List of the AYES. Anstey, T. C. Hume, J. for was to have equal justice dealt to them | were sacrificing the interests of Ireland to as was given to the foreigner-to be re- those of the West Indies. If spirits released from the grinding extortion of the mained in bond for seven years, the coloExcise, and brought under the regulations nial manufacturer would have an advantage of the Custom-house; and anything more equal to 6d. per gallon. If the Government reasonable than that he could not conceive. persisted in their refusal of the claim in Such was the opinion of Sir II. Parnell's question, they ought to take out a patent for Excise Inquiry Commission in 1833. The making converts to repeal; distillers who noble Lord quoted a passage from the re- had been opposed to repeal were beginning port of the Commissioners, stating that in to say that it was folly to expect justice their opinion it would be but just that the from an English Parliament. mode of estimating the duties on rum and The House divided on the question that hollands should be extended to spirits dis- it be an instruction to the Committee, &c.: tilled in this country, and that they saw no-Ayes 37; Noes 76: Majority 39. reason why foreign traders should possess any advantage over our home manufactures. The right hon. Gentleman was certainly a very comical Chancellor of the Exchequer; for whenever it suited him to argue against the colonial distillers, he then endeavoured to show the House that the leakage and wastage was next to nothing; but when he wanted to avoid putting the British distillers upon an equality with the colonial and foreign distillers, he then immediately discovered that the leakage and wastage was exceedingly large. It reminded one of the fable of the Satyr and the Traveller; for the right hon. Gentleman could warm his hands and cool his porridge with the same breath. But there was no doubt upon this point; for they had the authority of an Act of Parliament as to the amount of leakage and wastage in the case of foreign spirits. By the 8th and 9th of Victoria, cap. 91, sect. 22, the allowance for wastage was one gallon for every 100, for six months; three gallons for every 100, from six to eighteen months; five gallons for every 100, from eighteen months to two years; six gallons for every 100, from two years to two years and a half; and so on. All that the Irish distillers asked for was to be treated with equal justice with the foreign distillers, and that they should have the same advantages which the foreign distillers enjoyed. MR. REYNOLDS said, that the Bill did not go far enough, and that if the right hon. Gentleman should refuse his assent to the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Kerry, he would inflict deep injustice upon the distillers of Ireland and Scotland. As to what the loss to the revenue would be, the calculation was guesswork; but if the storing of spirits were encouraged, the consumption would be increased, and so far the revenue also. Coupling this Bill with the Rum Duties Bill, it seemed clear that the Government Devereux, J. T. Willoughby, Sir II. TELLERS. O'Connell, M. J. List of the NOES. Hodges, T. L. Jervis, Sir J. Labouchere, rt. hon. II. Lacy, H. C. Langston, J. H. Baring, rt. hon. Sir F. T. Lascelles, hon. W. S. Abdy, T. N. Lewis, G. C. Locke, J. Maule, rt. hon. F. Morris, D. Perfect, R. Pigott, F. Brown, W. Romilly, Sir J. Scholefield, W. Scrope, G. P. Williams, J. Wilson, J. Tollemache, hon. F. J. Stanton, W. H. Talfourd, Serj. Tancred, H. W. Turner, E. Vane, Lord H. Villiers, hon. C. Ward, H. G. Watkins, Col. Wilson, M. Wood, rt. hon. Sir C. Tufnell, II. TELLERS. Hill, Lord M. Bill passed through Committee. COPPER AND LEAD DUTIES BILL. On the Motion for the Second Reading of this Bill, of the country. He could state, that the miners of Cornwall never were in a lower condition than they were at present. There never was a moment when there was less claim on the part of the smelters of Swansea and other places to demand this reduction. The price of copper had risen, whilst the price of copper ore had fallen. True, the smelters who asked for this protection were a powerful body strongly represented in that House; but there never was a more complete monopoly than they constituted; and it was to add to the unjust gains of these monopolists that Her LORD G. BENTINCK said, the hon. Majesty's Ministers proposed to reduce Member for Bodmin (Mr. Wyld) had a no- this small duty of 6 per cent ad valorem tice on the Paper that the Bill be read a upon ore the produce of slaves in Cuba, second time that day six months. In the which was also the produce of Jamaica. absence of the hon. Member, he should He had been told by the hon. Member for make that Motion. He believed the Bill Westmoreland (Mr. Alderman Thompson) had now been postponed not less than two- that there never was a greater monopoly and-thirty times; and now, when five-sixths than that of the smelters. "But (said the of the Members had abdicated their Parlia- hon. Gentleman) they might as well give us mentary functions for the present Session, this 40,000l., and let us divide the amount the Government was about to press it for- amongst us as repeal the duty now proward. The repeated postponements that posed.' The same hon. Gentleman had had taken place, showed that they had no stated to him that he was a party interconfidence in the merits of the Bill. For ested; but as the proposition was one