contained this passage:— The cessation from labour at the present moment is partial. Many of the Creoles have returned to their usual occupation on estates; but while the average of produce throughout the province is 1 or 1¼ hogshead per acre, it will be very difficult to compete with slave sugar. The crop of last year would have been remunerating had the prices kept up; on that of Berbice, as large as during slavery, but little profit has accrued. The difficulty of the planters is now increased by their not being able to raise money even on their sugars. Now, I would be the last man to dispute the facts stated in that extract: they are perfectly notorious; and information to that effect would have been laid before the Committee to the fullest extent, if they had wished for it. The statement that the planters could not compete with slave-grown sugar whilst their produce continued to be 1¼ hogshead per acre, combined with the statements contained in the same despatch, that the system of manufacture in force in the colony was crude and imperfect, and that, under a different system, the produce might be doubled, instead of making against the views which I am supposed to have been anxious to press upon the Committee, forms the strongest possible argument in favour of those who entertain opinions adverse to protection. The case of the despatch from Lord Harris, the Governor of Trinidad, is of a similar character. No doubt that despatch was of great importance, and well worthy of the attention of both the Committee and the House of Commons, but it was not received until the 5th of May. The Committee at that time had already had two or three meetings for the purpose of considering their resolutions. The despatch reached me, as I find by a minute, on the 8th of May, and it happened that on that very day Lord G. Bentinck himself moved in the House of Commons an Address to the Queen for copies of or extracts from all despatches, bearing on the subject, received by the then two last mails from the West Indies, to be laid, not before the Committee, but before the House of Commons. The Motion would, I believe, have been made some days sooner had it not been for circumstances into which it is unnecessary for me to enter. This [holding up a blue book] is the collection of papers printed in consequence of that Motion; and if the Committee had waited until they were prepared, they might have had them; but they would have been detained a considerable time from the ultimate termination of their labours. This is the only reason why Lord Harris's despatch was presented to the House of Commons, instead of being at once laid before the Committee. An observation arises here which is so obvious that it is hardly necessary to make it. If dishonest concealment had been my object, I should undoubtedly have taken care that the papers were not laid before the House of Commons. It would have been quite as easy to suppress them from the House of Commons as from the Committee. If I had been guilty of an improper suppression of information as regarded the Committee, it would have been a good deal easier and safer for me to have persevered in concealment, and withheld the documents from the House of Commons, more especially as it was the vote of the House of Commons, not of the Committee, to which importance would be attached. The decision of the Committee was a matter comparatively unimportant, as it is sufficiently evidenced from this, that the only resolution they came to seems to be universally and by common consent abandoned. I find by the published Votes of the House of Commons, that the hon. Gentleman who voted for the resolution of the Committee gave notice of a Motion in the House of Commons, which was nothing short of the resolution agreed to by the Committee; but finding, I suppose, that he was not likely to be supported, he altered his Motion into one of a general censure on the proposition of the Government, in the hope of drawing into the lobby with himself all those who dissented from the plan of the Government, however opposite their views might he to his own. If, then, it had been my wish to deceive, it was the House of Commons, not the Committee, I should have selected for the object. My Lords, I am told, that since the charge was originally made, further charges of the same kind have been preferred against me relative to the suppression of some papers, and dishonest quotations from others. It is said, that I have quoted from a memorial of certain persons in Jamaica a passage in support of my own argument, and without reading the rest of the paper. Undoubtedly I did so; and I wish to know which of your Lordships ever made a speech in this House without quoting only these parts of a document which he thought important to his case? Having, a few days ago, seen the report of my speech upon the occasion referred to, I find that it is somewhat imperfectly given; but it is undoubtedly true that I quoted, in favour of my argument, certain facts from a memorial of certain persons in Jamaica. Those persons were complaining of the existing state of things in that colony, and of the distress under which they were suffering. My argument was, that the parties making that complaint had themselves admitted facts which, according to my views of the case, made very materially for the course of policy I had adopted. I did not trouble the House with reading the passage at length; I read the passage which I thought important to my argument, and nothing else; but the whole of that memorial, together with every other paper, was laid before the House of Commons, and is now accessible to the public. I cannot, without going into greater detail than I could expect your Lordships to listen to, refer more particularly to the despatches which it is said I have failed to present in due time to the Committee and the other House of Parliament. I therefore meet the allegation merely by the general assertion, that every call for papers made by the Committee or the House was obeyed with the utmost promptitude possible—considering the mass of documents with which we had to deal—and with the most perfect scrupulousness and good faith. I defy any man to search the archives of the Colonial Office, and to find there a single important line written on the subject bearing on either view of the question which has not either been printed at once without being called for, or in obedience to the orders of the other House of Parliament. My directions to the gentlemen of the Colonial Office were to take care that the fullest information should be furnished both to the Committee and the House. Such is the vindication I now offer to your Lordships of my conduct; but I will offer a very few further remarks 'before I conclude. I must confess, that when informed that I was charged with a practice so utterly disgraceful, the intelligence excited in my mind lively emotions both of astonishment and indignation; but a very little calm reflection dissipated the latter feeling. I soon felt that there was no real cause for anger, because, whatever had been intended, no real injury was done to me. I hope I shall not be deemed guilty of any undue presumption in saying, that having been now for nearly twenty-two years a Member of one or the other House of Parliament, having taken some share in public affairs, and having never before, during that period, had imputed to me a mean and dishonourable act, I think I have earned a character which is proof against such an attack as has been made upon me. I have so much confidence in the generosity and justice of my countrymen that I do not entertain the fear that they would lightly believe that by such conduct as that which has been imputed to me I would have disgraced myself and tarnished the unsullied honour of a name which I am proud to inherit, because I received it from one who was even more distinguished for his pure and irreproachable character than for his talents and public services. I feel that I cannot be injured by such an attack, and further that I ought rather to be obliged to the noble Lord for having directed it against me, inasmuch as it has given an opportunity to my friends to come forward in my defence with a generosity which, I assure them, I will never cease to hold in grateful recollection. I therefore feel that I can treat the attacks which have been made upon me—I will not say with contempt, because I wish to avoid any expression of angry feeling, but with disregard—convinced, as I am, that they must have elicited the censure of all highminded and honourable men, by showing that one who aspires to taking a leading part in the public affairs of his country is so ignorant of the manner in which those affairs ought to be conducted, as to bring down a great question of policy to the miserable ground of petty personality. Although I am not anxious for myself, I think I have a right to say that this system of personal attack and imputation upon the motives of public servants, is one that ought to be repudiated by your Lordships and the other House of Parliament. Let me remind your Lordships that this is not the first instance of the kind from the same individual. Two gentlemen of unsullied character have been accused on grounds as trivial as those on which this charge against me is founded. Mr. Porter has been accused of having deliberately drawn up a return in such a way as to deceive Parliament; and another gentleman is stated to have fenced with questions when under examination before a Committee, for the purpose, I suppose, of deceiving them. It is an offence against the best interests of the country to adopt such a system as this; it is one full of evil and danger. My Lords, hitherto in this country it has been our boast, that although party contests at times run high, as in all free countries they will do, yet upon the whole these contests have been conducted in an honourable and manly spirit, by fair discussion and argument. It has not been usual for charges of personal dishonour to be preferred by one public man against another, and, above all, it has not been the practice that a deliberate charge of violation of public duty, of fraud and falsification of documents, should be brought against a Minister of the Crown, unless it was the intention to make it the foundation of some solemn proceeding. Within the course of the last few years, the noble Lord opposite (Lord Stanley) filled the office which is now much more unworthily represented by me. It has been my misfortune to have thought it my duty to join those who have entered into a somewhat strong opposition to the policy of the noble Lord; but it never occurred to us, in conducting that opposition, to charge the noble Lord with withholding documents, and with unfairness or dishonourable practices. I never dreamt of any such thing; and yet, if any person had chosen to exercise a perverse ingenuity in collating passages from speeches in Hansard, with extracts from despatches in volumes of blue books, he would have had no great difficulty in making out a plausible case upon which to found such a charge as has been brought against me. When there is a desire to make such charges, and readiness to listen to them, there is no great difficulty in finding materials for them. Again, the noble Lord opposite has been in opposition as well as in office, and in opposition it has not been his habit to be particularly sparing in the severity of his criticisms upon his political opponents; yet I will do the noble Lord the justice of saying that in discussing matters of public interest, I have hever heard accusations of this kind proceed from him. As far as I am aware, the noble Lord has always abstained from using the poisoned arrows of insinuation of personal dishonour. It is so very easy to bring these charges if there exists a disposition to do so, that in connexion with this subject I will just mention a fact which was communicated to me only a few minutes before the House assembled. Your Lordships may be aware that it is reported that in the discussion which took place on this subject in the other House, a great impression was made by the assertion that my Friend the noble Duke behind me (the Duke of Bedford) acted as chairman at a meeting of the Jockey Club which voted a testimonial for the zeal and perseverance which the noble Lord (Lord G. Bentinck) had exhibited in exposing certain frauds. The fact was announced, as I am informed, by a friend of Lord G. Bentinck's, on the suggestion of the noble Lord himself. It happens curiously enough that this fact, so opportunely stated, and the stating of which made a great impression, turns out to be no fact at all. The authentic records of this transaction have been examined—I am stating this on the authority of the noble Duke—and it is found that not only was he not chairman, but that he was not even present on the occasion adverted to; and I believe that he did not attend a meeting of the stewards of the Jockey Club on the question until the funds had been diverted from their original object to a charitable purpose. How easy would it be for me to say that the principal actor in that transaction could not be ignorant of the real state of the case: he presumed upon the ignorance of his audience, and ventured on an assertion which, for the moment, produced great effect, taking his chance of the truth being subsequently made known. How easy would it be for me to take that course; but I disdain to do so. I say, and say most truly, that I firmly believe that in the excitement of the moment those who made the assertion believed it to be true. However ready they may be to believe that all who differ from them in political matters are capable of any conduct, however vile and disgraceful, I entertain no such feeling. I acquit them at once of such intentional deceit. But I call upon your Lordships to observe what proof is afforded by this mistake so committed by them at the very moment of charging falsehood upon another, how much care and abstinence there should be in bandying such charges from one to another. I believe it is impossible, with the tone of feeling which exists in this country, that any Minister of the Crown should be guilty of the conduct which has been imputed to me. The very gentlemen in his own department would refuse to assist or bear him out in such iniquitous proceedings. But, my Lords, if these accusations are to be bandied about from one to another—if these things are to be talked of as possible to be done—men's minds will gradually get used to think of them, and to believe that they are possible; and one of the great safeguards of the purity of the system of public administration in this country, of which we are proud, and which forms so great a contrast to what in other countries is known to take place—one of the greatest of those safeguards will be weakened or destroyed. My Lords, I say that the high character of public men is of the deepest importance to the country. How much of the moral strength of our institutions, of the power—I do not say of the Administration of the day, but of the Government in its widest sense, including both the executive and the legislative authorities of the State—how much of the power of Government in this country depends upon the general belief of the people of this empire that the public business is fairly and honourably transacted! My Lords, I think we have an awful warning on the other side of the Channel of the effects which a contrary belief is capable of producing. Is there any man who doubts that the sudden crumbling, in the midst of its apparent power and prosperity, of the Government of France in the month of February last, and the calamities and bloodshed which have since ensued—that all those frightful events which have startled and alarmed the whole of Europe—are in no small part to be attributed to the impression which, rightly or wrongly, justly or unjustly, certain unfortunate events and disclosures have latterly made on the public mind of France, that there was something corrupt and rotten in the manner in which the public affairs were managed, and in those in high places by whom they were conducted? The public confidence in those by whom affairs were conducted, whether in the Opposition or in the Government, had been shaken, if not destroyed. My Lords, I say that that was undoubtedly the case; and I ask if it is not a practice to be severely reprobated by your Lordships and condemned by the public, if we are to have introduced into our party contests this system of unfounded attacks upon the characters of public men, which, if adopted on the one side, cannot long go on without being followed by the other, and which, if it does go on—if the system is once established, must end in this, that the character of public men in general on both sides in politics will be lowered and degraded in the public estimation. These are the observations which I have to submit to your Lordships. I add nothing further but an expression of my hope that, in what I have said, I have executed that which I most earnestly desired, and that I have succeeded in avoiding the use of any of those expressions, or the uttering of any of those personalities, which I have so much condemned. The noble Earl concluded by proposing his Motion.

