ABSTRACT
Peel came into office because the country was tired of the Whigs, but it was an interference with the colonial system that precipitated their fall. In his Budget of 1841 Baring, the Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed to reduce the preference on timber from 45s. to 30s. a load, and the preference on sugar from the prohibitive 39s. a cwt. to IZS.l The former proposal attacked the system at one of its weakest points, the latter at one of its strongest. True, sugar had been dear these last two years, but it was cheaper in 1841 than it had been in 1840, when Ministers had resisted a very similar proposal for the reduction of the duty. Were there not, moreover, special reasons for the high price? After all the whole social system of the West Indies had but recently undergone a revolutionary change. The West India interest protested vehemently that they would be. irretrievably ruined by the measure; that the slave trade and slavery would be encouraged, and that the emancipated slaves would relapse into barbarism. They were strongly supported by the Conservative party in Parliament, and by :rhe :rimes.
