The Press.
London, England, 1858-09-11 00:00:00

TRADE IN SALT WIfII CHINA.

THE Earl of Malmesbury has received a memorial
from the salt proprietor of Cheshire and Worcester
shire, united under a Chamber of Commerce, for the
extension and protection of the salt trade. The
memorial says : .

Looking to the present state of our relations with Chins,
and to the changes which may be expected to result from
the negotiations now going on there, your memorialists
respectfully urge that an opening for British manufactured
salt may be obtained at the various trading ports of that
vast empire. Your memorialists cannot adduce any
reliable statistics of the actual consumption of salt in
China; but assuming the population at three hundred
millions, it must range between one and two millions of
tons. Your memorialists know that the Chinese sources of
supply yield at present no tribute whatever to British
commerce, whilst a moat vicious fiscal system, dreaded
and detested by the population of China (a system which
free admission of British salt would most effectually
destroy), compels the use of an impure and deleterious
article. Your memorialists impress on your lordship the
vast advantage to be derived by British shipping and
British commerce from additional bulky articles of export
to China. Your memorialists also point to the success
which has attended the partial admission of British salt
into India, and although restricted to the single port of
Calcutta, ICO,OOO tons are now annually imported there,
thus furnishing an aggregate of cargoes for 100 ships of
1000 tuns each, with 150,0001. per annum in freight,
when previous to the small concession of bonding facility
obtained from the East India Company in 184(1, no British
salt found its way to India. Your memorialists are
convinced that, independent of the great blessing the
poorer natives thus derive from the use of pure salt, the
beneficial reaction upon the consumers of sugar and other
comestibles in Great Britain is considerable, as it affords
opportunities to traders and shipowners of bringing these
arucles in greater abundance and at a cheaper rate of
carriage to England. Your memorialists further obser►e,
that as the balance of trade with China is largely against
this country, owing to our heavy., imports from thence of
tea and silk, it is highly desirable that our means of paying
for such necessaries should be increase,' by shipments of
manufactured articles, so as to lessen the necessity for
the large drain of specie hitherto required to carry on our
trade with China. On these important grounds your
memorialists would, therefore, respectfully entreat that
free admission of British salt be made a stipulation in our
future dealings with the Chinese authorities.

868

6orrespaithacc.

Nuts. Thursday.
EMPEROR away at Biarritz—Minister of Foreign
A&irs at the same place—other Ministers here and
there—great dignitaries of State no one knows and
no one cares where—foreign diplomatists scattered
all over Europe—our own Lord Cawley feeding pike
in the waters of Chantilly—even those most laborious
of slaves, journalists, lounging by the seaside, or
losing the little money they have in rouge et noir at
Baden Baden—with such a state of things it is idle
to expect a correspondent to have political news to
send you. Politics in very truth are just now in
complete stagnation. Even Lord Palmerston, who
was regarded as a great lion on his arrival, subsided
so quickly into insignificance that he was greatly
annoyed ; and he has gone back to London without
even "doing" all the sights set down in his . " Galig•
nani's Guide." Lord Stratford de Iledcliffe ,to be
sure, has come amongst us; but though at any other
epoch the presence of this " terrible milord," this
" bitter enemy of France," as French journalists call
him, would have created quite a commotion, and
have made crowds follow him in the streets, it now
excites but little attention.

In the dearth of news, the Paris correspondents of
several of the Belgian, German, Swiss, and Spanish
journals, have, I perceive, pounced on an article on
Turkey in the last number of the New Quarterly
Review, and have attempted to mako political capital
of it by announcing, first of all, that it is most hostile
to France ; next, that it is a manifesto of the English
Cabinet, of which they regard the New Quarterly
as an organ ; and, thirdly, that no less a personage
than Lord Stratford de Redcliffe himself has written
the article, or at least " inspired " the line of
argument adopted in it. I know not if your con-
temporary be authorized to speak in the name of the
Cabinet, but even if he be, I do not see that there is
anything in the article to warrant the hubbub made
about it, inasmuch as, though it expresses same
little surprise at the attitude which the French
Government has lately thought fit to assume towards
Turkey—a surprise shared by Turkey and by all
Eutope—it speaks very tenderly indeed of that
Government, and especially of the sole personage
who really counts for anything in it --the Emperor;
and though it says all that can be said for Turkey in
ber present critical state, and somewhat firmly
vindicates her right to Montenegro, which Russia
disputes, it displays not the slightest bitterness, and
makes no attempt to excite illwill between Govern-
ments. This, at least, is what appears to me from
an attentive perusal of the article; but doubtless
foreign newspaper correspondents in Paris read
English by other lights than an Englishman.

The affair of the Protestants of Maubeuge, of
which notice was taken in my last, is snaking consi-
derable noise, and is not unlikely to have serious
consequences. The Protestant consistory at Lille,
in whose jurisdiction Maubeuge is, has published a
remarkably well-written letter on the subject, in
which it maintains that their fellow-believers in being
arrested were not only unjustly but illegally treated;
but the sub•prefect of the district, by whose order
the arrests were made, asserts that those persons
had assembled without being duly authorized, and
had consequently violated tho law. The matter is
to be carried before the tribunals, and even before
the Council of State. Whatever he their decisions,
the Government will be placed in a very embarrassing
position. If judgment be given in favour of the
Protestants, political agitators will he able to bold
meetings, under pretext of being Protestants, and to
preach Socialisin instead of the Gospel—a thing
which, unless they be belied, they have attempted
more than once ; if the judgment be adverse to the
Protestants, the "liberty of worship" inscribed
in the Constitution will be a farce, and thousands of
Protestants scattered in small knots over the country
will, by the officious meddling of some petty local
authority or other, be debarred from meeting at all.
Englishmen will he greatly shocked to think that, in
such a country as France, there can be a law which
on any pretext throws impediments in the way of
any men wishing to unite to worship God according
to their consciences ; but to understand the question
rightly they must bear in mind the great fact that
France is not a free country, and that her despotic
Government, being menaced by factions, thinks it
necessary to adopt rigorous measures to prevent the
right of meeting from being abused.
The Government yesterday "seized" the journals
of Brussels which contained a translation from the
English papers of the will of the Duchess d'Orleans.
But, notwithstanding this measure, I find that the
will is already tolerably well known in political
circles, and as the Orleanist party will of course
cause it to be circulated secretly, it will soon he in
the hands of every intelligent Frenchman. From
the manner in which it is spoken of by those who
have had the opportunity of reading it, it appears

ki.