The Express.
London, England, 1868-05-15 00:00:00

which puts I upernilisni in the right, and ;aid of
:he Liberal imposition the wrong, before the
enlightened public "pinion of Num.,
There we confidently assume, no reasonable ex-
i nectation of the liberal commercial policy initiated
• by the Second Einpirebeingreversedbya Legislative
Body composed fur the most part of Government ;
nominees. hi spite of the complaints and grie-
4Vancee of a certain number •if manufacturers, we
believe, moreover, that the great majority of the
Fri.nch people, the consuming, and even the trading
classes, would not desire that jedicy to be reversed.
- But in env caee we cannot have the slightest
hesitation 111 affirming that on this side of tlie
Channel there is no other wish on the subject than
that the French people Sly, ild be in a condition to
I• manage their own :efairs
and :
own fortunes at their
ddiissrresetioonf, their
that r °thing almuld occur to reanimate old grudges
happily extinct, and to revive old jealousies
which have no "tore right or reason to exist at
this time of day than sailing packets between
Dever and Calais, or diligences between Calais and
Pert'. Certainly it is trim! no disrespect for M.
In; VP • that hnglish free-traders would de-
I cline tii waste wools ui combating his
proterticnimt doctrines. They would simply point
to the tables of the French emorts and imports,
an ask him whether. even in the narrow ground
which he tames iip, the ease of his clients is sup-
! ported by the facts, and whether supposing, par ire- I
I le oil' e, that the Parliament to be elected by the new
rconstituencies in England should be disposed to
: cancel the policy of en!ir,EN and of PEEL, it
would not be in a position to contend that France
had been et feast no loser by the liberation of
`the industry of both countries from restrictive im-
pediment!' on mutual interceurse and exchange.
Very possibly the Commercial Treaty may have
discouraged ur disorganised for a while certain
branches of native French industry, accustomed
to breathe the closest atmoispliere of high and
hostile tart if ~ But we are satisfied that
the French econoausta will have no difficulty
lin showing that this discouragement and this
ditierganitation have been partly the result of bad
habits ALAI old pre, 'dices, partly of a series of
calamitous events over the operations of which the
Commercial Treati could have no control. Many
of thane manufacturers who are now complaining so
angrily in the Chamber were, like wilful and frac-
tious children, determined from the first to make
the worst of it, :intl. instead of manfully meeting
their friendly rivals and competitors, to moan over
their betrayal to this new English invasion. In
1846 it was common enough among the "farmer's
" friends" in the British Parliament to declare that
the repeal of the corn laws would make England a
desert. Happily they base recovered their courage
and good sense, and have lived to see a larger
growth of wheat and barley and a more
equal rate of agricultural prosperity than they
had !mown in the heat days of protection. There
; have ocieti moments, indeed, within the last few
years when not an agricultural but an industrial
community has been temptei to attribute its par-
tial and temporary distress to the French treaty.
There is not in the whole long list of woes
whieh the French protectionists attribute to that
treaty, a single one which has not fallen with equal
severity pm the English manufacturer. The
cotton. iron, and shipping trades have all been
delireased to a degree greater here than there,
in proportion to the relative importance of 1
these interest; im one side of the Channel and the
other. The American war affected Lancashire at
least as severely as [to ten or Roubaix. The iron
trade has actually lourished in the French mines,
while .t was languishing in our own North country.
The machine department in the great Exhibition
last yisar bore witness to the coniiuests of the French
iron manufacturer The French shipping trade
has not suffered as it has suffered in the Thames.
English industry has had hard and trying times to
traverse Hi:/ce 1860. But who in England dreams
of accusing the Commercial Treaty of the conse-
quences of the American war, of bad harvests, of
the financial crisis in the City, and, worse than all,
of tleo fetal m-icertainty of European peace
Who in England accuses the Commercial Treaty
of the ramous results of excessive speculation ?
To anyone who has the most ordinary acquaintance
with the conditions of French agriculture, or of
French shipping, it must seem the height of
aleourditi to assign the inferiority of either to the
English, to the fact that French farmers are
now piircliasing implements from England
at a moderate price, or that English
merclia,:t :Mips are not prevented from carry-
ing cargoes into French harbours. French shipping
hasalwai been protected andadruiniatered todeath,
and if. is not a commercial treaty that threatens to
kill it. Flue MiN'44l,f Pof CostsilEPst, we observe,
was truprident enough to charge the Protectionists
with :, eolitical attack upon the government under a
commercial pretext. This accusation was not only
imprudent, but irijust. The principal protee-
tionista in the Chamber are among the stanchest
' suppirears of tie Second Empire. And it is pre-
• cisely because they have not had the clearness
or inciaiweilence of jiniguieut to discover the real
origin if half their sufferings, and have not
I even IN the mural courage to denounce it,
that lone., in their mouths, all the
dignity !welt, in default of arguments, it bur-
-1 rows ft-on. the closing passages of M. THIERWS
speedo, where lie exposes with unanswerable
force th.e difficulties and dangers of the
I political sit matiou of Europe which the personal
policy of the ,second Empire has created. English
free traders will gladly join M. TuiERS in condemn-
ing a government whose best acts are badly done,
whichaffeeting the prerogatives of a supernatural in-
, deserves to be charged, by ignorance or
by malice, with all the calamities no human govern-
ment eau anticipate or prevent, and which—by
execs./ea a expenditure and riotous financial gam-
bling. a policy it home which is neither honest
liberty nor absolute repression, a policy abroad
• which is neither pace nor war—robs industry and
,xnanier-e of the ,ecurity and confidence which
are as ti, brua,h of life to labour and to capital
• alike.