his own part, he thought it exceedingly in- which was contrary to the interests and decorous, when the Government was in a benefit of his country, he would not vote state of insolvency, and obliged to borrow for it. Now, he did not object to admit 2,000,000l., that they should propose a the produce of the colonies free of duty. measure, the object of which was to fore- If he did not succeed in throwing out go a portion of the solid revenue obtained the Bill on the second reading, he from the imports of foreigners. He ob- should be prepared to support Amendjected to the Bill, because it was another ments in Committee, which should leave step taken by the Government towards the copper of the colonies untaxed, and taxation more in a direct, rather than in an should impose a tax only on copper ore indirect manner. He maintained that the the produce of foreign countries. The Customs duties were essentially taxes le- hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for vied upon the industry of the foreigner. the Colonies, some four weeks since, deHe objected further to the Bill, that it clared that our colonial policy had been was the removal of a just protection which the most successful and beneficial that the miners of Cornwall were entitled to at the world had ever witnessed; and in the hands of the Government of this coun-proof of this, in reference to our old cotry. This duty on copper ore was only an lonial policy, he quoted the case of Aus ad valorem duty of no more than 6 per tralia; and he told the House that there cent on the produce which was subject to was no colony in the history of our coit. He hoped that the right hon. Gentle-lonial empire which had ever shown such man the Member for Portsmouth was present to vindicate the principle of the Whig Government of levying taxes from Customs duties. This tax, small as it was, concerned the subsistence of more than 24,000 persons, who, with their families, represented 100,000 souls. He thought they should not on that account lightly deal with a tax which, whilst it fed the revenue, protected the means of subsistence of so large a portion of the population rapid strides in improvement and wealth as Australia. The hon. Gentleman told them, that while the value of the copper ore exported in the year 1844 was 4,0097.; in 1845 it increased to 17,1751.; and in the two quarters of 1846 it increased to 54,1687., which upon the whole of the year 1846 would be equal to 108,3361., being one-third of the exports of all the colony. Would the House consent to cut off this lucrative trade from the colony? would no doubt urge that the smelting trade was leaving this country; and that it was to prevent the transfer that the measure was passed. But he denied the truth of this statement. By the returns which were laid before the House, the imports of copper ore into this country for the first six months of the year exceeded by 2,000 tons the importation of a similar period in the year preceding. It was said, that the miserable duty of 6 per cent ad valorem sent the smelting trade to France and Hamburgh, and the United States; but he was in a position to show that the amount of foreign ore smelted in France was not ten tons a week, and that the proportion was the same in the other places. The right hon. Gentleman would no doubt talk of the protection afforded to the Cornwall miner by the freight from Cuba; but he would ask the House whether the smelters of Swansea "the copper bottoms," as they were called in the City, had not a better protection in the price of coals than any which freight could afford them. To smelt ore, the following quantity of coal was required per ton :— The report of the Lords on colonisation | interest of those who had vested their money showed that a large number of miners went in foreign mines. The Board of Trade from Cornwall to work these mines at Australia. Why not send out Irish labourers to work this ore? Let them not dry up the sources of employment. Let them not surrender the trade to Cuba and Chili. The expense of the carriage of the ore would be 38,000l., supposing the value of the ore to be 108,000l. He held in his hand a report of the state and prospects of the miners of Cornwall up to Friday last. He had stated, on presenting a petition, that the price of copper orc at the end of the last quarter was 11 per cent lower than at the commencement of the year; that it was lower by 18 per cent than it was at the same period in 1840; and that it was 25 per cent lower than the average of the last fifteen years. The effect of that reduction in price on the wages of the miners was equivalent to 17s. 1d. on every ton of ore raised-for the miners were paid in proportion to the quantity and quality of the ore raised by them. The quantity annually raised in Cornwall was 50,000 tons, and about 22,000 persons were engaged in raising them; the effect upon the miners' wages, therefore, was casily appreciated. He was sorry to say, that the prospects of the miners in Cornwall were not much better for the ensuing year than those of the people of Ireland. It was stated in the Cornwall Gazette of last Friday, that the harvest was in the greatest danger-that the country was a comparative solitude-that most of the engines were dismantled and the mines abandoned--that hundreds of cottages were deserted—and that the occupiers had gone for the most part to distant lands. All these (added that journal) were rendered more