LORD STANLEY

My Lords, although I certainly cannot feel any wonder that the noble Earl should have desired to take the earliest opportunity which presented itself, or, if no opportunity presented itself, to make one for himself, for the purpose of vindicating himself and the department over which he presides from charges which have been made, not (permit me to say) against him in his personal, but against him and them in his and their official capacity, in another place—I yet regret that the noble Earl has felt himself compelled to make the statement which he has done; because, in the first place, the debate, as introduced by the noble Earl, and as it is necessary that it should be continued, is itself wholly irregular, and inconsistent with the orders and practice of your Lordships' House; but in the next place, and most of all, because it brings me very unwillingly into the position, while vindicating the conduct and the motives of a noble and hon. Friend of mine in another place, of appearing as that which I was least of all desirous of appearing to be—the accuser both of the department to which I had once the honour of belonging, and also of the noble Earl opposite, of whom at the outset permit me to say that, in his personal character, I believe him to be a man possessed of a sense of honour as high and blameless as any one of your Lordships. But, on the other hand, while I pay that tribute, which is no more than is due to the personal character of the noble Earl opposite, I must also claim for my noble Friend in the other House, the subject of the noble Earl's attack this night, that he also is a man of as high and unblemished honour as the noble Earl himself—as incapable of stating anywhere that which he did not believe to be the fact—as strenuous in supporting opinions which he believes to be well founded—and as fearless of the consequences to himself of the bold assertion of what he believes to be the truth—as any human being upon the face of the earth. I know not precisely what application the noble Earl conceives the reference which he made to the present state of affairs in France to have to the question now under your Lordships' consideration. And I confess it was with some surprise that I heard the noble Earl advert to another point, which, for the credit of some con- cerned, I should have thought that he would have been among the first to desire to consign to eternal oblivion, namely, the reference that was made in another place to pursuits in which my noble Friend was said—was known—to have been engaged. But I am not sorry, foreign as that whole question is from the subject of discussion now, that the noble Earl has introduced the topic, because it affords me an opportunity of bearing public testimony to the high honour and the disinterested character of my noble Friend. It was with some surprise that I heard it reported, that no insignificant individual, no person in a low and humble and unimportant position, but that the First Minister of the Crown had thought it consistent with the dignity of his station, consistent with the position which he occupies, and the respect which he owed to the audience he was addressing, to cast out against my noble Friend that anything base and sordid was analogous to the pursuits of that—I will not call it profession—but analogous to the character of those pursuits in which my noble Friend was known to have been engaged. And still more was I surprised when I heard that the noble Lord condescended to taunt my noble Friend with having been the instrument, as a member of the Jockey Club, of exposing, sifting to the bottom, and completely putting an end to one of the grossest and most disgraceful systems of fraud that ever was practised. The charge was, that the pursuit in which my noble Friend was engaged was one which was of a lowering and degrading character; and it was answered, and not unnaturally, that the noble Lord's nearest relation, the noble Duke himself, than whom there could not be a more high-bred or hon. Gentleman, was also engaged with my noble Friend, and without reproach, in these same pursuits; and that he, by his presence and his countenance, had borne testimony to the exertions of my noble Friend in defeating and exposing fraud. It may or may not be true that the noble Duke was in the chair at the time that a particular resolution was come to, expressing the thanks of the body at large to my noble Friend for his exertions in that matter; but this was the fact: That my noble Friend, with great personal exertion, at great expense to himself, at great inconvenience, and with great labour, was successful in exposing and destroying, with entirely disinterested motives, a disgraceful system of fraud; and those who were in- terested in the same pursuits, and who had the same desire to put an end to that fraud, in token of their approval, and of the feeling they entertained with regard to his exertions, voted a testimonial, for which I believe there was subscribed somewhere between 3,000l and 4,000l., and one of the first subscribers to that testimonial in honour of my noble Friend was the noble Duke opposite (the Duke of Bedford), who is now cited as a witness before your Lordships. What was my noble Friend's course of proceeding? Gratified any man must have been by receiving such a testimony of a body of the gentlemen of this country. But my noble Friend, with that disinterestedness which is characteristic of him, declared that of the pecuniary testimonial he would not receive one shilling, but that the 3,000l. so subscribed should be devoted to form a fund for the relief of the widows and orphans of those persons who, ministering in a humble capacity to the pleasure and amusement of the patrons of the turf in England, had conducted themselves with uniform good conduct and character, and that the fund intended as a compliment to him should be set apart as an encouragement to such conduct. I beg your Lordships' pardon for occupying these few moments with this statement: certainly one of the last topics I expected to be called upon to discuss here was the proceedings of the Jockey Club, and the connexion of my noble Friend with them. I now proceed to the distinct charges which were made against the Colonial Office; not against the noble Earl personally or separately, but against the Colonial Office as a public body, in the performance of public duties. And I have yet to learn that if any public man in this or the other House of Parliament is of opinion that any public servant or any public board is neglecting or violating his or its duty, it is a breach of the ordinary courtesies of life that he should in his place as a Member of Parliament state his belief that such violation of duty is going on, and submit the grounds upon which he thinks he can substantiate the charge. Whether the person so charged be the Chairman of the Board of Excise, or whether he be a gentleman engaged on the part of the Board of Trade in preparing documents, which have had the effect certainly of misleading a considerable portion of the people of this country upon a very important question, or whether it be the noble Earl at the head of the Colonial Office, or the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesfy's Government, I hold that it is not only consistent with, but that it is the right and duty of a public man, without reference to personal feelings, to expose that believed delinquency, and that he is not to be told he is indulging in mean and petty personalities, if in the performance of his duty he thinks it necessary to take that course. Now, I will present this case to your Lordships, and I will follow the noble Earl through his statement; I will present it without heat or passion, and, if possible, without an aggravating expression. I do not stand here to vindicate every expression of which I am not cognisant, which may have been made use of elsewhere; I am here to state the charge which has been made. I am here to state the facts which appear to corroborate that charge, and to leave your Lordships to draw your own inference; I am not here to state whether that charge is well founded or not, but I am here to state facts upon which I think your Lordships will be of opinion that there was a ground for suspicion, which rendered it just and right that the case should be presented to the notice, and for the opinion, of Parliament. The charge is this—that systematically, for the course of the last year, the Colonial Office, presided over by my noble Friend—by the noble Earl opposite—has been in the habit, in the first place, of suppressing documents, or portions of documents, material to the due estimation and judgment of important political questions actually under consideration; and next, that the Colonial Office, and the noble Earl at the head of it, have been in the practice of perverting from their intention and meaning documents exclusively in their own possession, not accessible to others, and from those documents leading Parliament to inferences wholly alien from those which the documents themselves furnished. That is the charge, and I proceed now to state the circumstances under which the charge was made. All these statements have reference to the present alarming and distressing condition of the West India colonies. There were two periods in the course of the past year when it was more peculiarly important that Parliament should be in possession of the latest, the most accurate, and the most impartial information. One of these periods I take to have been that at which the affairs of the West India colonies came under discussion in this and the other House of Parliament immediately after Christmas— in the other House upon the Motion of my noble Friend (Lord George Bentinck) for the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the state of those colonies; and in this House somewhat later, upon the presentation of certain petitions which I had the honour of laying before your Lordships, and to which the noble Earl made his reply; the other occasion when it was peculiarly important that accurate information should be furnished was, when the Committee appointed upon the Motion of my noble Friend were about to present to Parliament their report of the whole of the evidence taken, and their recommendation of the course to he pursued to save the West India colonies from utter ruin; and the charge is, that at those precise periods important information was not given which ought to have been given, and that documents were garbled in a statement made of them to this House in such a manner as to convey wholly erroneous inferences with regard to the contents of those documents. The first of these cases to which I would turn is the case which the noble Earl took first in his statement—that of the despatch from Sir C. Grey, received on the 27th of March. On the 27th of March the Committee had been appointed, which was presided over by my noble Friend with an untiring zeal and with an ability which obtained for him the admiration of all who witnessed those continuous and arduous labours; that Committee was on the point of closing the evidence, and proceeding to consider its effect; the main question, observe, between the Government and the West Indies being this—whether the distress which was universally recognised to prevail throughout those colonies, was to be traced to causes connected with the legislation of this country, or to the negligence, the apathy, the want of skill, of the planters themselves. At that period, on the 27th of March, Sir C. Grey, the Governor of Jamaica, sends over to this country a report, prepared by a Committee of the Legislature of Jamaica, accompanied by evidence as to the state of the distress, and the causes which they believed to have produced that distress, agreed to by a Committee of the House of Assembly, and accompanied by a despatch from Sir C. Grey himself, in which he refers to the general condition of the colony, and not only states his view of the causes of the distress, but states distinctly and plainly what is the measure which alone he conceives to be capable of relieving or even of alleviating that distress. That despatch was received on the 27th of March; the Committee closed their evidence on the 5th of April. On the 5th of April the Under Secretary of State was examined before the Committee. It had been matter of frequent inquiry, whether there were no general reports from the Governor of Jamaica with regard to the state of that colony, and whether, as the Governors of all the other colonies had transmitted accounts of the colonies under them, no such report had been received from the Governor of Jamaica. The question was distinctly put to the Under Secretary on the 5th of April. But not only was this document not forthwith laid before the Committee previous to the period at which they closed their evidence; but that document, all-important as it was, conveying the evidence of your own Governor, and the opinion of your own Governor as to the course to be adopted for the relief of the colony over which he was placed, and with whose welfare he was intrusted—that despatch was never laid before the Committee at all, although they continued their sittings until the 29th of May; and they came to their