The Express.
London, England, 1861-04-09 00:00:00

IMO wires AT warooi 1181.003.

saTt th.
Tosionee—alimimi Alleassis. 111. ten.

LONDON, ru seDA I', APRIL 9.

Ir must hay* struck all who read the late
debates in the French Chambers how little
violence was displayed by the old proprietorial
interests 41 lamenting or anathematizing the in-
vasion of free trade. The expectation was that
the owners of lands, forests, and cotton mills
would make common cause against the Commercial
Treaty with England, and the many acts which
preluded to it. But no; such lords as the Marquis
lir. Bonny got astride of the 'ltalian and Papal
question to ride it to death. But of the produce of
their lands and forests being undersold by foreign
corn or iron they said not • word. Lille and
Rouen have given up complaining of the impor-
tant change which is to affect them on the Ist of
next October ; all they dwelt on waa the necessity
of prolonging prohibition till then.
The truth is that denunciations of free trade
are no longer popular in France. Agricultural
produce of all kinds commands • good price ; some
a vastly higher price than in the days of prohi-
bition. Even iron has not been affected by the
treaty ; the demand both for it and coal far
surpasses the supply. And the entire south of
France is rejoicing in the increased sale and Un-
proved value of its wines.
The only remains of prohibitionist fanaticism
were to be found in the deputies of the seaports,
who stood up for the integrity of the old navigation
laws. If these gentlemen are to bo believed,
there certainly is very little ground for the panic
fears which prevail of Old England being over-
whelmed by the multitudes of French ships and
French sailors. The asseverations of Messrs.
ARMAN and CONSEIL went to establish that the
French coasting trade, especially between the
Mediterranean and the Ocean, had been completely
destroyed by the extension of the great lines of
railroad ; and that even the old trade between the
ports of the North and of tho South was disap-
pearing from the same cause. As the govern-
ment orstori in reply did not deny this, we sup-
pose there must be some truth in it, although the
last returns du not corroborate the fact of such a
nun.

The vessels, the crews, and the trade employed
in the home fishery were about to undergo the sense
fate as the natioual coasting trade, according to the
'peelers, in consequence of the Government having
lowered the duty on all fish, save salt cod, from
48 to 12 francs, which was the duty some twenty
peers back. M. A ems" declared that Scotch
fishermen can afford to moll a barrel of herrings
for 15 francs, which would not pay the French
fishermen at 32 franca. The demand for fish is,
however, in all countries now so enormously beyond
the power of supply, that we take the liberty to be-
lieve in the disappearance of the French fisheries
just as much as we do in that of their coasting trade.
M. Mutts enumerated a great many rea-
sons to show how impossible it was for
French vessels to compete with English in dis-
tant voyages. And as to the trade in provisions
between the opposite porta of the Channel, no
French boat would take part in it. From Brest
to Dunkirk nothing save the English flag would
be seen. How all this is reconcilable with the
doubling of the tonnage of French sailing vessels
in ten years, and the sextupling of their steam
tonnage, we leave the deputy for Brest to explain
as he can.

In answer to M. A1131&24, who enumerated all the
burdens which depressed French navightion--soch
as the obligation to have and keep continually em-
ployed more than the necessary numbers of seamen,
and in this and other points satisfy the law of the
French maritime conscription—the Minister said,
that to equalise the duties on French and foreign
vessels in the introduction of such raw commodi-
ties as Indian cotton and jute, in which the
French could not compete, was a measure too
plainly necessary to need argument. With
respect to other commodities, the rule to be ap-
plied was, not to raise differential duties on foreign
shipping for the purpose of revenue, but merely to
equalize the expense of freight in the two com-
peting countries.
The French Minister might have made a better
answer, and at the same time established a far
juster principle. For if French duties are to be
governed by French freights, there is no chance of
their being brought down, as all component parts in
the price of COLUTIIi )(titles ought to be brought down,
by competition. The main argument of M. Amiss
wa►—Do not shrink from rendering all articles
dear to the French consumer, for it is only by so
doing that you can have a marine, and dispute with
England the empire of the sea.
We must do the French Government the justice
to say that it has become completely alive to the
folly and injustice of all these arguments for main-
taining its own establishments and pampering the
trading and manufacturing class at the expense of
the rest of the community. The maintenance of
manufacturing and commercial prohibition after
agricultural prohibition has been done away with,
would be infinitely more intolerable in France than
in England. Thcre the great bulk of the popula-
tion are depending or. the land, and paying the
much greater proportion of the burdens of the
State.

In a previons article we treated of tho land tax.
It amounts to I 1 millions sterling. The mobiliary