The Express.
London, England, 1861-09-12 00:00:00

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Rom llemelk RICIDD/ AND POVIATY. Mend& Reynold,
ono! M. Prover —The 'artist Kaaksity. —GIs on TUE PAK.IoNs.
THE GREAT VIRUS INF 1/3NOUN.To emu hole Arlith the
2.0 and &a %do of KOI 20T.—Coanneume at it.at past

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MO DAT —.Mara 7IA Attarnoun, 7k. :ITA.
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LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPT. 12.
TO OUR READRRB.

SPORTING LNTELLIORSCR.
A :ate editiuu 4 the Express is published every
evening during the racing season, containing the
results a the day's races.

FllO/1 certain indications in American news-
papete we may fairly assume that the Morrill
Tariff is not a favourite with the whole of the
Northern people. Tlwre are such good reasons
why it should not be, that there seems nothing
wonderful in any opposition that may arise ; bu t.
the plain fact is, the question of free trade is not
at all understood in that section of the Republic,
any more than the economy of free labour is un-
derstood es thy other. It is nut necessary to have
travelled there to be aware of the popular igno-
rance on ecoi teal subjects, or of the odd
popular contempt of political economy, as of
something so apart from morality as to deserve no
heed from high-minded cameos. A vast deal of
contempt is lavished upon Englishmen and French-
men fur thinking so much about a matter of mere
cotton and iron duties ; and when any explana-
tion is made of the mond and social bearings of •
Protectionist policy, the charge is brought that
Europeans care leas for slavery than for an affair
of trade policy. All this matters nothing, except
to the Americans themselves ; but to them the
mistake is in every way of the gravest conse-
quence. A few Artful and interested men, de-
luding a few more who are inexperienced in busi-
ness, and entirely adrift in questions of political
economy, ,have hitherto undertaken to speak for
the Aniencan people, and have been for the meet
part uncontr.i.licted. For a time they have

naturally sew:ed.:4 in putting their own notions
into iudolcut minds, and their own lauguage into
the moutiis of superficial talkers. There must
be an end of this apparent unanimity sours day,
and that day must be, if not sooner, whenever the
great public of consumers discovers that it is pay-
ing dear fur everything it buys, and suffering
under a restriction or paralysis of its industry,
for the supposed benefit of some fractional parts
of the population, who have taken advantage of
the popular ignorance to grasp a monopoly for
themselves at the expense of the community. It
was scarcely to be hoped that the day of awaken-
ing, or at least of suspicion, was so near ; but, by
various indications, it appears that it is at band.
Sometimes the passionate tone against free-trade
doctrines betrays fear. Sometimes notices to cor-
respondents show that there has been • suppression
of objections or inquiries. Sometimes the argu-
ments for protection are gone over again with an
exaggeration which tells of shaken conviction
somewhere. Hut the newest demonstration is the
oddest. The organ of the Protectionists, the New
Tedmee, has found • mare's nest, and is so
excessively busy about it as to show the extreme
need of such a discovery. A month or more ago
the Tribolie announced that " the Customs
" tariffs of Europe were undergoing • thorough
" examination by WILLIAM ELIIZR," for the infor-
mation of Congress first, and of the public after-
wards. This looked well.. A sound study of thecae°
is all that is desired. Rut Congress and the public,
it appears, are not to be allowed to study and
judge of the case for themselves, but to look at
such points as the deputy-examiner chooses to
present, and in such a light as he may think fit to
admit. After a preparatory hint to draw atten-
tion, the Tribune goes off, in article• of three
columns long, on • discovery of Mr. &nee's, or
its own, that the new French commercial treaty,
and the arrangements of the Zollverein, and other
European tariffs, are framed for the protection of
French, German, and other industry, the conclu•
aion from which is that Americans may also frame
a tar,ff foot the protection of their own industry.
The American public will hear nothing of any dif-
ference in the antecedents of the cases. There
will be nothing said to remind them that the Euro-
pean nation■ are old, and working their way out
of worn-out institutions and ancient errors with
difficulty and delay, while the Americans profess
to be in advance of the Old World, and
destined and resolved to start from the
vantage ground of knowledge and experience
in all social affairs. There will be nothing
said to remind them of ages of monopolies, of con-
tunes of guilds, and of the whole range of prohi-
bitory duties which every European polity has
passed through ; nor of the close-locked system of
class legislation which it is the task of this age
and generation to break through. They will hear
nothing that can be kert back of the relaxations
of French and other duties, but only of those
which remain, and the evils and abuses which
must wait awhile for abolition are erected into •
pattern and • warrant for American legislation.
Our countrymen will bo amused to see how the
Triimar makes out that the new commercial treaty
with France is framed for the protection of native
industry in England as well as in France. We
need not waste space in showing how this is set
about, nor in proving that it cannot be done
honestly and intelligently both. It is difficult
to give the credit for such ignorance of the
history of commerce and of this treaty as alone
can save its honesty ; and this is the reason why it
is n.•ceaery to warn the American public
to bed into the matter for themselves in-
stead of judging by the case dressed up for
them. lint for the purpose of keeping them in
the dark, no citizen end no journal would, in
these days of crisis, spend time and effort in
proving what everybody knows, and nobody dis-
putes—the existence of protective duties in France
am! Germany. The real object is the false in-
ference that the protection which still exists on
sufferance in Francs is the same thing as the pro-
teen. 41 devised afresh in a new country of flourish-
ing nninstry, inhere the great body of consumers
of all commodities are themselves the law makers.