decision in ignorance of its contents, and of its existence. And now let me go further, and state, that it so happened that one of the questions studied in that Committee, and proposed to be reported on, was, whether there should be a differential duty of 10s. per cwt. imposed upon sugar, a duty of 20s. upon foreign, and 10s. upon British, as nearly as possible a differential duty of 1d. per pound; and that proposition was lost in the Committee, I think, by a majority of a single vote. Now, I ask your Lordships what effect might not have been produced upon this nicely-balanced Committee, if, at that time, it had been known by them that that very measure of a differential duty of 10s. per cwt. was the measure recommended by the Governor of Jamaica? That recommendation was in the hands of the Government; and, nevertheless, the Committee went to a decision upon that question in ignorance that such a communication had been received; and, moreover, with an excuse made for the Governor, that he had been but a little time in the colony, and had not had an opportunity to give his attention to the preparation of a report. Do not let me mislead your Lordships. I am stating what to a Member of the Committee must have been a strong ground of suspicion. I myself do not believe that that document was purposely withheld—I give credit to the assertion of the noble Earl opposite, and the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hawes) in another place, that the document was intended to be communicated to the Committee; and, knowing the course of proceeding in that department, and knowing that the minutes which are stated to appear upon the back of that despatch are precisely those which in the ordinary course of business would appear in reference to any such despatch, I have no doubt it was the intention of the noble Earl that that document should be communicated. But that that was a most important document you cannot fail to admit—that it was one directly bearing upon the very question the Committee were called upon to discuss, and upon which they had to decide. I confess that, with the knowledge of that fact, notwithstanding the character borne by the Under Secretary for the Colonies (Mr. Hawes) as an honourable and straightforward Gentleman, I cannot reconcile his answers before the Committee on the 5th of April. The despatch of Sir C. Grey stated, that unless a permanent Gazette price of 30s. per cwt. could be secured, he firmly believed that the greater portion of the sugar cultivation of the island would be abandoned; and Sir C. Grey then proceeded to recommend a differential duty of 10s. per cwt. On the 5th of April the Under Secretary for the Colonies was examined before the Committee. He was asked— Can you explain the reason why we have no accounts in the papers laid before Parliament from Jamaica of the character of those from other colonies? He said in reply— I imagine you allude to the blue book—to the annual account from Jamaica. He was next asked— There is no account of the state of the island, as in the other cases? And he replied— That is generally comprised in the annual report called the 'blue book,' and that has not been received. Does not the Governor write despatches to the Colonial Office on the subject of the state of the island besides that one particular paper in the course of the year? Yes, certainly; but I am not aware of any despatches from him of any importance which have been withheld from the Committee. ["Hear!" and cheers from the Ministerial benches] I am going to state this case with perfect fairness, and it was not necessary for noble Lords opposite to interrupt the statement I was about to make with that cheer; for I am willing to believe that at the time that answer was given, Mr. Hawes was under the impression that his statement was correct. But the examination went on:— We have received from other colonies very considerable details as to the state of those colonies, and as to the prospects of agriculture; but from Jamaica I can find nothing of the kind? Until very recently I think there has been no such general despatch received; that despatch is now printing for the Committee. I ought to add, that the Governor has been in the island a very short time. That is preparing, is it? There is a despatch, but still not of the nature to which the right hon. Gentleman alludes. However, whatever we have will be furnished. Now, my Lords, I must say, considering the character of this despatch, when not one word had been said by any other person with regard to the blue book, and when the question was whether any information had been received as to the state of the colony, I cannot understand why the Under Secretary for the Colonies stated vaguely that a despatch had been received, but not of the nature alluded to—although, in point of fact, such a despatch had been received, instead of stating that within the last few days a most important document had been received which would furnish important information to the Committee. I confess I do not understand an Under Secretary's merely saying to a Committee, five or six days after the receipt of such a despatch, that until very lately no despatch had been received; that the despatch which had been received was then printing; but clearly leading the Committee to believe that such despatch had no important bearing upon the subject under their investigation. My Lords, I now come to another part of the case, which I must say, to the mind of any dispassionate person, gives a grave character of suspicion to the whole of this transaction; and I must therefore beg your Lordships' attention to what I am about to state. This despatch should have been sent before the Committee; and it is Said, and I have no doubt truly, that the noble Earl opposite (Earl Grey) gave directions, on the 30th of March, that it should be laid before the Committee—but it was not laid before them. The Under Secretary was examined on the 5th of April, but he made no distinct reference to that despatch. The Committee met again, I think, on the 5th, the 9th, the 18th, the 22nd, and the 29th of May—seven weeks after the time at which the examination of the Under Secretary took place; but they did not come to a decision upon the merits of the case until the 22nd of May. On the 8th of May, I believe, a Motion was made in the House of Commons for an address to the Crown for all the latest despatches from the West India colonies. Now, my Lords, I say that, unless the business of the Colonial Office is carried on in a much more lax manner than used to be the case when I had the honour of being connected with it, it is morally impossible—not that the noble Earl himself, but that other parties, his subordinates, in collecting those further despatches to be submitted to Parliament, should not have perceived that the important despatch to which I have referred, and which was intended to have been sent before the Committee, had not been communicated to them. I conceive, also, that it is equally impossible to believe that, upon the discovery of such a material omission, instant steps should not have been taken to repair that omission, and to furnish the document to the Committee before they came to their decision. And yet, although these papers were moved for on the 8th of May, and the Committee did not come to any decision till the 22nd of May, and did not come to a final decision till the 29th of May, in all that time this blunder, this now acknowledged blunder, was not corrected by the Colonial Office. The Committee remained in the state of ignorance with respect to this document in which they had been from the first; and this document was first made known to the House of Commons in the Whitsuntide holidays. Now, my Lords, although I give entire credit to the statement of the noble Earl (Earl Grey) and of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hawes) that they did not intend, in the first instance, to withhold this document from the Committee, I say that its having been withheld formed a reasonable ground for suspicion, and that the fact of its not having been communicated to the Committee during the long interval during which the blunder must have been discovered, and might have been rectified, afforded strong ground for the suspicion that the Government were not very willing that—previously to the decision of the Committee—this document should be placed in their hands. But how will it add to the suspicion which has been entertained, and which is entertained, and which being entertained may be fairly and legitimately expressed, when we find that other similar circumstances have occurred with regard to other despatches and other colonies, and that at the precise period when it was most important that accurate information should be given. On the 24th of April—just before the Committee were on the point of coming to their decision—a despatch was received from the Governor of Demerara, containing several enclosures, and expressing his own opinion with regard to the distress of the colony, and the impossibility that the colonists, in their then condition, could compete with slave labour. This despatch, enclosed a number of other documents; but there was one, and one only, of those documents, which was selected and sent down to the Committee; and that document, which was handed down to the Committee, without the accompanying documents, and the despatch commenting upon them, was the report of a stipendiary-magistrate, charging the planters with gross apathy and negligence, and attributing to that cause the distress in which they were placed. Now, I say again, that this may be capable of explanation; but it is a subject of grave suspicion, that when the Committee were upon the point of coming to so important a decision, one enclosure only, and that a document favouring the views of the Government, and adverse to those of the planters, should have been selected and sent to the Committee at the very moment when it might have so great an effect in influencing the decision to which they were about to come. There may have been some discrepancy and difference of opinion between the noble Earl at the head of the Colonial Office and the Under Secretary; for I am informed that within the last 24 hours the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hawes) has expressed his regret that the despatch was not communicated to the Committee, and that in his judgment it ought to have been communicated to them, while the noble Earl to-night takes upon himself the full reponsibility of the despatch not having been communicated, and states that he thinks he was justified in withholding it, and that the Committee had no claim to see it. I now come to a third case, to which the noble Earl has referred—namely, that of the despatch of the 18th of September, received from Lord Harris, the Governor of Trinidad. At the commencement of the present Session of Parliament, in the month of November last, the hon. Member for Montrose moved for the production of the latest despatches received by the Government from the West Indies, and especially from Tri- nidad. The House of Commons sat, I believe, till the 23rd or 24th of December; yet, in all that time, although notice had been given that a Committee was about to be moved for by my noble Friend (Lord G. Bentinck) immediately after the recess, and although it was stated that the information afforded by these despatches would be most material in the discussions which might probably take place upon that proposal, these documents, moved for in the month of November, were not laid upon the table of the House of Commons till the discussion upon my noble Friend's Motion was in progress, when consequently they were utterly unavailable to any human being; and I believe they were not printed, and in the hands of Members, till that discussion had been brought nearly, if not quite, to a close. Now, my Lords, this may have been a case of inadvertence; it may have been a case of pardonable omission; but, when I read to your Lordships the language held by Lord Harris, I think you will be of opinion that this was a despatch which, before the state and prospects of the West India colonies were discussed, either in this or the other House, ought to have been placed before Parliament. The despatch is dated the 18th of September, 1847, and was received on the 22nd of October following; and this is the language in which Lord Harris speaks of the then state of the colonies:— I have already mentioned to your Lordship the distress existing at this time in the colony, and which is increasing daily, and amounts to an unprecedented stagnation of business, the cases of which are constantly brought to my notice, namely, estates having the finest promise of a larger crop than was ever previously produced being almost abandoned from the want of means to pay for the necessary labour, are most distressing. Again he says— I have also stated the chief cause of this, which is, though it is to a certain extent produced by the state of the money market, that the prices received for sugar this year will not repay the cost of its production, He goes on to say— I do not hesitate to express to your Lordship my conviction, that if this colony is not to be left to subside into a state of