dismal by the threatened measure of the Government in throwing them open to foreign competition. The Government would find Cornwall another Ireland if they enforced these measures, and took from the people, in their hour of struggle with the dispensations of Providence, the chance of improving their condition. He asked the noble Lord at the head of the Government if he was prepared, for the sake of carrying out a miserable abstract principle, to risk putting the inhabitants of a county of England, whose inhabitants were famous for their loyalty, their industry, and their peaceful conduct, into the same state and condition as the people of Ireland? And to do what? To support one of the grossest monopolies in this country, namely, the Chili (of the finest quality) 12 tons. 14 99 20 Cornish (an inferior ore)... But the smelter at Swansea had his coal for 4s. per ton, while the prices were in— France ... ... £1 2 0 Making a difference of 101. 16s. per ton in the case of Chili ore smelted in France, 71. per ton on that smelted in Hamburgh, and upwards of 161. per ton in those parts of the United States where smelting was carried on. It was, therefore, ridiculous to say, that with such prices of coal, the freight being the same, any duty of 6 per cent ad valorem could make a difference in keeping smelting out of the foreign market. In England there were smelted 400 tons of ore per week; in France, ten tons; in Hamburgh, 25; and in the United States from five to ten tons. He arraigned the accuracy of the returns made by the Board of Trade in respect of smelting in this country. The noble Lord at the head of the Government, and the right hon. Gentleman at the head of that department, had repelled with indignation his charge against Mr. Porter on a former occasion; but from a statement drawn up by the statistical office of that Board, referring to gary, throwing away large sums of revenue, and going to the Stock Exchange for what they did not possess. He objected to this system of throwing away duties which were collected at no cost to the country. He condemned the practice of flinging away revenue, and then making up the deficiency by either adding to the national debt, or by imposing additional direct taxation on the community. He ob venue to be made up by English industry, and giving the amount to benefit the slave producer. On such a showing as this it was not won-jected to the system of throwing away rederful that the House of Commons should feel dismay that the smelting trade was leaving the country. But, nevertheless, The Government came to that as he would point out to the House, there House with false statements and statistics was every reason to believe that a much from the Board of Trade, and they misled larger quantity of metal had been produced the House with the view of letting in fothan was accounted for in this return; and reign produce to the injury of our own that though it was signed by A. W. Fon-native industry. He should, therefore, blanque, and dated August 5, 1848, there move that the Bill be read that day three was every ground to suppose that the amount was not 1,319 tons, but 5,935 months. MR. WYLD seconded the Motion. His reason for taking this course was, because tons. It appeared that the copper ore imported into this country in the first six Her Majesty's Government had brought it months of But in the first-named year the quantity of ore imported gave, as he had shown, 5,162 tons of metal — equal to 20 per cent; in the second, 18,896 tons of ore gave 4,017 tons of copper metal-equal to 21 per cent; while in the first six months of 1848, 27,155 tons of ore, if the return could be credited, gave only 1,319 tons of metal-equal to only four per cent, instead of an average of 20 per cent. The return of the Board of Trade was signed “ A. W. Fonblanque," who, to his occupation as editor of a newspaper, superadded that of secretary to the statistical department of that Board; and, in the multiplicity of that gentleman's avocations, he might, no doubt, have miscalculated the return. But were 100,000 English people to suffer for the blunders of any board or any man; and was that branch of British industry which they lived by of such small importance that it could be trifled with by any person? By these misrepresentations Government succeeded in inducing the House of Commons to accede to their resolutions. The Government selected the latter end of August, when the House was stripped of its independent Members, to bring forward the measure by which they cast away 40,000l., the amount of duty paid on foreign ore. They found the Government, when the exchequer was in a state of beg forward at such a late period of the Session, and because the people of Cornwall would, at no distant day, be reduced to a state of utter ruin. The county of Cornwall had been known from the earliest date for its minerals. During late years a large and important interest had sprung up, and a population of 118,000 were solely dependent on the prosperity of the mining trade. The mining interest of Cornwall had found out what would be the ultimate effect of this measure if it passed, by the recent large importations of foreign ore. The result of this importation already was, that a fall of nearly 20 per cent had occurred; and this reduction had plunged the entire mining interest into a state of great embarrassment, he might almost say ruin. The case of the miner was different to that of