The people only need to be induced to study the
matter for themselves. Already there are mutter-
ings of titsr.fistea.t from the fertile West which have
set men pn.plitsying that there will he another
arcession there by and-by, if trade is not made free
iu good time. The great commercial clam in the

ports may be trusted to assert their own rights,
when duly supported by the great body of con-
sumers. The foremost advocates of class legisla-
tion seem to be the ironmasters of Pennsylvania
and the manufacturers of New England ; and
neither of them have a case which can stand an
hour's steady examination.
Pennsylvania is not a State beloved by
neighbours, though powerful for other reasons. ►t
has more than once forfeited its public credit ; it
forced Mr. Iti-eirassx upon the country as Presi-
dent, at the cost of the Morrill Tariff. It was a
regiment from that State which quitted the battle
ground at Bull's Run when the guns had actually
opened fire, because its term was up ; and the re-
lations of many of its citizens with the Confede-
rates are found to be very suspicious. It takes
advantage of its own doubtful character to impose
on the nation a scarcity and high price of iron, for
the benefit of its ironmasters ; and the nation
should consider whether it will submit to this.
The protected parties themselves insist that they
produce better iron and steel than England, and
at a practically cheaper rate. If so, the natural
question is, why they forfeit so much credit and
good-will for duties which must be a dead letter.
If, on the other hand, they cannot produce enough
iron and steel of equal quality with the English for
the nation's use, will the nation submit to gowithout
the English commodity to enrich the Pennsylvania '
masters with artificial profits ? At the Sheffield
banquet, last week, the fact was published that
the hardware trade with France has increased fifty
per cent. since the Commercial Treaty came into
operation ; and the French people are now enjoy-
ing those advantages of supply and price which
Pie Americans are deprived of by the Morrill
Tariff. As to the quality of the steel, opposite
accounts are given. Thu Americans declare that
their steel is so much bettor than ours that our
axes and other implements cannot compete with
theirs in any market ; whereas the complaint in
England of the otherwise admirable sewing-
macl . • :s is that the needles are of steel so set as
to be nearly useless ; and a supply of English
needles is necessary to set them to profitable work.
.t fair and free competition is the only possible jus-
tice to all parties. This brings us to the New
England case. The rocky States on the Northern
frontier have rendered their woods profitable by
turning them into machinery for the cotton manu-
facture ; and thus all purchasers of cotton manu-
factures, from New Orleans to Nebraska and
Maine, are taxed to sustain e,rt artificial industry
in a small area of the country. New Orleans is
aware of the fact, and complains of it to all the world ;
Nebraska will follow ; and Maine is awakening, if
we may judge by the complaints of the Portland
newspaper of the destruction of its commerce by
tFe Morrill Tariff. Rocky States must support
themselves of course, but not by taxing the com-
munity. The furniture manufacture utilizes the
woods to a considerable extent : and the making
of machinery would be a boundless resource if the
metals of Europe were admitted free.
As Mr. BAZLET pointed out in his excellent
address at the Manchester meeting last week, the
piracy of European inventions has much to do
wi.h the protective system of America. The
whole scheme is ono of robbery. It has robbed
European inventors of the profits of their genius.
It has robbed the Southern States of millions, in
artificial prices of manufactured commodities,
thus, at the same time, by raising the value of
negro labour rivetting the fetters of the slave. It
has robbed England of five millions of pounds
sterling a year by the same process for cotton
alone ; and finally, it has robbed, and is robbing
every citizen at home who buys almost
anything in any market or store, of a certain pro-
portion of the price which is levied as a tribute to
the classes or cliques who have passed a law in
their own favour, through the ignorance of the
public whom they despoil. It will be the broadest
satire ever passed upon the popular ignorance of
political economy and morality in the Republic i°
the citizens now let themselves be beguiled into
mistaking the approaches towards free trade in
France for a sanction to protection, and even pro-
hibition, in America.