comparative barbarism, which would result from the ruin of its larger proprietors, that some more than ordinary relief is necessary to support it in the contest in which it, in common with the other British West Indian colonies, is now engaged. Circumstanced as it is, I believe it incapable of successfully competing in the British market with the produce of countries in which slavery is still permitted, unless the advantages of free trade are conceded to it, as well as the disad- vantages; and I would add, that relief should come speedily if it is to produce any effect. I hold in my hand the copy of a despatch from Sir C. Grey, dated the 21st of September, 1847, and which was received by the Government on the 22nd of October, in which Sir C. Grey says— I think it my duty to mention, that the low price to which sugar has recently fallen in the London market, without any corresponding reduction of duty, really threatens with ruin many of the planters who have latterly been struggling hard to keep their heads above water; and that I perceive indications of a movement within the island to support, in next Session of the Imperial Parliament, the party which asserts the principle of protection. It is not unlikely that, with this object in view, there may be an effort of the planters' party in the House of Assembly here to delay the annual revenue bills and the principal business of the Session of the island Legislature until after Christmas. My utmost efforts and most studious endeavours will be employed to persuade them to the most temperate and salutary course of action; but I cannot deny that, whilst corn and cotton are imported into the United Kingdom duty free, the duty of 14s. on the cwt. of muscovado sugar, which amounts to 66 per cent on the Kingston price, and which having been about 42 per cent on the London price, when the reduction of duty took place in March, 1845, is now about 56 per cent upon the latest London price, as given in the Gazette, is a very heavy toll to be paid by British consumers for admission into the home market; nor that there is a sincere apprehension amongst the persons most thoroughly-acquainted with the subject, that with the present London price of West India sugar and the present rate of duties, it will be impossible to carry on here, without loss and ruin, the cultivation of sugar for exportation. Now, my Lords, that document and the despatch from Trinidad were in the hands of the Government in the month of October, but the Trinidad papers were not laid before Parliament till the discussion to which I have referred had commenced—I believe, indeed, not until it had terminated, and the despatch I have just read was not laid before Parliament till the 28th of March, when it was placed in the hands of the Committee. On the 8th of February, these documents being in the possession of the Government, but not having been produced to the House, a question was put on the subject in the House of Commons, and an answer was returned, by an honourable, highminded, and most sincere man—the last man in the world to disguise, conceal, or colour any fact whatever—the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Labouchere). I will read the question and answer to your Lordships:— Mr. Goulburn wished to know why Jamaica had been omitted in the statement of the affairs of the several West Indian colonies laid before the House; and also, if there would be any objection on the part of the Government to lay the last intelligence from Jamaica on the table?—Mr. Labouchere said, that as the right hon. Gentleman had had the kindness to give him notice of his intention to ask the question, he had applied to the Colonial Office on the subject, and was enabled to state, that the reason no blue book had been laid on the table respecting Jamaica was that it had not been received. With respect to the latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, he had to say that no despatch had been received giving any general account of the state of Jamaica; but that as soon as such a document should be received, it was the intention of the Secretary of State for the Colonies to communicate it without delay to the House. No general account from Jamaica had been received, and, therefore, the answer was apparently a compliance with the demand, as far as the Colonial Office could comply with it. Upon the latest intelligence from Jamaica, the fate of that island, as far as the discussions in the Committee were concerned, might be supposed to turn; and when we find it stated by one Minister, relying on the authority of his Colleague, the Colonial Minister, that no information on the subject of Jamaica was in the hands of the Government, while the Colonial Minister had in his possession, and had had for weeks, a despatch which stated that unless some relief was afforded, the cultivation of sugar in Jamaica must be given up—this is another point of strong suspicion with regard to the motives of the Government in withholding these documents. I hope the noble Earl will forgive me if I use a very humble simile to illustrate the position in which I conceive the noble Earl and his Colleagues are placed. The noble Earl has himself said that he considers, if he had been guilty of the conduct with which he is charged, he would be more criminal than many poor wretches who stand at the bar of the Old Bailey, and therefore I hope he will not be offended if I resort to the same source for an illustration. It is perfectly possible that any of your Lordships, or I myself, might have imposed upon us, and pass to some one else, a counterfeit piece of money; we might any of us pass, quite unintentionally, a bad half-crown; and I apprehend that if this were done by the noble Earl, by any of your Lordships, or by myself, no human being would suspect us of any improper motives. But if it turned out that, after passing one bad half-crown, an individual proceeded to pass half-a-dozen more, and was found with half-a-dozen counterfeit half-crowns in his possession, I apprehend these facts would very materially alter the appearance of the whole transaction, and that what might at first have seemed an act of inadvertence, would, in consequence of the subsequent disclosures, be deemed by a jury at the Old Bailey or elsewhere an offence committed with guilty knowledge. Now, though I sincerely acquit the noble Earl of intentionally withholding the first document, yet the suspicion engendered by the fact of its being withheld is materially augmented by the circumstance that documents of equal importance, containing the same view of the question, and all on one side of the question, have not been produced, and that too precisely at the time when their production might have been attended with important results—results advantageous to the views of the planters, and disadvantageous to those of Her Majesty's Government. But, my Lords, I now approach, and I do so with great pain, another part of this subject. All that has hitherto passed is applicable directly to the conduct of the Colonial Office, and not directly and personally to the noble Earl, for it is impossible to say who is responsible for these impositions upon Parliament, if they have been impositions, or for these neglects and blunders, if they have been a series of blunders. But the subject to which I am now about to call your Lordships' attention is one which personally concerns the noble Earl. My Lords, on the 7th of February—the noble Earl himself has alluded to the subject—and I am justified in referring to it after the strong declaration the noble Earl has made about guilty suppression of documents for the purpose of misleading Parliament—on the 7th of February, I felt it to be my duty, in presenting various petitions complaining of the distressed condition of the West Indies, and suggesting different remedies, to call your Lordships' attention to the state of the colonies at some length; and I expressed what was then, and is now, my opinion, namely, that the bulk of that distress had been occasioned by acts of the British Legislature, and more especially by the Act of 1846, which introduced slave-grown foreign sugar into unlimited competition with our colonial sugar. In replying to me on that occasion, it was the object of the noble Earl (Earl Grey) to show that, admitting the distress under which the colonies laboured, that distress was not attributable, or at most only partially, to the causes to which I had ascribed it, but to many other causes, among which the noble Earl more especi- ally adverted to the waste and extravagance in the management of property, to the great number of absentee proprietors, and to the neglected condition of the estates. In the course of his speech the noble Earl referred to a document which he held in his hand, and which he styled, I think, a most able and admirable despatch, from Governor Higginson, of Antigua, every line of which deserved the attention of Parliament. Now, my Lords, if I am not mistaken, that able and admirable despatch was not at that time, nor for two months afterwards, communicated to this House, although I believe it was placed in the hands of the Committee of the other House of Parliament. But on the occasion when the noble Earl adverted to this able and admirable despatch, he omitted to state that it contained these words, which deserve the serious attention of your Lordships: "It must be conceded that, for obvious reasons, free-grown sugar can never yield so lucrative a return as that produced by the labour of foreign slaves." Now, my Lords, the noble Earl holds a doctrine which I admit is capable of being defended, and which may be acted upon, and has been acted upon, by every Government, namely, that the Government must use their discretion in giving to Parliament extracts from despatches they have received, omitting from those despatches such passages as it would be inconvenient and mischievous to the public service to lay before Parliament. But, my Lords, if the noble Earl extends that doctrine, as he seems inclined to do, and if he defends his own proceedings on the ground that Government should lay before Parliament just so much of despatches as may suit their own views, and exclude every despatch and everything that is counter to those views—then the doctrine promulgated by the noble Earl confirms and strengthens the charge made against the Colonial Office in the House of Commons, namely, that they have adopted the principle of suppressing and perverting information which they had in their possession, but which they have not communicated to Parliament. Extracts from despatches must always be made, but it is the solemn duty of the Minister to take care that the extracts he gives afford a fair and impartial view of what the despatch contains on both sides, and enable Parliament to judge on the merits of the case as clearly and plainly as if the whole despatch was before it. But, my Lords, what shall we say of a Minister—and I regret to have to say it of the noble Earl opposite—who, holding in his hand a document the whole gist and bearing of which are in one sense and in support of one particular view—[Earl GREY: Hear, hear!] I am speaking now not of the despatch of Governor Higginson, but of the memorial, which excited great attention on the part of the noble Earl, and from which he read some extracts to your Lordships; and I am about to show that not only were they not fair extracts, but that they involved an inference directly and diametrically opposite to the whole tenor of the memorial itself; and that the next sentence, which the noble Earl did not read, would have utterly annihilated the inference which he sought to lead your Lordships to form. The noble Earl, adverting to the causes of distress in the West Indies, and reckoning among them absenteeism, proceeded on the 7th of February to say— A very great change was going on in the West Indies at the present moment. Among many documents which had passed through his hands connected with the state of these colonies, he was very much struck with one which he had received the other day from a number of planters in the western part of Jamaica, and who stated that they had invested capital to the extent of not less than 142,000l. in plantations in the colony; and they added—what was a most remarkable fact—that, with one exception, they had all purchased or leased their plantations since emancipation."^* I suppose I am not misrepresenting the noble Earl when I infer that the memorial I now hold in my hand is the precise memorial to which the noble Earl in that speech referred; it proceeds from the undersigned owners of nineteen and lessees of thirteen sugar estates in the western part of Jamaica, and states— We are resident proprietors, and all, with one exception, have purchased and leased our property since the Emancipation Act. I think that this circumstance, added to the amount of the capital mentioned in the memorial, which very nearly corresponds with the statement made by the noble Earl, sufficiently identifies this memorial with the one which the noble Earl referred to on that occasion as a proof of the great and beneficial change going on in the cultivation of Jamaica, and to show us what was the change and progress in that island. The noble Earl said—

