The Express.
London, England, 1860-05-11 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 11.

lr might really be supposed, in reading the
fierce diatribes of • powerful contemporary which
connects everything in the heavens above and
in the earth beneath with the paper duties, that the
French Commercial Treaty was a huge evil to
England. We have, it will insist, been deluded,
deceived, bubbled, diddled, and we know not
what beside, by it, and we shall be "inesseate fools if
we now admit foreign paper. All this is mere

rhodomontade. There is,- no doubt, a serious nego-
tiation on one important point to finish ; but, con-
clude that negotiation as the Commissi,on in Paris
may (and there is every reason to expect that
the result of labours commencing will be emi-
nently satisfactory), the benefits to England of
the other parts of the Treaty are large and un-
deniable.

By that Treaty wo have done that which we
ought to have done ten years ago on other
grounds ; we have freely adniitted the produce and
manufactures of France. By that step we not
only benefit ourselves, but we give the Frenzh
people en interest in the friendship and welfare of
England, in the continuance of goodwill and
peace, such as they never possessed before ; and
that, we take it, is the great merit of the Treaty.
It is the supplement and completion of our free-
trade policy ; and how any advocate of freedom
of commercial exchange can object to our share
in iti provisions surpasses all reasonable com-
prehension.

Gut the Treaty is defective in reciprocity, it is
argued, on the side of the French. That argument,
however, assigns to the Treaty a function of which
it is guiltless. It was not a bargain ;it was not
based on the principle of reciprocity ; the
English negotiators did not stipulate to
give so much if the French negotiators would
go so far. That, indeed, would have been an
abandonment of all our principles and rendered us
ridiculous in the eyes of Europe. On the con-
trary, we bound ourselves to reduce and abolish
ditties that were hurtful to ourselves, that repelled
and diminished our intercourse with our nearest
neighbours, and that tended to alienate us from
the best elements of French society, French pro-
ducers, and French industry. In doing so, we
acted on a sense of our own interests, and we
started from an advanced position of free trade,
from a point far distant from that at which France
had so long stood still, and under circumstances
which rendered all parity of procedure imposaible,
and equality of immediate object out of the
question.

But (setting aside the subject on which negotia-
tion is dill, within certain limits, pending) the
French have on their part made enormous advances
by this Treaty. They have abandoned once
and for over the stand-point of a restrictive com-
mercial policy—prohibitory duties—and entered
on a career of protection and revenue taxation
which they, as the most logical people in Europe,
will soonest carry to their legitimate conclusion.
They have admitted at *venue duties all our raw
materials and half-manufactured articles, such as
iron, coal, yarn, dc. They have lowered duties
on the admission of our commodities into France
to the extent of upwards of 3,000,000/. a-year.
And they have undertaken to admit all our manu-
factures at specific duties not exceeding 30 per
cent. ralurrm. Yet, because they purpose still
to retain an objectionable export duty on rags we
are bidden to believe we have been "diddled."
A greater misrepresentation, or one couched in
more reckless language, was never made.

11• e have neverconoealed—on the contrary, we
were the find to point out—the weakness and in-
sotticiency of the article of the Treaty which affects
our more finished fabrics only. But important as
that article is, it is only a portion of a whole ; and
e%en upon it anultimate judgment cannot be formed
and pionounced until the subordinate negotiations
it contemplated have terminated ; and there is, we
reiterate, every reason to anticipate that its de-
fects will be supplied, and that out of its main
principle, loyally carried out, British manufac-
tures will in the course of a short time be as much
benefited by the Treaty as British raw materials
and French produce. A little patience will, we
are persuaded, show that we have neither been
" bubbled " nor •• diddled " by France.
It ie not a little humiliating to be compelled to
discuss so serious a question between ourselvtli and
a refined, cultivated people in such terms ; and it
certainly will not tend to promote either our own
dignity and self respect or elevate the tone of
public morality to describe ourselves as the victims
of the tricks and devices of cardsharpers or thimble-
rigawrs ; still less is it the way to assist grave ne-
gotiations affir•ting such important branches of our
industry, to vilify the French Government and de-
preciate the capacity of our own negotiators. " h
is an ill bird thatfouls known nest" is a proverb
that aas never more applicable than to our contem-
porary at the present me 1111 l .iit.

lad
I*caux• the negotiations ciiiiteuiplated by
the I 3th Artiek have cononeneetl with every pro.
apect of ■necese, we are advised to deny ourselves

lIIIIII■Nmo..