the manufacturer. The manufacturer, if thrown out of work, could find employment elsewhere; but the miner had no such resource-he could only find employment at that sort of labour in which he had been brought up, and only in mining districts. He could confirm the statement of the noble Lord, that the returns from the Board of Trade were erroneous. This was not a question of free trade, but a question of employment of the people. They might change their markets to Chili or to Cuba; but would that change benefit the people in England, or make up for the people who would be thrown out of employment by the operation of this measure? At present the trade in copper ore employed 20,000 tons | the Government not, on mere theoretical of shipping, and it was owing to this trade grounds, to disturb that arrangement. and the return freights of coal, &c., that MR. LABOUCHERE: Considering that the country owed much of its prosperity. this question debated to-night, has been If the present duties were removed, the discussed at a much earlier period of the Cornish miners would be exposed to a Session-as early as the 17th of April—in great source of competition which they the presence of many persons of great exhad hitherto escaped. By the change of perience and authority, I am sure sure the 1842, the miners had derived no advantage House will readily excuse me if, upon whatever; but any benefit which had the present occasion, I do not occupy arisen from the measure had gone to the much of its time. The noble Lord has shipowners. It was urged that there was blamed the Government for having ala necessity for a change, in consequence of lowed the second reading of the Bill to be a decrease in the importations; but that brought forward at this period of the Sesdecrease had only arisen from legislative sion; and he stated had it been discussed causes. The importation was for a time at an earlier period that it would have reduced, but the quantity produced was been less favourably received. On the the same. The duty had not operated 17th of April, when this subject was disagainst the importation, for taking the cussed, there were 102 in favour of it, and average of the last three years the amount only 35 against it. The charge, therefore, of ore imported was as great as at any that the Government purposely delayed other similar period, so that the data upon the measure till a late period, because which this measure was founded were alto- they believed it would not be favourably gether wrong. It had been said that there received by the House, cannot be fairly were smelting works at Hamburgh; but made against the Government. I should they could not affect the English smelters, be surprised if the House did not support inasmuch as they had a duty of 15s. per this measure; I cannot conceive that it is ton to pay upon the coals. Then they had necessary to state arguments to show that been told of the smelting works of the the reduction of the duty upon a raw maUnited States; but in the United States terial which enters into the staple manuthey only smelted the rich ores of Cuba; factures of the kingdom, would not be an and the total amount of copper produced act of justice and of policy. The only from the United States' smelting works reason why it was not sooner brought fordid not exceed 50 tons a month. Then ward arose from a question of revenue. with regard to France, the importation of But as regards that question, I still adhere copper ore into that country did not exceed to the declaration which I originally made, from 1,500 to 2,000 tons in the year. In that the revenue was slipping from the fact, the English smelters acknowledged Chancellor of the Exchequer's hands-it that they had nothing to fear from foreign had come down to the sum of 40,0001. a competition. It had been said that there year. There has been a gradual diminuhad been a decrease in the quantity of tion in the quantity imported for several copper smelted in England in consequence years past. In 1845 there were 56,000 of those duties, but he denied that such tons of copper ore imported; in 1846 the was the case. The export of copper from quantity imported was only 50,900 tons in England to France had, for several years round numbers; and in 1847 it had come past, shown an amount of increase both in down to 40,900 tons in round numbers. quantity and in value. The question was, The noble Lord says that there has whether it would or would not advantage been a slight increase in the present the manufacturers of Lancashire to lose year. [Lord GEORGE BENTINCK: I said 100,000 customers in Cornwall, in order that the importation this year was the to gain 50,000 customers in Cuba, each largest amount ever imported.] Even if of the Cornish customers being in the there has been some increase, I do not habit of purchasing their manufactures to think that it can be set against the contithree times the amount of the Cuban cus- nuous diminution; and though I will not tomer. The miners of Cornwall had hoped assert it positively without the returns bethat this question had been finally settled fore me, I think it possible that the inin 1844. Upon the faith of that settle- crease may be accounted for by the anment large sums of money had been in-nouncement having gone out to Cuba of vested in mining speculations in Cornwall; this measur ehaving been introduced, and and such being the case, he called upon the duty removed. While I am on this |