"He believed that in the course of a few years ^*Hansard (Third Series), vol. xcvi. p. 209. more they would see the soil of Jamaica cultivated by planters carrying on business for them, and forming resident owners or lessees of the land. So far from believing that the prospects of Jamaica were bad, he was not aware of any part of the British dominions in which there was so favourable a prospect for the investment of capital at this moment as Jamaica."

The noble Earl endeavoured to lead your Lordships to the conclusion, that in consequence of this great change in respect to resident proprietors, the prospects of Jamaica were far from being unfavourable—that its example would be followed, and that the other colonies would be in the hands of resident proprietors—and that Jamaica, moreover, offered such a field for the employment of capital as rendered it not second to any place in the British dominions. The noble Earl expressed that opinion, and led your Lordships to entertain the same opinion; and, as far as he could, induced the country and the capitalists of the country, to entertain it. Yet this which I am about to read is the statement of those identical parties, which statement the noble Earl, when expressing those sanguine expectations, held in his hand, but did not communicate to your Lordships. They state, so far from expecting any return for the 142,000l. which the noble Lord stated that they had invested, that the price of sugar at the present time is such that their produce would only give them a gross return of 60,800l., to be placed against an annual expenditure of 60,300l., leaving a balance over expenditure of only 500l. and odd, to go against the interest of the annual outlay, and precluding the recovery of a single shilling on the original investment. The noble Earl tells your Lordships, without reading the facts, that he expects great prosperity to arise from the system of resident proprietors, and that this example will be followed by hundreds; while these memorialists state, after detailing the facts which were in the knowledge of the noble Lord while he made his statement, that— We are resident proprietors, and all of us, with one exception, have purchased and leased our properties since the Emancipation Act. It will be evident, from the facts stated, that we cannot cultivate for another year; indeed, we have not the means, unaided, of taking off the present crop; and the British West India merchants are now unable to assist us, and of course disinclined, where there is no hope of profit, or even of recovering their advances. If we, being proprietors and lessees, living on and managing our own properties, brought up to tropical agriculture, and availing ourselves of every practical improvement, have only such a result to exhibit as is set forth in the statement of these facts, the inference is conclusive that the position of the absentee proprietor or mortgagee, represented by paid agencies, is still more deplorable. It is evident that unless some mode of suppressing slavery and the slave trade more effectual than that hitherto pursued be adopted, and without immediate aid, in the shape of money loans, sugar cultivation, upon which 300,000 of the emancipated negroes are wholly dependent, must cease in Jamaica. But our object in submitting these facts to your Lordship, is to enable you to draw your own inferences, and suggest your own remedies; and we bog you will consider our desperate position as an excuse for troubling you with the statement.

