inquiry would unsettle men's minds and check commerce: now he could not conceive any measure more calculated to depress an already depressed interest, than such a vacillating and uncertain state of things as this Bill would produce. He also objected to the Bill on the ground that whilst it professed to prohibit slave-grown produce, it admitted sugar from China and Java, where slavery existed; and it would also indirectly encourage all slave produce, because the countries from which sugar was allowed to be imported at the lower duty would supply themselves with sugar from the Brazils, and send all their own produce to the English market. He denied that the opinions of the people of this country as to the admission of slave-grown produce had been fairly taken at the last elections: he was convinced that if ever there was a case where delusions had been carefully excited, and pledges had been given which were afterwards broken, and every deceit had been palmed on the minds of the people of this country, it was at that time. Upon these points he dwelt at considerable length, going over much of the same ground as the opponents of the measure in the Commons; and he concluded by expressing his opinion that the principle of the Bill was bad and inexplicable.

Lord Brougham defended the Bill, on the ground that it was not a mere question of free trade, or of abstract political economy, but was one involving the interests of humanity and public faith. It affected essentially the greatest acts of this country, the abolition of the slave-trade, and the emancipation of the slaves in the British

colonies. Those glorious triumphs ought not to be tarnished; and, to be consistent with ourselves, we must preserve a system of commercial policy that would prevent those acts from being rendered nugatory. He was not prepared to say that he would not be in alliance or would not commercially deal with any country which cultivated its ground by slaves. He held, as a statesman, that it was not with a view to put down slavery and encourage emancipation that he had a right to take this course, or draw that line, or make that distinction; because he had no right to interfere with the domestic institutions of any other state under the sun. But when they came to the question of slavetraffic, it was another matter, and such observations would not apply; because, if he opened the ports to the consumption of Cuba and Brazilian sugar, he should know that, by that very act, he was opening those ports to the accursed African slave-trade; and every hogshead of sugar which he allowed to enter our ports this year more than had been consumed in the last would be raised by means of that infernal traffic; and he should know his po licy to be calculated not merely to encourage the detestable institutions of slavery in Cuba and Brazil, but he should be also encouraging that which he had a right to interfere with as a British statesman and a man.

With respect to the consumption of slave-grown coffee and cotton, with which they had been taunted, he considered that almost as a necessary evil, but it was palliated by the difference in the nature of the culture of the dif ferent kinds of produce. In the cultivation of sugar, slave-labour was employed in its most revolting

forms, and was altogether different from the cultivation of cotton, coffee, and indigo. Looking to the claims of the West Indian planters, and at the wants of this country, he believed that this measure was necessary. Sugar had become to the people of this country nearly one of the necessaries of life: but to repudiate all attempts to limit its increase to a certain degree, would be bad policy, and would injure that cause which he had most at heart, the extinction of slavery and the abolition of the slave-trade.

Earl St. Vincent contended, on behalf of the West India planters, that the reduction of the differential duty was too great; or at least, that the measure should be postponed till our colonies were sufficiently recovered to compete with foreign countries.

The Earl of Radnor believed that the difficulties of the West Indies arose from the restrictions caused by monopolies, to which they were themselves subjected. He did not object to the Bill, as it was a step in the right direction.

Lord Ashburton approved of the measure, as adapted to meet the wants of the country, at the same time that it attended to the interests of humanity.

The Marquess of Lansdowne thought the measure contained many sound principles, which ought to have been carried further, by consulting more the interests of consumers in this country. He considered that attempts to exclude the sugar produced by slavelabour would fail in practice, and that the better plan would be to admit all sugars upon an uniform system. This country had made great sacrifices for the abolition of the slave-trade, and great sacri

fices the people would be prepared again to make if they could expect them to be effectual; but the country was not prepared to abandon its commerce with every part of the globe where it had the effect of encouraging the slavetrade. To interfere with other countries was for the first time proposed by this Bill; and he must say that he was not very desirous to see it successful, because he doubted that it was a principle safe or proper to be adopted to interfere with the institutions, be they bad or otherwise, of other countries, by applying to them that commercial screw which, wherever applied, had always failed, and which he hoped would always be found to fail; because he was persuaded that civilization and improvement, and even ultimately the great object of the abatement of slavery, were to be most easily and effectually achieved by the freedom of intercourse and the exchange of ideas between a people having long had the benefit of free institutions, and one which was not so far advanced in civilization and a love of those institutions. Alluding to some remarks made by Lord Brougham on the commercial measures propounded by the late Government before they quitted office, the Marquess said, his noble and learned friend had taunted the late Government with having, like drowning men, caught at straws.

If it were so,

they had this consolation, that the straw had not met the unfortunate fate of ordinary straws in rotting on the ground, but had germinated in the ungrateful soil opposite, and had come forth in the shape of altered Corn-laws and altered Sugar-duties, although they had been previously told the

country had the happiest of Cornlaws and the happiest of Sugarduties. (Laughter.)

Lord Brougham acknowledged that the straw was so far exempt from the fate of ordinary straws, that it had not gone down with

the drowning men, but while they sunk, it remained.

After a few words from the Earl of Dalhousie in reply, the Bill was read a third time and passed.

Fall the topics which occupied the attention of Parliament during the present Session, there was certainly none which, in respect of the great interests which it involved, and the effects it was calculated to produce upon the commercial and monetary transac. tions of the kingdom, deserves a more prominent notice than the Bill introduced by Sir Robert Peel for the regulation of the Bank of England and for the administration of banking concerns in general. By an Act of Parliament passed in 1833, conferring upon the Bank of England certain privileges, it was provided, that the charter granted to that institution should expire in 1855, but the power was reserved to the Legislature, by giving six months' notice, to revise the charter ten years earlier. Availing themselves of this option, the Government now proposed a measure by which this most important branch of the business of the country was in future to be regulated upon an improved and newly modelled system of management and control. This Bill, now become the law of the land, may justly be considered the second great monetary measure of Sir Robert Peel's life, and will assuredly be regarded as

one of the most signal monuments of his skill as a commercial Minister and financier; and as the plan itself may well challenge com. petition with any other specimen of modern legislation on the same subject, the exposition with which it was introduced by the Prime Minister to the House of Commons deserves no less to be characterized as one of his happiest efforts. The masterly and lucid statement of the principles of currency with which his speech commenced, imparted an attraction even to that usually barren and repulsive subject; the skill with which controverted points were disposed of as they successively arose, and the dexterous arrangement and happy elucidation of the details of his scheme, riveted the attention and admiration of the House to a degree which, on a question of so dry and complicated a nature, afforded the highest testimony to the ability of the speaker. To abridge in any degree a statement so complete and well digested in all its parts, is to do an injustice to its merits, though unavoidably necessary in regard to the limits of this work. The extensive nature of the subject, however, and the abundance of details involved in the Ministerial