l measures affecting
the public revenue. When the resolution was reported, Lord George moved
as an amendment, "That in the present state of the sugar cultivation in
the East and West-India possessions, the proposed reduction of duty upon
foreign slave-grown sugar is alike unjust and impolitic, as tending to
check the advance of sugar produced by British free labour, and to
give a great additional stimulus to slave labour." In support of this
amendment the noble mover paraded a vast array of "facts and figures,"
which made a wonderful show of industry and knowledge; but his
statistical statements were illusory as his logic was unsound. The
awkward manner in which his amendment was expressed embarrassed his
arguments and those of his party, justifying the description of him in
the following passage of his memoir, written by Disraeli:--"He had not
much sustained his literary culture, and of late years, at any rate,
had not given his mind to political study." Sir Robert Peel gave the
government a qualified and hesitating support. He started so many
objections to the government measure that the opposition might have
fairly looked for his support, but he answered his speech by his vote.
In the course of his oration he predicted evils which never came to
pass, and after all that had occurred, even his own glorious triumph
in repealing the corn laws, the speech proved that he was not only an
unwilling reformer, but that he had not clear and fair convictions of
the truth of the great principles of political economy, that he was
still the man of mere political expediency, and almost as jealous
as ever of all bold attempts at theoretical or practical reform. The
support of Sir Robert, such as it was, saved the government, for on this
question, at all events, he held the balance of power. The debate
lasted through the nights of the 27th and 28th, the West-India interest
affecting great horror of slavery, and depicting the encouragement the
measure would give to that evil in terms of great and even pious alarm.
Never did a party resort more scandalously to cant and hypocrisy to
serve a purpose than this, on the memorable occasion of "the sugar
debate." The resolution was carried, and a bill embodying it rapidly
passed the commons, but was resisted in the lords with much tenacity of
purpose. This was in a considerable measure the result of a remarkable
petition presented to that house by Mr. Clarkson, of whom Mr.
Wilberforce had been