Could these parties believe, that when they state their object and exhibit their desperate condition to the Secretary of State for the Colonies—he who is the natural protector of their interests, who should watch over them and the colonies, taking care that they sustain no injury from the course of British legislation—could they believe that the noble Earl, with this statement in his hand, would come forward and read a portion of the document, and withhold the remainder, leaving your Lordships to infer, from the portion he did read, that this experiment of resident proprietors was eminently successful, when the parties told him that they could not cultivate for another year? Could they believe that he would assert that no part of the British dominions afforded such encouragement for the employment of capital, when he had a proof in his hand that many resident proprietors, in attempting to carry this plan into effect, had lost 142,000l. capital sunk, and were receiving no return sufficient to meet the interest on their annual outlay? I have followed the noble Earl through the whole of his statement, and leave it to your Lordships to say how far the noble Earl was justified in that tone of high indignation at any suspicion being entertained in which he had thought it necessary to indulge. I do not ask your Lordships to say that there has been a wilful suppression of truth, or to say that there has been a perversion of documents to purposes the very opposite to those for which they were intended; but I do say that I have demonstrated to your Lordships and to every fair and candid man, that under the circumstances as I have stated them, and as they are reported to have occurred, it is not surprising that a man like my noble Friend (Lord G. Bentinck), who has devoted himself heart and soul to the cause of the West India interest, and who presided over the Committee with unexampled assiduity—who, on this as on every other occasion, is most anxious to arrive at the truth—should feel deeply hurt that facts, a considerable portion of which were favourable to his views, should he intentionally or unintentionally withheld from the Committee; and, looking to all the circumstances, should in the performance of his duty as a Member of Parliament, and as Chairman of a Committee to which an important inquiry had been delegated, express in strong and warm terms—too strong perhaps for the occasion, in the absence of entire and conclusive proof—his impression that there were circumstances of grave suspicion attending the manner in which the business of the Colonial Office had been carried on for a considerable time. In making these charges, then, my noble Friend was not descending unduly, as the noble Earl stated, to mean and petty personalities. He was taking the course, in the statements he made, which in fair argument he was justified in taking, and which ought to have been met by fair argument. The noble Earl or the Government ought not to be offended with the plainness of his statements; and the noble Earl may consider himself well out of this matter if he satisfies your Lordships and the country that he is altogether clear from the charge of having communicated, through partial extracts, to your Lordships, an inference on an important case very opposite to that which was intended to be conveyed by the documents in his hand.

LORD BROUGHAM

said, he must protest against the feeling which seemed to prevail among their Lordships on this question, while he deeply regretted that anything had arisen in another place to make it necessary for the noble Earl to have gone so far out of the ordinary course of proceedings as to bring the matter before their Lordships. He regretted it, because it gave rise to what must be allowed to be a most inconvenient breach of the Standing Orders of Parliament, which in general terms declared that they ought not to debate in one House that which was uttered in the way of speech in the other. But this charge against the noble Earl had been made in public, against him as a pub-lie man; and it was natural that he should feel himself called on at the very earliest occasion to defend himself against that charge in the House of which he was a Member. Did he blame Lord G. Bentinck, if the reports which the noble Earl (Earl Grey) had quoted were true, for having adverted to the subject, and for having called on the Colonial Office to defend it- self against the charges he thought himself justified in making? No; far from it. It was consistent with his rights and privileges as a Member of Parliament to have done so. Furthermore, it was consistent with his duty to have done so, seeing that, in his opinion, a serious breach of duty on the part of an officer of the Crown had been committed. He (Lord Brougham) understood from the statement of the noble Earl, as well as from that of the noble Lord, that whatever was most offensive in these charges had been retracted, and to a great extent apologised for. There had been circumstances of great suspicion in the transactions which had taken place; but by the statement of the noble Earl on that occasion, and by the statement of the hon. Gentleman his Colleague (Mr. Hawes) in the other House, these circumstances had been satisfactorily explained. He did not think that there was anything suspicious in the answers given by Mr. Hawes. It had been asked, how did Mr. Hawes hap-pen to state that there was no despatch giving a general account of the deplorable state of Jamaica, when he knew that despatch existed? Now, Mr. Hawes never doubted that that despatch had gone to the West India Committee, and he was under the impression that the Members of that Committee must know what it contained. Therefore, it would be wholly in vain for him to try to deceive the Committee, and to say that the despatch bore one character when he believed it had another, as he would have felt that he must be convicted of misrepresentation; for Mr. Hawes fancied at the time the Committee were in possession of the despatch. Another remark of the same sort applied to the noble Earl opposite in respect to Governor Light's despatch, the noble Earl opposite being charged with displaying a curiosa felicitas in picking and choosing from it whatever made for him, and keeping back whatever made against him. How stood the facts? Why, that those portions of Governor Light's despatch which had been kept back, appeared, when they were made known, to support instead of assailing the arguments of the noble Earl (Earl Grey). He (Lord Brougham) was friendly to free trade, except in slaves; but this he must say, that if Governor Light's despatch had been placed before the Committee in its entirety, it would have made for, rather than against, the noble Earl, and the view he took of this question. Next, there was a charge of having drawn unfair inferences from a memorial, which would have given a different impression if it had been laid before Parliament at length and entire. All the document was not laid before Parliament; and, without charging any one with a wilful suppression of it, it was quite easy to suppose it probable that it did not occur to the noble Earl to give it entire, or he would have done so. They must all admit that, though the latter part of his noble Friend's (Lord Stanley's) able address dealt with the business before the House, all the other portions of it were entirely personal. He deeply regretted the necessity of it. For two hours their Lordships had been occupied with a proceeding in itself entirely irregular; they had been engaged in discussing the conduct of a Committee of the House of Commons; they had been discussing the debates in the House of Commons, and the speeches in the House of Commons, the tenor of those speeches, and the conduct of Members of that House in matters purely relating to the privileges of a Committee of the same body—the manner in which the Committee on the West Indies had been dealt with by the Colonial Office. He deeply lamented the necessity, and he hoped he never should see such a debate as that again. He hoped he never should have occasion to excuse another, as he excused the noble Earl, for his natural anxiety to bring such a subject before them; for he held it strongly that greater caution, a wiser forbearance, more temper, and, above all, more attention to previous example, should be used by Members of the Legislature, or of any other body, in charging public officers with public wrongs or breaches of public duty; or in charging private individuals with private wrongs or breaches of private duty. All that had been so unhappily done had sprung from no personal motives—it had arisen from no unworthy feelings of any kind; but from a sense of public principle—from large and liberal views—and from the strictest sense of duty; above all, from those high and honourable feelings which he believed and knew existed in the conduct and took part in the character of his noble Friend, Lord George Bentinck, and from which, unless detached by some sudden emotion in the course of debate, he never would have departed. If, then, he (Lord Brougham) were right in supposing that all was as blameless and as right in the Colonial Office as he trusted it was—and if he were equally right with respect to the motives of those who brought the matter forward, and that it was in them as much the result of principle as of anything else—he thought the matter should here be allowed to rest; and that the charge having been made and rebutted, and the offensive words attached to the charge having been withdrawn, the subject should be considered as fully argued, and that what had happened there that night should not give rise to a scene equally disorderly elsewhere, or to attacks on the speeches in their Lordships' House, and on the occurrences that had taken place there. The noble Earl had fully, clearly, and satisfactorily defended himself. He had also fully, clearly, and satisfactorily defended and explained the conduct of his subordinate in office; and he had done so without, in his (Lord Brougham's) opinion, making any charge against any one whatever. He did not conceive that one word of his statement was such as required any answer or defence from Lord George Bentinck, or any one else; and he hoped and trusted that now and for ever there would be an end to the unfortunate discussion. He did not think he should be discharging his duty to the public service if he sat down without making an observation which had most powerfully impressed itself upon his mind during the course of the debate. When they heard of the enormous mass of business which overpowered the Colonial Department—when they heard that the average amount of despatches received in a year, all of which were to be duly read, extracted, noted, and answered, was between 10,000 and 11,000, or about 200 a week—they might easily conceive what must be the difficulty of carrying on that immense body of business, and to read and digest such a mass of papers in any department of State, such as the Home office or Board of Trade, dealing only with matters of municipal law well known to them all; but when it was considered that those colonial despatches dealt with the affairs of States at the other side of the globe, and with the extended possessions of an empire on which the sun never sets—when it was known that twenty-nine of these colonies were under twenty-nine different systems of laws, some the very opposite to the rest in principle and practice—gracious Heaven! did it not strike them that they must afford help to that department, and that it had become indispensably necessary to increase the staff of those employed in it? Who would ensure to him that there had not been errors of a similar kind with respect to other colonies, which, if unknown and uncorrected, might and would do irremediable damage, and which it would take months to discover, the error having been committed in conning despatches by the next packet? He threw out that suggestion as the only practical and perhaps the only valuable result of the debate. But with respect to the conduct of the noble Earl himself, he would allow him (Lord Brougham) to say that he was not more convinced after hearing his statement than he had been before it, of the purity of his part in these transactions, and of his perfect freedom from all blame or suspicion. He might sometimes have the misfortune to differ with him; but he well knew him to be incapable of such things as had been imputed.

EARL GREY

My Lords, I ought to begin the few observations with which I think it necessary to trouble your Lordships, by saying that I am much obliged to the noble and learned Lord opposite for the manner in which he has addressed himself to this subject, the way in which he has spoken of my conduct, and the testimony he has borne to it. I am at the same time desirous of assuring your Lordships that I feel most sensibly the spirit in which you have received all observations which connected themselves personally with me. I need scarcely remind the House, that the noble Lord opposite contended that it was alike the right and the duty of Lord G. Bentinck—if he thought that the duties of the Colonial Office were in any respect neglected—to bring the nature and causes, and the authors of such neglect, under the notice of the House of Commons. I am by no means unwilling to admit the existence of that right, and the obligations which that duty imposes; but I take the liberty of saying that there is a great difference between discussions and professions on the one hand, and deeds and motives on the other; and I think I may be permitted to observe, that there is some difference between the manner in which subjects of this nature are usually brought forward, and the way in which the noble Lord (Lord George Bentinck) brings them before Parliament. I observe that he never enters into the discussion of any great public measure without imputing vile and disgraceful motives to all his adversaries. I wonder it never occurred to the noble Lord that I should not be less anxious than he or any other noble Lord to avoid the remotest chance of any such motives being imputed to me, and that I should be not less anxious than he to promote that which I conscientiously believed to be the true interests of the country. I can assure the noble Lord and the House, that while I continue to hold my present office, my constant study shall be, as it ever has been, to devise and carry into practical effect every measure which seems calculated to promote the advancement of the colonies and the true interests of the mother country. But unfortunately the noble Lord, for some strange reason, seems to assume that my object is to depress and damage the West India colonies by unfair means. Now, I really cannot help asking whether it would not have been possible to discuss the question of protection for sugar without entering into the further question whether I and those who support me, and who are my Colleagues in office, did not endeavour to promote views ruinous to the West India colonies by means inconsistent with all fair and honourable principles? I must protest, my Lords, against this practice of suspecting the motives of public men, and this habit of some Members of Parliament of imputing evil intentions to their adversaries. My Lords, I heard with great regret the noble Lord opposite—and it has greatly altered my opinion of his character and the sentiments with which I have been accustomed to regard him—I repeat, that it was with great regret I heard him adopt the views of his political allies, and address himself to the present question with all the ingenuity, all the ability, all the energy, for which he is remarkable above most men, and combining with these qualities, give me leave to say, all the arts of the most practised advocate, for the purpose of convicting me of that which I cannot regard otherwise than as a charge of intentional prevarication. I need scarcely say it was most distressing to my feelings to see him taking the utmost pains for the purpose of accomplishing that object; and not less painful was it to me to observe that he adopts that distinction between the personal and the official character of public men, which I altogether repudiate. I conceive that the personal and official conduct of men holding high stations cannot be fairly separated; and I maintain that these charges are not brought against the office, but against the man; further, I have little difficulty in saying—from what little experience I have had of public life—that men who shrink from the commission of unworthy deeds, shrink also from lightly accusing others of any grave offence. Though most unwilling to prolong the personal part of this discussion, so far as it bears upon my own individual conduct, I cannot help noticing what fell from the noble Lord at the beginning of his speech with respect to my noble Friend in the other House (Lord John Russell,) and in so adverting to it I cannot help expressing my strong surprise that the noble Lord should have adopted so ungenerous and mean a view as he has put forth of what is reported to have fallen from my noble Friend upon that occasion. The noble Lord opposite imputed to Lord J. Russell that he had accused Lord G. Bentinck of having derived from his pursuits on the turf, habits which he held to be inconsistent with personal honour. I utterly deny on the part of my noble Friend (Lord J. Russell) that he ever made any such charges, or threw out any such imputation. Indeed it would have been most strange if my noble Friend had so spoken, considering the near and dear relation of my noble Friend to a noble Duke, who has, I believe, just left this House—it would have been most strange if Lord John Bus-sell should have been the man to cast a general censure upon the pursuits of the turf, it being well known that the noble Duke to whose name I have just adverted has given to those pursuits the sanction of his influence and example. My noble Friend did no such thing. We all know that racing is often followed from the love of an ancient and manly sport—from the love, likewise, of the noble animal employed in that amusement. We are equally aware that thus carried on, it is a harmless pastime, and contributes to important national interests. But is it not, at the same time, perfectly notorious that racing is followed, not only as an honourable and manly sport by gentlemen of the highest character, but that others make it a calling, or, as a noble Lord said, a profession; that, in a vile spirit of gambling, men carry on the business of the turf in a manner as unworthy as is the practice of picking pockets; that their habit is to bet upon horses which they know can never start; that they pay for information; that they literally practise bribery, in order to secure the secrets of the stables; and that the greed of money often induces them to descend even to more direct cheating. These are amongst the offences of the turf; but my noble Friend never said, or even insinuated, that Lord George Bentinck, by being brought into contact with persons who practised those crimes, had been in any degree infected by their company or example. It is quite true, and perfectly well known, that Lord G. Bentinck conducted an inquiry of great importance, for the purpose of exposing those practices, upon an occasion of not very distant date; that, with great perseverance and ability, he detected some of those frauds. Now, the effect of what my noble Friend said was, not that Lord George Bentinck contracted any vileness in exposing villany, but, that he had contracted habits of suspicion—that, like the detective police, who are always upon the track of delinquency, he imagined crime where crime had no existence. That and that alone was what the noble Lord did mean by the language he used on that occasion. I conceive an assertion of that kind to be perfectly fair and legitimate—to be an argument in all respects just and allowable; and I will go somewhat further, and say, that if in the heat of argument my noble Friend was betrayed into any ill-considered expression, and went beyond the bounds which Parliamentary usage prescribes, it formed a striking exception to his general habits; and I venture to say that no one is more entitled to admiration than he is for the manner in which he endures attacks made upon himself. On such occasions his character stands out a striking example of patience, temper, and forbearance. It is well known that attacks the most irritating he has sustained without betraying any unnecessary heat; and if in reference to this he showed something of the indiscretion of a generous mind, let it not be forgotten that he did so in repelling charges made against an absent friend. I am surprised, therefore, that the noble Lord opposite, whom I used to think capable of high and generous feelings, should not have judged the conduct of my noble Friend in this light, and that he should, on the contrary, have been capable of coming down to your Lordships' House to represent his words in a meaning which they did not bear, and to swell the cry that has been raised against my noble Friend on this account. I do affirm that this is unworthy of the noble Lord. I feel I must be content, with respect to the greater part of what has been said by the noble Lord in his address, to throw myself upon the House. I am bound to admit that I do not feel myself equal as an advocate to the noble Lord, and that I am not as able to draw inferences from garbled extracts and detached dates and sentences as he is. I have not memory, if I were able in other respects, to follow him through the details of his speech; and, on a question of this kind, naturally agitating to my feelings, I do not feel I am capable of unravelling that ingenious web of sophistry he has thrown over this subject, which I think I could do if I had time—because I must say, that skilful as the noble Lord is in the art of dressing up a case for Parliament, never did I know him to show his skill more than now, when his object was to drive home the poisoned arrow to be discharged at me. I shall, however, address myself to some of the details of his statement. The first point was, that I had not laid the despatches of the Governors of Jamaica and Mauritius before the House of Commons in sufficient time to throw light on the inquiry then going on. There was not time to have the papers printed before the recess, but they were laid on the table of the House the very day the Parliament met. I have lying before me the Votes of the House of Commons, which show that on the very first day after the recess they were put into the hands of Members. The noble Lord never said this; he said I kept them back—

LORD STANLEY

No, I beg the noble Earl's pardon; what I stated was this, that these papers were not laid on the table before the House of Parliament till the debate had commenced on the subject to which they referred, and had not been printed and placed in the hands of Members till its conclusion.

EARL GREY

That day, the 3rd of February, being the earliest day on which it was practicable to print them, they were laid on the table of the House; and I certainly cannot speak in a positive manner of this, but my belief is they were delivered to be printed at the time. The next point of the noble Lord's was the way in which I dealt with the despatch of Governor Higginson, in taking from it certain extracts, and not the whole. Now, in respect to this subject I must direct your Lordships' attention to the fact, that I consider the opinion of Governors and of other persons in the colonies of much importance in such matters as relate to facts; but that I do not regard their statements in so far as they relate to mere opinions as of so much moment. I think that we at home are more apt to take enlightened views of affairs, and that from longer study of such matters, and perhaps far better opportunities of judging, we often take sounder views of the conclusions to he drawn from facts, than do those who furnish those facts to us. I, therefore, quoted this despatch for what I thought it was worth. Its contents were communicated with that view, as soon as was convenient, to the House. If any question were about to be brought under the consideration of the House, connected with it, the despatch would have been laid before them at once; but no such occasion or opportunity occurred till two or three days after the rising of Parliament; and the despatch was, I believe, among the very first papers called for, and placed in their hands after their reassembling. With respect to Jamaica, great stress has been laid on the circumstance of my keeping back a despatch received on the 22nd of October from Sir C. Grey, Governor of that colony. That despatch, my Lords, stated what was perfectly notorious to all of us—the existence of great distress among the planters; and Sir C. Grey further stated, he thought some changes in the duty were necessary. But this, my Lords, was no secret at all, for Sir C. Grey had expressed the same opinion in his speech on the opening of the House of Assembly at Jamaica—a speech which was copied into every newspaper in England. It would then be perfectly childish to think of deceiving the House of Commons on such a matter as this. The last point in the noble Lord's speech to which I feel myself equal to advert at present, is the case of the Jamaica memorialists. The noble Lord says I quoted extracts from it to promote certain views which I think advantageous, but that I did not quote the whole of them. I have not now my speech before me; but it is easy to see, from the report which the noble Lord read of it, that it was a memorial presented to me, complaining of great distress, and—what I am certain made the document valuable in my eyes, and what made me quote it to the House—on the part of the complainants, of the actual state of things, admitting facts which, in my mind, led to conclusions with respect to the future of the most important character. These facts were, that in parts of Jamaica a very considerable change had taken place on some estates, and that a set of resident owners and cultivators were growing up on their own properties. For this alone was it I quoted the memorial at all. I did not enter into the consideration of the state of present distress in Jamaica, because the whole tenor of my argument was—undoubtedly there is distress among the planters—undoubtedly they are in serious difficulties—but at the same time I contend there are circumstances connected with the colonies which must lead to final improvement. I adopt the testimony of the memorialists as to facts. I do not adopt their testimony as to opinions. I do no more take for granted all that they said about the possibility of cultivating sugar in Jamaica, than I did that which has been said by the noble Lord, and by the farmers here, about the possibility of cultivating wheat in this country. In both instances I ventured to judge for myself. Notwithstanding the strong opinions of those engaged in the cultivation of land here, I judged for myself. I was equally justified in judging for myself, notwithstanding the strong opinions of those engaged in cultivating land in Jamaica. You may think me wrong in my view of the argument to be drawn from this memorial; but, according to the best of my judgment, the memorial taken as a whole supports that argument better than when viewed only partially; and this memorial, I may add, was laid before the Committee at a very early stage of its proceedings. I do not mean to enter further into these topics; and can only say that what has fallen from me has been extorted from me. I did not willingly enter into this discussion; and, as far as rests with me, I have no wish, with respect to the matter in future, not to adopt the advice given by the noble Lord who last addressed your Lordships.

LORD STANLEY

said, that much as he regretted any alteration in the feelings of the noble Lord towards him, he must still submit to that penalty, conscious as he was that he had only performed his duty in the matter. This debate was none of his seeking. He had not been desirous of raising the question; and in going through what the noble Earl called an "artful tissue of sophistry," he had not been a volunteer, but, on the contrary, he had followed strictly the line taken by the noble Earl. His object had been, not to show that the noble Earl had been guilty of a suppression of documents, but to prove from the fact of documents not having been laid before the Committee at the proper time, that there arose reasonable grounds for parties to believe that some improper interference had systematically taken place with the view of keeping back these documents. With respect to the question of personal and official character, the statements made were statements that these documents had been kept back in the Colonial Office. So far there was no personal question affecting the noble Earl, because it was not known—and it could not be known—whether the suppression in question did or did not take place in consequence of his orders. He (Lord Stanley) had also stated his firm conviction, that as to the original cause of this discussion, the defence of the noble Earl was conclusive. He had done him entire justice—he had stated his (Lord Stanley's) belief that there was no intention of withholding documents—but he had stated that all the facts went to show that there had been a case which justified suspicion on the part of Parliament, and on the part of a public man. Upon one point only he had thought, and still thought, the noble Earl had committed a grave error, that of conveying to the House an erroneous inference from that memorial from the planters which he had held in his hand on that occasion. He (Lord Stanley) had nothing to say as to the relative merits of opinions on the one side or the other. He did not say that these planters were capable of forming a better opinion than the noble Lord; or, on the other hand, that the noble Earl was capable of forming a more accurate judgment upon colonies he had never seen than all the resident colonists put together. It was not the opinion of the colonists as to whether they should or not go on which the noble Earl had not read, but the statement of the actual result of their endeavours as resident proprietors. He (Lord Stanley) had not complained of the noble Earl suppressing opinions, but of the noble Earl giving portions of facts, and suppressing other facts which appeared in the same despatch. What he had complained of was, that the noble Earl had quoted in support of his views the declaration by these planters that they had invested 142,000l. in Jamaica, and had argued that, consequently, there was a prospect for a good investment of capital, while, at the same time, the noble Earl had not stated the other fact set forth by the same parties in the same memorial—namely, that the investment of 142,000l. had been a total and entire failure. The memorialists stated that they had invested 142,000l. after the Act of Emancipation; and the noble Lord thought it fair to suppress, not the expression of any opinion by them, but the fact that that money had been wholly lost; and that the annual outlay was hardly less than the annual income. That was the point he (Lord Stanley) complained of—the noble Lord was aware of all the facts, and their Lordships were not. The noble Earl had led the House to an inference from documents he had, but which had not been presented for two months afterwards, and in the meantime the noble Earl had misled the House.

EARL GREY

denied the inference of the noble Lord. The only fact he had quoted was to show that a great change was taking place in the manner of occupation of the land. He had expressed his own opinions as to what the prospects of Jamaica were, and he had said that there had been a year of great and acknowledged distress.

The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNE

was understood to say, that the whole of the speech of the noble Lord opposite had been directed to convict his noble Friend the Secretary for the Colonies of inaccuracy, and of having misled the House; and, in striving for that object, the noble Lord had entirely departed from the real subject of discussion. If any one had before entertained a doubt, it would be impossible to do so after the speech of his noble Friend, that any attempt to show that he had been capable of anything like intentional suppression, or of misleading the House, was totally unwarrantable and unfounded, and highly deserving of the reprehension it had met with. He agreed with the noble Lord opposite as to the propriety of examining and sifting the conduct of all public men; but it was because that which was a legitimate object of public debate had been passed, it was because allegations had been made touching the character of his noble Friend in another place, where the discussion had not been conducted in the manner in which it ought to have been, and statements had been made which it had been found necessary to unsay, that his noble Friend had been placed under the obligation of calling the attention of their Lordships to the case. He (the Marquess of Lansdowne) was as willing and desirous as his noble and learned Friend that this discussion should cease; but he hoped it had not taken place without leaving upon the minds of their Lordships, and, he hoped he might add, upon the minds of persons in another place, a conviction of the necessity of avoiding the mixing up imputations of motives with political charges—a course which tended to in- fuse a degree of acrimony into their discussions, and thus impair much of the usefulness of Parliamentary discussion.

LORD REDESDALE

, after briefly stating his view of what the charge against the Colonial Office really was, said, that everything personal towards the noble Earl had been disclaimed in the most explicit and handsome manner. ["No!"] He conceived, that the answer of the noble Earl upon the subject of the memorial was unsatisfactory, because when a document was quoted, the House had a right to know the real tenor of the whole. The noble Lord (Lord Stanley) had simply referred to facts and dates; and the noble Earl opposite had no reason to complain of the manner in which he had used them. The noble Earl, as Minister for the Colonies, must necessarily form his judgment upon colonial affairs from despatches and other documents which came into his hands; and yet the noble Earl had laid down the doctrine that, although he might trust to the facts, he paid no regard to the opinions expressed in those documents. [Earl GREY: No, no!] That seemed an extraordinary principle for a Minister of a department to lay down.

EARL GREY

The next time the noble Lord does me the honour to refer to what has fallen from me, it would be desirable if he would quote something a little like what I did say.

Subject at an end.

House adjourned.